CARBON TAX AND PRICING WILL FAIL BECAUSE OF CONSUMER AND POPULATION GROWTH EXCESSES

CARBON TAX AND PRICING WILL FAIL BECAUSE OF CONSUMER AND POPULATION GROWTH EXCESSES

(These thoughts are purely the blunt, no nonsense personal opinions of the author about financial fairness and discrimination and are not intended to provide personal or financial advice.)

Many naysayers say carbon pricing will not reduce emissions and instead will pinch household budgets, kill jobs and enrich governments.  They may be right about carbon pricing, but not for the above stated reasons.

One form of carbon pricing is charging high emitters and giving rebates back to families or consumers.  However, the naysayers will never tell the whole truth – 80 percent of emissions from a barrel of oil comes from consumption and 20 percent is generated from production of the crude.

Non renewable energy emitters or types of ‘dirty’ energy will not define the major growth or decline of emissions. The first major definer of emissions will be consumerism, the second will be increasing world population.  USA consumer spending equals 70% of economy, Europe 55% and China 40%. The world’s population is estimated to top nine billion people by 2040, and the demand for energy will increase by 27 per cent. For the environmentalists and environmental protesters, which persons will they deny energy to so that they can have green energy which possibly will not meet the energy needs of growing populations?

The most egregious and hypocritical of climate deniers and consumerism are the wealthy through climate of greed and denial of their greed.

One example is the Chinese Communist hypocrisy and oxymoron of absence of social classes and money –  all (or nearly all) property and resources are collectively owned by a classless society and not by individual citizens.  Yet there has been a sharp increase in the number of ‘new wealth’ individuals.

Even though there are restrictions on what monies can be taken out of the country and Chinese leaders clamping down on extreme ostentation displays, wealthy have found ways, as many wealthy do, to circumvent rules.  One city they have chosen to display their wealth (vancouversun) (because they can’t display their wealth in China) is Vancouver for purchase of multiple mansions and luxury vehicles.  Metro Vancouver has been nicknamed supercar capital of the world. The University of B.C. has been nicknamed the University of Beautiful Cars.  The owners of these same vehicles also buy condos whose only purpose is to house these vehicles.

Betsy DeVos, Trump appointee for education, displays her wealth in ownership of 22,000 square foot summer house and $40 million yacht (just one of nine yachts and boats).  Most of Trump appointees are wealthy Republicans who choose to use excessive consumption of energy while denying climate change.

The wealthy, hypocritical environmentalists, environmental protestors and those who just don’t care choose to ignore their energy consumption by owning and using multiple housing, cottages, recreation vehicles, and exotic world travelling for starters. These include Canadian snowbird places (snowbirds) like Arizona where housing on both sides of the border sits empty for six months of the year while still consuming energy to keep the places operational.  Additional non renewable resources are used to build these structures. Housing speculators buy housing waiting for prices to increase but never rent them out (unethical).

The wealthy also choose to ignore the anger human ramifications to their conspicuous consumption.  Studies (“The Spirit Level” wikipedia) have found people are literally less healthy in societies with large gaps between the rich and the rest. People in unequal countries are more prone to chronic stress, anxiety, depression, addiction, despair, unnecessary spending, obesity, and heart disease.

One solution for consumerism is reduce the consumerism and possibly heavily tax luxury consumption.  One solution for slowing the increase of world population is to only have number of children that will replace the number of adults, one child per adult.

There is no perfect green solution for emissions.  Solar and wind solutions use rare earth minerals, kill birds and bats and cause illnesses in some humans (ncbi).  An Ontario community-based self-reporting health survey, WindVOiCe, identified the most commonly reported industrial wind turbine-induced symptoms as altered quality of life, sleep disturbance, excessive tiredness, headache, stress, and distress. Other reported effects include migraines, hearing problems, tinnitus, heart palpitations, anxiety, and depression.  In addition, degraded living conditions and adverse socioeconomic effects have been reported. In some cases the effects were severe enough that individuals in Ontario abandoned their homes or reached financial agreements with wind energy developers.

Energy companies have done great work in reducing emissions through technological and efficiency improvements such as zero emissions refineries.

CONCLUSION

Environmentalists and environmental protesters need to focus on consumerism, not just pipelines and oil spills.  Naysayers of climate change and carbon pricing need to get real and speak the whole truth, not just partial truths.  Consumerism greed and increasing world population will define whether or not emissions will increase or decrease.

(This blog is of a general nature about financial discrimination of individuals/singles.  It is not intended to provide personal or financial advice.)