Kyoto and a unorganized rant

Wednesday February 16th 2005 12:13 PM PST

So if you live in the United States, it looks like our "leaders" don't really give a fuck about the Kyoto Protocol. I've not done a whole lot of research, but every poll that i've seen has shown over half of the people polled in the United States do care about global pollution, and global warming. So out leaders don't seem to care about that group of people. They're not leading.

I worked on one project for a client awhile back. Its purpose was to determine the amount of pollution avoided per dollar spent on a new automobile. It was an educational project with a group of alternative fuels. When everything was said and done, the fuels that really seemed to come out on top were reformulated gasoline and gas-electric hybrid. These fuel efficiency solutions gave a slightly higher price, but they produced less pollution.

So the environmental question comes in play. Do i spend more money to produce less pollution? The environmental responsible person could easily answer this question "yes". But the funny thing is, in many cases, the environmentally responsible answer actually costs LESS money. Less fuel used simply means you spend less money at the pump. In cases of gas-electric hybrid cars, you see that the engine actually runs at a designed RPM. The stable RPM usually means that the wear and tear on the car is not as severe. You'll not necessarily be pushing the gasoline engine hard when you hit the throttle.

ok ok ok... so I would spend more money to avoid pollution. This would mean that i consume less fuel annually. This is NOT rocket science. Who would suffer as a result of this smaller consumption of fuel?

Simply put, people who buy fuel efficient cars, pay less gas tax, so the state gets less money for roads and the oil companies get less money all around. So now the state of California is proposing a tax that would be based on how far you drive. So if i were to drive a honda civic hybrid 100 miles, i would be taxed for driving those 100 miles. If i were to drive a Yukon 100 miles, i would still be taxed for those 100 miles. So here's the question... Which automobile causes more road wear? 100 miles of driving a Yukon would cause more road wear, burn more fuel, and cause more pollution. So if the intention of the new tax is to raise money for road maintenance, then why not make the tax a little more intelligent. The tax should have a distance component to it. A person who drives 10 miles a month should not have to pay as much as someone who drives 2000 miles a month. But at the same time, a person who drives a 1000 pound civic, should not have to pay as much as someone who drives a 8000 pound H2. The final component is the environmental component. The amount of fuel you use. ENVIRONMENTAL RESPONSIBILITY SHOULD BE REWARDED. So the equation should be something like this.

((Distance Traveled + (Weight of Vehicle x .1) + (Fuel Consumed x 20)) / 3 )/ California Gas Tax Constant.

So the California Gas Tax Constant will be exactly like the sale tax in every state in the US. The state sets up a rate and then the rate can be changed if necessary with proper legislation etc. I'll propose a California Gas Tax Constant of 40 at this point. I'll experiment with the number and see what happens.

So heres the example, and i'll keep the math simple.
this would be AROUND average for my Standard Gasoline Honda Civic.

215 miles +
2300 lbs x .1 +
9 gallons x 20
= 625

625/3 = 208.33333
208.33333 / 40 = $5.20

So this is just an idea off the top of my head, so i think there might be problems with the way the items are weighted. But i think the basis of the idea is right. So here's the other hypothetical piece.

215 miles +
8000 lbs x .1 +
20 gallons x 20
= 1415

1415/3 = 471.6667
471.6667/ 40 = $11.79

So bigger car, less fuel efficient, larger tax.

Comments:

Posted by:

Unfortunately the Kyoto Protocol is really just lip service, and doesn't go far enough, or as this article says, it's "a symbolic rather than practical victory in the fight against global warming". Without getting India and China onboard with it, it's pretty much a wasted effort (link). The US clearly needs to do something, but they should not compromise and should do something meaningful to help stem the greenhouse gas emissions created around the world. This article in Wired about a week or so ago suggests looking more closely at nuclear power as a legitimate way to help solve this problem, and it makes some pretty convincing arguments. As for taxing people per mile, I am mainly worried about the goverment wanting to install GPS trackers in every car so they know exactly where everyone's car is at all times just so they can track this. It seems like a pretty outrageous (and no doubt costly) thing to have to do for this idea to work. They should just build the tax in for everybody and not try to figure out who uses the roads how much or whatever. We all pay taxes for lots of things that we may not use, or may not use as much as everyone else (education, for instance), and it's just assumed that it's something that generally most of society needs, so everyone chips in. JMO

Posted by: Yams

random note: GPS receivers do not disclose their location. The receiver itself only listens for signals from GPS satellites and then calculates where it is. Its almost exactly like a radio. You can tune to a frequency and listen for a signal, but the person or station transmitting the signal has no way of telling you are listening. The GPS unit COULD be combined with a transmission unit that would transmit its location via a cell system or wireless system.... you can bet your sweet ass that i won't be installing that type of unit in my automobile. I'll use the GPS receiver all the time with no worry of big brother watching me.

Posted by:

I have yet to hear one realistic solution for how to deal with nuclear waste. Until we have that answered, I don't believe nuclear power is a very legitimate option. Besides, nuclear power doesn't apply to greenhouse gases coming from tailpipes. As for taxing people based on milage, I doubt it will ever happen. As Yams suggests, it's too cumbersome to implement, though there's no reason it should require GPS tracking, it would require some sort of device installed inside each car that would transmit the current milage to a central database.

Posted by:

Read the article on nuclear power and you'll see that even though it's not the perfect solution (what is?), that it's arguably the most viable solution, and can help with our cars as well. Just take this paragraph from early in the article to ease your fears:

"We now know that the risks of splitting atoms pale beside the dreadful toll exacted by fossil fuels. Radiation containment, waste disposal, and nuclear weapons proliferation are manageable problems in a way that global warming is not. Unlike the usual green alternatives - water, wind, solar, and biomass - nuclear energy is here, now, in industrial quantities. Sure, nuke plants are expensive to build - upward of $2 billion apiece - but they start to look cheap when you factor in the true cost to people and the planet of burning fossil fuels. And nuclear is our best hope for cleanly and efficiently generating hydrogen, which would end our other ugly hydrocarbon addiction - dependence on gasoline and diesel for transport."

It would be nice to have cold fusion or something similar, but the reality is that right now we're only faced with bad options. That article is talking about embracing what is right now the lesser of a couple evils (and certainly a vast improvement over what we are doing now); and as the article points out, it is what many countries have already turned to.

As for the GPS trackers, the way they describe them is that they would tie into your gas tank, and so when you went to fill up, the price would vary depending on how far you had driven since your last fill-up, and at what time of day (link). That sounds to me like they'd be tracking your location, which of course would be bad. I can only assume insurance companies would get in on that and charge everyone a variable rate depending on their driving habits, and who knows what else. Sounds like a sticky situation to me.

Posted by: Yams