The trouble with being green, at root, is that capitalism has become synonymous with consumerism. There is no incentive for people to be green, because everytime an individual makes an effort to reduce their personal effect on the environment, they just make it cheaper for the people who don't make an effort. In other words the eco-warriors are just making the lives of the oilers easier.
It would be interesting to model this.
So a business idea. Create tariffs for eco-warriors that are the reverse of what we see today e.g. electricity should be offered at a cheaper than the market average price if an individuals keeps under a specific amount, but more expensive if they exceed this limit.
This would allow eco-warriors to oust the oilers from the market. Eco-warriors would become fitter members of the market eco-system.
This same principle could apply to all commodities if we had credit cards that scored purchases against a sustainable index of products. Flights, gas, everything.
Basically, to ensure equality in the fight against environmental degradation, nobody should be allowed to benefit from another's sacrifice. Eco-warriors should not be the suckers.
definition: oilers = greedy selfish ignorant b'stards
4 comments:
Seriously though.... economically would this work, i.e. would companies really enforce it? They are likely to get a lot more from selling lots of cheapo flights than a few really expensive ones, selling much fewer flights would put a lot of people out of work, create a much bigger richer-poorer divide, possibly have a detrimental effect on the economy. What would the tariff actually be, where is the line drawn, would there be exempt groups (i.e. aid workers, people whose mum's have only 2 days to live but are in Australia), would this cause more cases of fraud, thus more of a cost to the economy (and we know how many billlions we loose a year from that!), how much would it cost to track such an initiative?
I'm not saying I don't support this idea - for me personally I would welcome it, but that's because I morally try to do what I can for the environment. I'm not sure those without this sense of morality would support the system, or those who are rich enough would give up what they "perceive" as their quality of life. Morality is key, it would lead to the initiative working. Otherwise those with less consideration would either find a way around it, it would never get off the ground because the rich have all the power, or they would show so little support it would damage the government and a new one would step in and revert. May be what the solution is here is a revolution ending in a dictatorship......I guess I need the hows and wherefores on this to comment properly. As it stands this is only a theory of a practical action that could result in an outcome. Show me the business plan!
BTW I don't think business ideas should use phrases like "greedy selfish ignorant b'stard" ..... be a bit more dignified perhaps ;-)
What I am saying is you should forget you morals, because, as far as I can work out they will have no real effect. Every flight you don't take someone else with less scruples gets cheaper than they otherwise would.
What I am proposing will only work if enough people decide to exert their will together. Mass action is the only way to gather enough cash liquidity to challenge the margins of companies sufficiently so that they do our will.
As long as we act as individuals we'll continue to be spoon fed the services we don't want.
With respect to gas, water, oil and coal the solution is easy enough. Prices are fixed according to a sustainable level (environmentally). With respect to flights its more difficult. But with oil sorted then flying will follow.
I was interested in this discussion. 20 years ago I had a book published on different economic concepts to point the way to a sustainable world economy. Someone who liked the book recently contacted me to suggest that I update and re-publish it as a blog. She set up the blog and is posting the book in sections as I write and send it to her. Here is the link:
http://www.economicsforaroundearth.com
Charles Pierce
You have an interesting web site charles. i'll take more of a look. its amazing you stumbled on my rantings. if thinking in public has one benefit it is that one quickly find out that their ideas are not original or particularly rare. for instance it turns out that what i am proposing is a well established thing called "increasing block tariffs" and is in place in California.
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