Putting A Price on Carbon Dioxide
We need to put a price on carbon dioxide.
Carbon dioxide is an invisible gas that’s all around us and has always been
here, we breathe it in and out, and it’s even essential for life. So why
should we put a price on it? And who should pay that price? And where
does the money go?
Let me explain.
Why we need to put a price on carbon dioxide is that we simply have too
much, and it’s changing our weather and changing our climate. We’re on a
path to a truly catastrophic future and its carbon dioxide that’s taking us
there.
We got too much of it from burning things. We started thousands of years
ago with burning wood, and then 300 years ago we discovered coal and we
started burning that. About 200 years ago we started burning a lot of
oil. About 100 years ago we started burning a lot of so called “natural
gas” – which is methane.
And every time we burn something we make carbon dioxide. Boy are we doing
a lot of burning! When we turn on the heating, when we drive a car, when
we cook, when we use electricity for air conditioning – every time
something is being burned, coal, oil and gas – what we call “fossil fuels”.
Every year we emit 9 thousand million tons of CO2, and that might not sound
like a lot but it adds up.
Since we started burning we’ve increased the amount of CO2 in the world so
much that ¼ the CO2 in this room came out of the ground.
That’s too much. It’s changing everything that mankind has ever
experienced in climate and weather.
Right now the fossil fuel industries emit carbon dioxide for free. It goes up the
smokestack, out of the tailpipe, as I said it’s invisible and that’s
that. No one counts and no one pays for dumping that pollution. The fossil fuel
industries are the ONLY industries that get to do that. The plastics
industry, the smelting, medical, nuclear, computing industry they all have
pollution and they are all required to get rid of it or pay for it. The fossil fuel
industries should do the same. There are some companies that want one that
you might be surprised about – Exxon Mobil and Shell Oil both want a price on
carbon.
Fossil fuels are literally costing us the Earth.
And that’s why we need to put a price on carbon dioxide.
Who should pay is the surprisingly easy part of all of this. We charge the
major producers at the point the stuff comes out of the ground. Coal
companies, oil companies, gas companies. When they dig it up they pay a
certain amount per ton of carbon and they pass that increase on to us. So
ultimately we all end up paying for the carbon dioxide we produce.
And the more something costs the less people buy. The more gasoline and
electricity cost the less people will use.
The good news is that we CAN use less of it. We used to believe that
absolutely nothing would cause Americans to use less gasoline but now we
know that’s not true – when gas hit $4 a gallon in 2008 we used less of it.
We can use more efficient lightbulbs, we can use more efficient AC, more
efficient cars, more insulated houses, more public transport, better
designed cities. But it goes further than that – we can use wind power,
solar power, hydro power and other renewables. These give us electricity
without burning ANYTHING. And once we are paying for carbon we suddenly
realize just how cheap they are. And that leads me to where the money goes.
The money collected from the coal oil and gas companies is given back to
us, once a year, in a check. The government administers the scheme but it
doesn’t keep the money. The exact same system exists in Alaska for oil
revenues – the government collects the money and hands it out to every
citizen. And they love it. So here is how it works.
You pay a little more for gas and electricity and if you’re the average person and you don’t change a thing, you get the same amount of money back from the government
every year – it’s all a wash, you’re back where you started. But what if
you notice that gas is costing more and you’re buying a new car, suddenly
the extra $5000 for a hybrid is a very good deal – you get a car with
better mileage. Now you pay less, but get the same check from the
government. You’re ahead, and the total amount of CO2 has gone down.
A million decisions every day all now moving in the right direction.
SO – and here’s the big question. How do we GET a price on carbon?
There’s one organization that’s doing the best work on this and they are
very active in Massachusetts – the Citizen’s Climate Lobby – write that
name down, check them out, get their emails and do what they say – write,
petition, lobby, and speak up. We need a price on carbon and it’s much
easier to do than you might think.
This informative presentation was brought to you by:
Presenter: Quentin Prideaux
http://presenters.climaterealityproject.org/presenter/quentin-prideaux_3588
Citizen’s Climate Lobby
http://www.citizensclimatelobby.org/
