It's my lucky day, because I can repeat an answer to another question!
Politicians pretend that they care, and they hold meetings to discuss global-warming, but apart from "carbon trading," the only initiative appears to be that of proposed taxation; but would taxation work?
The idea that the solution to global-warming has a financial answer is both stupid and wrong, because governments are not technologists, engineers or scientists. Any cost would come in the form of additional taxation, because governments are very, very bad at doing anything else.
Let's try and put this rush towards a greener future in perspective.
No less than 57% of CO2 emissions come from the surface of the sea, and 38% of CO2 emissions come from human and animal respiration. As an absolute total, only 4% of CO2 emissions come from the combined might of transport, power production, cement manufacture and general industry. So whether lifestyle change or taxation is proposed, we are really only fiddling about with 4% of CO2 emissions.
Even if credit is given, and credibility awarded to those who now cite man-made CO2 emissions as the largest cause of undeniable global-warming, they cannot lobby nature, which accounts for the majority of such emissions.
With the best intentions, people talk about re-cycling, using the car less, turning down the central-heating and higher levels of fuel tax, but this really is putting the cart before the horse, when ALL western governments (who are the ones making the running on green issues) subscribe to globalisation and the transportation of goods from half-way around the world.
If sufficient loading of taxation was introduced which might have a real effect, then that would bring global economic collapse as things stand at the moment..
There is so much hypocrisy and so many garbled statements coming from politicians, but without an alternative strategy, they are doomed to failure; and this is why.
Almost the WHOLE of the global economic system is now totally dependent upon visible consumption and the throw-away society; the engine of economic growth and economic stability in the capitalist system. Without total revolution, a global economic disaster or even wars, there is absolutely no way that the system can be changed quickly enough to have a counter effect to the problem of global-warming, and anyone who says differently, is either a liar, a fool or a knave.
The Stern report is a classic example of an economists foray into
a world of conjecture, and demonstrates one thing very convincingly; which is the fact that the author knows absolutely nothing much about anything.
If left to the politicians, the chances are they would be triumphant if they could claim a reduction in overall CO2 emissions by 10%, but that would make virtually no difference to the overall CO2 emissions: perhaps accounting for an overall reduction in global CO2 output of just 0.4% across the board.
To my mind, there IS an alternative which is infinitely more effective, a lot more attractive, and one which would not rock the economic boat too far.
Consider a simple fact of life. It is only in the past century that mass-production has replaced craftsmanship and local industry, and it is only in the past 50 years that society has created the throw-away society and the most cost-effective, lesser-quality icons of consumer-production.
Before that, people kept hold of things and handed things down to subsequent generations, because they were properly made in the first place. Repair or refurbishment was the usual way of doing things, rather than dumping things and buying entirely new.
It is this planned obsolesence which creates the constant need for manufacture, transport, distribution, re-cycling and waste-disposal management. Break THAT particular chain, and we may be on a different cycle, which incorporates all the nice green things such as conservation, lessening waste, reducing transport and reducing the profligate hunger for resources and oil.
If, instead of taxation or international agreements (which amount to very little), governments turned instead towards the longevity of products and the benefits of repair and refurbishment, then the viscous spiral of obscene over-consumption could be broken.
What it would take is international legislation which requires that all goods manufactured, should be of sufficient quality to last three or four times longer than they do at the present time, and this would have a very rapid effect; not only on the reduction of CO2 emissions, but upon the conservation of primary resources.
Does that make better sense than the blunt instrument of green taxes, or the blundering ineptitude of the Stern report; neither of which rely on the technological or scientific alternatives which can and do exist?
Mark my words: hail the man who would tax CO2 into extinction, or hope to reverse the trend of global-warming by turning to those who know nothing about technology or production-engineering, and I will show you a loser.