Here’s a figure about the rise in atmospheric CO2 concentrations and projections under different CO2 reduction scenarios (from Pacala et al 2004):
When I give talks to school classrooms, I do a little class participation exercise that goes like this: atmospheric CO2 was ~280 ppm (parts-per-million) prior to the industrial revolution a few centuries ago. It is now ~384 ppm. What do they think it should be for a sustainable level? They usually give me numbers in the 250-300 range. Then I show this figure, and point out that we’re running higher than the black line, business-as-usual (worst case scenario). Given the inertia of trying to move away from fossil fuels, CO2 is likely to double pre-industrial levels to 450-500ppm within their lifetimes with significant efforts. If we continue to do nothing it could very well reach as high as 700 ppm. This exercise seems to work well to get the message across.
Back to the NYT Op-Eds: There’s been a lot of dumping lately on the big three US automakers for not producing fuel efficient cars. But that’s revisionist history, over the last few decades Americans have been wanting those bigger SUVs creating the demand. We, the American consumers, are the other dancing partner in our gluttonous use of fossil fuels for transportation. The big three have been happy to oblige – SUVs have a big profit margin. Plus even Toyota has been in the big vehicle game. Sure they developed the Prius and some great hybrid technology, but they hedged their bets with the popular Tundra truck. There is simply no other policy action that would be as effective in reducing US fossil fuel emissions in the near future as increasing the gasoline tax. And it should be revenue neutral, using those funds to reduce income taxes to build popular support. From the NYT Editorial:
Americans did not buy enormous gas guzzlers just because Detroit marketed them relentlessly. They bought them because they wanted big cars – and because gas was cheap. If gas stays cheap, Americans would be less inclined to squeeze their families into a lithe fuel-efficient alternative.
Furthermore, even if the government managed to convert General Motors, Chrysler and Ford to the cause of energy efficiency, cheap gas could open the door for a competitor – Toyota, perhaps? – to take over the lucrative market for gas-chuggers, leaving Detroit’s automakers eating dust once again.
Americans have flirted with fuel-efficient cars before only to jilt them when gas prices fell. In the late 1970s, for instance, they spurned light trucks as gas prices doubled. But as gas prices declined between 1981 and 2005, the market share of sport-utility vehicles, pickups, vans and the like jumped from 16 percent to 61 percent of vehicle sales in the United States.
Personally I find it hard not to feel like a broken record on this subject of carbon taxes, but as a scientist I think its easy to forget that the public isn’t looking at the data every day, and they’re also thinking about many other important issues. Here’s a great cartoon by Justin Bilicki (via the Union of Concerned Scientists) capturing this sentiment.
<a href="http://www.ucsusa.org/assets/images/si/2008-6-500.jpg
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And a nice quote to sum it up from Ray at NPR’s Car Talk:
I’m sick of people whining about a lousy 50-cent-a-gallon tax on gasoline! I think its time has come, and I call on all non-wussy politicians to stand with me, because our country needs us.
An increase in the Gasoline Tax is just one of the tools in the toolbox. It gets the biggest bang for effort in reducing climate change impact right now. This is just the beginning though: We’re going to need many such tools to get this problem under control.
Better yet, legislate higher fuel standards like Europe and Japan have done. That will hit those who buy the most harmful vehicles while leaving alone people like me who already have a Camry (~30 MPG highway), but can’t afford a hybrid and can’t just decide to drive less. Speaking of hybrids, let’s put a tax incentive on those. Finally, we need to increase and improve mass transit.
Yes, the gas tax doesn’t make fine-grained distinctions like what car you have, how much you make, and whether your driving is “essential.” But it’s a hell of a lot more efficient of a way to reinforce socially beneficial behavior here. The high price of gas, not fuel economy, is what drives people’s decision-making in Europe and Japan. Rather than creating an ass-backward tax credit for hybrids, just set the price of gas higher and let the market do the work. Do you remember a couple years ago when “hybrid” SUVs were getting the tax credit even though they got worse MPG than most cars? Also, it will give you a pot of money with which the state can build mass transit infrastructure.
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p>You seem like a nice guy, but we can’t just “leave alone people like you” and shift the burden to some imaginary asswipe who drives a Hummer to Presque Isle every day just for kicks. Everyone is responsible here, and everyone will have to pay more to internalize the social costs of gasoline (pollution, climate change, geostrategic issues). If you had to pay 20 cents more per gallon, it’s about $3.00 every time you fill up. I’m sorry, but that’s not breaking anyone even if you tripled it, and the economy didn’t grind to a halt when gas was over $4/gal. Just be grateful you don’t live on the North Shore.
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p>Finally, re “can’t afford to drive less” — I have no doubt that’s true for you right now. But it’s not really about you, and it’s not about the immediate term. It’s about steering the decisions of people, collectively, in the future. So you’d buy a house closer to where you work; or near a mass transit option. Demand for these options will lead developers to focus more on infill and mixed use, higher (nb: not necessarily high) density housing development rather than mcmansions on cow pastures. Business will cite in these more urban locations rather than sprawling ever further away from the city. This will lead the freight business to move back from road to rail. And a hundred further ripple effects on out, which, in the end, will give us a more sustainable transportation system.
You are clearly trying to manipulate demand, whereas I’d rather just go all the way to supply. It’s not about personal decision making if the only vehicles available get 50+ MPG (yes, it’s doable!). I prefer general rather than specific taxes in most cases and I also fear this plays into the two worst stereotypes of liberals: raising taxes and trying to be everyone’s nanny. BTW, your vision of a future with more densely populated areas and mixed use is NOT one that I share. We need to expand access to mass transit, but I like suburban areas with open space, thank you.
Note that I said “higher” and specifically said not “high”. I’m not trying to make the world Manhattan. More like Melrose or Newton. Yes, 5-acre zoning may have to go… but if you want to live in the middle of nowhere and drive 30 miles each way, that’s fine; you just have to pay for it. I am talking more about changing our future development and opening up more choices, rather than engaging in some Pol Pot scale mass relocation.
but we need to cap emissions, too, if we’re to make sure that the problem you pointed out – what if we made Detroit go small and suddenly people wanted big again – never becomes a reality, as well as the fact that we just can’t afford those high emissions and there’s a certain segment of the population who simply don’t care what gas costs. They need to drive fuel efficient cars, too – even if they’re only efficient because they’re super-hybrid diesels with solar panels on top. We need every car getting 40 miles to the gallon in shot order, with 100mpg plug-ins on the horizon. We can do this thing, the Government ought to give it a kick in the ass to make sure it happens.
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p>Also, I disagree that the gas tax should go toward income tax cuts. The gas tax should help be the carrots in getting people fuel efficient cars they can afford. Let the tax go toward credits for people to buy efficient, especially those who otherwise couldn’t afford an efficient vehicle. Christopher’s also right; we should tax gas guzzlers, including those already on the road. You own a Chevy Suburban? That’s an extra $1,000 a year in taxes to help someone else buy a fuel efficient vehicle or help fund public transportation. That’s both money toward finding the solution as well as a great incentive for people to trade in their Suburbans and Explorers and other assorted gas guzzlers for newer vehicles that aren’t such high polluters. We could even use some of the tax toward providing those who turn in their cars rebates.
It’s how much they’re driven. My neighbor has a big vehicle he uses to move his boats a few times a year and commutes 3 miles to work. On the other hand a friend has an efficient Civic but likes to drive 30000 miles a year. The latter is clearly worse in carbon footprint. The Gasoline/Carbon Tax gets the incentives right: if burning that much fossil fuel is really that important for business/lifestyle then pay the real (environmental) price for it. If that price is too high, then a demand has been created for alternatives (more efficient cars, shorter commutes, better carpooling/public transport).
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p>Plus penalizing specific vehicles is going to be a nightmare to try to implement, not to mention will just make people mad. Making gasoline taxes revenue neutral will go a long way to allowing people to feel like its a fair policy.
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p>Not really…why not simply have a special tax on vehicle purchases based upon the vehicle’s MPG rating. SUVs and minivans could simply be taxed more. Additionally, if a vehicle is in the bottom 20% (or whatever percent) of fuel efficiency for its vehicle class, it might be taxed at higher rates.
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p>Not only is this easy to administer — just like the existing taxes on vehicles — but it probably won’t make people mad because it is a one-time cost that would be built into the vehicle.
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p>It also doesn’t have a regressive effect like the gas tax, which hurts poorer people who (1) tend not to purchase new, SUV-type vehicles,(2) own older vehicles that require more fuel, and (3) may not have much choice to simply cut back miles if travel is primarily for work and other necessary travel.
While the idea of charging fees based upon mpg is excellent idea and one I wholeheartedly support, it may be illegal. According to the preemption clause of the Clean Air Act
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p>In 1993 Maryland passed legislation that would have taxed vehicles based upon their efficiency but it was struck down by NHTSA, citing the preemption clause. Since then nobody (that I’m aware of) has attempted to enact similar legislation out of fear it would be struck down.
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p>Perhaps with a new administration and Congress they will, appropriately, edit the language allowing states to do this.
Changing this might be something to look into, but in any case I would argue for a national MPG auto tax, not state-by-state. That way it’s more consistent across jurisdictions.
that he uses to drive to work every day. I bet you he pumps that thing up more than once a month. If I filled my civic’s tank up once a week and your friend needs to fill up his suburban once or twice a month, he uses way more gas than I do. Not even close. I could fill my car’s tank up 4x and probably use no more gas than he did to fill it once.
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p>He doesn’t need the suburban to get to work. He does need a vehicle to get his boat to the water in the summer. Understandable. Rent one. It would be far cheaper to rent a truck (or borrow) a few times a year than it would be to own a suburban instead of civic, meanwhile your friend is wasting shitloads of gas driving 10 miles to the gallon to get around.
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p>Your friend who drives 30k a year with a civic would pay his fair share under an increased gas tax. Also, given that he drives one of the most practical cars on the market, if we forced the market to become even more practical – enforced efficiency standards – then I’d bet he’d continue to be his practical self and buy one of the more efficient, reasonable cars on the market. Given that plug-in hybrids that get 100 miles to the gallon, and the first 50 miles gas-free, are around the corner… there’s going to be lots of options.
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p>The bottom line is I don’t see why we don’t use incentives and a strong carrot/stick approach when so much is at stake (potentially the entire freaking world). Place some strong regulations in the market and the market will react using those strong standards: I’d be shocked if we didn’t still see fairly large trucks on the market, but these trucks would be super plug-in hybrids or better – and get good gas mileage. The market will never get creative unless government makes them – and that’s only going to happen if we both regulate the industry enforcing strict emission and mileage standards, as well as a strong carrot and stick approach to help guide consumer decisions. If ever your friend wants to own a Suburban that doesn’t destroy the environment, this is the way to do it. We’ve got to be innovated if we want to have our cake and eat it too, but right now too many people are willing to do almost nothing as we watch the ice caps melt and reach the point of no return.
The point of the mak’s post isn’t his specific neighbor, it’s that fuel efficiency is relative. The SUV might be consuming more fuel, but if that fuel is moving more people, it’s more efficient than a hybrid.
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p>Someone driving a hybrid alone, getting 40 mpg will use 25 gallons of fuel to drive 1,000 miles (0.025 gallons per person, per mile). Five people driving in an SUV getting 15 mpg will use 13 gallons of fuel per person to drive 1,000 miles (0.013 gallons per person per mile). While 45 people taking a bus that gets 8 mpg, will use 3 gallons of fuel per person to go those same 1,000 miles (0.003 gallons per person per mile). If you want to tax inefficiency, the hybrid is the least efficient in this example. Interestingly, the SUV still beats out the hybrid for efficiency if you have each drive 500 miles with only one person in the car.
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p>I point this out because we’ve (in my opinion, irresponsibly) built a massive infrastructure for cars. It takes me longer to take mass transit to my job than it does for me to drive or bike, it’s a messed up system. If we want to use the resources we have, however, shouldn’t we also be talking about how to create incentives for folks to share rides?
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p>As folks have pointed out, far better than I have here, the other big problem isn’t increasing the number of small hybrids, it’s improving the efficiency of the SUV’s. In my example above, if the efficiency of the SUV is increased to 18 mpg, it can drive 2,000 miles with only one person in the car (compared to the 1K for the hybrid) and so long as it keeps driving those 4 extra folks to work, it’s as efficient.
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p>None of this says don’t raise the gas tax, but it’s not as simple as that.
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never would have disagreed with it.
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p>My point was essentially that those 4 people could have fit into that hybrid, using .0065 gallons of gas to go 1,000 miles. Sure, 4 people driving a suburban is more efficient than one driving a hybrid, but why do those 4 people need a Suburban? That’s the big point here.
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p>If people don’t need a big SUV, they shouldn’t get one. Given that almost no one needs a big SUV, there should be almost none of them on the road. Period. Most SUVs I’ve been in have less leg room in the backseat than my friend’s Honda Fit (over 30mpg).
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p>Hell, at 6 feet tall, I was more comfortable in that Honda Fit’s backseat than I was in the backseat of a mid 2000s Suburban, which I find lacks space for my knees because of its overly boxy shape (perhaps the definitive example in showing that American cars still lag considerably behind others in ergonomics).
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p>That’s essentially my point, though I would go maybe a little further. Some people may be happy to see the 15mpg cars become 20mpg – and that would make a big difference.
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p>Yet, while that in itself is a great first step and may be able to be a short term band aid, it’s not anywhere near enough to solve the Global Warming problem. We don’t need cars and trucks that go 20 mpg – we need them to go 50 or 100, including those built to fit 5 or 6 people comfortably, as well as those geared to tow boats in the summer.
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p>Cars that get nearly 100mpg aren’t decades away, they’re just a few years – the Chevy Volt and Prius plug-in will get nearly 100mpg as an average, with many people using no gas most days. Those are expected to be out in 2010 or 2011. The trick is to make sure those cars are affordable, so anyone can buy them and so they’re entered into mass production, quickly becoming cheap to make.
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p>A plug-in hybrid truck that could go 30-40 miles on a night’s charge would probably get something like 40 or 50 miles to the gallon for the average user – around half the drivers using no gas at all – and seems like we could have them built within a few years. If we could do that, then we could have our cake and eat it too, but short of that, we have to make major changes in the types of SUVs and big trucks that we allow normal drivers to use. At the very least, we need to tax the shit out of the Suburbans of the world. If we don’t take the hard steps – banning them or taxing the shit out of them – then we’ll never see car companies bother to switch their big-ass SUVs over to hybrid plug-ins.
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p>The only other point that I’d disagree with you on is the fact that you’re so willing to give up on public transportation. An even bigger problem in this country than gas mileage is our lack of planning. If we started to build far more public transportation, and allowed zoning to ease near those projects, we’d create a situation where more people would move closer to public transit and more people would find jobs there, with huge economic growth. That would help end this country’s sprawl, save shit loads of gas and reduce our reliance on the all-mighty, unsustainable car. If we made this the new New Deal, we could probably do it as a country in 15-20 years, creating whole new neighborhoods and opportunities across the lands. I want to live in that country.
Some quick comments:
5000 miles at 15mpg (truck) per year = 333 gallons of gas
vs
30000 miles at 30mpg (civic) per year = 1000 gallons of gas
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p>My neighbor with the truck is a boat captain, its multiple boats, and lives 3 miles from work. My friend with the civic really just likes to drive a lot. She drove a lot less when gas was 4 dollars a gallon. My neighbor with the truck probably didn’t change much.
you said that your friend only drove the boat a few times a year. Now, you say not only does he have a boat, but it’s several boats and he’s a boat captain. If I had known that, I probably wouldn’t have suggested renting or borrowing a truck for when he had that need – though, I still would say it would probably be more cost effective, just not as practical.
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p>And of course your friend with the Civic uses more gas. He drives 30,000 miles a year! I don’t see the point. Increasing the gas tax would make sure your Civic friend is paying his fair share too. I just think it’s necessary that this country takes steps to make sure that it’s disproportionately painful to get a gas guzzler over a gas efficient car – whether we want a hard cap (just ban certain types of gas guzzlers) or a soft one (make them taxed higher so fewer of them are sold and what they’re taxed goes to offset their inefficiencies), because people should drive the most efficient cars they can reasonably use. Period.
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p>Unfortunately, one way or the other, our lifestyles as a country and world are going to have to change. You may not like that, I may not like that and your friends may not like that, but it doesn’t change the fact that it needs to happen or it’s going to happen anyway. If we’re smart about it, proactive in confronting it, then maybe we can manage to still live well. If we’re dumb about it, as we have been for the past 2-3 decadess, and continue to largely ignore it – or, at best, pay lip service to it – then the lifestyle changes are going to come much faster and hit much harder.
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p>Millions of people could die because you and people like you don’t feel comfortable asking for your friend driving a suburban to pay much bigger taxes on that car, or for those cars to be outright banned. Hundreds of millions, including those in this country, could become refugees and live in complete poverty because of it – indeed, you could say that’s already started to happen with Katrina. We have to start making choices – we could choose to adapt and make small, potentially inconvenient choices now, or we could watch entire lives be destroyed later. I have to admit, I vote for being proactive.
Hi Ryan,
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p>a few quick responses:
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p>- legislating high fuel efficiency like in Europe. Actually I’ve always thought the reason why cars are so efficient there is that gas is 6-8$ a gallon. I’ve never heard my friends in the UK talk about laws controlling efficiency, they just can’t believe we pay 1-2$ a gallon. If gas was as cheap for them, there would be great temptation to scale up to larger vehicles as well.
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p>- my point is that in the end you want people to use less fossil fuel, and thereby decrease emissions. Its the fuel that is the problem, not the big vehicles themselves inherently. I dislike hummers as much as the next person, but there are situations, like the two real examples I gave, where people buck the stereotype (I have no idea why my friend wants to drive her civic so much, living her life in her car). The high gas tax (and it should be quite high eventually) gets to this issue better than the CAFE fuel efficiency standard cutoffs, which just bracket the low end of the US auto fleet’s efficiency. In short, make gas prices high, and the market will correct the US fleet to smaller cars overall – it was starting to happen very nicely (until gas prices dropped again).
Please remember – Speaking geographically, MOST of the state has little or no public transportation.
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p>This has been a public service reminder….
but do you need a Suburban?
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p>All I ask of people is that they take the transportation that is the most efficient means of travel that’s still reasonable. For many people, because of our lack of adequate public transportation, driving is the only reasonable means of travel. But, no one needs to do that driving in a Suburban, even if they own a boat, a trailer or have 5 children.
How many significant climate changes has earth endured in the past million years—- all without the benefit of mankind or the internal combustion engine.
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p>How many species have become extinct through two mass extinctions allegedly caused by extra terrestial matter from space striking planet earth? How many species have since arisen from prokaryotic and eukaryotic life forms?
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p>Life on planet earth will continue to exist on planet earth until our sun renders life, in whatever form, unsustainable.
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p>It is a tad bit narcisstic (so to speak) to argue that a creature as fragile as homosapien will be around in say ten thousand years.Perhaps only a few thousand. The surface of planet earth will undoubtedly return to single cell life and begin another genesis. It’s in the cards.
Mankind and his attendant history is just one beat in the heart of earth.
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p>Isn’t there another horse to flog, like reducing earth’s population significantly before there is neither food or water. Both of these commodities are now in short supply.
The scourge of planet earth is man.
That’s very strange, perhaps I dreamt it! Or perhaps it was on another thread by another person. In any case, my apologies and I’ll correct the post. Glad I wasn’t more specific about pseudonym. cheers.