Going forward, we need to overhaul our regulatory framework and bring an end to the era where big oil companies call the shots at our expense. We also need to ensure that BP is held accountable for this disaster and pays every dime it owes to the people of the Gulf Shore.
But at a broader level, this disaster is a painful reminder that we can no longer afford the economic and ecological costs of oil. We must move swiftly towards a renewable, clean energy economy.
Please share widely!
the idea of placing sand berms around the coast has been brushed aside as an unproven and potentially environmentally negligent way to protect the gulf coastline. I think they should already be working to create a faux coastline around the entire Gulf coast, including Florida. The effects of this oil spill are going to last for decades. With the dispersants and the plumes of oil underwater, it’s entirely possible that this contaminated water will hang around and travel around for decades (where is going to go when we have our next hurricane stirring up the water.) Instead of allowing it to settle on the true coastline, it’s a great idea to let it settle on a faux coastline that can be cleaned up and discarded years down the road. The way I see it, this is the only viable solution to protecting the entirety of the Gulf coast.
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p>Unfortunately, BP wants proof it will work before they are willing to pay for it (unbelievable}
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p>How much more damage has to be done before some real defensive action is taken to protect our coastline?
A “fake coastline”? Really? Look, if you want to argue that we should build berms, marshes, sand bars, islands, reefs, and so forth to protect man and his buildings along the coast from storm surge, that’s one thing.
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p>But to argue that we should build a disposable coast just past our real coast is just crazy. Why?
1. It’s expensive. Really expensive.
2. It’s fragile. During the construction process, a storm event could eliminate it entirely.
3. The materials (sand) it requires are in relatively short supply, and are useful for other “spot” projects. This project you describe would use up all the sand materials available for other projects, and still run out.
4. It would take an incredibly long amount of time to build — far longer than necessary to protect the so-called “true coastline”.
5. What happens when the “faux coastline” begins to teem with life, creating it’s own ecosystem? We just thrash it? What if even one endangered species makes it home? Good luck with that.
6. What’s the effect on maritime navigation?
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p>Yeah, not happening, nor should it. The best we can do is clean up what we can, brace ourselves, make BP pay for the long period of cleanup (think: 20 years), and then… wait for it… radically change the way we do off-shore drilling to reduce or eliminate the chances of this happening again.
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p>2. Yup, it will be fragile, and years in the making, but it will be worth it to at least give it a whole-hearted effort. The better idea would have been to skim the oil, however, now that they have applied dispersants to hide the oil from us by keeping it underwater, skimming is no longer a workable solution.
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p>3. Do we really know this? There is probably sand a-plenty all over the country.
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p>4. Well, not if they took the idea seriously and began working in different locations immediately. It would depend on how much equipment, manpower and materials they could pull together. Where there is the will, there is a way. There seems to be no will, at least on BP’s part.
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p>5. It’s own ecosystem? I suppose, however, the environment could be so toxic it’s possible that we wouldn’t want what is created there. We don’t know what kind of genetic changes will occur in wildlife that makes this new toxic place it’s home. It would be a good idea to start taking specimens and create simulated ecosystems inland so that some of the wildlife that currently thrives in that region can reproduce in a healthy environment to be reintegrated once the toxic threats have been eliminated.
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p>6. There will have to be many, many areas where ships, equipment, and water can pass through. At these locations, there can be filtering and testing systems in place to try to keep clean water in and oil/dispersant water out.
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p>It’s going to take decades to clean up this mess. It will be much easier to manage if there is control over the waters closest to the coastline. There is only one way to do that, and that would be with berms.
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p>This is a BIG DEAL. It needs to be treated as such. How much it will cost BP should not even be part of the equation, because the cost economically and environmentally to that region and our country is far more than PB could ever hold in it’s bank accounts.
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p>Bankrupting BP for the sake of it is not a good thing. It’s also not clear if, legally, BP can be forced to pay for the berms.
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p>BP has been making “an effort” to stop the leak for over a month. Effort is meaningless; results matter. Every engineering-based analysis of the berm idea suggests that it will fail.
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p>Yes, we do. The Army Corps has said exactly this. I’m no geologist or sandologist or whatever, but they’ve been clear — the particular kind of sand is not in such ample supply as to allow for the building of a chain of islands.
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p>In fact, this idea has been floated, for the most part, by Vitter. It’s brilliant ugly politics — after demanding that the Feds keep out, now he demands that the Feds do something which is logistically impossible — and then blames the Feds for not being able to do anything. Don’t buy the hype.
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p>Yes, even if they took the idea seriously, and didn’t have to pause for even a minute to figure out
* the materials planning
* the equipment planning
* the staffing
* the engineering
* the environmental reviews
necessary to even begin a project like this. It’s not about will/way. You can’t conjure heavy equipment out of thin air within months. You can’t make materials magically multiply. You can’t throw more professionals at a project to make it move faster, a la the million man month.
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p>At this point, you’re jibberish. Yes, it’s own ecosystem. I guarantee you it would form. Would it be remarkable in any way? Dunno, but it’s possible. As for “wouldn’t want what’s created there” — that’s really silly. Look, this isn’t Chernobyl (which, by the way, has led to some remarkable positive and negative changes in the wildlife of the area)… whatever thrives there will thrive despite the oil and dispersants, or, even better, thrive because of them, possibly helping to process the long chains into something more benign.
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p>As for simulating… it’s remarkably hard to simulate ocean life. For starters, we don’t even know most of the species which live in the ocean. Now create a space large enough, with currents, depths, etc… nah. Not happening. We’ll be studying the spill area itself, but we sure as heck won’t try to figure out ahead of time what will happen. Nature don’t work that way.
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p>You’re really suggesting that we put a 1000 mile condom around the coastline? We’re man, not giant. It’s not happening. We boom what we can, we skim where we can, and we clean what gets to shore. That’s the only way. Try to go for more, and you’ll spend a lot of money and not be able to deal with the hurricanes and storms, the strange behavior, the unexpected consequences of the barriers themselves.
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p>Sure, if we could cast the magic coastline condom spell. Since we can’t, it would in fact be much harder to manage the cleanup because we’d be spending so much in resources managing the construction of an archipelago.
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p>Look, this is a bad situation, to be sure. Here’s the dirty secret: individual animals will suffer horribly. Some species may even be eliminated in the region. Mark my words though, the ecosystem as a whole will survive, and will, over time, sort itself out. Maybe not in our lifetime, and you can be sure that humans will suffer in the mean time. But really, it’s not obvious that it’s better that the oil stay in the Gulf waters than wash up on land.
we can build functional sand berms in 2010. The only thing stopping it is BP, with the help of our government. BP wants to pay as little as possible for this. They are going to try to skip out on as many liability claims as they possibly can. Protective sand berms, once approved, would be a commitment to pay; they would be committed to it’s cost. They will avoid such a concrete commitment to pay with every ounce of their corporate being. Even if it means we lose the resources of that region for decades and generations to come.
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… technical standpoint, this would be way way bigger than the Hoover Dam. Probably less deaths on the job though.
While we wait to hear whether the president will or will not renew the ban on new offshore oil drilling – which he has temporarily extended, but not announced a decision on – I wonder why we’re leaving this up to mere executive policy.
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p>Will you file legislation creating a ban on new offshore drilling under the law?
Seven new offshore drilling permits issued since Obama’s “moratorium” began, five of these had environmental review waived.
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p>e.g., see http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05…
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Called your Senators and Representative yet? đŸ™‚
I appreciate that you believe that the Federal Government has some blame. I noticed that you placed much of that blame at the Executive Branch.
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p>I can’t help but notice: the gasoline tax hasn’t been raised in a long time. That’s Congress. The matching funds available for local mass transit don’t use the same generous payment ratio as those for roadways. That’s Congress. Amtrak could certainly attract more riders away from autos and airplanes with appropriate funding for operations and capital projects. That’s Congress. Huge tax breaks for building larger homes (Sched A) encourages more sprawl. That’s Congress. Speed limits as high as 80 mph, despite the fact that higher speed limits result in more fuel burned and more deaths on the highway. That’s Congress. Allowing any petroleum to be burned for electricity, 1.5% of our electricity nationally, despite it’s environmental and foreign policy implications — that’s Congress.
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p>I understand that nobody wants to use the stick, everybody wants to use the carrot. That can work with electricity production, but we’ve got no plan implementable over the next 10 years to reduce oil consumption. None. Congress needs to not only spend much more money on low-fuel alternatives, it needs to buck up and make gasoline more expensive. Fuel consumption is clearly negatively correlated with the price of fuel, both in the near term (let’s not drive across 5 states this Memorial Day) and in the long term (sales of high mpg vehicles surged with gas prices at $4/gallon).
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p>If you’re serious about cutting our addiction to oil, let’s see an increase in the gas tax — with revenue spent on mass transit. Let’s see an increase in the per-barrel Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund contributions. Let’s see Congress make the price of a gallon of gasoline include it’s environmental and foreign policy detrimental externalities.
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p>Let’s see Congress with some 21st century vision and some recognition that breaking our addiction is tremendously important and not pain-free.
that privately, the Congresswoman read your comment and ran from the computer as fast as possible repeating the phrase, “Think happy thoughts!!” to herself.
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p>I agree with you 100%, stomv. I would also love to see more money spent on high speed rail (especially maglev lines) as well. I’d also close a ton of corporate tax loopholes to do it as well.
…sums up my thoughts to a tee.
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p>http://seminal.firedoglake.com…
…sums up my thoughts to a tee.
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p>http://seminal.firedoglake.com…
Mass transit also burns oil, whether it is more T cars or more buses or more commuter trains. I don’t get why the gas tax revenue can only be used on more transportation, when what we should be incentivizing is less transportation. More people staying home instead of commuting to work, more people walking to local stores, etc. Why is it out of the question for the gas tax to fund general programs? Even people that don’t drive or take the T and walk everywhere have to pay the environmental and social costs of oil consumption. And if there is a benefit to making bike lanes and other projects that you want, then there is a benefit to funding them, regardless of where the funds come from, or if there is enough coming from some designated revenue source.
Isn’t that being covered in the job incentive programs?
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p>Nope. Buses run on natural gas, and subways/streetcars run on electricity. Commuter rail uses diesel fuel… but could certainly be converted to electricity.
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p>Transportation isn’t the problem. Carbon fueled transportation is the problem — and the fact is that people have been traveling for 1000s of years. We’re not going to stop them; what we can do is transition to a society in which their travel desires are met by low/no carbon fuels.
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p>The gas tax doesn’t currently fund all of our road expenditures at the federal level. It’s not even close at the state level, and non-existent at the local level. I’m all for gas taxes being high enough to fund other things, once it’s funding 100% of our roadways — and then our mass transit needs. Also, it’s in the state constitution for MA; for Feds its not Constitutional of course but part of the gas tax laws.
…I’ve always been reluctant on a gas tax and I don’t think that would have prevented this disaster, nor penalize BP which would just pass on the costs to consumers. Driving is not the luxury for many that gas tax proponents seem to imply. Requiring much higher fuel economy standards is the way to go.
Taxing oil now would most definitely be passed on to the consumer. So it would be the consumer who pays for this spill even though BP is currently making billions off of already inflated fuel prices.
Agree that driving is not a luxury. It’s a necessity. Everyone I know already does as little of it as possible. The gas tax is only promoted by those who have easy access to mass transit or whose grocery store and place of employment is a half mile down the road.
The things you allude to are not fixed and invariant. People respond to changes, and the economy responds and adjusts.
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p>During the gas price shocks a couple of years ago, some friends of mine were house-hunting in western MA and rural NH/VT, and I noticed something interesting: House prices in those areas had plummeted far more than most places, and very few were selling, while over here in Cambridge where I live, house prices were stable and most houses on the market were selling within a couple of months.
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p>What this meant is that people in those rural areas where you have to drive to work or to the store, could get extremely cheap houses. But it also meant few people were biting – instead, more and more people were moving to the very places where you “have easy access to mass transit or whose grocery store and place of employment is a half mile down the road” – which is exactly what we want.
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p>As long as gas is artificially cheap (and it is artificially cheap, because the government pours many billions annually into things that effectively come down to “get oil more cheaply”), people will continue to make decisions based on the tradeoffs that gas prices make possible. That includes their choices of which cars to buy, where to live, and where to work. We can’t force people to make better environmental choices entirely by fiat (although higher fuel economy standards are a useful piece of the puzzle). The only way to really solve the problem is to give everyone the right financial incentives to make better choices, so that people will do so voluntarily.
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p>What you’re pointing out is a real obstacle to doing so: When incentives change, there’s some cost to adjust, and that cost is disproportionately hard on some people. For example, the people who already made the choice to live far away from work without mass transit, who would have to change jobs or move in order to adjust to higher gas prices, or just live with their formerly-good but now-bad choice and pay for it. While the end result would be a huge improvement over the status quo, the path to getting there is inherently unfair to some people.
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p>The right answer to this isn’t “don’t do it”. The right answer is to spend some of our money helping out the people who are most unfairly hit by the changes.
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p>We could, for example, make a gas tax increase that’s completely deductible for anyone whose commute to work is longer than a certain distance, as long as no reasonable mass transit option exists. Eventually, we could get around to building that mass transit option if it makes sense to do so, at which point they could start using it, or continue to drive but pay the higher tax. We could make the deduction only last for a certain number of years, but at least they’d see the choice coming and have time to make new choices.
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p>I’m presenting this idea not to say “here’s what we should do”, because I don’t know how good this specific idea is. I just want to give an example to show that we can brainstorm ideas, and find ways to make the transition easier for people.
They took a gamble that gas would stay cheap and they lost (if we raise the gas tax, or even if we don’t, gas is going to get more expensive.) It’s not unfair that gambles don’t always pay off.
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p>I don’t think we need to do anything to make the transition easier for anyone.
Many people were born and raised in these rural areas of Massachusetts. They live here because this is where family is, not because gas was cheap and the commute was low cost. Sure, they may have chosen to work way out of town, but that’s where the jobs are.
It’s true that some people did choose to move to rural areas because of “cheap gas” and a low cost commute. So quess what – those with no family ties to these locations are moving out, and moving closer to the city. This is having an extremely negative impact on these towns, and entire regions. Property values dropping, small businesses moving out, and lower revenues for town governments.
That’s why I flip over the gas tax. We need help, not more
pressure to spend money we don’t have.
If you want to add a gas tax, apply it only to areas that are served by the subways systems. You aren’t going to encourage people in rural areas to use mass transit when the resource is not even available.
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p>Small cities can certainly have useful local mass transit, commuter rail, and even city-to-city mass transit (Amtrak). While a subway isn’t likely, that ain’t the only kind of mass transit there is. In the mean time, the state gas tax isn’t nearly high enough to pay for all the roads, and so my city taxes are funding your roads in rural areas since the miles of road per person in rural areas is very high… higher than your tax dollars could possibly pay for.
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p>I’m paying for your non-highway roads with my state income tax. Why shouldn’t you pay for my subways… which helps reduce total demand on gasoline, which helps keep your gas prices lower and reduces the need for dangerous, aggressive drilling?
I just did a major search trying to locate where the breakdown is for tax dollars being used for different regions for infrastructure maintenance and repair. Do you happen to know where a nice transparent chart is?
You seem to contradict yourself, and the argument that you seem to want to make is unsupported by demographics or history.
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p>The rural areas of Massachusetts (as well as the rest of the nation) are utterly different today than they were before the availability of cheap (too cheap) gasoline. What is the density of residential housing more than fifty years old, and what is its geographic distribution?
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p>The landscape of rural Massachusetts can sustainably support a certain number of people without cheap gasoline, and did so for thousands of years before, say, 1950. Most of those people and families lived in towns, some of them lived on farms (that were largely self-sustaining), and most of them lived lifestyles far better adapted to sustainable practices then today’s average exurban family.
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p>That rural Massachusetts landscape today has several times the population that history tells us it can sustainably support. Our choice is to find another way to support that greatly increased population or accept the incredible pain and suffering that nature will impose as the population is reduced to a sustainable level.
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p>The truth is that the era of cheap gasoline has been over for a long time (at least decades), except that our government and mega-corporations have essentially subsidized it at enormous expense — and passed that expense to the underdeveloped nations of the world and to our children and grandchildren. We have never been willing to pay the replacement cost of the petroleum that we burn to sustain our current lifestyle. An enormous portion of our national budget is directed towards the military and diplomatic expenses of preserving the infrastructure of the various oil-producing nations around the world whose oil we depend on.
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p>The reality is that the true price of gasoline will (and perhaps already is) skyrocket in the very near future. The point of establishing a floor for the retail price of gasoline (actually, it should be energy, but that’s a different discussion) is to relatively gracefully create the alternatives so that they are in place when our elaborate gasoline price ruse simply cannot be sustained any longer at any price.
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p>This is the true meaning of the ongoing BP catastrophe. We demand that companies drill under 5,000 feet of water because we so desperately need the oil they seek. We are seeing that these companies do not possess the technology to manage the greatly increased risks that come from drilling in these extreme conditions. They drill anyway, because — until now at least — we demand the oil anyway.
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p>We are probably watching the destruction of the entire fishing industry of the Gulf of Mexico and in all likelihood the eastern seaboard. The plume is already in the loop current, and there are no signs of it abating. It will move through the Florida Keys, where it will join the Gulf Stream. It will follow the Gulf Stream all the way up the coast, and will damage or destroy Georges Bank and the other fisheries that are already under overwhelming pressure.
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p>All this is simply going to get worse and worse until we find a way to end our addiction to gasoline. All of us will have to pay a steep price, and the gas tax that you whine about is among the least painful. You write as if you claim a fundamental right to live in rural Massachusetts and drive your vehicles wherever you want, and you appear to claim that the rest of us have an obligation to do whatever is necessary to provide the cheap gasoline that your lifestyle choices require. A necessary consequence of living in rural Massachusetts in 2010 is that you must find ways to do so that do not require cheap gasoline. Making gasoline expensive is a perfectly reasonable way for society to encourage you to accept the responsibility and obligation that accompany your own choice to live where you have chosen to live.
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p>As you write in your signature, to ignore the facts does not change the facts.
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p>I live here; I live it.
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p>So, according to you, history has told us that rural regions can only support a limited population. Hilarious. Do you have a link to that historical study? So exactly what kind of nature do we need to drop our population down to a sustainable size? A swine flu outbreak. Starvation and disease? Increased infant mortality?
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p>It sounds to me that you are blaming selfish rural living for the reliance on fossil fuels and the destruction of our country by way of outrageous carbon footprints and the environmental cost that go along with it. I have said a million times I would be happy to switch to wind and solar energy. So create a solar car that cost as much or less than a standard car. People will buy them in a happy second. I guarantee it.
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p>Oh, wait a minute. I get it now. Your whole comment was joke right? Ha Ha, got me! I thought your were serious for a minute. Silly me.
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I live in the rural area. I need gasoline to maintain my lifestyle, a lifestyle I claim to have a right to have. I don’t care how my lifestyle negatively impacts others.
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p>If you don’t like it, invent a solar car for me.
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p>as possible?!?! Really? Everybody you know walks or rides a bicycle for all trips under a few miles? Nonsense. Everybody you know purchases the most fuel efficient vehicle they can afford when they buy a new or used car? Nonsense. Everybody who goes shopping for a new home moves as close to work/school/shopping as possible? Nonsense. Everybody you know drives the speed limit because doing more than 65 mph uses more fuel? Nonsense? Everybody you know keeps their tires properly inflated and doesn’t let junk build up in their trunk, adding weight and hence fuel consumption? Nonsense. Everybody kills the engine instead of idling when waiting for their passenger to come out of the building? Nonsense. Everybody you know is easy on the gas and easy on the brake in traffic? Nonsense.
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p>Driving for many people is a necessity. However, the amount of gasoline we consume is not a necessity — we could cut it 50% by simply changing behavior in the short, medium, and long term. Better driving habits. Better community development standards. Better vehicles.
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p>Certainly not only, but you’ll note something… almost none of the people you describe were born and raised where they live. They chose to live near mass transit or in a walkable community, perhaps (as in my case) precisely because they wanted to use less fuel, or even (again, in my case) didn’t want to own a car at all. Nearly all of us could choose a life where driving daily is not a necessity. Most of us don’t make that choice, in part because driving remains so inexpensive and because other options (walking, cycling, mass transit) haven’t had the public investment necessary to be pleasant, safe, and efficient.
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p>The fact is that consuming gasoline leads to BP disasters, Exxon-Valdez disasters, climate change, poor balance of trade, doing business with folks who hate America, and so on. The fact is that each and every one of us can make choices which use less gasoline — that virtually nobody you know is actually using as little of it as possible. Finally, the fact is that when price goes up, consumption goes down. Higher gas taxes are the most efficient way to drive down consumption, through any combination of conservation, better equipment, different housing or work choices, different modes for some trips, carpooling, whatever.
…that everybody walk or bike for every trip under a few miles? I don’t bike and my walk limit is probably a couple miles at a time, which I do when I can for exercise, but that presumes good weather and time to kill. I don’t want everybody crowded into urban areas with everything within walking distance. There is nothing wrong with living in an area where people have an acre or two of land. You’re either trying to overmanage or insist we all become Amish. Higher fuel efficiency isn’t going to make me go joyriding, but it will save me money AND be better for the environment. I also don’t want to be tied to a mass transit schedule; I want to be able to get where I need to be when I need to without adding wait time for bus and train transfers.
Read the whole thing.
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p>landll claimed that everybody he knows is using as little gasoline as possible. Not “as practical.” Not “less than last year, and making strides.”
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p>”As little as possible.”
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p>My point is: of course they aren’t using as little as possible. I’m not suggesting that they should use as little as possible… merely that this idea that “we’re already doing our best” is both lazy and wrong.
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p>I don’t want to micromanage. I want people to pay the true cost for gasoline, so we as a society don’t suffer unnecessarily while we subsidize other peoples’ behavior. Want to drive 200 miles a day in a H2? Go for it. I simply ask that you pay for your full share of the gasoline, the roads, the carbon emissions, the wars, the oil spills, etc. That’s a mighty high price, so I’d suggest that in order to reduce demand (and hence those extra costs) that we invest more in infrastructure which results in the burning of less fuel — everything from mass transit to university research.
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p>Pay your full share, that’s all I ask.
We met at the healthcare rally on Boston Common. I took the “T” in so I wouldn’t have to lug my car around all day.
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p>Just to recap:
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p>Yes, I live in a rural area. Yes, I need gasoline to maintain my lifestyle, a lifestyle I do have a right to have. I do care how my lifestyle negatively impacts others, that’s one reason why I would like to see Amtrak service to the Palmer train station, as well as commuter rail options across the state. I already pay a gas tax, car registration fees, auto insurance premiums, yearly excise taxes, inspection sticker fees, and turnpike tolls. I pay my fair share, especially for the crappy, old, unmaintained, pot-hole ridden roads I get to drive on. (All that money I already pay is going somewhere; wish I could find an itemized statement of where it is going exactly.)
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p>If you don’t like it, then come up with a solution that works. Not a solution that will create hardships for working middle/class citizens across only the western part of the state.
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p>I’m done with conversation.
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p>2. You don’t pay your fair share. The real cost of gasoline is far higher than any of us pay at the pump. That’s the truth.
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p>3. There’s no solution which won’t create hardships somewhere. This idea that we can just ignore the very real costs of war and pollution and climate change simply because they’ll “create hardships for working middle/class citizens across only the western part of the state” is wrong for two reasons: (1) all public policy creates hardships somewhere, but the benefits in this case exceed the hardships, and (2) it will create hardships everywhere, unless you think us eastern Massholes fill our tanks with unicorn pee or some other magic liquid fuel.
You are just being unreasonable. Sure, I could walk downtown on Rte 32 with no sidewalks and speeding traffic.
If I managed to survive it, I could then walk back with 3 bags of groceries – or maybe four. By the time I got home it would be 9pm and too late to cook dinner.
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p>I’m not even going to continue this conversation with you because you are being beyond ridiculous and posing demands that are unrealistic.
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p>Congrats to you for you “0” carbon footprint. This is why you want the gas tax. Because it won’t affect you. I want a tax on bicyclist because they pose a threat to
increasing health insurance costs due the the dangers of them getting hurt while riding on busy roads. Helmet or not, why should I pay for your health care coverage should you get hurt while riding your bike. So tax bikers; it’s only fair, afterall.
Everybody you know is doing everything they can?
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p>No. No they’re not. I’ve never argued that they should do everything they can to reduce their consumption.
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p>You made that claim, and it’s ridiculous and false. Plain and simple. I made no demand.
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p>To move on to the details:
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p>I’m the one using an increased gas tax to pay for sidewalks, amongst other things. You’re the one arguing against it.
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p>My carbon footprint isn’t zero. It’s far lower than most Americans, but that’s equal parts 100% green electricity, an 800 square foot condo which means very low heating and cooling needs, and low carbon transportation.
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p>I don’t want a gas tax because it won’t affect me. Of course it will affect me. It will effect me negatively: everything from the gas I buy when I rent a car and drive to Quebec this summer to the price of bread will be more expensive with this tax. It will also effect me positively: with a higher gas tax, demand will go down. That means less pressure for wars in the Middle East, fewer oil spills due to less oil being drilled and transported, and reduced carbon emissions.
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p>Do you have any evidence that the negative consequences (broken collarbones, etc) are more expensive than the positive consequences (lower rates of heart disease, etc)? I’d bet you don’t. I’ve never seen a study showing just that, and I’d bet you haven’t either. So let’s be careful what we ask for, shall we… lest the data also show that those with auto insurance ought to cross-subsidize health insurance since cyclists and pedestrians tend to have healthier, not less healthy, lifestyles.
Higher fuel economy leads to people driving more miles. This is pretty much proven. The only time we’ve seen a decrease in the amount of gas being consumed is when it is expensive. Otherwise, consumption just goes up and up, even as fuel economy improves.
And it’s already created a huge hardship on many families. From auto fuels, to heating oil, to our electric bills, it takes way more of a percentage of monthly income than it should, and that’s with people having already bought the energy saving light bulbs, appliances, and furnaces.
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p>If you want to reduce the use of oil in our country, then start making other resources available at lower prices. People always want to save money, and will flock to these resources (solar, wind, natural gas) if it will save them money. Unfortunately, these products are being and will be gouged as well. Because it’s not about what’s best for the country, it’s about what’s best for corporate profits.
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p>While I am for Cape Wind, I am disheartened by the fact that the electricity it generates will cost more than electricity generated by coal and oil. We will never get off of oil until the alternatives are available, easy to use, and much less expensive.
Corporations, with their need to suck as much money as possible out of middle/working class Americans, will gladly make sure the price of wind/solar power will rise in proportion to the price of coal and oil. And then, once coal and oil have bit the dust, the wind/solar markets will have a monopoly on this basic need of energy for which people can’t just decide to not use. We will have solar/wind crises. Too much demand, not enough production. The price will be out of this world.
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p>than oil. So, we can (a) reduce the price of other stuff, and also (b) raise the price of oil. We are doing lots of (a) — everything from biofuels to subsidizing renewable electricity. There’s no reason to avoid doing (b) when we know damn well that the detrimental externalities to burning gasoline are huge. Why shouldn’t the people most responsible for the climate change, the air pollution, the spill in the Gulf pay the most for it? Why should those who have made non-free efforts to reduce their consumption to far less than the national average have to pay as much?
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p>Gas tax is a remarkably fair way to tie the social costs of burning gasoline to those who are doing the burning. It’s about personal responsibility — owning up to one’s own choices.
I’m not sure where you live, but I do believe you live near mass transit. I think before you start pointing fingers at how “other” people can do better at reducing
fuel usage, perhaps you should live for a year in a very rural area. I could just as easily say that you live in a stinky polluted city and you are exaserbating that by continuing to live there. Whether you ride a bike or not, by living there and contributing to the economy there you are perpetuating the problem. If everyone moved away, pollution central would disappear. If everyone in urban areas took responsibility for there share of environmental improvement, there would be no big urban centers covered in smog on the hottest most oppressive days of the years.
If the largest companies were dispersed across the state, then people would live closer to their place of employment and use less fuel. There would be more of a need for mass transit across the entire state, instead of just Holy Boston.
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p>You must really have a fit about people traveling to the Cape during the summer months. Perhaps they should ride their bikes there. They can balance their suitcases on their heads and tow the little ones in little carts behind.
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p>While I appreciate your persistence in trying to reduce the amount of fuels burned in our society, you really have reached a point that’s beyond feasibility. You make it sound like you would prefer that no-one had a car ever, in any place for any reason, and that owning a car is irresponsible. I just can’t see that as reasonable, or even worth consideration.
I really don’t think he’s (she’s?) pointing fingers.
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p>A few points:
1. Yes, I live near mass transit. By choice, not by accident. I pay more in housing costs — a lot more — to live near mass transit. What does a nice 800 square foot 1 bedroom condo with one parking spot go for in the sticks, because if you want to be near the T, it’s $350-$500k.
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p>2. I grew up in the outer suburbs, and my high school years were spent in Northwest Connecticut, just a few miles from MA and from NY. Population density 61/square mile. For comparison, Stockbridge MA has 1.5 times as many people per square mile.
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p>I know rural areas. I know suburbs. I know cities. I’ve lived in quite a few different places.
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p>Your view of cities is backwards. Cities emit far less pollutants per capita than rural areas or suburbs. We use far less heat per person because our homes are smaller and often attached. We use far less transportation fuel per person because we don’t have to travel so far, and our density allows for mass transit.
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p>Right, but the total amount of pollution would go up substantially, and would be distributed everywhere, not just in a remarkably small area.
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p>Again, backwards. If the largest companies were dispersed across the state, then we’d have suburban sprawl across the state instead of limited to the beltway around Boston. We’d use more fuel, both for transit (no mass transit, since there’s not enough demand for any source-destination travel) and for home heating, since the suburban sprawl of detached single family homes would use far more heat per capita than the attached homes of the cities and inner suburbs.
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p>There’s be more of a “need” for mass transit, but it wouldn’t be efficient… just not enough folks going to the same place.
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p>Again, with the bikes. You’re setting up strawmen left and right, and it shows that you simply refuse to have an adult conversation.
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p>As for folks going to the Cape on the weekend, I would prefer to see the rail line restored to allow folks to take the train there, and I certainly do encourage folks to take the water ferry if possible — that too is mass transit.
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p>It’s beyond feasible to raise the gas tax $0.25? It’s beyond feasible to purchase a more fuel efficient vehicle next time you buy a car? It’s beyond feasible to choose a home closer to work next time you’re choosing a home? It’s beyond feasible to keep your tires at the correct air pressure or to keep the extra weight of books or bowling balls out of the trunk? It’s beyond feasible to take the commuter rail or carpool some of the time? It’s beyond feasible to go easy on the gas pedal and the break and reduce speeds in excess of the posted limit?
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p>Sorry. Those things are feasible. The fact is, with a higher price on gas, folks would do more of those things. And yes, more people would give up their car. Not so much in rural areas, but certainly in more urban areas. Why, a gentleman who lives in my Town just gave up his family car, and he’s got twin babies at home.
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p>No, YOU have made it sound like that’s what I want. It is unreasonable, yet you keep making that claim. I don’t want everyone to not own a car. Far from it.
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p>All I want is for people to pay the true price for gasoline. You are the one who insists that we shouldn’t — that instead we should subsidize it so that those who are using less should help pay for those who use more.
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p>Who’s being unreasonable?