If every person in the United States continues to live the way they do, it would take five planet Earths to provide for everyone. Over one million species are faced with the possibility of extinction as a result of disappearing habitats, changing ecosystems, and acidifying oceans. By 2040 the Arctic is expected to have its first ice free summer ever. The United States government needs to implement a carbon tax on burning fossil fuels in order to protect and prevent the destruction of our planet through funding from those who threaten it. Such a tax would be market based and imposed on large companies in order to reduce our carbon emissions into the atmosphere. It would not only improve our environment, but also increase our economy and relations …show more content…
And all the while of these facts are proven to be true, yet why are we still denying the fact that climate change is real? And why are we still continuing our behaviors that scientists have proven are 95% of the attribution cause of global warming? We need to make a change and implementing a carbon tax is one of the best ways known so far to do so. A carbon tax is a market-based tax on the burning of carbon and greenhouse gases emitted into our atmosphere. It encourages expansive companies to reduce their carbon emissions and holds them accountable for how much carbon they produce. Charles Komanoff and Dan Rosenblum created the tax with the purpose of educating and informing policymakers, opinion leaders and the general public on the excessive amounts of carbon in our atmosphere. More specifically the tax would bring the private cost of producing carbon, how much it costs the individual to produce the carbon, …show more content…
Such benefits surely outweigh the harms, creating a healthier and safer world for us to live in. Not only would this tax obviously help the environment in many more ways than one, it would boost the economy and help us create new energy initiatives that would lead us to more clean and renewable solutions. Numerous studies show the positive effects that a new tax would have on our climate change situation. A study conducted through the “Hamilton Project,” shows that carbon emissions would be cut by twelve percent in the first twenty years and by a third before 2050 ( Morris, “The Many Benefits of a Carbon Tax” ). This produces a cumulative total of 20,282.5 pounds of carbon dioxide saved from our atmosphere in the first two decades of this tax. An amount of carbon that if taken out of the atmosphere, would reduce our carbon emissions by a substantial amount and would lead us towards a more promising future. Humans are currently 95% of all the reasons behind climate change, and therefore anything we can do would drastically increase our current situation. The United Nations has currently decided that we must have a limit of 450 parts per million in order to maintain our planet ( Tyson, “The Myriad Benefits of a Carbon Tax” ). If we continue our current actions, we will cross this limit within a matter of decades. And moving into the future, this carbon tax would help our
The issue presented in this paper is how one can aim to reduce the amounts released, and what the best ways to solve this problem are. This has been long debated amongst scientists, businessmen, Industry-owners, and politicians amongst many other eminent figures in society. The four major approaches to reducing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere include: subsidies of alternative energy, cap and trade, carbon taxes, and command and control regulation. We will examine and compare the effectiveness of two of these methods: The carb...
Such a plan would have a massively negative effect on the economy while having a negligible effect on the climate. Taxpayers whom fund the EPA will feel the burden of the ever-increasing regulations and rules set in place by the Environmental Protection Agency. The agency is overstepping its boundaries, as an agency of the government while other agency’s and branches of the government must reclaim their authority in order to divert such an inadequate
The advantages of my proposal are many. First, there is no need to stray far from our present treatment of the environment. Secondly, we thrive in a capitalist society, in which we privatize profits and socialize losses. While our nation is rich in natural resources at the present, we will be able to export our goods at high prices and pocket the profits.
As the firms have to pay extra costs of what they produce and emit, they have to clearly bring sustainability as the main target of their businesses in order to reduce their emissions. Not doing so, will drop the profits in their business as they have to pay the price for extra emitted carbon. Further it will bring down their reputation from those companies in the market whose carbon labelling will be better. Thus they will have no choice but to take actions. They have to bring sustainability to the core target of their firm. On other hand, it would engage the thoughtful attention of every household and enterprise to the effort to reduce emissions.[6] (Repetto, Cap and Trade is Better Climate Policy than a Carbon Tax, 2013) Each emitter, direct or indirect, would face higher prices for fossil-based energy and for energy intensive goods and services. Each one would then be motivated to find ways to minimize those cost increases in the least onerous way. All the resourcefulness and creativity that the economy and population can muster would be engaged in the effort, not because of environmental commitment or citizenship but because of economic self-interest. Although a large majority of Americans believes that greenhouse gases should be reduced, that alone has not been enough to motivate their actions on nearly the scale required. Values must be supported by economic self interest which is present in the cap and trade policy.
The threat of climate change in recent years is recognized as a real and potentially catastrophic threat to the health and welfare of our planet, as industrialized nations continue to run their economies by burning carbon into the atmosphere. Recently, it has taken on a larger role in our national media, the public, and the government, as the effects of anthropogenic climate change become more evident. In the United States, for example, the year 2007 brought the first major piece of legislation in the country to address the problem under the Climate Security Act, and the United States Supreme Court ruled that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency had authority to regulate carbon dioxide as a pollutant. Today, many politicians, economists, scientists, and environmentalists propose a solution that would create a regulated market based on emissions into the atmosphere, effectively internalizing all negative externalities. It’s called cap and trade, and it has a lot of potential to help incentivize the implementation of alternative forms of energy, has several different variations and alternatives, and has already been successful in many programs around the world.
The two policy options I will consider are the continuation of the current stimulus package or the introduction of a carbon tax. Both policies would be effective in achieving the President's aim of reducing negative effects on the environment and growing the economy, although through different mechanisms. There are other policy options such as cap and trade schemes, reliance on the market and government-sponsored research programs (Frank, Jennings & Bernanke 2009 pp 328-329) ...
My parents grew up in small town in Mexico. There was a little river that went through part of the town when they were growing up. Every weekend or so they would go out and would go swimming with their families, it almost became a tradition to go swimming there until they noticed that the river 's water level was becoming smaller and smaller. Today there is no river anymore, instead it 's a road that travels through the town. Every time I visit my family in Mexico it would alway be nice and warm up until this year when I went in December. I remember waking up and getting ready to go to my aunt 's house in clothes for warm weather. As I open the door, the cold air punch me and I saw snowflakes falling down. It 's not supposed to snow in that
Climate change, never has such an impending natural disaster been so heavily ignored. While this problem of Greenhouse Gasses holds more long-term implications than any other problem found today, little to nothing has been done to address this problem. Through the last century, industrialization has revolutionized the world, in all aspects of life from comfort to industry. While this has obviously had its benefits, it has also created a world that is almost entirely dependent on carbon dioxide producing technology. This has caused the single biggest problem when it comes to curbing this issue known as climate change. That problem is the simple fact that in order for the people to make a positive unified change in the C02 levels they produce, they’re going to have to make sacrifices. These sacrifices range from giving up or reducing their use of various CO2 producing technologies, to paying new taxes such as carbon taxes. The causes for Climate Change and the lack of action to curb it are, of course, complex, but there are at least three significant factors: High prices required to produce and implement low-carbon technology; lack of political and corporate support; and an extensive public reliance on technology (Weeks). More than this, the public, along with the government, have been unwilling to sacrifice either money or effort, which has only served to exponentially increase the problem at hand.
One of the most compelling and difficult environmental problems society is facing today is climate change. People do not realize how much the environment has changed for the worse in the last ten years, until they are told that the last two decades of the 20th century have been the hottest in the last 400 years, according to climate studies (Conserve Energy Future). Today the carbon dioxide levels have reached 396.81 parts per million (ppm). “Carbon dioxide (CO2) has also increased over the last 100 years-- from about 300 ppm to 370 ppm. Interestingly, the majority of these additions have occurred in the last 50 years, when temperature increases have been slowest” (geocraft). There are no known solutions yet to reverse these effects in the environment, however there are many things people can do to prevent it from increasing. By implementing a carbon tax the government can tax corporations on how much carbon they emit into the atmosphere. With the extra money from the tax, scientist can invest in alternative ways to reduce how much carbon is emitted. Reducing climate change is going to take years and so nothing is going to get fixed anytime soon, but meanwhile we can use that extra money to begin cleaning up the atmosphere. There are many ways to explain climate change, some say its due to the emission of carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere, others say it is the burning of the fossils fuels, some even say it’s the greenhouse gases. All of these sayings mean the exact same thing, no matter how one says it. I believe there are more convenient ways to solve climate change; and if the government would to implement a carbon tax on companies they will then be forced to re-evaluate all the carbon they emit to the environment and red...
The world in which we live in at the moment has become poisonous. It has been poisoned by the human species’ daily survival activities. Humans around the world have taken for granted the daily impact that we have on the natural world. It all boil down to each and every breath that we take. Each and every breath that we exhale releases poisonous chemicals into the atmosphere. Until when our existence becomes absent, the world will remain poisoned.
Climate change. The two letter word so feared by scientists, so ignored by the average human being. What is it that makes scientists fear this phrase so much? For the concept of “climate change” has been seen throughout the history of the earths existence. For centuries, our climate has fluctuated through increasing and decreasing amounts of atmospheric carbon dioxide and climatic cycles. So what is the big deal? The problem, and the reason why this concept instills fear directly into the core of scientists is the rate at which over the past 1,300 years atmospheric carbon dioxide levels have risen. This unnatural increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide, due to the immense amount of anthropogenic burning of oil and coal, affects the transfer
In 2007, the world consumed 5.3 billion tons of coal, 31.1 billion tons of oil, 2.92 trillion cubic meters of natural gas, and 65,000 tons of uranium. All of these energy needs could have been met with only 6,600 tons of thorium, an abundant, slightly radioactive element found in the Earth’s crust.
Protect oceans from overfishing and establish a global whale sanctuary. Protect the world's remaining old growth forests. Eliminate sources of dioxin and other persistent organic pollutants (POPs) including PVC, and ensure legislation to prevent toxic waste dumping. Protect future generations from the effects of nuclear contamination by ending the nuclear fuel cycle, stopping radioactive discharges and plutonium shipments.
... emissions and protect our natural resources, before we look to make a profit. Because once the natural resources and ozone are destroyed and gone, they are gone forever.
Even if the reason of climate change may be the natural cycles, we humans are the major determinant to it. The huge amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is causing the climate change and this amount is rising day by day, as a result of our actions. Greenhouse gases, like carbon dioxide, generally absorb and emit the heat in the atmosphere to keep the Earth’s climate habitable. However, as we continue to burn fossil fuels, this habitable Earth’s temperature will blow up, and as a result, some species will die out due to various problems which are caused by climate change. According to EPA (Environmental Protection Agency), the most obvious consequence of climate change is the rising sea levels, which will cause some seashore habitats to become unavailable to live to its species.