Website review: Carbon taxes, not technology, will ...
laodan discovered this in Science/Tech
•2 reviews since Nov 16, 2007
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•news.com/8301-11128_3-9817361-54.html
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laodan discovered 6 months ago- Carbon taxes, not technology, will cut emissions, says MIT professor via InnovationWatch, in Cnet by Michael Kanellos
There's no reason to think that technology will help reduce greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. over the next 50 years, according to a new study from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, but regulations and higher prices might. The technology versus taxes--it's the primary green tech debate of the day. Nearly everyone would like to see inventions emerge that can curb emissions and reduce dependence on fossil fuels in an economical fashion. Many, however, say it's not feasible, particularly in the near term. Count this study in that latter camp. Richard Eckaus, Ford International professor emeritus of economics, and Ian Sue Wing conducted a study on energy consumption and emissions in the U.S. from 1958 to 1996 and again from 1980 to 1996. The study also then projected forward and made predictions about what might happen from 2000 to 2050. Carbon taxes, not technology, will cut emissions, says MIT professor At the tipping point by UN Sec. Gen. Ban Ki Moon It's not as if technology were not working. That's not the point. The point is that the market sorts things out over the long run and technology could thus be produced and made available when it's too late that means when the problems to solve have mutated into a fundamental shift that is no longer answerable. Let's talk examples. Following the 1st energy crisis of the seventies the EU and Japan initiated a taxation policy that would increase the cost of energy to such a point that everyone should think to reduce his consumption of it. The result of that policy distinguishes the EU and Japan from the US in many ways: * pressed by their consumers car companies in the EU and Japan researched more energy efficient engines and designs while the US surfed further on the wave of cheap energy. After more than 20 years of practicing such differentiated policies EU and Japanese car companies are dominating the world market while US car companies are struggling to survive... * Europe and Japan were using those high taxes on fuel to finance research and development of renewable energies. Today Western European countries and Japan are generating more and more of their electricity from non-fossil sources and their technologies are dominating the world market. Meanwhile the US has been boxed in higher dependency on fossil fuels produced by countries it politically opposes... In terms of climate change Europeans and Japanese are a lot better prepared today to answer the problem than the US. This in itself should be sufficient proof of the necessity of state intervention to orient the market in the desired direction and the presently felt urgency is only exacerbating that necessity.
- Carbon taxes, not technology, will cut emissions, says MIT professor via InnovationWatch, in Cnet by Michael Kanellos
- pamur rated 6 months ago
- I am surprised that they didn't emphasize the probability of resource depletion itself and not just the price increases that are implied by depletion. At some point supplies of our preferred energy sources are going to diminish and emissions will fall no matter what. The prices will rise of course but the reduced consumption will be greater than prices alone would dictate. Technology cannot produce energy sources only techniques for exploiting them. [Thanks, laodan]
