By Brian Skeele, on March 19th, 2011
I’ve read a couple of articles about cap and trade, and the authors seem to think it’s bogus. Way too complicated. A boondoggle to make the same clever people who brought us the foreclosure bummer even richer.
Here’s Anne Leonard’s take on it.
The idea I like is to tax carbon, and lift taxes on income. In this way, folks will be encouraged to take their savings and invest in renewable energy. I cannot believe how happy newspaper stories report on increase fossil fuel production, or the good news about nuclear energy…What planet are these people living on???…
The last paragraph of a story from the Washington Post;
A lot of utility executives are asking: If the U.S. isn’t building new nuclear plants and is nervous about extending old ones, how will the country generate enough electricity?
Are these guys stupid? can’t they see the economic benefits of sustainable neighborhoods? If we get more efficient with our lifestyle, our demand for energy goes down significantly. How significantly???
For decades, Amory Lovins has been saying the cheapest place to find energy is under the hood– Money spent on conservation is the most profitable. His company, Rocky Mountain Institute, now has a program call 10X. Working with institutions and industrial plants in a systemic comprehensive way, they are able to retrofit facilities and reduce energy usage by 90%!!!!
I’m suggesting similar savings will happen in neighborhoods. When all the benefits from healthier walkable, mixed use, mixed income lifestyles are tabulated, we will see we can grow the sustainable economy into a socially, economically, and ecologically affordable lifestyle, a lifestyle that is “good for people, good for the planet and good for the polar bears”. We don’t need no stinkin cap and trade; we need real people working together to make sustainable real.