Re: Labour plans carbon cap on household energy use
- From: "Mel Rowing" <mel.rowing@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: 17 Jul 2006 12:25:27 -0700
abelard wrote:
i'm not convinced by either of those claims....
i'm not even convinced by the drift of your post!!
you have the floor!
OK!
At the end of the day we are talking of rationing. I remember the end
of wartime rationing. My eldest sister (my eldest sibling) remembers it
even better since she worked in the grocery trade. She would tell you
Those with money got all they wanted. Those without got nowt. There was
always a 'broken' sack of sugar, a 'rancid' tub of butter, a few slices
to spare from a flitch of bacon etc. etc.
My late uncle kept pigs. Each of these had to be registered for
Ministry of Food purposes. There were always 'casulties' that in
reality had met their end in a friendly butcher's back yard and ended
up hanging in his pantry, ours and God knows who else's.
The point is that rationing is of course justified in times of serious
shortage. However, first and most important of all there is no energy
shortage unless we choose to manufacture one. We must not run away with
the idea that it is in any way an efficient way of fairly distributing
resources. The best that can be siad for it is that is prevents serious
hardship.
Going back to my sister's and uncle's experiences it is also clear that
it taxes folk's ingenuity in devising ways round it. This turn creates
a plethora of regulations, forms and attendant bureaucracy that
reduces its efficiency yet further.
There is also a question of personal choice and liberty. You have
already half heartedly suggested that people who live alone should be
taught to cooperate. People who live alone already pay a finacial
penalty for so doing. They do so to a large extent out of choice. It is
no place of government to reduce such choice by adding an extra tax
burden because again, at he end of the day this is something else we
are talking about.
I wonder whether such intrusions into personal lives is politically
possible? I would hope that it wouldn't be.
We left the days behind when governments took responsibility for
meeting our energy needs. That change has benefitted all of us. The
view is now generally held that energy is best supplied via a regulated
market. My personal view is that the regulation is overdone but that's
by the way.
Within this scenario I can accept that, no matter what people like me
think about it, it is legitimate for a government to come to the view
that the carbon repercussions of energy production must be mitigated.
Once that decison is reached then the question of execution raises its
head.
It seems ludicrous to me to then look at 60 000 000 consumers and say
to them thou shalt have thy rightful share of energy but woe betide
thee is thou exceedeth it. To trat each person as a unit of consumption
in this way is not only cumbersome and thus inefficient but classic
socialism and as such I am amazed that you, of all people, would
entertain any such an idea!
Rather the same object could be achieved more logically and more
efficiently through the generators who between them represent the
supply side of the energy market and are far less numerous than
consumers. They could be told to sell as much of their product as they
can and would wish (just like any other business) but that the carbon
content of their product must be reduced and that further from a
certain point they would be taxed on the mean carbon content of their
product. Further still that screw will be tightened with time.
Government could then keep an eye on energy prices and tighten the
screw in the light of these. Any transition could then be phased in
under control. Far better I would propse than a quango or other
committee deciding upon how much energy we are all justly entitled to
and the creation of volumes of exceptions, qualifications,
interpretations, glossaries and all that.
Now of course we have the question of transport fuels. The present
target of the green fascist is air travel. Much attention is focussed
on the fact that a wide bodied aircraft uses 33 000 gal of fuel /
atlantic crossing. That approximates to 11 gals/mi. and 30 passenger
miles to the gallon. Puts it in perspective doesn't it?
Motor fuels already carry 80% tax. As the seemingly inevitable
increases in price continue, the tax burden is therefore going to
increase with time pushing more and more people in the direction of
fuel economy. The industry is sensitive to this. Only today Ford Motor
Company has announced a £1 billion investment in this country of a
development facility aimed towards producing more efficient engines.
For decades the fuel efficiency of the internal combustion engine has
been undergoing improvement.
It is going to be decades before industrial carbon emissions are going
to be achievable if indeed they ever are.
That is something we are going to have learn to live with if there is
any teaching to be done.
.
- References:
- Labour plans carbon cap on household energy use
- From: Scorpius
- Re: Labour plans carbon cap on household energy use
- From: stewart_bristol
- Re: Labour plans carbon cap on household energy use
- From: Mel Rowing
- Re: Labour plans carbon cap on household energy use
- From: abelard
- Labour plans carbon cap on household energy use
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