Gearing up to tax everything that uses energy

[PopHistorian]

This sounds like one of those ostensibly innocuous first steps (conditioning) toward hard-hitting control measures. The elite are going to make an absolute killing if they start scoring and then taxing everything that uses energy. It comes on the heals of San Francisco's mayor proposing an outright carbon tax (though they don't call it that).

_http://www.greenbiz.com/news/2008/07/07/cars-california-global-warming-score

OAKLAND, Calif. -- California is making it mandatory for cars to be labeled with global warming scores, figures that take into account emissions from vehicle use and fuel production.

The law requiring the labels goes into effect at the start of next year for all 2009 model cars, though its expected the labels will be popping up on cars in the coming months.

The labeling law forces cars for sale to display a global warming score, on a scale of one to 10, which is based on how vehicles in the same model year compare to one another. The higher the score, the cleaner a car is. The score takes into account emissions related to production of fuel for each vehicle as well as the direct emissions from vehicles.

The score will be displayed next to the already-required smog score, which also rates cars one to 10 for how many smog-forming emissions they emit. For both scores, an average vehicle will have a score of five.

California is the first state of pass such as law, and a similar law will take effect in New York for 2010 model year vehicles. Global warming scores will be included on the state's DriveClean website.

While this law is intended to help consumers take into account emissions while purchasing cars, a proposed law in the European Union would require E.U. public sector bodies put a price on emissions.

A law endorsed by the European Parliament's Committee on Environment, Public Health and Food Safety would make governments put a monetary cost on the emissions of vehicles they plan to purchase, and add that to expense calculations. The law would exclude certain types of vehicles, such as ambulances and fire trucks.

[...]

 

[PopHistorian]

Here's a San Francisco carbon tax piece: _http://www.ktvu.com/news/14789269/detail.html?rss=fran&psp=news
It says Boulder CO was actually the first city to do this. It is veiled in "pollution control" language, though there are tons of "pollution control" laws already on the books (which the article fails to mention).

SAN FRANCISCO -- Mayor Gavin Newsom plans to ask voters next year to approve a "carbon tax" on businesses that he says would provide a financial incentive for conserving energy and motivating workers to use public transportation.

The ballot measure would increase the city's 5 percent commercial utilities tax by an as-yet-undetermined amount to encourage energy-saving steps by hotels, offices and other nonresidential buildings, Newsom said in a recent interview with The Associated Press.

To keep the higher rates from becoming an economic drag on the city, the initiative would carry a corresponding decrease in the 1.5 percent payroll tax on for-profit businesses in San Francisco, according to the mayor.

Last year, Boulder, Colo., became the first U.S. city to adopt a tax to combat global warming, specifically an electricity bill charge on kilowatt-hours used. Officials in Portland, Ore., last month proposed charging developers for every home they build that does not greatly exceed the city's energy efficiency building requirements.

Newsom said that by tying the revenue from the proposed carbon tax to lower payroll taxes, his proposal would make San Francisco the first city taking a business friendly, "revenue-neutral" approach to the idea of pollution pricing.

"That's the exciting debate that is taking shape around this country -- replacing a job hindrance tax with a tax that should be taxing something that is inherently bad, which is greenhouse gas emissions," he said.

[...]

A third piece of the carbon tax proposal would raise garbage collection and dumping fees for both homes and businesses on each bin of waste that is destined for a landfill instead of ready to be recycled, Blumenfeld said.

[...]

But the chamber has generally supported legislation to reduce global warming, he said, including a law signed last year by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger that requires California air regulators to create laws and incentives that would reduce the state's greenhouse gas emissions by 25 percent by 2020.

More:

_http://www.ktvu.com/news/14541860/detail.html

California Sues EPA Over Auto Emission Standards

SACRAMENTO -- California sued the federal government on Thursday to force a decision about whether the state can impose the nation's first greenhouse gas emission standards for cars and light trucks.

More than a dozen other states are poised to follow California's lead if it is granted the waiver from federal law, presenting a challenge to automakers who would have to adapt to a patchwork of regulations.

[...]

 

[GRiM]

So much is happening now that its almost impossible or impossible to follow it all. They are doing all they can to form the public opinion about this too, every time I open a news-paper or a mainstream news-site I see articles about how good it is and how man-made carbon-global-warming will doom us all, its exhausting!

When I registered on sott-forum, around two years ago, I was slightly more detached or had more hope - not sure exacly what but now I feel as if the point of no return is passed and with that my hope. How do you cope with the torrent of 'bad' news every day?

 

[Mrs.Tigersoap]

So much is happening now that its almost impossible or impossible to follow it all. They are doing all they can to form the public opinion about this too, every time I open a news-paper or a mainstream news-site I see articles about how good it is and how man-made carbon-global-warming will doom us all, its exhausting!

When I registered on sott-forum, around two years ago, I was slightly more detached or had more hope - not sure exacly what but now I feel as if the point of no return is passed and with that my hope. How do you cope with the torrent of 'bad' news every day?

I totally understand what you mean and I feel like that also, but since a little while, I will tell you that I actually feel good sometimes that things are going from bad to worse: in a pure STS fashion, the PTB just doesn't know when to stop, and eventually it will be their downfall.

So when I see how they frantically go about their business to make us feel worse and worse, I concentrate on the fact that it only means that they're getting desperate. That the Wave is coming, which will bring about changes, some for good, some for worse, but that things will actually change AT LAST.

Also, as the measures which are taken are more and more 'people-crushing' so to speak, the more the opportunity for the greater public to awaken and see that psychopaths are in power.
These measures are probably nothing compared to what awaits us in the not too distant future, and I have a tendency to think 'so far, so good' every day when I find out that I'm not dead yet and my family neither. We may not be so lucky one day. And I think about all the poor people who cannot say that. That just makes me want to spend my time fruitfully, focussing on doing the work and gathering knowledge, for example.

When I do get depressed about things like that, I first tell myself that it's normal to feel that way, but then I remember that I might actually be feeding the STS force by feeling so low, and usually, that very thought is enough to make me want to snap out of that mood right away.

 

[GRiM]

Thank you very much Mrs.Tigersoap, your right the more they push the more people feel it.

There is another type of mainsteam article that I think is even worse, the kind that glorifies stupidity and trivial things, for example a half-page article about the hotdog-contest winner and his techinqe and stuff like that, I think that get to me in such a way that it does because something resonates inside me, my own behavior to a extent.
Living a kind of middle-class life with all the gadgets and mindless entertainment I know I could do more, I can quite easily see many of my errors but I am so comfortable fat and dumb that I often choose to serve my self instead of others. When discussing the PTB and the world in general I often question my intentions, is it to impart information or to forcefully get my point across? I understand that one should only 'give' when asked but its often difficult for me to judge/assess that in real-time, I sometimes figure out later but even then im not always sure.

The Ra-material says that 51% 'sto' choices means your a candidate but I wonder sometimes if what I do really helps, or If I think it helps and it doesn't and so on. I know I *want* to help but that is not enough, It requires discipline and much will, something im working on but feel that time is running out on learning.

It might be time for me to begin to really switch gears and implement what I have learned and study harder, but that once again ties to my not fully developed will.

Thanks again for the perspective!

 

[go2]

Living a kind of middle-class life with all the gadgets and mindless entertainment I know I could do more, I can quite easily see many of my errors but I am so comfortable fat and dumb that I often choose to serve my self instead of others

When I registered on sott-forum, around two years ago, I was slightly more detached or had more hope - not sure exacly what but now I feel as if the point of no return is passed and with that my hope. How do you cope with the torrent of 'bad' news every day?

I understand what you are saying. My cozy life too, had become a lie, a prison of my own making. The restless urge to find an escape surfaced again and again. I tried the usual avenues of escape in drugs, sex, money, travel. collecting, entertaining, until time was running out and the inner voice would not be silenced.

It might be time for me to begin to really switch gears and implement what I have learned and study harder, but that once again ties to my not fully developed will.

I want to laugh with you, because I too was grim, for many years I couldn't laugh or cry.
In a time of despair, a presence appeared telling me, I could now see the reality of my life without fear or escape. I began to reread Castenada, Gurdgieff, and Jesus. The reality is that I was lazy, greedy, predatory, fearful, and resentful. Where is the hope when we begin to see?
I remember the words of Gurdjieff, "All this suffering I give to being." I began to suffer from seeing that I was just like the world I loved to criticize. This was real suffering to see the lies and violence of the world and give up the lie that I was different.
I empathize with your sorrow and despair at the state of this suffering planet, but for me suffering is a necessary experience to humility and an open mind. What I thought I knew and what I was had to die.
This spring I left my cozy life with friends, family, art, kitchen, gym, coffeeshops and habits and began to travel alone reading this web site at cybercafes and beginning to post occasionally. I began to understand that shocks are necessary to study self. I walked on the Camino de Santiago and in 32 days completely recollected my life, by topic first and then year by year. The lies I uncovered hidden in the memory banks left me crying for days. The discipline of walking and recollecting seemed to cleanse me and increase my energy. The inner barriers certainly narrow the vision and require tremedous energy to maintain. The study of the innerman seems the key to seeing and understanding the lies and violence of this STS planet and how to escape.

So when I see how they frantically go about their business to make us feel worse and worse, I concentrate on the fact that it only means that they're getting desperate. That the Wave is coming, which will bring about changes, some for good, some for worse, but that things will actually change AT LAST.

There is much I don´t understand, but complete bankrupcy brough on by the PTB in all areas of life is possibly the "centimeter of chance" for at least some of humanity to awaken from sleep, if they chose. Mean while,
WE CAN CHANGE, IF WE CHOSE.

 

[Johnno]

Australia is looking at emissions trading scheme. I suppose there's going to be money in it so the reasoning is why not get in first. That what it seems to be to me anyway.

Expect "emission tax" on petrol/gasoline and congestion charges similar to those in London.

"Carbon credits", "emission trading" and other terms which seemed like newspeak five years ago seem to be commonplace now.

 

[PopHistorian]

Johnno, speaking of Australia, I'm about to post about the ABC's web site that urges children to die when they fill up their carbon footprint!