The NY Times notes the problem with carbon taxes, but just cannot give up on them
‘Yellow Vest’ Protests Shake France. Here’s the Lesson for Climate Change.
Vincent Picard describes himself as a “militant ecologist.†But when protesters took to the streets to express their rage over a planned increase in France’s fuel tax, Mr. Picard joined their ranks.
He acknowledges that the tax might encourage the conservation considered critical for a healthy planet. But with the nearest train station 35 minutes away, he has to drive to work every day.
“I am conscious that we have reached the end of fossil fuels and that we have to modify our habits,†said Mr. Picard, a 32-year-old pastry maker from northern France. But, he added, “You have to continue to live.â€
The gas tax is part of an effort started by France in 2014 to regularly raise the tax on fossil fuels to fight global climate change.
The so-called Yellow Vest (not sure why this is “so-called”, as they are using the French phrase for this themselves, and wearing yellow vests) protests against the tax increase have become the biggest obstacle yet to such attempts to encourage conservation and alternative energy use. The protests point to the difficulties facing nearly all industrialized countries committed to pulling the world back from the cliff’s edge of catastrophic climate change.
Darned citizens! How dare these middle and lower class citizens, many who became lower class because of the carbon taxes and other Statist policies, fight back against Big Government!
There is little doubt among scientists and economists — many of whom are in Poland for the current round of climate negotiations — that putting a price on carbon is essential in the effort to reduce fossil fuel dependence. The question is how to design a carbon tax, and how to cushion the blow for the most vulnerable.
See? That’s an acknowledgment that carbon taxes hurt people. Not the rich who push them, mind you.
But successfully passing carbon taxes is an increasingly delicate balancing act, with the biggest single obstacle still the pushback from the fossil fuel industry and its supporters.
Well, of course the fossil fuels industry would push back. And, pretty much everyone who uses fossil fuels in one fashion or another is a supporter. All those 10K+ who are attending the UN global warming conference in Poland? Most are fossil fuels fans, having traveled there in some type of fossil fueled conveyance. And, we see that the people who get nailed with the taxes are now obstacles, as we see from above, where the Yellow Vest protesters are being blamed.
Canada, for example, recently offered rebates to offset a planned carbon tax, helping people adjust to the change. But conservatives have pledged to undo Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s plan, saying it could cause economic damage, and only six of 10 provinces are going along with it.
Because people realized these taxes would hit them right in the wallet and they wouldn’t see that money back.
If nothing else, the maelstrom in France showed that the political challenge of how to create incentives for people to move away from fossil fuels requires much more than raising a tax on gas at the pump or subsidizing solar panels.
You understand what this is, right? A belief that our political “masters” should tell us how to live our lives.
Of the 34 billion euros, or $39 billion, that the French government is expected to raise this year from the fuel tax, less than a fourth is earmarked for measures that could help people of modest means transition to less-polluting transportation, said Daniel M. Kammen, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley who specializes in energy policy.
Surprise?
Much more of the fuel tax proceeds, Mr. Kammen said, could be used to lower the prices of electric vehicles, including taxis, to help make them more affordable for commuters in areas without public transportation. Or they could be used to develop more charging stations or subsidize big batteries to enable taxis to do long trips.
Among the forms of help that economists point to are offering subsidies to encourage people to use less-polluting forms of energy, and expanding transit networks rather than closing them.
Got that? While the big shots who pass these policies will continue to move around in their own personal fossil fueled vehicles, or super expensive electric vehicles, the mids and lowers will get to ride in taxis if there are no buses and such! No personal vehicle for you!
What France’s experience has made clear, analysts say, is that fuel taxes work best as part of a more comprehensive plan that tries to offset the disproportionate pain felt by lower-income workers who can least afford the changes.
In other words, the taxes hurt the mids and lowers. But the elites won’t give up on them, just look for other ways to nail people.
Why do you even worry about this, since you claim global warming is a hoax.
Anyway, as the article explained, what the ham-fisted Macron failed to do was design an overall plan to shield the working classes from the efforts to slow global warming.
Of course, this would be less of a current crisis if we’d approached this sensibly a few decades ago.
Of course, it’s a hoax, but that doesn’t stop the environuts from using it as an excuse to ruin everybody’s lives.
Lets look at a recent article by the Washington Post:
Why would Macron and or the Democrats even give a shit about the working class anymore???
Beginning in the 1960s, the Democrats put greater emphasis on mitigating the very real injuries of race and gender than they did on the very real injuries of class, which would have upset corporate America far more. This helped fuel a racial and nativist backlash that has driven much of the white working class (particularly in the South) into Republican ranks.
ahh. Funny how the left is now turning to mass immigration because their policies have turned their once bread and butter constituents against them. Ahh you mean like in EUROPE…yeah that would be exactly what this article by the leftist Washington Post and I are saying.
The rising rate of death(among middle age and middle class white men due to suicide) is just one of two stories about a major share of the white working class that are making news these days. The other is the unexpected success of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. Trump draws his support chiefly from working-class Republicans, who are attracted to his opposition to trade deals, his support for Social Security and Medicare, and his vilification of immigrants — a program similar to that of other nations’ right-wing racist-populist parties with working-class support, such as France’s National Front.
So let me sum up your total conflicted life in a few sentences. You should actually be joining the GOP if you actually care about the working and middle class. But of course we know you are an SJW with an axe to grind and celebrate the death and suicide rates of WHITE PEOPLE whose lives have been destroyed by both sides of the aisle since the end of WW2.
In reality the reason Trump is so popular among the three states that will hand him the presidency again in 2020. PA, MI and WI is that he cares about their loses and is working overtime to put these people back to work. The rest of the red states will always vote red just like the rest of the blue states will always vote blue. The democrats only hopes is to flood the country with illegals, migrate them to certain states like Georgia and Florida and NC and Ohio and turn those states blue.
And you and the left wonder why most of the country is anti-illegal immigration.
In fact the Democrats and even Barak Obama were opposed to it until 2010 when they suddenly realized they were being destroyed in national races and they no longer could depend on the unions…see Wisconsin voting for Walker THREE times.
No question about it,
George WallaceDonald Trump found the combination to get him within 3 million votes of the most vilified Dem candidate since… well, ever.Now, as the white working class understands that Mr.
WallacetRump used them, the pendulum has shifted. tRump won’t last his first term. He’ll likely resign from GOP pressure as the loss of the House and Senate loom in 2020. tRump’s remaining defenders are white nationalists and a few elites who are benefitting from his antics.John Kelly, the last adult in the White House, is reportedly leaving soon. Will he write a book on this sad chapter of American history?
For all the damage tRump has done to America and comity, his greatest harm is to the GOP, a once proud political party.
Are there enough white nationalists to command America? Are there enough anti-immigrant, anti-Black, pro-gun, anti-abortion, anti-Muslim, anti-gay white folks? We’ll see. Maybe the Russians can help again.
The working classes have been decimated since about 1980 by the actions of both sides. We have become a plutocracy by policy. If the right wanted to actually help the working classes they would stop attacking labor unions, stop slashing taxes of the wealthy, stop pushing state and local taxes onto the working classes, stop supporting monopolies in pharma and tech (costing workers billions), stop blocking healthcare reform, stop the direct competition of US workers with low-paid foreign workers, stop the abuses of working classes by the financial system etc etc, and so forth. Bernie Sanders has it right. Neither the tRumpublicans, nor the Ryan-McConnell wing have a clue.
In Missouri, the citizens voted 70-30 to block Right to Work, but the MO GOPhers are still looking to enact it. That is what gerrymandering and GOP vote rigging do for a state.
https://www.missourinet.com/2018/12/05/despite-voters-opposing-right-to-work-ballot-measure-bill-returns-to-missouri-legislature-in-2019/
^^^snigger^^^
You said before, Trump wouldn’t last till midterms. I guess facts push the dates out.
tRump’s remaining defenders are white nationalists and a few elites who are benefitting from his antics.
Not to mention all the working stiffs, blacks, and Hispanics who benefit from his Administration.
And he’ll get back the House in ’20.
That is what gerrymandering and GOP vote rigging do for a state.
Sure, McCaskill was praying the St Lou vote would come through for her Even said so.
I love Jeffery’s version of “Shut up and deal” when the vote fraud machine failed to come through.
What can be said but LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL. The stupidest and most awesomely Trolling post to ever hit the airwaves of the internet.
NAACP Poll: Black Americans’ Support for Donald Trump Surges
Poll: Hispanic Support for President Trump Jumps to 45 Percent
Those midtermers who lost. Tried to go it alone. They tried to keep their distance from a man who is not racist, but the establishment hates trump because of his swamp cleaning. Jethro loves the swamp. His buddies hang out there.
During the midterms trump was almost 100 percent. Meaning almost 100 percent of the people who backed trump and he campaigned for WON. Those that lost….yeah they didnt support trump and they didnt ask for his help.
I know poor Jethro loves the swamp. He is a swamp creature. His mouth full of turds, his favorite drink is turd juice. How dare the swamp be drained and middle class and the working class get jobs. HOW dare that man give blacks and Hispanics the lowest unemployment rate since the numbers have been kept.
I get it. Jethro likes turd soup. Perhaps he can ask his fav congress critter to mail him some before the swamp gets too low to scoop it out.