An alternative look at Cap & Trade: Fee & Dividend
There is a better alternative, one that would be more efficient and less costly than cap and trade: “fee and dividend.” Under this approach, a gradually rising carbon fee would be collected at the mine or port of entry for each fossil fuel (coal, oil and gas). The fee would be uniform, a certain number of dollars per ton of carbon dioxide in the fuel. The public would not directly pay any fee, but the price of goods would rise in proportion to how much carbon-emitting fuel is used in their production.
All of the collected fees would then be distributed to the public. Prudent people would use their dividend wisely, adjusting their lifestyle, choice of vehicle and so on. Those who do better than average in choosing less-polluting goods would receive more in the dividend than they pay in added costs.
For example, when the fee reached $115 per ton of carbon dioxide it would add $1 per gallon to the price of gasoline and 5 to 6 cents per kilowatt-hour to the price of electricity. Given the amount of oil, gas and coal used in the United States in 2007, that carbon fee would yield about $600 billion per year. The resulting dividend for each adult American would be as much as $3,000 per year. As the fee rose, tipping points would be reached at which various carbon-free energies and carbon-saving technologies would become cheaper than fossil fuels plus their fees. As time goes on, fossil fuel use would collapse.
Action Taken Against NHS Hospital for Blood Splattered Equipment
Swiss ban mosque minarets in surprise vote
Growing backlash from conservative (theologically!) Christians regarding the Manhattan Declaration.
(In)famous right-leaning blogger at Little Green Footballs has parted ways with the Right. Has hell just frozen over?
Food Stamp use soars and stigma fades in U.S.
More than 70 MPs have handed in petitions from opponents of plans for the compulsory registration of families who educate their children at home.
Huh. Interesting decision by the Swiss folks to ban the minnarets. Also insteresting is the fact that the article focused on quotes from the poor victimized Muslims. There is only one quote from the majority…the 57.5% majority. I haven’t done much reporting in my life, but I think I would have tried to balance out the contributors a bit better. Only trouble is, it might be tricky to find people who would be willing to speak out against Isalm in a published article.
It’s tough to approve of the vote because I have been brain washed by the cries for “religious freedom” here in the States. But the Swiss people own their country, and democracy says that the majority rules. Sometimes that will cut into freedoms…such as our limited freedom to kill people or steal stuff.
But they’re not voting to kick the Muslims out of their country. They are just asking them to follow a certain building code. I’d like to say that the Muslims should just get over it, but I know that’s not gonna happen.
Tank, you do realise that if it were banning steeples on churches, many Christians would be in an uproar about such ideological hatred, right? Don’t forget that while ‘majority rules’ in democracy, that shouldn’t negate the minority’s rights.
“Majority rules” is an administrative policy intended to overcome the “strongest rules” approach. It doesn’t mean that the majority decision is necessarily a moral one. This “building code” has nothing to do with architectural safety rules and is entirely designed to oppress people with a different philosophical position. It is an immoral law based on an immoral desire to suppress the religious expression of others. As cchrisr mentions, one might as well ban church steeples, stained glass, and giant crosses. This is an extreme abuse of government power, and should remind us of the benefits we have in living in a country where religious expression is protected.
I have to agree with Tank that the article is biased. It’s no secret that the media tends to be more liberal than the public. Failing to accurately report the majority position is a journalistic failure, but it’s not surprising. Most journalists take it as a given that the majority is wrong in this case, so of course they focus on the poor downtrodden minority. After all, that’s the real story in their mind: a minority is being persecuted.
The journalists completely miss an even bigger story: a majority of the Swiss public is worried enough about Islam to support a ban on traditional Islamic architecture. It’s a religion story about radical, violent Islam and its impact on Western society–but reporters don’t see that. All they see is a story about a persecuted minority. So we get articles that completely miss the big picture. It would be bigotry to talk about violence and Islam, after all. We can’t have that! Let’s keep our heads in the sand and pretend this violent strain of Islam doesn’t exist.
Except that minarets have nothing to do with violence! The Swiss government wants to crack down on violent sects, fine. Banning a decoration though? That’s wrong whether the decoration is a Nazi Swastika, a KKK hood, or a Christian cross. The minaret ban is close to cross than swastika because many (most) followers of Islam DON’T embrace violent forms of expression. Banning their traditional decorations when they have done nothing wrong is simply discrimination. In the US, the majority once permitted US citizens of Japanese heritage to be imprisoned due to WW2. Majority fears do NOT make any resulting action moral, even if the fear has a legitimate basis. Should reporters make a greater effort to get statements from those in the majority position stating why they did what they did? Probably. Does that make what the Swiss are doing right? Absolutely not!
Should reporters make a greater effort to get statements from those in the majority position stating why they did what they did? Probably.
Not just probably. That’s the reporter’s job.
Does that make what the Swiss are doing right?
That’s not for the reporter to decide. And it’s beyond the pale for the reporter to decide not to accurately report one side of the story–particularly when that side is the majority view.
I happen to agree that banning minarets is unjust. But the reporting here is just awful.
One could argue that it is more important to get the view of those being impacted by a law than those implementing it. Whose view is more important to hear, that the of Japanese family being interned or that of the government confining them? That of the Jewish person at a death camp, or that of the Nazi regime? One expects that a majority has ample ability to express its view, it is minorities that need an investigator to get their perspective heard.
One expects that a majority has ample ability to express its view
In many cases this is true. In this case it’s not. The press pretty much doesn’t understand religion, and this is a religion story. So the views of the majority aren’t expressed–they are just dismissed as racist and bigoted.