Doesn’t the market already handle it? The more energy you use, the more your monthly energy bill. Big and efficient houses that use less energy than small inefficient houses have bills that are based on the actual useage and efficiency. But don’t the folks with inefficient homes have an obligation, via good stewardship, to add additional insulation, or switch to more efficient lighting, etc???
I have a fair amount of experience in this issue. The economist call this and “externality”. It goes like this if you produce a lot of pollution as burning trash, driving an SUV, dumping solvent into your property, etc, who pays? As you can not contain your pollution with most leaving through air (wind) and ground water your pollution cost are born by all of society. Additionally when you die what happens to the pollution then? Additionally, if you install vegetative roofs, permable drive and walk ways, and pay recycle cost who benefits? Since the water table (permable drive & walkways), air quality, and reduced landfill are benefits to all of society, is it right to require it of only a few? In summary the issues of pollution and energy conservation are legitimate government issues. The key to success is working within the free market system rather than crushing individual incentives.
People have many obligations – and some people fail to live up to them. But laws and tax fiddling to make people into angels is simply bad policy.
To this I am in total agreement. I had a 1300 sq ft home that was built in 1945. Even with storm windows it was difficult to heat. We did some remodeling and found the insulation in the walls was simply pieces of newspaper, it was still readable. We moved about 12 years ago to a new house nearly 3 times the size, our energy costs went down! I am constantly looking for ways to further cut energy costs.
Why do SUVs get such a bad rap? Other than a mini-van, there are few vehicles on the road that will cart around all the kids and their supplies in any reasonable level of comfort. I car-pool children daily to the Catholic school 2 towns north of where we live. I’m not sure they would fit into anything smaller than my mid-sized SUV. Between back packs, gym bags, lunch bags, etc. my car is FULL. No econo-box would hold that much. I suppose we don’t have to car-pool, and we could each take our kids individually to the school . . . but that would certainly consume more gas, emit more pollutants, etc.
Our old ranch house was like that. There was no insulation under the floor, and your feet would get ice cold.
As any other option if used properly the SUV is efficient, however, the fact is every day we see many, many people driving solo in SUV’s because they thing it is cool. And Frankly, it appears to be the vehicle of choice for bad drivers. A Toyota Camry gets 35mpg, while Ross’s F150 gets 11mpg. As mentioned earlier his pollution is in my lungs. Will the government have to step in? If so I hope they add $1,000 gas tax credit and (10,000 Camry miles or 3,300 F150 miles) add ~$2 per gallon gas tax. Usually I think of conspicuous consumption as silly however in the case of the SUV it is destructive.
My wife is a nurse. She leaves the house at about 5:30 every morning. She drives a quarter of a mile on an unpaved access road, 0.8 miles on an unpaved common road, and 3.6 miles on an unpaved county road. She has to cross a “low water bridge” – a slab of concrete in a creek bed. A couple of years ago, two boys were trying to cross that bridge after a rainstorm and their compact car was swept a hundred yards downstream.
A lot of city folks belonging to ‘informal economies’
drive hummers and stretch limos. I say let the air out of their tires (and sometimes our SWAT teams oblige).
As any other option if used properly the SUV is efficient, however, the fact is every day we see many, many people driving solo in SUV’s because they thing it is cool.
High ground clearance, better traction and sheer mass make a difference.
She’s Assistant Director of Nurses at a nursing home. This is a rural area, and a lot of less-motivated people “call in” when there’s bad weaher. She has to be there.
This is the underlying question – why do so many of us presume we have the right to judge others, and when we find them wanting, use the power of government to make them conform?
That seems only fair, after all, you pollute my air.
No, I totally disagree with your point because it is senseless.
That is funny I hope it was intended to be. You judged a link between Prius owners, fuel recyclers, lawn mowers, weed wackers, and barbeque cookers? Now you indicate $0.38 per gallon cleans the air and builds roads to? Wow, if that is true could we not increase to $1.00 a gallon and stop world hunger? I did not judge you nor your car I simply reminded you the issue is your pollution. My guess is you may feel guilty about producing more pollution than needed? FYI I smoke cigars, if I believed my cigars actually increase danger to others I would quit smoking them. I do not believe they cause a danger to others so I do not get upset about it. The SUV was not an issue when a few drove SUVs because the accumulative affect was small. Recently mass amounts of SUV are being driven so the affect is greatly increased. I am all for free markets, free markets have yet to deal with pollution control, maybe one day another solution will be found.
Actually I feel no guilt at all about my cars. I’ve been driving an SUV since before they were called SUVs and my first gift to my wife, instead of an engagement rind, was a downpayment on a Jeep Cherokee about 23 or 24 years ago. We’ve had at least 1 SUV for our entire marriage and its only been the last dozen years or so that they have been called SUVs or become politically incorrect.
We have issues with that now! Our house was built in the late 1960s. The windows leak, the kitchen floor gets COLD in the mornings in the winter. We do our best to make it as energy-efficient as we can; we do the plastic sheeting over the windows (makes a huge difference). We’re saving up the money to do the necessary work on the house to fix this, but until then, we do what we can.
This is what bothers me about the environmental movement. Instead of encouraging people to take responsibility for their lives, their role in the environment, too many people want Big Brother to come in and monitor us and dictate to us the minutia of daily living.
We can afford two vehicles. One is a small chevrolet that holds four and gts good gass mileage. The other is a GM Van that holds 8. Our family has seven in it. When both are need to be driven on some days the van might only have me in it as the car takes my husband to work. I had a woman curse at me one day because I was driving a van and was the only one in it.
IMHO she was a fool for her actions.
This area of thought certainly calls for prudential judgment. We are called to be good stewards of the earth. But, we must carefully examine any and all associations with secular environmental groups, as they tend to ally with athiestic and pro-abortion groups.There have been a couple threads where the enviornment has come up as a moral issue.
I wonder how far we are supposed to go to be good stewards to the environment, and who has the correct perspective on what is the “correct” way to be a good steward?