Climate Crisis: Are we doing enough?

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albion

albion

Guru
Standing charges in fact is a difficult problem itself, those with solar panels being a main beneficiary of low standing charges.
 
mudsticks

mudsticks

Squire
I keep meaning to dig it out but someone did a study that showed that putting a mahoosive tax on fossil fuels, then redistributing the tax take back equally among everyone (no means testing - just among everyone) would really quickly reduce FF usage and fund / encourage uptake of renewables and all other low carbon options.

I'll try to find it.
 
mudsticks

mudsticks

Squire
mudsticks said:
I keep meaning to dig it out but someone did a study that showed that putting a mahoosive tax on fossil fuels, then redistributing the tax take back equally among everyone (no means testing - just among everyone) would really quickly reduce FF usage and fund / encourage uptake of renewables and all other low carbon options.

I'll try to find it.
Click to expand...

This isn't the study I was looking for but it's along similar lines.

https://taxjustice.net/2023/10/26/c...gressive-alternative-for-taxing-fossil-fuels/
 
presta

presta

Member
mudsticks said:
I keep meaning to dig it out but someone did a study that showed that putting a mahoosive tax on fossil fuels, then redistributing the tax take back equally among everyone (no means testing - just among everyone) would really quickly reduce FF usage and fund / encourage uptake of renewables and all other low carbon options.

I'll try to find it.
Click to expand...

Here?

I like that idea, it's certainly simple. The Wikipedia figures amount to a tax bill of about £30 a year though so I'm not sure that's high enough for anyone to notice.
 
mudsticks

mudsticks

Squire
presta said:
Here?

I like that idea, it's certainly simple. The Wikipedia figures amount to a tax bill of about £30 a year though so I'm not sure that's high enough for anyone to notice.
Click to expand...

Well maybe the FF* tax needs to be higher so people do notice.??
*Or it needs taxing at source ,- ie direct onto oil corps as an extraction tax.

I don't know, not a tax expert.
I can barely ever get my VAT return in on time 🤔
 
monkers

monkers

Legendary Member
BoldonLad said:
Definitely not my area of expertise, to me, Electricity is magic, but, what little I do understand suggests that Storage is the big challenge.
Click to expand...

Maybe one of the biggest challenges in technology.

However I will say that changing mindsets is the greater challenge. Convincing people that we must cut our demand; people who are unprepared to sacrifice anything of their present lifestyle.

And when I say people, I'm talking more about the better off to the insanely rich.
The current PM has a private pool, the last PM is building a private pool. There is a virtual arms race between the better off on who can commit the most planetary damage with impunity - private jets, helicopters, powerboats, enormous vehicles with enormous engines, and houses with more rooms than they can use.

When it comes to the less well off, where holidays abroad are not a consideration, where the struggle is to put food on the table, they need things like insulation, but that never seems like a sexy thing to spend money on especially when you don't have it, and the bank will decline your loan application.

The aspiration model is coming to a close and the politicians must know it. The agenda of the government and the Labour shadow cabinet is growth, growth, growth. It's too late for that unless that growth is pursued through a green agenda. Instead the global demand for weapons provides too much stimulus for growth.

This ought to be the right place to ask for more demand active travel, but I will bet anything that there will be pushback especially those who enjoy the convenience of their car that bit too much.
 
BoldonLad

BoldonLad

Old man on a bike. Not a member of a clique.
Location
South Tyneside
monkers said:
Maybe one of the biggest challenges in technology.

However I will say that changing mindsets is the greater challenge. Convincing people that we must cut our demand; people who are unprepared to sacrifice anything of their present lifestyle.

And when I say people, I'm talking more about the better off to the insanely rich.
The current PM has a private pool, the last PM is building a private pool. There is a virtual arms race between the better off on who can commit the most planetary damage with impunity - private jets, helicopters, powerboats, enormous vehicles with enormous engines, and houses with more rooms than they can use.

When it comes to the less well off, where holidays abroad are not a consideration, where the struggle is to put food on the table, they need things like insulation, but that never seems like a sexy thing to spend money on especially when you don't have it, and the bank will decline your loan application.

The aspiration model is coming to a close and the politicians must know it. The agenda of the government and the Labour shadow cabinet is growth, growth, growth. It's too late for that unless that growth is pursued through a green agenda. Instead the global demand for weapons provides too much stimulus for growth.

This ought to be the right place to ask for more demand active travel, but I will bet anything that there will be pushback especially those who enjoy the convenience of their car that bit too much.
Click to expand...

Agreed, changing mindsets is probably the biggest “non-tech” problem. There are many examples of course, excess car use is but one.
 
mudsticks

mudsticks

Squire
albion said:
363 mega watt hours record.
https://www.offshorewind.biz/2023/0...ind-turbine-breaks-24-hour-production-record/
384.1 mega watt hours record.
https://www.offshorewind.biz/2023/1...ore-wind-turbine-in-record-breaking-24-hours/

'With a swept area of around 50,000 square metres, one such wind turbine is capable of generating 34.2 kWh of electricity per single revolution.'

Incredible stuff.
Click to expand...

Just think how much of this 'amazing' tech including energy saving measures, could have been available to all of us far far earlier if renewables hadn't been routinely derided as 'unrealistic' or 'unworkable' by the profiteering fossil fuel lobbyists and their apologists.

But no their short term ecocidal greed had to come first, and look where that's brought us.
 
presta

presta

Member
mudsticks said:
Well maybe the FF* tax needs to be higher so people do notice.??
*Or it needs taxing at source ,- ie direct onto oil corps as an extraction tax.

I don't know, not a tax expert.
I can barely ever get my VAT return in on time 🤔
Click to expand...
Yes, I think it definitely needs to be higher, although I see that the proposal is to start low then increase it by stealth, which is probably the only way you'd get to do it without riots. As Wiki has it, the intention is also to put it on at source, which has the advantage of reducing any reaction against it if people notice the rebate more than the tax, but the disadvantage that if they see the rebate as an income unrelated to FF they might spend it on consumer goods rather than insulation.
 
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