Reuters mentions a speech by Al Gore where he proposed to levy taxes on pollution caused by companies rather than on the wages they pay their employees. The full text of his speech at NYU is also available.
Meanwhile, the state of California sues the world’s six largest auto makers for damages caused by global warming.
While stuff like this may seem far-fetched, it actually makes sense in a way. It goes against the notion that you can just dump your exhaust into the atmosphere and watch it waft away to go bother someone else. We pay, sometimes a lot, to have our waste water treated, and our solid waste hauled away and neatly put all in the same place where it can someday be a golf course. Meanwhile, we are all blowing smoke into the air without any cost or personal consequences. On what planet is that OK?
Then charge the people using the cars and not the manufacturer. Why do we always look for a company to blame and not the people responsible. If you must, and I don’t agree with all the “evidence”, then tax people at the pump. On what planet is that NOT ok? Be responsible for what YOU do. Taxing at the pump hits the person who is causing the emissions and taxes them according to how much they put out.
If we hit the automaker then we’ll also blame the plant because it has to raise prices of cars or lay off workers to adjust to the economic consequences of other people’s actions.
Seems backwards to me to go after the car companies. Same with cigarettes..if you don’t like them then legislate them out of existence and not keep going back to the legal well for more money that doesn’t go to the people who were supposedly injured.
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