I figure it is kind of obvious but I say it anyway: a person that
pollutes nature should be taxed the amount it costs to take that
pollution out again of nature. the immediate costs and all projected
long-term costs, to be determined by some national science consensus.
It is an easy way to do it: what comes out of the pipe has to be payed
for. The science panel for instance computes some small extend that
each person is allowed to pollute because nature could absorb that
amount per person. Its relatively to measure that, some pollution
can be taxed at the supply side, for instance fuels.
Trading pollution rights what they are now setting up is a
bad idea. An entity making great profits from polluting can
buy a lot of pollution rights leaving other companies starved of
op****tunity, it seems vulnerable to corruption, even worse when done
internationally. Economically pollution is a use of a resource, the
ability of nature to absorb it. Polluting is not an act of effort
(more like lack of effort), therefore it falls outside the logic of
trade by nature.
This way crops sprayed with pesticides cost more, a simple soil sample
can indicate how much a farmer will be taxed, better then delving
in heaps of faked or not paper about bought or not bought pollution
rights. Compare sticking a measuring device in the air near a factory,
nobody in the factory would even know they're being checked. The tax
can be increased until pollution is sufficiently stifled.
In theory the world public can start to show consumption preferences
when the behavior of a certain Nation is unacceptable, and National
Governments could close borders for certain nationalities and trade
as a pressuring device, would lead to potential economic losses greater
then the pollution is worth. OTOH giving assistance with less polluting
industries.
It may be a good idea to tax DNA manipulation out of existence or
simply prohibit it, because humanity is known for how recklessly it
is with what it doesn't understand yet, and its true that introducing
new DNA may prove impossible to remove once it has gone bad (see the
Africanized honey bee disaster). The biosphere is a system that is
inter-connected, usually in ways we don't know yet, that is not
something we can start poking holes in without understanding it. (Some
disturbing behavioral trend wrt recent loss of honey bees noted: rather
then cutting pollutants dramatically removing a likely source of the
problem (who likes to go to work in a toxic cesspool every day?), the
mad scientists [ng do***entary] were speculating about manipulating the
africanized bee which is more resilient to pesticides. How about
reducing the poisons ? Nature may be able to cope with a lot but
that is especially true long term. We might not survive or want to
go through the adjustment processes, especially when all that's
needed is to pay a little more for non-toxic crops.)
--
_ _ /_\ _ _ http://www.jhwh.be
sign petition for Democratic
\ /v`vvv\ / Authorities Ventures Investments Demarcations
/_\_#_#_/_\ constitution today: http://www.jhwh.be/petition
\ / #136 http://www.xs4all.nl/~joshb/no-id-theft.html
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