Your Carbon Ration
Not very pretty is it?
If we stop using carbon or really stop creating Green House Gas emission we can save lives, wildlife and destruction.
How do we do that? We ration it.
I don’t think I have read anyone beside myself propose this but to me it seems so obvious.
I guess a lot of you are not aware of the rationing what happened during WWII. Basicly everyone was given ration cards for things what were essential war materials and you could not buy these things without a ration card.
We ration carbon. First we might just ration Fuel and Energy related carbon emissions but we would need to expand it to almost every product. Cap and Trade is a kind of carbon rationing but it is at the producer or whole sale level. I hate that idea because it creates a market controlled by Oligarchs and Plutocrats who will make millions trading this at the expense of the rest of us. Plus where it has been implemented the rations (Caps) were too generous so the rations were almost worthless and they did not reduce consumption. I propose we ration carbon at the consumer level and learn the lesson that rations need to be stingy so they are valuable and cause real reductions in consumption. Like Cap and Trade, I propose these consumer carbon rations be something that you can buy and sell.
A side effect of my plan is that it give something of value to the poor they can sell if they want to. Give the poor more carbon rations than they use and make it legal for them to sell them to the rich. You see the rich use more carbon than the poor. A ration that is more than enough for the poor is not nearly enough for the rich. Giving this ration to the poor does not cost the federal government a penny. This is a progressive tax on overconsumption. It is a tax on the gluttonous that goes directly to the virtuous not to the government. We give everyone that same ration, rich, poor, young, old, black, white. Everyone gets the same ration. I said we start with just fuel and energy but eventually every product would have a carbon label kind of like the nutrition label. The label would include how many carbon ration credits are required to purchase the product. At checkout, you present your Carbon Ration Credit EBT card along with your form of payment to make the purchase.
As far as how my rationing would be sufficient. It is rationing. You set the ration as low as needed to achieve the targeted GHG emission reductions. You might start with a generous ration but reduce it each year until maybe the ration becomes so small as to be non-existent, zero emission. If nobody has a carbon ration then nobody can buy a product that cause a carbon emission so nobody will produce a product with a carbon emission.
This is a one stop complete Green New Deal. It creates incentives for produces to make Green Products, it creates Green Jobs, and it helps provide a sort of Universal Basic Income for the everyone. Everyone get this valuable ration just for being alive, your share of the environment.
I said that it provides an incentive for Green Businesses. If you don’t see how let me explain. The less carbon emissions associated with your product the less rations are required to buy it. If your product does not have a carbon footprint then no ration is required to buy it. If your product sequesters carbon then when someone buys it their carbon ration is increased.
I propose that the U.S. start doing this right away, unilaterally but the Carbon Ration scheme could actually be applied internationally with everyone in the world getting the same carbon ration.
TEK
