Energy Scale -- Where Do You Fit?

[Switch625]

Originally posted by Sixchan
Ooo, $5.50 per gallon. LOADS.

I already pay very close to that, and british people are just howling for lower taxes. Trust me, finding out you have some of the highest prices in europe, but you have it cheapest minus the feul tax doesn't make you want an alternative feul car, it just makes you VERY mad at the government. We need another feul blockade like a year or two ago to show them.

Maybe it'd work in America, but over here, heavily taxing feul means taking it up to $10 per gallon. And I bet we'd still not complain as much as you guys over the pond.

It would NOT work in the United States. If the government here were stupid enough to pass those kind of taxes, which I seriously doubt would happen, the public would go totally ape. Any legislator who voted for such a thing would be looking for a job after the following election, and I'm sure they know it.

Like it or not, most Americans believe that cheap energy is their birthright.

 

[amadeus]

I don't care what anyone says about the environment, but 99% of people in the United States would convert to coal-powered cars if they were cheaper than gas.

 

[ainwood]

.... and these same people would complain like hell every time that tropical storms destroy the south-east seaboard.

It is on issues like these where a multi-lateral approach is needed. Parties need to stop slagging each others' policies off, and work together to impliment a joint, long-term philosophy. The last thing the world needs is stupid, short-sighted policy driven by the fear of not being re-elected.

 

[knowltok2]

Originally posted by ainwood
.... and these same people would complain like hell every time that tropical storms destroy the south-east seaboard.

It is on issues like these where a multi-lateral approach is needed. Parties need to stop slagging each others' policies off, and work together to impliment a joint, long-term philosophy. The last thing the world needs is stupid, short-sighted policy driven by the fear of not being re-elected.

While I can agree on your point about needing politicians that don't fear not being elected, I question what tropical storms have to do with anything? I won't argue global warming and climate change, but those storms have been busy wreaking havok since the Spanish tried to get gold and silver past Cuba and the Keys. Hell, the probably weren't so well regarded by Aligator Toe the Seminole 2,000 years ago.

That aside, RM and Six bring valid points. There is only so much in taxes that a people will bear, and the people as a whole will generally take cheaper over cleaner. Given these two points, what is left for a well-meaning government? Subsidies for cleaner fuel come to mind, but when you mention the dirty S-word, people start screaming free trade. Mayhaps this needs to be an exception?