The C-Change Allowance

This is meant as just the beginning of a discussion, not the end.

Very interested in comments, so please leave one. It's only very roughly sketched out here, as this was for a short-video competition, and it was made with no time. (And we learned how impossible it is to get even a few minutes quiet in town - parts of it we were literally running to complete).

The idea is to make carbon-cutting rewarding and popular, while also providing something practical and realistic.

There's a lot more to it - for example, we consume about an equal amount through our grocery purchases, so the allowance might have to take that into account. It also might have to be reduced. And if it would likely have to be applied differently to industry, with things like carbon audits and rebates.

Still, compared to things like carbon trading, which seems to reward traders and polluters (while penalizing just about everyone else) and carbon offsets (which, despite afew exceptions, are ludicrous), this represents a good, realistic path forward, probably more realistic than just about any other. Even were it just limited to a fuel-pump tax, it would have benefits both symbolic and real. But, of course, it's meant to go well beyond that.

(And, yes, we do know there's much more to the differences between Norway and Venezuela. Still...)

Category:

Nonprofits & Activism

Tags:

• Climate Change
• poverty
• basic income