More on Carbon Tax and my Political Point of View.
I thought maybe I should try and clarify my thoughts on the carbon tax. First, since I have left college and have been bombarded with varying views on politics it has become increasingly clear to me how important it is that I form my own point of view on things and try to do so based on raw facts that have not been slanted in one direction or another. A lot of my political conversations with my husband involve him asking me about a particular topic such as, “How do you feel about companies being taxed for their carbon output?” Or simply telling me that you can buy credits for your own carbon footprint. He asks me in such a way that I am able to consider the question, weigh it with my own logic and form an opinion. Because of these things, I avoid any political media, including political talk shows because they are nearly all slanted these days and how am I supposed to form my own unbiased opinion if I am being slanted in one direction or another.
That said, I have never believed in global warming, not even after seeing Al Gore’s movie An Inconvenient Truth. What I do believe and what is the raw fact is that since the beginning of planet earth there have been periods of worldwide cooling trends and periods of worldwide warming trends. I do not believe the current trend to be headed in the direction of any kind of global disaster. In the 70’s there was talk of another ice age, now there is talk of major flooding. In another 30 years I believe people will be talking about another ice age. Nevertheless I feel that protecting the resources that we have, cleaning up the air and the earth and being more conscious of it all is important. One day we will own an alternative fuel vehicle, we try to recycle, we try to turn the lights off when we leave a room, but we don’t do these things to “be green” and save ourselves from impending doom, we do them to be responsible citizens of planet earth.
Lastly, now that I have clarified where I am coming from I will talk about the carbon tax. I understand that companies, humans, cars, etc. are emitting carbon dioxide and perhaps even chloroflourocarbons. I understand that an overabundance of these can damage the ozone layer, soil, water, etc. But what I was trying to say in my previous post is that no one except God has the right to say what is too much carbon dioxide. No one has the right to go to a company who may be emitting an over abundance of this pollution and say, “Ok, now you owe me X amount of money because you are over polluting by X%. I feel like the carbon tax is like the government playing the bad cop and using negative means to incentivize companies to clean up their act. If it were me I would approach a company and say, “We have noticed an over abundance of carbon pollution coming from your company. We would like to encourage you to clean up your carbon emissions by offering these workshops about cleaning up carbon emissions and giving you this tax break if you have cleaned up your emissions by X% in 6 months. By going this route we are creating unity rather than hostility or resentment and I know that I personally respond better to help and positive reinforcement as opposed to threats and punishments.