I think the simplest act is to put folks in office who will provide progressive incentives for energy efficiency in everything from packaging to transport to heating to, well, you name it. There is no one thing, there are dozens, and includes many things we haven’t thought of yet. The first step is simply to try.

Here’s an example of what I’m getting at: the gov offers me a tax discount for business use of my vehicles. Now if they conditioned that so that I’d only get that discount if my vehicles got, make up a number such as 35 MPG, I would make the move to keep my deductions in place.

Here’s another one: again, the gov permits me to discount the amount of interest expense I pay for my residence. If they were to only provide this discount were the home up to the latest energy efficiency codes, and naturally also provide a tax discount for making the upgrades. Lets say that the entire cost of the renovations can be deducted over a 1 year or 5 year period, you’d have a HUGE number of folks who would do this. Several industries would be born or expand over night. Now the only way to achieve this and get a deduction is to buy a new and up to code house, or you can get interest expense from a home equity line of credit. Desire for the home equity line is cooling quickly due to the increase of the variable rates under which they are sold. Increasing rates serves as a disincentive for folks to spend, even though they do get a tax discount for the interest expense.

Folks who make a middle to good living are those who get taxed at the highest rate. The incentives given these folks are what drives the market places.

So the goal would be to simply provide incentives to be more energy efficient.

Another simple example that effects almost every one of use is the monitor(s) we use for our computers. IIRC, a LCD runs on about 20% of the energy of a CRT, plus is a lot less expensive to make. So if 100 million or so of use got rid of our CRTs we’d save probably billions of $$ in energy use alone. And lets not even talk about the risks of a CRT and the ultimate medical expenses related to it. Again, simple incentives provided by the gov would make all the difference.

But the current administration isn’t interested in providing choice or incentive. The are interested in SFB arrogance. Period.

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...Tracy

'00 ML320 "Casper"
'92 400E "Stella"