[quote=New York Times entire article]To meet the Obama administration’s targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions, some researchers say, Americans may have to experience a sobering reality: gas at $7 a gallon.
To reduce carbon dioxide emissions in the transportation sector 14 percent from 2005 levels by 2020, the cost of driving would simply have to increase, according to a forthcoming report by researchers at Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.
The 14 percent target was set in the Environmental Protection Agency’s budget for fiscal 2010.
In their study, the researchers devised several combinations of steps that United States policymakers might take in trying to address the heat-trapping emissions by the nation’s transportation sector, which consumes 70 percent of the oil used in the United States.
Most of their models assumed an economy-wide carbon dioxide tax starting at $30 a ton in 2010 and escalating to $60 a ton in 2030. In some cases researchers also factored in tax credits for electric and hybrid vehicles, taxes on fuel or both.
In the modeling, it turned out that issuing tax credits could backfire, while taxes on fuel proved beneficial.
“Tax credits don’t address how much people use their cars,” said Ross Morrow, one of the report’s authors. “In reverse, they can make people drive more.”
Dr. Morrow, formerly a fellow at the Belfer Center, is a professor of mechanical engineering and economics at Iowa State University
Researchers said that vehicle miles traveled will increase by more than 30 percent between 2010 and 2030 unless policymakers increase fuel taxes.
[From Andy R.: March 4, 7:58 a.m. | Update ] Rush Limbaugh weighed in on this post yesterday, as some may have surmised given the spike in comments, and the tenor of many. Some important points were raised by his audience, including a listener calling from his car in Nebraska to say how a gas tax would unfairly burden workers in sprawling states with no public transportation options. I’ll be posting more from the research team on some of this.[/quote]
[url]http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/03/02/fuel-taxes-must-rise-harvard-researchers-say/?pagemode=[/url]
Requesting thread merge with "Senators propose gas tax" topic.
Harvard Researches can suck my dick.
:colbert:
They were payed off by the gas companies.
I pay $8 now.
Obama better abandon the idea.
What
The
Fuck
Let's just make electric and hydrogen cars instead?
[QUOTE=Nyaos;20554866]Let's just make electric and hydrogen cars instead?[/QUOTE]
How else will the oil companies make money?
[QUOTE=radioactive;20555020]How else will the oil companies make money?[/QUOTE]
By becoming an electric company and jacking up the prices due to low resources :downs:
[QUOTE=radioactive;20555020]How else will the oil companies make money?[/QUOTE]
By selling Hydrogen.
Why don't oil empires just fucking stop this bullshit for their own personal wealth.
[i]Why?[/i]
[editline]06:34PM[/editline]
-snip-
The only thing that's going to make people stop driving gas hogs is...for driving gas hogs to become prohibitively expensive. That's how it has to be. Now, that can happen from a tax that produces tangible reductions in emissions, or that can happen when the oil runs dry and can't meet demand anymore. Which is worse?
Now, this article is nothing to panic about, because it's a study done by researchers at Harvard to figure out what kind of gas prices would be required to put a measurable dent in gasoline usage. Such a thing would never happen in the real world because it's almost universally unpopular and would spell political death to anyone that supported it. Don't get your panties in a bunch.
What we should be doing is dumping about a hundred billion dollars into university research for mass production of hydrogen fuel cells, and encouraging companies to build a nationwide hydrogen infrastructure. Ideally, as gas prices rise with time, hydrogen cars become cheaper and fuel becomes more available, with the cost of driving a gas car and a hydrogen car becoming equal some time before the crisis point where nobody can afford to drive to work anymore. The market is never going to do this by itself, because gasoline is such a profitable business that nobody would spend the money to make a change until nobody can afford to drive.
Public transit won't work in this country, because for the last 100 years we've built our cities so spread out that most people have a long enough commute to work that public transport would be impossible. Hydrogen cars are the future and gas will cease to be the primary transport fuel within our lifetimes. Either that, or we'll sit on our hands until the wells run dry and you can't go outside without UV protection and a breath mask.
[Quote]and you can't go outside without UV protection and a breath mask.[/Quote]
So we all become super nerds?
[QUOTE=breakyourfac;20555040]By becoming an electric company and jacking up the prices due to low resources :downs:[/QUOTE]
Oil is hard to get hold of, Electricity and Hydrogen aren't.
Also, Glaber, why the fuck do you have two threads going about gas taxes that aren't going to happen? At least confine your tinfoil hat right-wing crap to one thread.
[QUOTE=Used Car Salesman;20555329]Also, Glaber, why the fuck do you have two threads going about gas taxes that aren't going to happen? At least confine your tinfoil hat right-wing crap to one thread.[/QUOTE]
You're working with Obama! :911:
You know...I wish everyone or almost everyone had the balls to just not buy fuel for a whole week or so.
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