121–130 of 172 posts
I'd like to see a weight tax on vehicles. Lighter vehicles have less tire wear, so less pollution. They also require less energy to move, so less emissions. Plus lighter vehicles would improve pedestrian safety.
I'd like to see a weight tax on vehicles. Lighter vehicles have less tire wear, so less pollution. They also require less energy to move, so less emissions. Plus lighter vehicles would improve pedestrian safety.
I'm tired of viewing taxes as a punishment. Taxes are for funding the government. If you're going to tax someone make sure the money goes to something specific, like keeping tire junk out of waterways. Some people like to drive, some people like big cars. Fix the tires, grand-daddy in all the existing cars, incentivize cleaner ones, and let everything age out. They're doing it with heat pumps, why not cars?
There aren't many ways to resolve externalities. If you pay people to quit cigarettes, people start smoking to get paid for quitting.
For negative externalities, sometimes you just really have to make the good more expensive, or we'll end up bearing the much larger societal costs down the road, like we did for lead in gasoline and widespread cigarette smoking.
I'd like to see a weight tax on vehicles. Lighter vehicles have less tire wear, so less pollution. They also require less energy to move, so less emissions. Plus lighter vehicles would improve pedestrian safety.
Even more taxes on semi trucks that deliver the food that's already growing unaffordable that will be passed on to consumers then?
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There are lots of ways to adapt to that. For example, you can have localized telework centers or subsidize co-working spaces. The current situation is far worse. People are literally trapped in a cycle of poverty or bad work experience because they cannot get to a suburban office park for want of a car. WFH has lots of limitations. Distribute work geographically and you can lower costs and improve outcomes. Why have…
> subsidize co-working spaces These are called offices. Look, I WFH and I love it. But in the process I probably quintupled my emissions. I might be able to get that down to quadrupling with an EV and full solar array. But the realities of suburban/rural living are simply much harsher on the environment.
I guess ecological rural living may not be easy if you enjoy lots of social activities. For an introvert like me it wouldn't be a problem.
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My local state is adding weight to our vehicle registration fees, but only slightly (ex: capping out at 5000lbs). There are vehicles as high as 8000+lbs commonly used, and I think those should have higher tax than the 5000lb class vehicles.
Having a cap makes absolutely no sense except politically. There’s not a diminishing impact here whatsoever.
Its an improvement, but why stop at two classes? Its nearly as bad as our previous law that was only at one weight class. Might as well follow the pattern at every 1500lbs up until no common vehicles are covered anymore. (6500lb and 8000lb are a natural extension of this new law).
Oh well, we can fix it in next year's debate, I guess?
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> subsidize co-working spaces These are called offices. Look, I WFH and I love it. But in the process I probably quintupled my emissions. I might be able to get that down to quadrupling with an EV and full solar array. But the realities of suburban/rural living are simply much harsher on the environment.
It's not the realities, but people's choices. One can live in rural area and limit driving to the absolute minimum necessary, and build a small house heated using renewables rather than a big house heated with fossil fuels. Similarly, lots of city people increase their carbon footprint through excess consumption and travel. I guess ecological rural living may not be easy if you enjoy lots of social activities. For an…
You’re still consuming massive resources in transporting materials to a low-density location. Unless you’re living completely off the land, de-densifying is far more impactful. (Consider how much land alone would be converted from nature to human use by spreading out the populations of New York and Los Angeles.)
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Interesting, but wouldn't using only natural rubber result in a huge amount of land clearing and then a monoculture, similar to the environmental issues of palm oil?
We have a lot of already-cleared farmland that sits vacant or could be used more profitably. I don't know if it's suitable for growing rubber trees, but I doubt we'd have to do a lot of clearing.
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Interesting idea. Apparently road damage goes up with the 4th power of the weight ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourth_power_law ) Really trucks are probably not paying their fair share in that regard. I wonder how it would be implemented in practice given how variable vehicle weights are depending on how they are being used. Weigh stations like they use for trucks? It might also be a solution for gas taxes being i…
Yes and so what makes the most sense is to make the tax increase with the 4th power of vehicle weight multiplied by the miles they travel. This way there are no perverse incentives. Everyone pays their fair share according to how much damage they cause.
Perhaps tires can be made less toxic, but over all, we need to prioritize driving less. WFH means I put barely 3000 miles per year on my car. It's absurd we are not aggressively promoting WFH or hybrid WFH at the national level. It's the easiest win for the environment and it's right there for the taking.
Is it actually a win for the environment? Sure, not commuting is, but what about more people deciding to live in less dense areas?