America Needs Environmental Taxes
Societies’ values change slowly. Unlike technology which only requires a few individuals' innovation to greatly advance, morals and beliefs require awareness and generational turnover. News of Coronavirus first emerged towards the end of December 2019, by January Wuhan looked like an apocalyptic movie, but America and the UK did not take drastic measures until well into March 2020. People will not alter their lives until the danger is imminent. A prime example of aversion to change is the Qwerty keyboard. It is utilized across the world for a large portion of people’s daily lives but it was designed to slow down typing by placing the most frequently used letters far apart from each other. It would be technically easy to make a faster keyboard, but everyone has spent years learning the current arrangement. People are averse to change.
For decades people have been warning society about the dangers of greenhouse gasses and climate change, but we have not taken drastic action. Edward Teller, the ‘father of the hydrogen bomb’ warned the fossil fuel industry in 1959 at the Energy and Man symposium. The event took place to celebrate the grand benefits of fossil fuel which drove the economy and technological advancements of the past century. Teller rose to the stage and delivered a grim warning - fossil fuel combustion releases greenhouse gasses - he believed a 10% rise in carbon dioxide, which he estimated to be before 1990, would raise sea levels high enough to submerge coastal cities consisting of much of the population.[1]
The problem some see with the Green New Deal, the primary American environmental legislation, is that it is too tangential to the environment, too costly, and demands too much overhaul. It includes a single-payer healthcare system, guaranteed jobs, affordable housing, and free college education. The plan demands an entire restructuring of the system and seeks 100% reliance on renewables by 2030.[2] This drastic change is too severe. People do not like change so it needs to be innocuous, unnoticeable, and without underlying partisan riders. With time it should scale up to be increasingly effective. By enacting these following changes now, we will be on a better path towards a greener future and open the door to more environmental legislation in a few years. I concede that everyone and their dog has a take on climate agenda, but I implore people to at least consider the need for immediate smaller-scale change instead of impassable structural overhaul, and action that focuses on building institutions, rather than tearing down.
Plastic Bags
Carbon dioxide is only a part of the climate change problem. The world produces over 350 million metric tonnes of plastic per year, most of which ends up in the ocean.[3] This enormous waste litters our beautiful beaches and kills wildlife. In 2014, 7.6 billion plastic bags were given to customers in major supermarkets in England. That is 140 bags per person, totaling 61,000 tonnes.[4] England started charging 5p per bag (which other UK areas did already) and reduced bags by 80%. It is not technically a tax because the supermarket decides what charitable cause to use the money for. Over 10 years it is expected to reduce litter clean-up costs by £60 million and raise £730 million for good causes.
Let’s perform some back-of-the-envelope math: America has 330 million people compared to England’s 56 million so roughly 5.5x as many people would induce a savings of 61,000 bags (80%) =48,800 multiplied by our larger population (5.5) = 268,400 reduction in bags per year while producing £730m (5.5) /10years = $401.5m per year (5 cents rather than 5 pence so no FX conversion rate) from the sale of bags. I suggest this money goes directly towards the environment, specifically in the form of funding carbon capture storage.
Swiss company Climeworks creates a chemically binding filter which sucks carbon dioxide from ambient air. They allow anyone to subscribe to their service. $55/month ($660/year) pays for the removal of 600kg which is the average person’s annual carbon footprint.[5] This plastic bag charge could theoretically fund the removal of nearly 610,000 people’s carbon emissions. This is limited by companies like Climeworks’ ability to expand, but the benefit would realistically be greater than this because so much funding would increase competition and increase R&D budgets so that they will grow (economies of scale) and become more efficient than $660/year.
Apparel brand 4ocean sells products such as bracelets for $20 to fund a pound of plastic removal from the ocean. If we take the notion of $20/pound of plastic (probably could be much cheaper), we could apply this to all single use plastics: produce wrapping, cereal bags, coffee cups, water bottles, and styrofoam packaging. It is astounding how much single-use plastic we unnecessarily use in a day. This $20/pound tax should be applied to all of these. This will help reduce the amount of plastic we use and increase earnings for vital public projects and only add about $0.05 to the cost of your Starbucks.
Congestion Charge
European cities are anachronistic in a beautiful way. They were built in an era of chariots, horses, and pedestrians, not Chevrolet Suburbans. These cities now limit cars, by either prohibiting cars in the center altogether, such as Italian cities like Venice and Florence, or by having a congestion charge like Paris and London. London charges £11.50 a day to drive in the center of the city during working hours on weekdays. This charge earns London £230m per year.[6] This could be applied to American cities such as New York and Chicago. America could potentially earn $100s of millions per year by utilizing this which should be used for green public transportation such as a better rail system, which is more environmentally friendly than driving, and entirely lacking in America. It could also subsidize electric car production and increase EV charging stations.
London has seen a reduction in cars due to the fee, but the city is easily traversed in other ways which most American cities are not. A high fee like $11.50 would likely receive harsh backlash thus requiring it to start small. Smaller cities such as Philadelphia, Dallas, San Francisco, and Boston among others could have nominal charges like $2-5 where cars are more necessary for people commuting from the suburbs.
5¢ Gas
Americans drive far more than people of other nations and they enjoy the luxury of cheap gasoline. In 2019 the United States used 142 billion gallons of gas for automotives.[7] Gas prices fluctuate wildly station-to-station, state-by-state, and day-to-day. I propose a $0.05 charge per gallon of gas to fund the same initiatives as the congestion charge. These 5 cents would be negligible because of the volatility already extant in the market, but it would generate about $7.1 billion per year. Electric cars are becoming more popular thanks to Tesla, and cars naturally become more fuel efficient with each passing year so this revenue will decline, but this should be offset with a rising tax every year.
$2 Flight Tax
Beautiful beaches, world class fishing, and warm weather brings over 125 million visitors to Florida annually.[8] While Florida relies on the environment for its economy one would think the state acts strongly to protect it, especially since the much of southern Florida is less than 30 feet above sea-level. As it is close to the tropics, the state is devastated by hurricanes which climate change worsens and makes more frequent. Florida in particular, but everyone in reality, should act to protect the environment. Florida should charge a negligible $2 tax on all passengers flying into Florida immediately. People pay hundreds of dollars to travel and prices change daily and from airline to airline so $2 will not hamper tourism but will raise important revenue for either carbon capture storage technology or efficient public transportation. This should gradually scale up year by year.
In order to make large strides in fixing the environment we need these small taxes. 5 cents per plastic grocery bag, a few dollars for driving into a city, 5 cents extra per gallon of gas, and a few dollars per every flight will earn America over $8 billion the first year. This should be put into sustainable systems like increasing our public transportation system, subsidizing renewable energy, and building carbon capture storage. According to the Climeworks’ math this could negate the emissions of 12.1 million people the first year and fund ocean-trash removal. This will inevitably draw reluctance from fossil fuel and plastic lobbyists who will claim this decreases their revenue, but Republicans Congressman Dan Crenshaw (TX-2) already support carbon capture (LEADING ACT) and the party will need to continue reaching across the aisle to attract young audiences and centrists. We do not need to overturn our society and stop driving petrol cars or rebuild all our structures. Politicians have talked for too long about a plan for climate change but we cannot wait for a partisan idealist approach. We need to start immediately on small changes with big impacts and continue to scale up.
Resources
No Author, 2020. Carrier Bags: Why There’s a Charge. Gov.UK. Available at[https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/single-use-plastic-carrier-bags-why-were-introducing-the-charge/carrier-bags-why-theres-a-5p-charge].
No Author, n.d., Green New Deal. Green Party US. Available at [https://www.gp.org/green_new_deal].
No Author, n.d., How Much Gasoline Does The United States Consume? US Energy and Information Administration. Available at [https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=23&t=10].
No Author, n.d., Subscriptions. Climeworks. Available at [https://www.climeworks.com/subscriptions].
Franta, B. 2018. On its 100th birthday in 1959, Edward Teller warned the oil industry about global warming. The Guardian. Available at[https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2018/jan/01/on-its-hundredth-birthday-in-1959-edward-teller-warned-the-oil-industry-about-global-warming].
Mayor of London, 2019. Transport for London Annual Report, pp. 125. Available at [http://content.tfl.gov.uk/tfl-annual-report-and-statement-of-accounts-2018-19.pdf].
Roser, M., Ritchie, H. 2018. Plastic Pollution. Our World in Data. Available at[https://ourworldindata.org/plastic-pollution].
Santana, M., 2019. Visit Florida Reports record 126.1 million visitors to state in 2018. Orlando Sentinel. Available at [https://www.orlandosentinel.com/business/tourism/os-bz-visit-florida-tourism-record-20190220-story.html].
Additional Readings and Services:
Ecosia (search engine that plants trees)
Ekoru (search engine that removes plastic from the ocean)
[1] Franta, B. 2018.
[2] Green New Deal.
[3] Roser, M., Ritchie, H. 2018.
[4] Carrier Bags, 2020.
[5] Climeworks.
[6] Mayor of London, 2019.
[7] No Author, n.d., US Energy Information Administration
[8] Santana, M., 2019