Gas Tax

President Camacho · Posted: Sun Apr 20, 2008 8:00 am Post subject:

It just doesn't make sense that there is a need to conserve when we can limit how many people there are on earth. I'm sorry that I sound selfish or greedy. Sad

I just hate the idea of conservation very much. It means to me that there are too many people for the resources that are available. I spent almost 3 years in Tokyo, Japan, where I witnessed what extreme population saturation and scarcity of resources really is. There is no room for you to move or live. The food is extremely expensive and the portions are tiny. The population density is so severe that there is natural birth control going on. People, I assume, can't afford to have kids. That is a sad situation. Conservation over there is to the nth degree. Everything is recycled! Even vehicles are completely recycled. You have to pay a tax so that it can be recycled. Wow! Nothing is wasted because there is nothing to go around. Why live like that? Always concerned, always stressed, always trying to go without. No thanks.

Saffron · Posted: Sun Apr 20, 2008 11:14 am Post subject:

PC,
I completely agree that there are too many people and that it is one of the primary problems on the planet. Population control most likely will have to happen, if nature doesn't take care of it herself. You think we have difficulty now deciding what to do about our current world issues! How will it be decided who can reproduce? What will be done to prevent those not worthy or lucky enough to be aloud to reproduce? Mandatory sterization?

Here is my selfishness, I have children. I knew when I chose to have a child that the world was over populated and I did it any way. Before I had kids, the one thing I really, really wanted to do with my life was to be a mother. It is my true vocation. I would not be the woman I am today if I had not had them. Mothering has informed every aspect of my life. I know this is not true for everyone, maybe not even most people. What if I were one of the people selected to not have children? My point is that people will suffer under policies of enforced population control. Look at China.

To conserve, to reuse, to not use, to use less, to use every bit of something is not necessarily a hardship. It doesn't even need to be done in response to scarcity. Sometimes reusing, conserving saves time and energy in the long run. People have been doing these things for 100s of thousands of years. An even more important point is that throw away, instant gratification, consumerism based living does not equal happiness, ease and leisure. In fact, we currently expend more energy and time then most other humans that have ever lived, working for a pay check, so we can go here and there, pay for the conveniences of modern life and buy all the newest latest stuff. What happened to spending time just living?

Ophelia · Posted: Sun Apr 20, 2008 11:44 am Post subject:

I find it strange that anybody should be talking about population reduction because it simply will never happen.

The scenario you mention, Saffron, of some people being chosen not to reproduce, will never come into being, so why think of it at all?

The situation in China is unique because when the one child policy was decided they already knew that the country could not feed the population (very little arable land) and there was a very organized dictatorship which did not need to worry about re-elected.
Even then, this is partly a matter of transferring the problem (overpopulation) to other countries: many people try to leave China for this very reason.
I have read that Chinese immigrants who gave as a reason for coming to the US that their basic rights to having children were not respected in China were accepted by the US authorities.

Japan is also a unique example. They combine the lowest birthrate in the world with very little immigration, they must be the only rich country to have so little immigration. Perhaps because it's made of islands and the authorities are efficient at controllling illegal immigration.
So the population of Japan is projected to decline in the future.

There are low birthrates in some European countries too, but those things only work when people do this voluntarily.

The only things one can reasonably hope for is a halt in population increase, which is what usually happens naturally once women have a primary school education (in underdeveloped countries) and contraception becomes available.
These , together with an ideal set at about 2 children per family can work without coercion .

Combined with energy conservation, they are a goal that can be attained without calling in a dictator and will have some results.

It may not be enough, but why not start with things that can be done reasonably and worry about the rest later?
If one sets oneself too ambitious targets, it may just become an excuse for people to do nothing at all.

Saffron · Posted: Sun Apr 20, 2008 11:48 am Post subject:

Thank you for your post, Ophelia! You said what I was struggling to say. My questions to PC regarding population control were meant tongue in cheek.
Saffron

President Camacho · Posted: Sun Apr 20, 2008 2:47 pm Post subject:

Saffron,

I’m a little embarrassed that you think my intention is to single individuals out and deny them the right to have children. That’s definitely not what I’m advocating. I understand that you love being a mother and you should guard that right fiercely. Why would I want to individually select persons suitable to have children and sterilize the rest? I’m no monster and I’m probably not mentally disturbed…probably. Hannibal

I’d like you to tell me how to limit the population in America without taking away the rights of the citizens to have children. Is it not doable?

I enjoyed your last paragraph and I agree with the sentiment conveyed in it. Very Happy

I do think that we spend too much time working in order to consume goods that others have produced for us. Unfortunately, that will be a necessity in the future if populations continue to double and people continue becoming increasingly specialized in their careers. It’s inevitable. I think you’ll find that soon people will do their job and that’s all. They won’t have time for more than one hobby and will lose all the skills that their forefathers needed to learn in order to survive, such as building a house or fixing a car. This is already happening and will get worse in the future, I assure you. These are the skills that people needed to acquire just to live once upon a time. We just don’t have individual use for most of them anymore and so they are relegated to history’s how-to-books. We are more efficient when we work in a specialized field, and depend on others to do the same. It’s an interdependence that saps our freedom or life or whatever… but in a dense population like the one we have it is the preferred practice. Why else would people be doing it if it wasn’t benefiting anyone? Would there be less interdependence if not enough people were around to make it economically feasible?

Ophelia, I think that some form of state population control can happen in America. You make a good point that developed nations have lower birth-rates than developing nations. That’s interesting. I’m going to research that a little more and see what I can dig up. Your last sentence is so so so so true! Ninja Jig

DWill · Freshman Joined: 31 Jan 2008 Posts: 243 Gender:

President Comacho,
Just wanted to say that I benefited from knowing why you are so deadset against conservation. You have lived in a society in which you say strict conservation is a reality, and you didn't enjoy it. That is a valuable testimony, one I can't give because I've always lived here and am able to advocate for conservation without having to suffer the inconvenience of actually doing that! I would hope that I would willingly and happily go along with a real conservation ethic, but would be less than honest if said I could be sure of this.

I do see coercive limits to population as being much the worse alternative to conservation, though. Not that we can solve our problems by one way or the other. We could conserve to the Nth degree and would still run into severe resource and pollution problems if our population continues its rate of growth. We could stabilize or even decrease the world's population yet still run out of supplies of essential resources.

DWill · Freshman Joined: 31 Jan 2008 Posts: 243 Gender:

Pres. Commacho,
A while back, I asked you if you had any numbers on the cost difference between plug-in electric cars and gas-powered. You replied that you hadn't come across anything definite. On this evening's "Nova" on PBS, the figure given was: plug-ins cost only 1/4 as much to run. The advantage is due to the use of lithium-ion batteries. Cars powered with this technology were compared to cars that would get 135 miles to the gallon. So that sounds promising. Now they have to work on increasing the range of these cars.
D

Ophelia · Posted: Wed Apr 23, 2008 4:40 am Post subject:

DWill wrote:

President Camacho · Posted: Wed Apr 23, 2008 8:13 am Post subject:

Redemption Post: - going boldly forth

I don’t think that Americans, in general, will be motivated to conserve in the short-run. There is no immediate benefit to conservation. If I throw a water bottle in the trash, I don’t see where the water bottle goes and it doesn’t immediately cost me anything extra. It actually ‘costs’ me less to throw it in the trash. The three different containers to collect waste cost me time and effort to sort and tote the bins to the side of the road.

People would have to witness a real benefit to recycling. So there needs to be some sort of payment to offset the extra cost of sorting and toting. These payments might come in the form of feelings. Some people may feel that doing no-harm is a sufficient payment (increased pride or suppression of fear). Some may even want a hobby (unrealistic but plausible). Some may see that every person in their neighborhood is doing it and don’t want to be left out or thought less of for not doing it.

The flip side of payments would of course be that something was in place that would make not recycling more expensive than recycling, such as fines.

None of these except fines/taxes are very concrete. Feelings, hobbies, and trends are subject to change whereas taxes and fines are more permanent. (Not that they can’t be changed, just that it is more difficult to do so.)

Without some form of penalization, conservation just won’t work. There is just too much benefit to be had by cheating. If everyone was to recycle and I was the only one that didn’t, I would benefit two fold. If everyone didn’t recycle and I was the only one that did, I would be losing two fold. There must be blanket compliance and this only comes with a loss of freedoms. I would have to be forced to recycle through coercion.

Now, it is for my benefit to recycle if everyone else does too. I know that and I’m sure most Americans do to. But if this means inconveniencing an entire world for the sake of making the earth’s human holding capacity larger, it’s ultimately not worth the effort.

If my back yard was full of rabbits and I loved carrots, I think I might not plant any carrots because the rabbits would most likely eat them. Sure, I love carrots and I really want to eat one. The rabbits ask me to plant them all the time. They say that if I plant enough, there would be enough left for me. Do I plant the carrots? No, I eat the rabbits and then I plant the carrots.

Ok, that was an insane analogy and I hope it at least made you smile.

Treat the disease (humans), not the symptom (dirty planet).

I’m trying to say is that if we have population control we will have all the benefits that conservation would have brought anyway.

Conversely, if we have conservation control the negative effects of population growth will cancel any benefits that may have been realized while making everyone just a little bit more miserable. It doesn’t make any sense.

D, that is amazing. Range is definitely an issue. “Only 24% of North American commuters are underway for more than 30 minutes and only 8% for more than one hour.” It seems to me by this statistic that if companies installed outlets at work, 24% of the population *minimum* should be driving electric cars. What a savings!

The Energy Information Administration reports that we consumed 20,687,410,000 barrels of the black stuff in 2006. Oil is about to hit or hovering close to 120 a barrel now. WOW. What a complete drain on the economy with the amount that we consume and import.

That’s $2,482,489,200,000.00 with oil at 120 per barrel. I know this number is misleading because oil has not been at 120 per barrel but you have to take into account that the consumption figure was from 2006. I want to use this figure as a future estimate and for its potential shock value!

Camachooo Reeeedeeeeemed!
Ninja Jig

I know u like my ninja skills


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