Thirty four years ago, on this day, December 4, 1989 a climate action advocate suggested a perfectly sensible economic response to climate change – tax things that are unhealthy, as governments were doing for cigarettes…
The Federal Government should move to control car exhaust emissions and expand the public transport system to discourage people from using cars, a greenhouse effect expert said in Melbourne on Tuesday. [December 4/]
Dr Ian Lowe, the Director of Science Policy Research Centre at Brisbane’s Griffith University, was speaking at the launch of his book explaining the greenhouse effect’s repercussions and ways to avoid them.
He predicted a transport system dominated by hydrogen and electric cars in 50 years.
Some countries already issued fuel efficiency targets for cars, taxing car-owners according to how well they met the targets, while others issued mandatory efficiency targets for company-operated fleets, he said.
Anon. 1989. Greenhouse gas tax urged. Green Week, December 5, p.2.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air was roughly 353ppm. As of 2023 it is 420ppm, but check here for daily measures.
The context was everyone had been talking about the problem, and possible targets, for a year. But what, specifically, to do? Well, a tax is a logical response to an environmental problem,
What is amazing is just how little traction it got. Of course, there was a very successful campaign. First against the existence of the problem then the fallback position is to admit that there might be a problem but the solution is too expensive.
What I think we can learn from this
We knew enough and we didn’t act.
What happened next
We didn’t put any taxes or prices, or economic disincentives in place. And guess what happened? Business as usual, which is literally destroying the planet’s ecosystems.
What do you think? Does this pass the ‘so what?’ threshold? Have I got facts wrong? Interpretation wrong? Please do comment on this post, unless you are a denialist, obvs..