Actually, after a certain point of transit use, many local roads can be pedestrianized. They then support (1) trams, (2) walking, and (3) local delivery. So you’re not supporting ‘roads’ any more, you’re supporting sidewalks and driveways.

That comes right back to my original post: such attitudes – that it’s OK to screw individuals based on general principles about the greater good – do no credit to the cause of promoting positive change. It just creates an angry backlash against Greens and green movements and cause people to dig their heels in instead of focussing on what they need to do to support progress.

In any case, from a study by the Brookins Institute:
> And Germans living in low density areas travel by car about as much as
> Americans living at population densities five times higher.
http://preview.tinyurl.com/dkh7pp

Now…we are not America, but car use patterns in the U.S. and Canada are substantially similar. Car use could be reduced. It needs political will.

And yes, I’ve run a business but that’s not relevant to the point. By essentially subsidizing the cost of transporting goods, governments are artificially lowering the real cost (both in dollars and in carbon emissions) of manufacturing goods, and consequently purchasing them. If the “real” cost were on the price tag, people’s purchasing habits would change.

If more people bought locally, we might not have these hollowed out shells of towns that exist all throughout BC.

It wouldn’t happen overnight, and that’s not the point. I simply don’t support giving people a tax write off for polluting. If you’re going to contribute to the destruction of the planet, I think you should pay the full freight.

People have no choice but to drive in most of BC outside the Lower Mainland and other large communities. And no, they can’t all choose to live downtown on a nice bike route because then we wouldn’t have a provincial economy.

People in service jobs that require them to work on site far from home every day of the week have no choice. People living in poorly-designed communities where the neighbours all drive in different directions can’t carpool. If you’re a contractor you can’t move house every time you get a new project. Salespeople who have to visit clients have no choice. Nor do delivery services. People whose jobs require them to carry around heavy tools and equipment all day instead of designer water bottles have no choice but to drive.

Perhaps you have also never run your own business or filled out a tax return. Being able to “write off” or claim a tax credit for a cost only provides compensation for a small fraction of that cost. It is still, in the end, an extra cost that affects your bottom line and your ability to make a living. If a new cost is large enough relative to your profit margin, it can easily make the difference between profit and loss.

> One can choose to stop smoking, turn out the lights or reduce garbage to
> avoid paying extra fees and taxes.

One can choose to drive not at all, or less.

You cite “truck transporters” as a group that can’t choose. Keep in mind that those who drive “for a living” are able to write off the cost of their fuel and vehicle maintenance. Government is thus taxing on the one hand and issuing a credit against those taxes on the other.

If it were up to me, such people wouldn’t be able to write off fuel as a cost. It’s a cost that gets abused (think cab drivers who put the occasional tank in their personal vehicle and write the expense off) and artificially lowers the cost of goods and services.

People can choose to drive less, or carpool. There are a great many alternatives.

There is this rock solid approach used on children with special needs called “functional behaviour assessment.” It’s based on the principle that all behaviour serves a purpose for the individual. So you find out what they’re getting out of that behaviour and then provide an alternative method that gets them what they want in a more socially acceptable way.

I suspect it’s an approach that could work on changing any challenging problem behaviour.

It doesn’t mean you don’t have limits or consequences. But you need to be very sensitive in setting limits that the individual can see room to manouver and make choices within the sandbox you’ve defined as acceptable behaviour.

When people feel they’re being pushed into a corner, denied any control or treated unfairly, they don’t tend to react positively, or rationally. If they’re comfortable with the paradigm, they will accept consequences and even punishment with surprising equanimity.

Again, inspired by principles in education, I was thinking about some things that might be effective:

- Self assessment/performance feedback: A website where you can go and calculate the size of your green footprint. No direct consequences, but when people start comparing scores and ribbing each other on FaceBook and other social situations, it will start sinking in that you may be the problem.

- Rewards, public recognition: make people feel good about the sacrifices they make – get people feeling good about being green – get a little healthy competition going.

I think if they do it like this, IMHO, it will pay off and build momentum – but what they really have to avoid is coming across as scary, punitive, holier than thou, judgmental, rigid, etc. – and this whole brouhaha has really raised people’s sensitivity meters on that, I feel.

Switching to civic politics, what I fear from Gregor and co., is their continued push to punish the Vancouver citizen before looking at other methods to make the city greener.

What has come out of that green action team has been suggestions that are pretty much targeted at the individual and even include “shaming” or “intolerance” tactics.

I find it disappointing and disgusted that “the greenies” have adopted the GW Bush mantra that “you’re either with us or against us”. Bullying is apparently okay to “save the environment”.

That type of behaviour will eventually destroy the green movement, and it will be done by the very people who thought they were doing the right thing in the first place.

My eyes were really opened at an event maybe 8 years ago which started with presentations to educate a random group of maybe 60 regular British Columbians on environental issues and then on building consensus on the need for change. For Part three they asked everyone to state what they’d be prepared to do as individuals. Almost without exception, the participants felt they were already doing enough and that someone else should make the sacrifices first.

Cracking this nut is the central challenge in achieving progress on these issues and it requires all hands on deck – not muddied messages and mud-slinging.

Without good thoughtful and fair policy, the public will eventually tune-out what they will come to believe as just more rhetoric from people and groups with certain agendas.

Already, the tagline has moved from “global warming” to “climate change”. It’s hard to believe the earth is warming when we’re in a 10 year cycle of cooling. US-style fear mongering will only take you so far. See GW Bush for examples and know that many are already quite sick of Al Bore.

Personally, I think there should be more of a top-down approach to get the waste out of the system before demanding jane and joe turn into treehugging hippies who live in their bio-diesel VW van.

Without much effort – the very people who comment on this blog could come up with hundreds if not thousands of ways for government, business and industry to be more earth friendly, before jane and joe would have to do anything at all.

That in itself would go a very long way to selling those eventual changes to the public, including so called carbon taxes.

Some of my friends are already as green as they want to be, and are starting to say enough already. When enough people say the same thing, it will be very bad for this planet.

When you use taxes in this manner – i.e. as a disincentive for behaviour to achieve public policy goals, it only works if the individuals targeted have a choice. One can choose to stop smoking, turn out the lights or reduce garbage to avoid paying extra fees and taxes. It’s even easier if you add in supports and incentives like smoking cessation or recycling programs.

But to the extent that many people – e.g. northern and rural residents, truck transporters – have no alternatives to avoid paying the carbon tax, it is punitive and unfair. And with the growing economic crises and unemployment facing many rural communities, such unfairness really resonates – it’s hardly the same as an oblivious urbanite choosing a $200 politically-correct sweater. Further, it won’t achieve the social policy objective if there is no support/ alternative to permit them to change, plus it deepens the urban/rural divide and breeds underlying social resentment against the broader “green” agenda.

That was my point – that in order to be fair, generate crucial public buy-in and achieve the objective of reducing carbon footprints, every individual subject to this tax should have alternatives available that allow them to achieve tax neutrality by changing their behaviour. Those who choose not to change would then have to just pay the extra tax and shut up, with no legitimate beef to find public sympathy.

Few would object to a fair, progressive, well-designed carbon tax as part of a comprehensive program supporting positive change, with no undue hardship imposed on any sub-group. Yes, you need hard caps and limits and consequences, but public buy-in is crucial, especially up-front when you are trying to overcome inertia and passive resistance to change.

The devil is in the details and simply ignoring those details to flog a poorly-designed initiative because we support the principle may set us back further than doing nothing at all. For a start, the bitter split among “greens,” lost social capital and alienation of traditional NDP allies by backing them into a corner as a result of the “all or nothing” approach that’s been taken by a few thoughtless leaders can be expected to enormously hamper progress and collaboration on a host of serious environmental issues. Election campaigns are always an opportunity to educate the public to build support for change on key issues, but instead all they will hear this time are ugly shouting matches – and more people will be turned off than on to the greater cause.