Question: Does the carbon tax really help the environment in your opinion? Or do you think it is just another way for the government to make money?
Keywords: carbon, climatechange, government, policy, tax
By BRIDGE8 under license from Mangorolla CIC 2024
Hi kidfromclover,
There are studies that have shown that people are most strongly motivated to change their behaviour in response to economic or money-related changes. This is the premise of the carbon tax. If energy (carbon) is more expensive, this will hopefully motivate people to use less energy to make up for their money losses.
Only time will tell if this is the solution to change the behaviour of Australians, but I think it is definitely an important step for our country to make. As a global society, we literally haven’t been paying the price of our damage to the environment. We need to understand that even if you can’t see it, there is an environmental cost to everything we do… imagine if the rubbish trucks never came to take away your rubbish. You would very quickly realise the physical reality of your environmental impact. And you are just one person. Think about the rubbish that everyone creates.
The same goes for the atmosphere. Every time each of us drives a car, leaves electronic equipment running, flies in a plane, we are releasing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Unless we want to pay the price in money, we’ll just have to pay the price in more extreme climate change.
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I think Blaire has answered this very well. I have to admit, I know the carbon tax exists but I haven’t really read up on the whole story to make a clear judgment about it.
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I seen an early report released recently that show that the carbon emissions from industry in Australia have in fact already started decreasing! and I personally haven’t noticed any increases in the prices of things like food, electricity, etc. So early reports show that it is working!
I am all for carbon tax. I think until you put a price on things like waste disposal (whether its rubbish or carbon emissions) humans wont try to reduce their waste.
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The carbon tax is the first step in realising the future damage that things we do today have. It is the first step, but an essential first one. IN local areas, I can see there being a nutrient tax to encourage farmers and sewage treatment plants to think carefully about what goes into the ocean. How about a plastic tax to make us think twice about that wrapper that will last for 1000 years. Not to make money for the government, but to encourage alternates to be used.
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