Jeremy, I agree it is a global problem. I don’t know a lot about the Kyoto Protocol, the international effort to reduce greenhouse gases, but I do know that our government refused to participate. I think the reason the US wouldn’t commit was because of the negative economic impact it was projected to have on the US so we choose money over the environment.

It does seem like incentives are the way go but I don’t think our government has them figured out yet. If a business buys a large gas guzzling SUV or truck it can get a much larger tax break than if it buys a fuel efficient hybrid.

I think incentives that encourage businesses and consumers to change their behavior will go much farther than any tax will, of course the key is figuring out what those incentives should be and how to administer them.

Another option is taxing the car makers,oil companies and other big polluters. In the end the consumers will pay it, but the main polluters will try and cut on the pollution in order to maximize their profits.

I would never give the gov’t more money to clean up our environment. The gov’t always chooses the most expensive way to do anything. Blah!

In a related way, I always wonder if things would be different if we were charged by the bag for trash collection. I see lots of bags out on trash day, but not nearly as many on recycling day. (And before anyone points it out, I’m aware of the monetary costs of recycling)

So, we’re going to give the government more money so the EPA will start doing its job?

I mean, I thought we *have* a program in place to work towards these goals that we are all ready funding. Or is the EPA just for over estimating MPG and throwing a seal of approval on carbon-monoxide belching machines?

Ultimately I think it has to come down to holding the companies more accountable for the waste and emissions they produce. Yes, I realize that there are some incentives in place for businesses to reduce emissions or produce “green” products but it is nowhere near enough.

I don’t want to go as far as saying the companies should be taxed outright if they can’t meet pollution standards, but there has to be more of an incentive to actually put these methods into use. A tax cut here or a slap on the wrist there doesn’t cut it. The penalties or incentives have to be great enough that these businesses have to seriously consider changing.

On the other hand, I understand that if you levy taxes and penalties on a company that this cost would ultimately get passed down to the consumer which in effect would be similar to taxing us directly.

That is why I lean more towards a better incentive program. Unfortunately since the government isn’t sitting on a surplus of money that incentives will ultimately hurt them as well, which in turn could lead to increased taxes anyway.

As you can see I don’t think there is a clear solution, but at the very least I don’t think individual taxpayers should bear the brunt of this funding at least up front.

If changes really want to me made I think it has to be done on a global level. While our country does produce a large portion of the world’s waste and pollution there are still many other industrialized countries that are even more lax in this regard than we are. The changes we made would wind up having a very diminished impact if the rest of the world was not following suit.

It is definitely a complicated issue with billions of dollars and a ton of politics at stake. Hard telling how things will shape up going forward, but I think everyone can agree that something needs to be done.