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Originally Posted by occ
Is this really a good thing? See, if all the hybrid driver causes a decrease in fuel demand which in turn causes a decrease in oil prices, which in turn causes more SUV sales, which in turn causes more C02 and warm weather, which in turn causes concern and more fuel efficient cars to be used, AND causes less demand in oil for heating, which in turn.....
Do I see a spiraling scenario here? It's great for our pockets, but not good for the planet.
I see market forces dooming the planet, if given free reign. The market will not curb CO2 and oil usage until it becomes scarce or runs out...by that time, it may be too late.
I see drastic climatic incidence have to occur before we have the will to go against market forces.
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Carbon dioxide is a relatively poor green house gas. Current carbon dioxide emissions cannot have any appreciable effect on global temperatures due to their logarithmic nature. It would take something far more potent like methane or ethane emitted in far greater quantities than carbon dioxide to have an appreciable effect on global temperatures.
By the way, I think gasoline guzzler taxes should be instituted on all new vehicle sales where the vehicles do not maintain at least 25 mpg city and 25 mpg highway, with the tax being $2,000 or 10% of the vehicle price per mpg under 25, whatever is higher (with the money from the taxes used in a tax rebate program so that the people raising gasoline prices give something back to tax payers to pay for their higher gasoline expenses). It would have a very positive effect on the state economy if the legislature passed legislation along these lines.
Quote:
Originally Posted by twuelfing
I would like to see oil companies getting 10 - 20 a barrel, but i would like to see a tax that will internalize the costs to the environment into the price of the product.
Perhaps a 3 or 4 or 5 dollar a gallon tax that goes directly into cleanup and effeciency efforts to offset the damage done by the sale of the gas.
plummeting prices will dramatically slow the adoption of new technology, we want high prices for fuel if we are to have help from Joe Everyman in solving this problem.
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The oil companies are not and will never be getting ten to twenty dollars a barrel. The oil wells (i.e. OPEC) get roughly $55.55 a barrel. Much of the remaining cost of gasoline (when you calculate everything) goes to Uncle Sam with only about 20 cents a gallon (there are 42 gallons in a barrel) going to the oil companies. The reason they make so much is because they sell so much. If people would simply buy less gasoline, the oil companies would make less, even if oil skyrocketed to $1000 a barrel tomorrow (which would kill the economy, but would illustrate my point).