Word: fee
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...most efficient and effective way to spur conservation is to raise the cost of fossil fuels. Current prices fail to reflect the very real environmental costs of pumping carbon dioxide into the air. The answer is a tax on CO2 emissions -- or a CO2 user fee, if that is a more palatable term. The fee need not raise a country's overall tax burden; it could be offset by reductions in income taxes or other levies...
Imposing a CO2 fee would not be as difficult as it sounds. It is easy to quantify how much CO2 comes from burning a gallon of gasoline, a ton of coal or a cubic yard of natural gas. Most countries already have gasoline taxes; similar fees, set according to the amount of CO2 produced, could be put on all fossil-fuel sources. At the same time, companies could be given credits against their CO2 taxes if they planted trees to take some...
...user fee would have benefits beyond forcing a cutback in CO2 emissions. The fuels that generate carbon dioxide also generate other pollutants, like soot, along with nitrogen oxides and sulfur dioxide, the primary causes of acid rain. The CO2 tax would be a powerful incentive for consumers to switch from high-CO2 fuels, such as coal and oil, to power sources that produce less CO2, notably natural gas. When burned, methane generates only half as much CO2 as coal, for example, in producing the same amount of energy...
What can be done to prevent the world from wallowing in waste? Most important is to reduce trash at its source. At the consumer level, one option is to charge households a garbage-collection fee according to the amount of refuse they produce. Manufacturers too need more prodding. Higher fines, taxes and stricter enforcement might force offending industries to curb waste. Industry must also re-examine its production processes. Such an approach already has a successful track record. The Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing Co. has cut waste generation in half by using fewer toxic chemicals, separating out wastes that...
...accused Fujitsu of illegally copying Big Blue operating-system software to use in the Japanese manufacturer's IBM-compatible machines. Based on a secret accord reached a year ago, Fujitsu is paying IBM $833 million for use of the software. Until 1997, Fujitsu will also pay an annual fee that may reach $51 million next year...