Word: fossils
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...phased in at $20 per ton each year between 2008 and 2020, topping out at $240 per ton. That might seem excessive, but Brown points out that even a carbon tax higher than $240 per ton wouldn't cover all the environmental and health costs of burning fossil fuels, from climate change to air pollution-related illnesses. And while it's difficult to imagine any politician standing up for such a tax, he reminds us that we already have a precedent for a heavy tax that takes into account negative externalities and attempts to discourage consumption: cigarette taxes...
...environmentalists, that's the risk. Oil has spiked in the past, prompting a wave of investment in alternative energy that crashed as soon as petroleum prices dropped. Transitioning from fossil fuels to clean power will be a long, fraught process, and investors - whether they're pushing ethanol, hybrids or something new - need long-term certainty that they won't be undercut by old, dirty fuels dipping down to cheaper prices again. "That risk [of volatility] makes consumers and investors alike very reluctant to bank on high prices," says Greene. It doesn't make sense to spend hundreds of millions...
...also not clear what issues, if any, will stir Wyoming's G.O.P. primary votes. At the G.O.P. presidential forum in Casper, candidate proclamations of gun-owner rights drew standing ovations, and loud applause rewarded statements urging continued development and use of fossil fuels - a big issue for a state booming with coal mining, oil and natural-gas drilling. Larimer says immigration is a major issue in the state, surpassing the Iraq war. "People want to close the borders," she says. But retired Wyoming U.S. Senator Alan K. Simpson believes that, though "immigration has been a federal failure of will...
...What is the most viable solution to our dependence on fossil fuels? -John Hall, Minot, N.D.If there were one quick move, I would get rid of the importation duty on sugar. All cars and buses in America could be run on sugar-based ethanol-it is seven times more efficient to produce than corn-based ethanol. Interestingly, American cars used to run on ethanol. It was only when Prohibition came in, and people became concerned that car owners would drink petrol, that dirty oil replaced...
...algae biofuel - businesses and policymakers alike are searching for the technological fixes that will decarbonize our lives. But the deeper problem may be how - and where - we live our lives. The dominant pattern of development in America - large houses and sprawling, auto-dependent suburbs - requires a heavy input of fossil fuels and an output of carbon emissions. The adoption of cleaner technologies will take us part of the way, but what we really need to do is change our habitat, not just for the environmental benefits, but for our health, lifestyle and happiness...