Worried about CO2 emissions? Although I agree with the Copenhagen Consensus that such issues need to be solved at the constitutional level (i.e. i'm a Buchananite*), we all like to convince ourselves that we're not hypocrites. Although I'm more likely to commute by cycle than by car, when I do return to the automobile i'll be tempted to buy a Terrapass.
Like Fairtrade, however, I have doubts about the efficacy and consequences of such schemes. The optimist in me thinks of it as voluntary consumers expressing demands through the public sphere, therebye pressurising government to do it's proper job and create a market to deal with the externality. The Terrapass scheme is not a solution (due to free riders etc), but could well be enough prompt a solution.
The pessimist in me thinks that the government will respond with arbitrary taxes (the revenue of which won't be spent on this issue) and existing fuel taxes won't fall to compensate. Hence drivers will be spending more money and be receiving fewer solutions. Curiously, I also realise that the optimistic and pessimistic view both cotains seeds of truth, and our actions will decide which view was correct.
Interestingly I was in favour or fuel taxes when I drove a car but have become increasingly against them now I don't. But do take a look at TerraPass, and decide for yourselves.
* see Fred Sautet's recent homage to Big Bucks: "the rules of the game matter more to obtain socially desirable outcomes than the strategy the players may adopt within a given set of rules"
I like the idea, but sadly the website doesn't allow me to calulate the emissions for a battered and rusting N-reg Rover 200. Go figure.
Anyway, having spent around £800 just keeping my car on the road in the past few months I could do without it costing me any more money just yet; the amount of time it has spent in the garage recently must have contibuted significantly to a reduction in carbon emissions.
Posted by: Quinn | March 23, 2006 at 09:16 AM
As long as you're driving that instead of taking public transport you're probably optimising your own emissions though - and at the end of the day I think we should be optimising our pollution and notminimising it.
Posted by: AJE | March 23, 2006 at 01:13 PM