Environmental Literature | Social Justice | Sustainable Futures
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Blog Post 8 – Ryan Bronstein

March 24th, 2017 | Posted by Ryan Bronstein in Uncategorized

In Carbon Diaries, Saci Lloyd introduces the carbon card, a radical concept that forces citizens to combat climate change through a carbon quota. It is my opinion that this could do a lot of good things in the United States today. Obviously, a carbon quota at the individual level could greatly reduce America’s carbon footprint, depending on the size of the quota. Additionally, in a way, it officially condemns our unsustainable overconsumption, thus creating a foundation upon which new perceptions of the environment — ones that acknowledge the need for sustainability — can be built. Despite what the carbon card could provide, a roadblock appears in its way: who is going to want it? The simple answer is that very few people will want to give up a great portion of their consumption. Whether it’s wearing a new outfit every day, drinking bottled water instead of fountained water, or watching television for hours, the average American likes to overconsume relative to what he or she actually needs. This raises the notion that perhaps a carbon card is out of reach from modern society because people simply do not want it. The story I would like you to think about is what if every citizen only did what they wanted to do at any given time? Where would our productivity come from? Would people go to work often enough to maintain economic growth? Most importantly, would anyone pay taxes? A quota has the same effect on consumer and producer surplus as a tax; therefore, if nobody wants the quota, surely nobody wants to be taxed. Yet people still pay taxes because if this country did not have taxes, it could not run effectively. There would be poor infrastructure and public schooling, if any at all. It is now easy to see that the real roadblock for a carbon card is not how we can make people want it because very few people ever will. Rather, the challenge is figuring out how to prove to the country that the needs of the environment are just as pressing as its need for tax revenue.

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