You want to Tax Harm. What this means
To Tax Harm seems to be a new concept. Traditionally taxing is primarily a way of income for the taxer. Now, Tax Harm means literally to put a cost in the form of government tax to harmful activities, short or long term. Tax HARM is an acronym of Tax Human Activities Regarding Malpractice. What is not intended as a message is "Taxes in themselves are harmful.”.
Tax share
We are not proponents of increasing the total share of taxes in regard to GDP, rather to shift the tax weight of different taxable entities; in other words to tax or raise tax on harmful activities we necessarily must lower taxes of benign activities, for example income tax of work that is benign.
Tax and reverse subsidy
Tax works as reverse subsidy, it motivates people to decrease the taxable entity. For example, if it is established that fossil CO2 emissions leads in the future 100 years to a warmer harsher environment with significant raised sea levels, then that harsher environment incurs a increased cost of living for the inhabitants 100 years from now; do we have the right, with our current knowledge, to incur this cost? If you think it is questionable, or downright no, that we have a right to worsen severely the situation for future inhabitants of Earth, then this Non Governmental Organisation might interest you to read on, and even support us with the tax HARM policy since this tax motivates people to do less harm in society, in the short and long term, since it is a reverse subsidy.
Relative taxes
Economical activities in a society are relative to each other. If you tax one activity more than others, then in reality you subsidy implicitly the others. This, for example, means that if you tax harmful activities extra relative to benign, you in reality subsidy the benign so that they have a greater chance to thrive, and you quench proportional to the tax rate the harmful economical activities.
Fossil CO2 emissions
Regarding fossil CO2 emissions, that by logic and empirical studies, will increase the percentage of CO2 in the atmosphere, by a worrying rate, then if you multiply that rate with the not to distant years ahead of us, we will reach much higher percentage of CO2 in the atmosphere, than we have today; and since CO2 is a greenhouse gas, from empirical chemistry and physics measurements, it is easy to conclude that the average temperature of the earth will rise; this temperature rise is supported in numerous empirical measurements; please refer to wikipedia to see the empirical graphs of temperature rise throughout time.
CO2 is in fact rising, and it has consequences
CO2 is rising. This wikipedia shows the graphs. Those graphs also show that CO2 historically (ancient) has had even larger percentages; however humans and their constructions did not exist then, and if we assume a warmer climate then and risen seas, no coastal cities were drenched, no farmland were flooded, increased spread of malaria and dengue fever did not affect any humans. But now we see a temperature rise, and we forecast rising sea levels and with that flooding of lowland coastal land; less housing and less arable land - less food - more diseases - in short, harsher living conditions for inhabitants 100 years from now.
Redistribution of fertile lands and its risk full consequences
With warming climate, there will be almost certainly a redistribution of fertile and desert lands, this is in the nature of the stochastic (randomness) weather. What if climate change makes India and China a large desert, both nuclear armed countries; will they just lay down and die, or will they, as the human spirit in most calls for, fight for their survival by, for example, occupying fertile land in other countries? In such a scenario, migration pressure will also increase, and this will almost certainly lead to large influxes to nations with arable land, since what is politically correct do to, which most politicians have as their policy nowadays, is to be humane and not watch all those millions starve.
The gamblers
Can you see the gamble here? We gamble with the wealth of our future generations, future children and grandchildren, nephews and nieces; all in the name of comfort for us, even though the sacrifice need not be that rough, if done right.
Taxing CO2 and market-forces
Taxing of fossil CO2 (one instance of tax HARM) will get the market-forces to work for alternatives, market-forces always looks for the cheapest price of comparable quality, if tax makes a goods or service expensive, then less taxed goods and services has an advantage in the market economy; people and companies don't like to pay taxes, so they will look for alternatives, the market demand for alternatives will increase dramatically with a hefty tax on CO2; yet the taxes will not rise for individuals, since income tax can be lowered accordingly, so you get the same amount of money as before, only now the direction and incentives to find technological innovation to be less dependent on CO2 will increase (better wind, wave, nuclear, solar cell, battery storage technologies). Corporations and individuals behavioural patterns will want to reduce CO2 emissions (Better salesperson road trips, less time in the shower, find local producers of vegetables and meat). Social behavioural patterns (e.g. people will find jobs closer to where they live, and since it is the same rules for everyone competition forces work as before and will attract labour by having smaller decentralised manufacturing and service locations near the residential areas) that decrease CO2 from fossils will be encouraged; all in the comfort of the same amount of money as before. Alternative energy sources will be given a good start quickly and then market forces will make them cheaper and cheaper, and soon we have shifted our fossil dependancy to a much safer alternative without loosing too much comfort. CO2 tax will make us work closer to out homes, as said, which calls for a repeat, decentralise offices so that a local office in your neighbourhood becomes economically attractive - shorter commute to work without the traffic; we might get more comfort now with tax HARM, tax CO2.
Tax HARM is fair
Same rules for everyone, at least for all the major economies. This means everyone competes under the same rules. Oil companies can invest in renewables and get profit. Don't you think our children and children's children deserve a better future than what is projected with current CO2 emission levels? Fairness is about balanced positive or negative deserve in relation to the actual circumstances.
Other examples of tax HARM
Other examples of tax HARM is crime and punishment (you have to pay a fine or pay time in prison, if caught, in other words dynamically taxed (but with strict regulation of this dynamic - dynamic in the sense there is no strict percentage of restriction of freedom (no static taxing of freedom), rather a court judges and try to find a balanced sentence dynamically) with assets or time, according to sentence), malpractice in medical establishments (after suing courts can pay out damages, which can be seen as dynamic taxes), reckless or negligent practice of work that result in products or services that result in injuries (suing, see previous), manmade environmental disasters (suing see previous).Possible worsening of CO2 (or greenhouse gases) effects
Methane is a greenhouse gas more efficient than CO2. This gas is bound in the seafloor as a hydrate. A warming of the seas could release this hydrate as a methane. Further, permafrost holding methane on land could be released as temperatures increase. This could worsen the effects.
Possible mitigation of CO2 (or greenhouse gases) effects
There has been some recent (year 2014) scientific discovery regarding that the sun's activity and intensity is less than before. During the years 1600's the sun's activity and intensity was less, and winters where harsh and very cold. There thus seems to be another such period in the sun's variations. This can mean that the CO2 emissions is actually positive, mitigating the lowering of temperatures due to the sun's less shining on earth. The issue is complex.
Our Objective
To be a lobby organization that puts pressure on our politicians to tax HARM, mainly to tax fossil CO2 emmisions
Our Challanges
There is a large percentage of people who are opposing the idea of greenhouse gases leadning to increased temperatures, calling it the greenhousegas scam. If we convice enough people, there will be a much easier job of lobbying the polititians, since in democracies, where we operate, a certain oppinion, for example, tax HARM, tax CO2, matter very much to the polititians if this oppinioin's base is a large percentagea of the population.