Comment from John MacDougall

Hola
Quiero escribir in español, pero yo no soy listo ahora – pronto.
I’m curious as to why the Carbon Tax and taking responsibility is a fad in Britain, and not so much in Spain? Countries like Spain are going to be the places that become less and less hospitable to life as the world warms!
Also – I’ve been wondering how air-conditioning affects life in Spain? The south east of the United States has changed dramatically – people do not go outdoors for many months of the year, and huge inter-connected underground cities have been engineered so people never have to leave their air-conditioning. Is anything happening like this in Spain? Will it?

Comment from ben

There is a lot of aircon, but people do still have to go outside a lot – there is none of this interconnected city concept yet.

Comment from jules

There’s nothing like ‘global warming’ as ann excellent way to raise taxation! See following article:

“The Taxpayers’ Alliance said that its audit of environmental taxation in the UK shows each household overpays £400 a year and that the government raised £10 billion more from green taxes than needed to reduce the UK’s ‘carbon footprint’

Fuel duty and vehicle excise duty are 30 to 40 times higher than the level needed for drivers to reduce the social costs of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, the alliance says.

The report also claims the doubling of air passenger duty announced in last year’s pre-Budget report is likely to have increased total emissions from air travel, making longer flights within the short haul and long haul bands more appealing.

And the landfill tax is raising £620 million more than would be sufficient to meet the methane emissions from landfill, the study concludes

Comment from Natalie

I was looking at how much a flight is on EasyJet and you can now donate about £2-3 (Bristol-Madrid I looked at) to get rid of your carbon footprint, which I thought was a good idea. Whether or not it’s enough…

Comment from Barry

There is no doubt that carbon emissions need to be reduced but one suspects that countries like the UK are using the emissions problem as a means to raise additional revenue for the general taxation pot and not to specifically address the problem. There is no “ring-fencing” of tax revenues in the UK so few people trust Government statements on the issue.

And “carbon trading” must be the biggest con yet conceived, it just moves the problem elsewhere, and the pollution still gets dumped into the same atmosphere. It seems like a good excuse to employ a few thousand more civil servants, consultants, etc.

I would like to see more emphasis on addressing the general pollution problems at home, packaging, in rivers, the sea, etc.

If one must tax, tax imports from countries that are not reducing pollution and carbon emissions. Big business overseas will fix the problem if government gives it an incentive to do so. Making imported goods from non-compliant countries more expensive will result in the manufacturers and exporters overseas addressing the problems that their Goverments wont address.

Comment from Eric Bunch

Este podcast es muy interesante para mí porque mi padre vive en la Florida, y volar a su casa todo el tiempo. Nunca he pensado en el sentido de que había en el medio ambiente.