Taxes · Eco-Chick

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Give it Away Now

So you’ve paid your dastardly taxes and you realize that you could’ve been a wee bit more generous this year with your cash, but you don’t know which group is the most deserving. Good thing the folks at EarthShare have picked and chosen the best national (and local!) environmental orgs to work with.

Through their workplace giving campaign, you can give as much as you want each year- and it can come directly from your paycheck each week, so you’ll barely feel the sacrifice. But at the end of the year you’ll feel good AND be able to write those gifts off.

Need a little reminder as to why? Earth Share’s latest PSA, “Promise” will be seen on on a variety of stations, and reminds us why we’re really supporting the organizations under the group’s giving program.

donations, Earth Share, giving, taxes

North America's First Carbon Tax

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by Katie Kish · 02/26/08

No more cruising the strip in British Columbia! It has recently become North America’s first jurisdiction to introduce a consumer based carbon tax! B.C Minister of Finance, Carole Taylor, also vowed that every cent will be returned through tax cuts and credits.

It’s a good way to keep people aware and more accountable for their environmental degradation, while keeping the economy strong. The new tax will be implemented on July 1st. The tax will initially appear at the gas pumps where consumers will be paying approximately 2.4 cents per liter.

For Prius and Smart Car drivers you’re looking at only about $20 per yer – if that. But a Chevy Avalanche? Dodge Ram? An additional $70. The tax won’t only be appearing on gas, but on all fossil fuels.

Gas, natural gas, coal, propane and even home heating. You won’t be able to BBQ or keep warm in the winter in BC without seeing these taxes come up. The tax will steadily increase over the next 4 years capping out at about 7.2 cents per liter.

At the 4 year mark the tax will be up for review to see if anything good is coming out of it. The good parts about this are that the tax is low, so that people will be able to adjust and not having something swamping them, but it will be enough (especially after 4 years) for them to think twice about just driving to the grocery store instead of walking. (You live in BC! Bike!) It has the possibility of giving people a new mindset that generating greenhouse gases actually DOES cost money! However, the problem I see in this is that there are a lot of people out there that won’t be fazed by this new tax. People are already willing to pay more and more at the pumps simply because the price is rising.

The only green they’ll be thinking about saving is their money, and if they’re well off it won’t even be an issue. Not only that but all residents will be receiving $100 in June to offset the cost of the tax. It seems a little counterproductive. If you know you’re going to, essentially, get reimbursed then why would you attempt to save money anyway?

The only thing that will see the pain of this new tax are larger corporations, and there is nothing wrong with that either. Companies will end up paying for the majority of the tax, as they use the majority of the fossil fuels, but they won’t be getting money back – the people will be. Will this be incentive for companies to turn green?

car, carbon, coal, corporations, driving, eating, Eco-Chick, gas, giving, Home, prius, taxes, Tea

Gotta Keep on Top of the Bills!

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by Starre Vartan · 10/30/07

Yeesh! There’s a flurry of activity surrounding environmental issues in Congress and it’s all I can do to keep up! Here’s what’s going on:

TOMORROW, on Halloween, the House is set to vote on HR 2262, which updates the incredibly outdated (and super destructive) Mining Act of 1872. That’s right, this puppy was last updated over 130 years ago!

WHAT: We want our Congresspeople to vote YES on HR 2262, the Hardrock Mining and Reclamation Act of 2007, which updates the act and makes environmental provisions as well as making sure Native Americans have a say in what’s done on their lands. Also, it forces profit-making companies to pay for the right to mine on public lands.

It would help clean up western waters contaminated by tens of thousands of abandoned mines, ensure that new mines do not become perpetual water polluters, and give federal land managers and local elected officials more say in balancing mining with other important public land values, such as for drinking water, wildlife habitat, and places to hunt, fish, hike, and camp.

WHY: “[The old act] allows foreign and domestic companies to take valuable minerals from public lands without paying any royalties, and it still allows public land to be purchased at the 1872 price of less than $5.00 an acre.

The 1872 Mining Law contains no environmental provisions, allowing hardrock mines to wreak havoc on western water supplies, wildlife and landscapes. Mining has polluted 40 percent of the headwaters of Western watersheds, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. ”

OR….you can just watch the video about it!

HOW: You can call or email your representative. DO IT NOW!!!!

ALSO:

There’s a new global warming bill making it’s way through Congress, which will finally address many of the long-standing contributors to our warming world.

WHAT: The Leiberman-Warner “America’s Climate Security Act of 2007″ does not go far enough in reducing global warming emissions. Got to this page to get links to all the nitty-gritty details of the act.

The Quick and Dirty:

The bill would cap greenhouse gases at the 2005 emission level starting in 2012 and gradually reduce them to 1990 levels – a 15 percent reduction – by 2020. The measure requires deeper cuts over the long term: a 65 percent reduction from 1990 levels by 2050.
“The goal should be to keep the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere below 500 parts per million,” Lieberman said. “That will avoid what (scientists) describe as a high risk of severe global warming impacts here in the United States … but also around the world.”

WHY: Though this is mostly a positive bill, it doesn’t go far enough, especially because it introduces a ‘cap and trade’ system for polluting industries. Check out this editorial from the LA Times about why it could end up making corporations zillions of dollars instead of solving the problem.

Cap-and-trade is a politically popular idea in the U.S. and Europe, but it is an extremely complex mechanism that presents irresistible opportunities for cheating and profiteering that would deeply compromise its effectiveness. Rather than creating a new carbon-trading market primed for manipulation by clever polluters and traders, Congress should be focusing on simple carbon taxes that would assess polluters for the cost of their environmental damage and offset the resulting economic pain by lowering other taxes.

HOW: As always, call or email your representative and tell them what you think about this. You can also sign MoveOn’s petition.

atmosphere, cape, car, carbon, corporations, dress, drinking water, eating, emissions, Europe, fish, gas, Global Warming, habitat, local, News, opinion, reduce, spa, taxes, Tea, video, Vote, water, Wildlife

Did You See the Snowman Last Night at the Debates?

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by Starre Vartan · 07/24/07

I thought the Dems debates last night were the best I’ve ever seen (I watched them streaming on Cnn.com since I don’t have cable). That the questions came from real people via YouTube was THE BEST IDEA EVER! (and the videos submitted by us crazy citizens were funny, sad, poignant, and most importantly, touched on really tough issues!)

So first off, CONGRATS to all those questioners that I share the great USA with…YOU made me proud to be an American (the politicians, well, they were being politicians, you know?. Of course the highlight was the snowman/global warming question! Check it out!

(Answers taken from the NYTimes transcript of the debates.)

COOPER: It’s a funny video. It’s a serious question. Congressman Kucinich?

KUCINICH: Well, we have to understand the connection between global warring and global warming. Because when we start talking about wars for oil, we’re essentially keeping the same approach to energy.

(APPLAUSE)

So I’m saying we need to move away from reliance on oil and coal and toward reliance on wind and solar.

KUCINICH: Anderson, that’s the basis of my WGA, Works Green Administration, where we take an entirely new approach to organize the entire country around sustainability, around conservation. We don’t have to have our snowmen melting, and the planet shouldn’t be melting either.

COOPER: Are the people on this stage, are your fellow candidates, are they green enough?

KUCINICH: No. And I think that the reason is that if you support, for example, in Iraq, if you say that Iraq should privatize its oil for the U.S. oil companies, then what you’re doing is you’re continuing a commitment to use more oil. If you believe that all options should be put on the table with respect to Iran, that’s about oil.

So we need to move away from reliance on oil…

COOPER: Time.

KUCINICH: … and that’s really connected to our defense policy, and I’m the one who gets the connection.

COOPER: All right.

(APPLAUSE)

WHY didn’t other candidates answer such an important question???? Too hard???

automobiles, Bush, car, carbon, cars, climate change, coal, conservation, consumption, dress, eating, electric, Energy, epa, fuel efficiency, fur, gas, gas companies, Global Warming, health, Home, nuclear, nuclear power, NYTimes, Obama, oil, oil companies, opinion, Politics, reduce, religion, sales, spa, sustainability, taxes, Technology, video, waste

IPCC's last report

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by Katie Kish · 05/04/07

If Ralph knows it, you REALLY should know it.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change told us earlier this year that we’re basically all screwed. That the poor are even more screwed. And that we need to do something about it. Today they will be releasing the fourth report, where they will tell us what we can actually do, and really… the requests and reccomendations aren’t all that surprising.

Basically, from the reports that I’m seeing as previews, we need to divert substantially from using the energies that we’re so used to using today. We need to invest more money into sustainable energy and promote sustainable energy use. Give incentives for buying clean energy and make more products that don’t use theh extensive and dirty energies.

All night talks in Bangkok went on as economists, scientists and government officals discussed how they would tackle the problem of huge emission levels from the oil and gas industry. The parts per million of C02 in the air have raised more than a third since the start of the industrial revolution, and now is the time to hault these emissions to spare the earth some pain, and people in developing countries. If the there is a deley on action the greehouse gases in the atmosphere could raise by an additional 90% by 2030, on top of the 70% increase we’ve had since 1970. C02 is extremely important to keep our eye on because so much of it is produced every year (25 billion tons…) and it just sits in the atmosphere making it progressively worse.