For years this blog is trying to explain the strange similarity between fossil fuels and money. We commonly think we need money, but we always use that money to buy fossil fuels. No production process runs on dollar bills, almost every production process, logistic chain, mining operation runs on fossil fuels. This is the big mindfuck of this era. People don’t seem to get it.
What does this carbon-credit relationship mean? It means money is created to distribute fossil fuels. You need to think through every product just a bit to see where the money is spend on fossil fuels. Of course there are exceptions, but we mean the general process. So steel cost money because coal and diesel cost money. Labour cost money because the fossil fuels to make bread, toys, clothes, food all cost money. This is changing a little bit, slowely, which means things cost less money if they use more renewable energy. Still all the money that flows flows because fossil fuels need to flow.
Exxon is in favour of a carbon tax, a tax on CO2 emissions. People wanting to fight climate change suggest this tax. This means that industries emitting a lot of CO2 will need to pay more taxes. We have tried the Emissions Trading Scheme, but politics is so carboncorrupt that this never worked, it only created a boom for the bankers (who do the corrupting), a lot of nice jobs and NO CO2 reduction because too many ETS rights have been granted. The ETS system is so broken that members of the dutch parlaiment discussed whether they should think of a new reason to have an ETS, such a deep insult it can hardly be imagined. It is like saying : You build this chair for us to sit on, but maybe we should burn it for heat?
The ETS doesn’t work. Carbon tax will also not work. The reason is simple once you understand the carboncredit system, which is the intimate relationship between money and fossil fuels. So a company emits a lot of CO2? This drives up cost? Banks have two options : See how the company switches to renewables (as people expect) or simply give more credit at lower rates. This means the company gets more money to spend, spends part of it on carbon tax, the tax goes to the government, the government spends it on products and services, which emit carbon. On those emissions tax is payed, These return to the government, the government buys more stuff, services, which causes more emissions of CO2. Really besides the added administrative jobs this changes nothing.
Banks will simply increase the amount of money, will charge different interest rates, will add cost for the government (that it has in its grip), will reroute the tax to financial instruments and make a lot of money for itself. That is because banks are free to do whatever the fuck they want, just like oil companies, and this is where the problem needs to be solved. NO MORE FREEDOM FOR BANKS OR FOSSIL FUEL COMPANIES.
The way to fix it is hard to get for people that do not see or ‘believe’ in the carbon credit relationship. Right wing people don’t ‘believe’ banks are dependend on fossil fuel companies and vice versa because right wing people live of this dependency and protect it. Without fossil fuels there will be no right wing politics. To fix it we need to do two things :
- Raise the cost of fossil fuels, not of emissions but of fuels sold by fossil fuel companies.
- Not spend the tax income, keep it in an account and never spend it.
- Not tax fossil fuels if they are used to build or create renewable energy sources. So a product specific fuel tax.
This means that a company that uses a lot of fossil fuels to make plastic cups out of oil will find it can’t make them as cheap as the company that makes them out of recycled plastic. This means that an airline that flies people to Spain with Kerosine can not do it as cheap as the one that uses biofuels. This means that a solar panel factory can produce panels at a cheap price and continue to grow its market while the people driving fossil fuel powered cars have to see electric cars take over because it is cheaper.
The money not spend is money taken out of ciculation. The banks will say this is bad for the economy, because ‘the economy’ equals bank profits from fossil fuel cashflows. Define the economy as the combined wealth in existence, priced by their owners (not the banks who like to determine what things cost) then this strategy will grow wealth, even if the government doesn’t spend. The effect is simply this : If you use fossil fuels you are being burdened, if you sell fossil fuels you will see less demand. If you are a bank and you loan to a fossil fuel using company you see less return.
So no carbon tax, simply directed fuel taxes, and no spending of those tax revenues.