Too bad that Agoravox's articles are still long, discouraging most readers ... Summaries / synthesis would be welcome ...
The quote from Econologie.com would have been "a little" welcome anyway because there are "a lot" of ideas (euphemism) pumped back on the site ...
But you have to remain "politically correct, eh" ...
Econology, dream or reality?
On the one hand ecology, on the other the economy. We quickly created the neologism "econology" and in addition, it goes hand in hand but with a very particular logic. Especially when you think about who benefits. So, reconciliation?
Econologie.jpg This was to happen with the crisis: the conflict of interest between the economy and the ecology. The 2 December, demonstration in Brussels to oppose the measures of the European plan to fight against global warming, accused of endangering jobs in the steel industry. Normal reactions in good faith on the part of the more ecological supporters. Consume to live indoors or seek to survive against the outside elements. The dilemma of today.
The local Loch Ness snake of our economy is showing off when things are not in their best shape. No photo support for those who hoped to have the scoop of the day.
Scoop, there was not this time, only a small surprise in the form of alarm clock.
At the same time, the auto industry was forced to reduce CO2 emissions from new cars. Reactions from car manufacturers: in times of crisis, how can we be more irresponsible? Producing cars that emit on average only 130 grams of CO2 100kms while consuming 4 5 liters, is perfectly achievable. The cars will be better and some manufacturers admit that this is possible without monstrous investments. The envy of the customers can not turn against themselves. Producers will not be able to continue to take refuge behind their production of 4X4 very consumer, in a game of the egg and the hen.
Econology_Greenpeace.jpg At the same time, Greenpeace denounced the European compromise on CO2 emissions from cars. "Europe is giving in to the enormous pressure exerted by the automobile lobby to postpone and weaken reduction targets and to sharply reduce fines for non-compliance with the rules." "The proposed (and already weakened) target of 130g CO2 / km is once again postponed for three years until 2015, and due to a series of emergency exits and low fines, this target will not be probably not even realized, "lamented the environmental organization. "It can even be argued that this regulation is nothing more than a continuation of the ineffective voluntary agreement that Europe concluded with the automotive industry in 1998," she added. (Source: Le Soir)
"The European CO2 Exchange is taking advantage of the crisis" headlined the newspaper l'Echo on December 4. "The number of 'pollution rights' issued by the ECX has exploded by 283% compared to the previous year. For companies, reducing emissions must go hand in hand with the economy." he added.
Ecotaxes often reappear after falling asleep in the sleep of the righteous. The crisis has very insomniac tendencies.
Taxes, I don't talk about it much in my posts. Apart from "The tax to get laid" launched by France on air travel. Tax which was to save human lives from hunger in parts of the world. Darfur was dying precisely because of this lack of participation. The lack of cause and effect seemed completely irrational to me. Maybe we weren't taking the plane enough to fill the ad hoc crates?
In the past, environmental taxes had already been vilified by industry and consumers.
Consumers often consider ecological taxes as economic taxes that can be used to close budgets to fill deficits. They are not completely wrong.
Same fight, same disorientation in the allocation of hard currency. A quick calculation made by those who are used to handling taxes, tells us that it will cost 100 150 euros per year to average Belgian households.
Yet, if companies have been squeezed to streamline their production and packaging methods, the fact remains that the end consumer will be the hostage again of mouth-hole decision.
20% of the greenhouse effect is produced by the emission of greenhouse gases produced by livestock farming and the methane from livestock droppings. Agriculture pollutes and is also singled out by river fishermen because of the fertilizers used on the fields. "Planète nature" spoke about it on television on November 30.
The CO2, many experts say that if we had not pushed so much to deforestation to meet the need for paper and wood, we would not have problems with it. So reforesting massively where deforestation has been most disturbing could reduce the problem.
The administrator of the Belgian Federation of Distribution thought the following.
A tax on packaging was decided in October 2006. The government had been convinced by the companies that this tax was not going to help the CO2 issue and was going to tax the cheapest products with the lowest incomes. Packaging is just 1% of all CO2 emissions.
If we pack, it is to preserve the freshness of food and ensure food safety. The consumer has changed his behavior using the blue bags with success. These are recycled and reused at 93%, it is a world record. The eco-tax is paid for the purchase of electrical equipment. Some products, such as batteries, are to be recovered. Does this mean that you have to take your car and consume oil in order to complete your duty as a responsible citizen?
Aluminum is recycled at 100%. Technology makes it possible to extract aluminum from the bins. Aluminum will be the most heavily taxed. Why ? Because during the manufacturing of aluminum, aluminum extract of bauxite and we use a lot of energy and we have a lot of emission of Co2. Only here, recycled, the same aluminum product will be retaxed multiple times and in fact, be made economically unsustainable compared to other forms of packaging while there is absolutely no ecological reason to do so.
Consumers are convinced that a change in behavior is worth doing and we will try to limit reusable, disposable plastic bags in department stores.
Those responsible for promoting the environment announced that they would help businesses with advertising campaigns twice a year. We started in April 2004. Regional governments have advertised in newspapers and on television and radio with some success. But it was planned that they do it again in November, December and then again, the year after. They did not do anything, they stopped, they did not spend. Reduce by 40% by late 2006, so compared to early 2004, the use of plastic bags has been achieved, a doubled compared to the objectives.
To forbid is obviously not to take into account the times when it is necessary to have some. Prohibit completely? Would not it come to mind the cleverest to consume on the spot and forget to pay at the cashier? In what pack the fresh meat at the butcher to get it in the pocket or caddy? Question of proper hygiene and plastic is certainly the best at this level. A series of exceptions in the law? Complicated ? We will not know very well, when and how. An army of examiners, auditors? The logic of prohibitions, exceptions, controls when there is a way to convince each other, the consumer and the trader to try to reduce it to the maximum when possible.
The sector is a carrier in itself. The trade employs in Belgium nearly 400.000 people, a little less than 300.000 employees and a little more than 100.000 independent. It is a sector that accounts for more than 11% of GDP. But compared to abroad, although the sector is larger than in France or Germany or the Netherlands, employment in the retail trade is lower than in Germany or the Netherlands for example as a percentage of the population employed.
There are well known salary costs, not the problem of what people earn but what they cost. A cashier in France costs 25% less than a cashier in Belgium but she earns more. And so it is an evil that we know in other sectors as well but which makes that for example, each of us thinks that he must wait infinitely too long at the checkouts, not only on Saturday but even a Tuesday afternoon. And the reason is obviously that we try to optimize the use of staff and waiting times.
The payroll taxes targeted, it seems a very good idea. In practice when companies are asked for figures on how many people they employ. The answer is: that, we do not know, we do not manage like that, we hire people based on their skills and then we make them make their careers based on their skills and then, how much does it ultimately cost charges, social charges, well, we see it and it is the Social Secretariat that calculates it. In fact, what this brings is an important complication in terms of calculations, both for the Social Secretariat of the company and for the Social Security itself; marginal job effects because it's so complicated that people do not target the less than 25 years, the most of this, that those who have two years of employment, like this or unemployment like that, then that a linear measure, ie use the same money saying, instead that it is 34% of supplement, you will pay only 32% of supplement, for example.
Regularly, economy and ecology are antagonistic in their objectives. There are even the "anti-ecologists" who criticize "catastrophism" and refuse all questioning their way of life. "Unnecessary works" say the most contesting to the policies to fight against global warming. Bjorn Lomborg and Claude Allègre are the best-known examples. Always to have a vision of the economy according to which, it is necessary to intensify the world trade and to accelerate the exchanges can not be conceived if all the parameters of good human being go in the same direction at the end of the race. Globalization has extended pollution problems on a much larger scale than in the past. That makes the difference with the end of the 19ème century, during which appeared the first industrial networks in the energy, the telephony and the transport. Reagan and Thatcher had unbounded confidence in the laws of the market. To contradict their ideas of the past, electrical energy has not become less expensive with the self-regulation of markets. Competition did not even happen since companies had to merge to exist. The physical laws of Kirchhoff explain that the current follows the path of least resistance, not the one we want to impose. Industrialization is regulated according to its own interests and available means. All this to say that the corrections to situations are to be evaluated to the best of the goal to reach. To test so.
The precautionary principle is not to be questioned. Visually, climate change is also evident and the unbridled Liberal system has led to the crisis we are experiencing.
But must we necessarily go through taxes? Would the instinct of conservation really have been lost in the neurons of humans? Do we want to be sustainable or passable?
Finding ways to give advantages to both sides, that is obviously what would be the most profitable and that would prevent distortions between people. The Nouvel Obs at the beginning of December headlined "Green jobs: more noise than jobs". Political hope of States which requires a lot of long-term investment and, therefore, time to set up. Recycle, they said. The French Grenelle de l'Environnement does not solve anything in the short-term job losses. The skin reactions of fear that we find in the demonstration in Brussels, are therefore not by chance.
Econology_Green Energy.jpg In this sense, we are talking about green energy. The IPO of "4Energy Invest" shows that this may interest investors and consumers. The recession, since the word is launched, can change the tune by stimulating other alternatives without romanticism. Oil, which has fallen to one-third of the price since the summer, allows us to regain some time and confidence. Use the environment to improve the economic record. BeCitizen proposed the principles: to optimize the use of energy, irreplaceable nuclear power over the short term being part of the diversity of energy sources, biofuels if they do not encroach on the human diet based on very hardy plants like the atropha like 2th generation or from micro-algae, like third. Anyway, we do not make omelets without breaking eggs.
http://www.agoravox.fr/article.php3?id_article=48668