Re: [Fsfe-uk] ZDNet Carbon-neutral PC runs Vista (not Free software)

[Alex Hudson]

On Mon, 2007-09-17 at 12:05 +0100, MJ Ray wrote:
> It seems so-called green taxes may be useless in changing buying habits.
> 
> Point of information: the different levels of road tax/vehicle excise
> duty/road fund licence pricing are having no effect on Europe yet:
> "CO_2 emission rates from *new cars* are down by just 0.2 percent on
> last year" [p73, The Observer Magazine, 16 September 2007].
> 
> Or would it change if a green tax was payable on purchase price,
> clearly labelled?

I think one of the big problems is that it's not possible to boil
'degree of eco-friendliness' down into star rating or something like
washing machines or something, making it difficult to see how you could
set such a tax in a way which rewarded that type of purchasing decision.

A lot of what determines how friendly the car is comes from the type of
use it receives: e.g., my Saab is a terrible car for urban driving,
getting something like 15mpg on a bad day. But, I never use it for that,
it does motorway miles and achieves 40mpg pretty easily.

Similarly, how 'green' a PC is doesn't just depend on how much energy
was used to manufacture it, or how much energy it uses when turned on. A
big server is terribly power-hungry, but if it's powering 20 thin
clients is it suddenly 'green'?

I think you can 'green tax' the manufacture of goods (that is, try to
link the cost of items with the environmental cost of making them), but
I don't think they will be much use at changing buying habits or
informing people which is the 'greenest' good to buy in their situation.

Thinking about cars again, I reckon atm I spend about £500 pa in fuel
duty alone (excluding VAT). It would have to be a hefty green tax
upfront to offset the running costs based on fuel, and I think the
running cost tax is a lot fairer. I'd personally like to see most of the
costs of motoring (road fund, insurance, etc.) all linked into the
actual running of the vehicle personally, at least partially. 

Cheers,

Alex.