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posted by martyb on Sunday November 18 2018, @12:14PM   Printer-friendly
from the everybody-should-pay-their-fair-share dept.

On Saturday, November 16th, around 282,000 people blocked roads and highways all over France. The protesters, nicknamed the gillets jaunes after the yellow warning vests they wore, had organized through Facebook. Their beef: the increase in environmental taxes on gasoline, on top of a number of other tax increases.

We don't disagree with having to pay more to help act for the environment and fight climate change, was the general opinion, but why should it be only the little folks who have to pay while the elite can easily grin and bear it -- why not tax also all that heavy fuel burned by aeroplanes and tanker ships?

The action, which persisted throughout the day, resulted in over 100 wounded and one tragic death when a mother driving her child to hospital panicked.

The protesters do have a point. While media and politics rightly, if very, very much belatedly, are warning about climate change, the alternatives proposed clearly are not to be taken seriously.

The hard choices we need to face apparently come down to cities investing in smart cameras to fine visitors based on production year and type of their automobile. Public transport investing will come, but not to the countryside where car/ride sharing, Uber and similar services simply are not viable; Tesla and relatives are on another price planet for ordinary people.

As to the EU's emission trading system (ETS) that should drive industry to climate change action: news broke on the same day as the gillets jaunes actions that Britain -- on the verge of leaving the EU -- is one of the biggest net exporters of such credits: Britain had 900 million of these credits too much, for the years 2013-2015 alone.


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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by Spamalope on Sunday November 18 2018, @01:13PM (4 children)

    by Spamalope (5233) on Sunday November 18 2018, @01:13PM (#763466) Homepage

    but why should it be only the little folks who have to pay while the elite can easily grin and bear it -- why not tax also all that heavy fuel burned by aeroplanes and tanker ships?

    Around here, new toll roads were put in heading to wealthy suburb areas. This looks to be motivated similarly - keep the poors from congesting the roads wealthy folks are using.

    Of course, later it will just be about the money. In California they raised gas taxes to encourage use of electric cars, then wanted an excise tax on electric car registrations because they were avoiding the tax!

    Hopefully someone will do a hypocrisy check to see if the authors/supporters of the tax are being frugal with their own carbon foot print. In the US lots of 'do as I say not as I do' came to light.

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  • (Score: 5, Interesting) by Unixnut on Sunday November 18 2018, @02:51PM (3 children)

    by Unixnut (5779) on Sunday November 18 2018, @02:51PM (#763492)

    > Around here, new toll roads were put in heading to wealthy suburb areas. This looks to be motivated similarly - keep the poors from congesting the roads wealthy folks are using.

    The entire "climate change" as a political concept seems to have been created solely to justify actions that cripple the non rich, from what I can see. Every single "solution" seems to disproportionately hit the poor and middle class, while the rich can still enjoy their private yachts, massive houses, private aircraft, and other trinkets of wealth.

    All those politicians and rich people flying across the world (often in private jets) to meet for a climate change conference to decide how to tax the rest of us into submission "for the environment" is a perfect example.

    I do feel the the eventual goal (and ideal solution) for the rich will be to restrict all the poor people to massive cities where they will work till death, have a minimal environmental footprint, minimal quality of life, and limited mobility , while leaving most of the free space for the wealthy to enjoy.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 18 2018, @04:29PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday November 18 2018, @04:29PM (#763527)

      yes, that's the plan. just look at "national" and "state" parks. UN land and natural resource theft for the elite to use in the future. soon, all the major cities will completely dominate elections and they will use these masses of slaves to pass the laws required to further enslave humanity. rural people who know better and refuse to go along will be made into "criminals" and "terrorists" by the anti freedom laws. pigs and patriots will die.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 19 2018, @02:50AM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday November 19 2018, @02:50AM (#763753)

      Every single "solution" seems to disproportionately hit the poor and middle class, while the rich can still enjoy their private yachts, massive houses, private aircraft, and other trinkets of wealth.

      You only notice this when it comes to climate change? Every solution the bourgeois propose to attempt to reconcile the inherent contradictions of capitalism (such as the build up to world war 3) disproportionately hits the working class--and what's left of the middle class as they continue sinking down into proletariat (as predicted by theory).

      • (Score: 1) by khallow on Monday November 19 2018, @05:19AM

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Monday November 19 2018, @05:19AM (#763797) Journal

        You only notice this when it comes to climate change? Every solution the bourgeois propose to attempt to reconcile the inherent contradictions of capitalism (such as the build up to world war 3) disproportionately hits the working class--and what's left of the middle class as they continue sinking down into proletariat (as predicted by theory).

        What inherent contradictions? Most alleged by Marx were purely imaginary.