Your Questions About Green Living

Why don’t we live in a resource based economy?

A resource-based economy would replace the need for the current monetary economy, which is “scarcity-oriented” or “scarcity-based”. Resource-Based Economy is a system in which all goods and services are available without the use of money, credits, barter or any other system of debt or servitude.

Modern society has access to highly advanced technology and can make available food, clothing, housing and medical care; update our educational system; and develop a limitless supply of renewable, non-contaminating energy. By supplying an efficiently designed economy, everyone can enjoy a very high standard of living with all of the amenities of a high technological society.

A resource-based economy would utilize existing resources from the land and sea, physical equipment, industrial plants, etc. to enhance the lives of the total population. In an economy based on resources rather than money, we could easily produce all of the necessities of life and provide a high standard of living for all.

Should we be moving towards a resource based economy? If not why not? Can we get away from the scarcity based economy we are currently in and take a great leap forward towards a resource based economy? If we can, how will it happen? If we can’t, why not?

What do you think of the venus project?

It’s useless to criticize the culture without providing alternatives. The Venus Project proposes plans for social change that work toward a peaceful and sustainable global civilization. It outlines an alternative social design where human rights are not just paper proclamations, but a way of life. The Venus Project has a vision of what the future can be if we apply what we already know to achieve a sustainable world civilization. It calls for a scientific redesign of our culture in which war, poverty, hunger, debt, and unnecessary human, suffering are viewed as not only avoidable, but unacceptable. Anything less will result in a disastrous continuation of the problems inherent in today’s world.

Simply stated, a resource-based economy focuses on resources rather than money, and provides an equitable distribution thereof in a humane and efficient manner. It is a system in which goods and services are available without the use of money, credit, barter, debt, or servitude.

The first objective is to eliminate scarcity. A resource-based economy overcomes scarcity by using renewable sources of energy, plus computerized automated manufacturing and inventory. It would design safe energy-efficient cities with advanced transportation systems, and would provide universal health care and more relevant education.
The aim of this new social design is to encourage an incentive system based on human and environmental concerns, and to avoid the shallow and self-centered goals of individual wealth, property, and power. These new incentives would help people evolve self-fulfillment and creativity, both materially and spiritually.

Does this make you made Republicans!?

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/06/11/MNI6116RIU.DTL&type=printable

Senate Democrats pushed a vote Tuesday on a bill to impose a windfall profits tax of 25 percent on the major oil companies, the proceeds going to subsidize new renewable energy. The bill’s sponsors said it is obscene that Exxon Mobil Corp. and other oil companies are making the largest profits in history while consumers are suffering.

But Republicans countered that imposing a punitive tax would only discourage oil companies from new oil exploration. The measure failed on a 51-43 vote, falling nine votes short of the 60 needed to break a potential filibuster.

Republicans also blocked debate on a measure to extend tax credits for wind, solar and other renewable energy sources. The bill failed on a 50-44 vote; GOP senators opposed the bill because it would have raised taxes on hedge-fund managers to pay for the tax credits.

Does this not just scream oil for the oil gods to you!!!
Republican plan

Arctic drilling: Open the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska to oil drilling.

Coastal drilling: Allow states to approve drilling for oil and natural gas off their coasts.

Encourage refineries: Offer incentives to oil companies to build new refineries.

More tax breaks: Create new tax breaks to speed the development of coal-to-liquid fuels.

Nothing about trying to find ways to remove ourselves from oil at all!!! Its all about the oil baby!!!

These are the reason I am an independent voter!!! As you can see these people in office have sold off their souls a long time ago and should be removed!!!
Error in question, not made its MAD!!!!
fouro33

Sorry, I am not going to buy into the whole supply and demand crap they are spiting out at us. Its one thing to make a buck and its another thing to make a buck off the backs of your fellow man!!

Should a group of people be allowed to control all aspects of a company. I think that falls under the laws of monopoly of which is against the law if I am not correct!

Have you ever see the movie a Beautiful Mind.

I dont think anybody in American minds profit!! Then again people in American do mind when they are being ran blantly over by the government and these companies.
Robert J

If they are just pandering for vote then why dont they pony up and show it down their throats.

As far as the companies goes they are getting any and everything they want from the government. I dont forsee them leaving any time soon even if things did change.

Could you commit on the other information please as well?
Brotherj

Maybe somebody should pony up the government and to the big oil companies. Maybe somebody should put their money where there mouth is. Why not pony up to them because you willing to settle for what they give you then change to make things better.

If this is the case they when everything keeps going to hell, you can say to the man on top can I please have a scrap of that bread and part of the meat because I am unable to buy gas to get to my job. Sounds like you sold yourself short sir!
Derail

Sometimes changes comes at a cost, American Revolution! We need to better our way of life and staying with the oil GODS is not one of them. We can either fall behind in the world or move forward to stay on top. I for one wound like to say that this country is still first place in 10 years.
Vote_usa

Point well made their sir and I do enjoy the fact that you understand how most think these two parties work on different side! In fact they work together for the better of themselves.

You point shows that we need more parties in office!

Are Republicans in Congress more concerned with Hedge Fund Profits than developing alternatives to Oil?

Republicans also blocked debate on a measure to extend tax credits for wind, solar and other renewable energy sources. The bill failed on a 50-44 vote; GOP senators opposed the bill because it would have raised taxes on hedge-fund managers to pay for the tax credits.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/06/11/MNI6116RIU.DTL

Blood and Gore. Can you believe that Al Gore’s carbon credit trading company has that name?

You people are being led like sheep to the slaughterhouse with Al Gore’s mindless carbon nonsense:

The Money and Connections Behind Al Gore’s Carbon Crusade
by Deborah Corey Barnes

10/03/2007

Al Gore’s campaign against global warming is shifting into high gear. Reporters and commentators follow his every move and bombard the public with notice of his activities and opinions. But while the mainstream media promote his ideas about the state of planet Earth, they are mostly silent about the dramatic impact his economic proposals would have on America. And journalists routinely ignore evidence that he may personally benefit from his programs. Would the romance fizzle if Gore’s followers realized how much their man stands to gain?

Earlier this year Gore experienced a notable public relations debacle. The Tennessee Center for Policy Research, a state think tank, revealed that he was an energy hog. Public records show that Gore’s Nashville mansion used in one month more than twice the electricity the typical American household uses in a year: His average monthly electric bill was more than $1,359. Moreover, Gore’s household energy use increased after An Inconvenient Truth, his film about global warming, was released to ecstatic reviews.

Never mind that the scientific community is divided over what causes global warming, how bad it is and how to deal with it. Gore plays Chicken Little to the media’s applause, insisting that the world is warming dangerously and that he has the solution.

The ‘Cap-and-Trade’ System

To resolve the “climate crisis,” Gore wants to put a cap on the production of greenhouse gases. He calls for an immediate freeze on U.S. emissions, a ban on new coal-fired power plants, tough new fuel-economy and energy-efficiency standards, renewable energy mandates, carbon taxes and mandatory targets and timetables for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions. Those emissions consist mostly of carbon dioxide (CO2), the byproduct of fossil fuels such as oil, coal and natural gas, which supply 85% of all U.S. energy. Gore’s blueprint to save the planet moves the United States towards a command economy in which government regulators hold sway over what kinds and amounts of energy will be made available to the private sector. His principal regulatory tool is what’s called carbon-credit trading.

Under a so-called “cap-and-trade” system, government places a ceiling or “cap” on private-sector emissions of CO2 and other “greenhouse gases.” Each sector, industry or business is allocated a fixed quantity of carbon credits that allow it to emit specific quantities of greenhouse gases. As an example, one tradable carbon credit might permit the emission of one ton of CO2. If a business emits more tons of CO2 than its supply of credits allows, it has the option to buy surplus credits from other firms — or it will have to pay a fine in proportion to the amount of the excess emission. By contrast, businesses that emit less than their allocation can sell their excess credits.

This system, which may sound market-friendly, is something only a bureaucrat could dream up. The twist is that the carbon market exists only because the government’s imposition of a cap creates an artificial scarcity in the right to produce energy. In a cap-and-trade system, buyers will purchase their offsets from a broker or through an electronic trading platform. In Europe, carbon trading is already a reality. Since 2005, carbon offsets have been traded electronically on the European Climate Exchange (ECX).

Most carbon cap-and-trade programs also allow regulated entities to earn credits by taking actions that supposedly reduce emissions outside of the firm’s facilities or operations. In one popular version of the carbon-offset concept, firms earn credits by buying seedling trees for planting in less-developed countries. Supporters claim the CO2 intake of the trees will balance out the carbon emissions of the sponsoring firm’s industrial activity. Despite its public relations value, scientists scoff at the notion that it’s possible to plant enough trees to balance out man’s production of CO2. But carbon-offset projects are popular in the environmentalist community.

More Chances to Cheat

However, the most radical environmentalists reject cap-and-trade. They say it allows polluters to continue to pollute by purchasing carbon credits. That is true but irrelevant. A ton of CO2 emitted in Beijing has the same climatologic effect as a ton emitted in New York. The real problem is that every country’s government has an incentive to cheat on behalf of its domestic producers. This has been the European Union’s (EU) experience with the Emissions Trading System (ETS) that the EU established to implement the Kyoto Protocol. In just about every EU country except Britain, the credits allowed exceed the corresponding tons of emissions.

Carbon offsets provide even more opportunities to cheat. For example, some aluminum com