On Wed, 09 Jul 2008 11:22:51 -0400 [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: > The Tompkins County Legislature passed a resolution on last month in > support of a federal carbon tax-and-refund
A resolution is indeed a political step forward, but also is politically cheap. Assuming that passing a carbon tax-and-refund at the federal level in a timely fashion is politically unimaginable, what is to stop the county from taking the next step, the concrete one of enacting a carbon tax-and-refund at the county level? Those who are better informed of the current state of Tompkins Cty politics may find this question naive, or at least premature, but isn't this kind of local political control what relocalisation should be about? If the refund part could be truly equitable, this seems like a political organizing issue with good potential, not only for immediate political education, but eventually, with enactment, for concretely changing the slope of the local economic playing field, thus leveraging needed changes in transport, housing patterns, and local production of food and other necessities of life. To succeed politically, this kind of legislation must be conceived as part of a gradual planned package whose enactment, putting horses before carts, is chronologically astute. For example, before drastically reducing car lanes in Paris, France by restricting some to rapid transit public transportation, the mayor's first step was to invest in better transit in outlying regions to ensure that everyone in the greater Paris area had access to high-quality public transit (See Lester Brown's report on cities around the world which are redesigning urban transport much faster than Ithaca. http://www.earth-policy.org/Books/Seg/PB3ch10_ss3.htm ) Comments? Karl North Northland Sheep Dairy, Freetown, New York USA www.geocities.com/northsheep/ "Mother Nature never farms without animals" - Albert Howard "Pueblo que canta no morira" - Cuban saying ____________________________________________________________ Fabulous Spa Getaway! Enter for your chance to WIN great beauty prizes everyday! http://thirdpartyoffers.juno.com/TGL2141/fc/JKFkuJi7Urp0h9v4LkLcBaiyY5FkQxVdebWiziITcKlZ9yw2pwXC5P/ _______________________________________________ For more information about sustainability in the Tompkins County area, please visit: http://www.sustainabletompkins.org/ RSS, archives, subscription & listserv information for: [email protected] http://lists.mutualaid.org/mailman/listinfo/sustainabletompkins free hosting by http://www.mutualaid.org
