From: Lee Corbin (lcorbin@tsoft.com)
Date: Sun Feb 09 2003 - 18:57:06 MST
Spike writes (and I will attempt, first, to recapitulate
his argument)
> The U.S. has much stricter emissions laws than China or
> India. Lower U.S. fuel taxes encourage Americans to
> drive bigger cars and thus burn more fuel cleanly.
> This increased demand for petroleum drives up the price
> everywhere, including Asia where they burn petroleum
> without so much as a catalytic converter in many cases.
And, since the petroleum used by the Asians pollutes
more, environmentalists should be happy that the U.S.
> So taxing gas in the U.S. increases pollution globally.
The assumption here is that a decrease in U.S. consumption
would be more than offset (pollution-wise) by an increase
in consumption in China and India. This sounds correct,
so far as I know.
But then Spike writes in the next email---confusing me
greatly---
> Rafal Smigrodzki wrote:
> >
> > ### No, you got it backwards - it is the punishment of polluters that
> > reduces pollution and saves lives. Punishing gas users is almost irrelevant
> > in this context - a 50 mpg car without catalytic exhaust harms more people
> > than a 15 mpg car with it, both by increased pollution and decreased safety.
> > By confusing the issue of gas use with the issue of pollution you are doing
> > a disservice to both of them.
> > Data on survival in crashes shows that solidly-built cars do reduce
> > mortality rates. Rafal
> Oops I wrote a nearly identical comment a few minutes
> ago, before I read this. My comments are redundant.
I see nothing in Rafal's remarks about economics. Therefore,
your points above that I recapitulated are quite different,
and are not redundant. Unless I'm missing something.
Lee
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