Does it makes sense to fight obesity by forcing thin people to reduce their food intake w/taxes & high prices?

Question

Then why does it make sense to "fight global warming" by punishing those who use relatively little (compared to big corporations and those at the top who consume disproportionately more than average people) with carbon taxes, gas taxes, higher energy and gas prices unregulated price gouging? How does redistribution of wealth and access to resources from the bottom and middle, to the very top help save the earth? How does making people into peons subject to the whims of multinationals (so they can profit over new carbon/green/crop-ethanol speculation trading schemes & get generous government/tax payer handouts to test these schemes) going to make the world a better place?

Answer 1

At the risk of sounding stupid or radical, I am convinced that the whole global warming issue was created to shift wealth and resources.  The most recent estimate of the cost to reduce carbon emissions by 50% in the U S by 2050 is 45 TRILLION dollars.  WOW!

The good news is, this will create jobs and build new industries.  Maybe you will have one of those jobs.

Don't get me wrong, I'm a big believer in efficiency, and I am an opponent of inefficiency and hater of waste.  But, where will the money come from?  More importantly, is carbon the enemy, or is just the heat of energy usage dissipating into the atmosphere the real culprit?

Most importantly, slowing our carbon impact will not help.  The best than can be hoped for, on a global scale, is a reduction in the rate that carbon release accelerates.  Carbon output will increase, and the rate of that output will increase.  Emerging economies will assure this.  Why spend 45 trillion dollars and suffer the obvious reduction of safety and health care  implied by this, if the battle is already lost?  If we stopped burning fossil fuels and ended the burning of forests immediately (we will not), the planet would take a thousand years or more to recover.

Best get used to it.  Carbon output will continue to rise.  Period.  Oil prices will continue to rise.  Period.  Food prices will continue to rise.  Period.  There is no competitive pressure, either economic or evolutionary, to limit these increases.  Greed will continue to seek new ways to gain wealth and fortune at the expense of the serfs.  That will be harder to get used to.

Answer 2

Are you just paranoid or what?

Gas taxes were installed way before any knowlege of AGW.

The rich have always gotten richer.

The current price gouging at the gas pump is Cheney's  secret energy plan!

The 'redistribution' of wealth is very bad for the environment!

The denial of real science makes you a peon in the oil companies plans!

Do you have a loyalty to the oil companies profit margins ,or are you loyal to the needs of the Earth?

Want to make the Earth a better place? Live clean and green!

Answer 3

You know, people who have little and are on welfare are often obese already.  Just because people have little doesn't automatically mean they are thin.  Just because people are wealthy doesn't mean they are obese.  Your logic is faulty.

People who get government handouts already (aka welfare) don't buy healthy food, they buy pizza, and junk food.

Answer 4

I am going to repost this reply here because most people do not seem to realize that the global warning promoters are the oil companies.

Well, some interesting responses, but no body bothered to point out that most if not all the funding for the kooks is coming from big oil and most of that from Exxon/Mobil and Chevron/Texaco just as most of the funding for Obama is. So if big oil is backing the fraud is there any question why oil prices are rising right along with attacks on those who ask for real documented evidence and calling for a new inquisition against those who will not accept their arguments on faith alone. Whenever any so called scientist says there is no point in arguing I think of what they did to real scientists’ back in the dark ages.

Are we entering a new Dark Age where if you will not accept the doctrine of consent you can have your head chopped off in a Guillotine or be burned at the stake as a heretic? We have been here before only a mere few hundred years ago, do we really want to return to the catholic and Protestant inquisitions of the 15th and 16th centuries, do we really? I can just see Al Gore and Obama leading a crusade against the unbelievers in the new religion of politically correct greenness with a guillotine in the background to silence the dissenters!

Answer 5

Your example makes no sense.  By taxing products that contribute to global warming, companies have an incentive to develop alternative technologies that do not.  I don't know what redistribution of wealth you're talking about, and the current rise in gas prices has nothing to do with global warming.

Answer 6

Your example doesn't work too well.  But for the sake of argument, let's say obesity is an issue that is going to cause problems for the whole world.  Charging extra taxes on junk food would certainly be justifiable, not to punish thin people, but to encourage the companies that produce food to sell healthier foods which may cost more to produce.

No one is trying to redistribute wealth through global warming measures.  Carbon taxes and gas taxes would be for the purpose of encouraging the energy companies to invest in greener technology.

The increased gas and energy prices seen so far are not the result of global warming legislation.