It seems in Britain at least, there is a bit of a backlash on Green Taxes. That is taxes used to modify behavior to more Green choices. It seems a vast majority think they are just ploys to raise taxes and bring in more money for the government.
More than seven in 10 voters insist that they would not be willing to pay higher taxes in order to fund projects to combat climate change, according to a new poll.
The survey also reveals that most Britons believe “green” taxes on 4x4s, plastic bags and other consumer goods have been imposed to raise cash rather than change our behaviour, while two-thirds of Britons think the entire green agenda has been hijacked as a ploy to increase taxes.
It continues:
Three in 10 (29 per cent) of all respondents would oppose any more legislation in support of green policies, while close to a third of citizens (31 per cent) believe that green taxes will have no discernible effect on the environment since people will still take long-haul flights regularly and drive carbon-heavy vehicles.
Mike Childs, the head of campaigns for Friends of the Earth, blamed the Government for generating a cynical response to “green taxes”. “People do get cynical unless they see benefits,” he said. “The Government is playing a dangerous game. They are using climate change to identify potential new taxes and revenues but the public aren’t seeing anything in return. The public aren’t being helped to go green. The Government could put a windfall tax on the big oil companies and use that money to insulate homes or introduce a feed-in tariff to pay people to produce renewable energy.”
Mark Hodson, of Opinium Research, said: “Britain appears to be feeling increasingly negative about being more carbon neutral. We are questioning the truth behind being greener and many feel that Government is creating a green fear for monetary gain.”
Government using the specter of climate change as an excuse to raise taxes? No it couldn’t be, Could it?
While some would argue that climate change/global warming is established fact, there appears to be a growing level of scepticism. As I have said before, we don’t even know what we don’t know. Many of the models cannot produce the actual historical results when starting at an earlier point in time. e.g. 1950 or 1975. How can we expect them accurately predict future results.
Don’t get me wrong, conservation is a good thing.Â
Spending billions to re-mediate poorly understood phenomenon which may or may not produce the expected reuslts and which may or may not have any significantl effect is not a good use of our resources.Â
