Message from the Future III

 Making the Auto Industry green

To think that all it took for a brighter tomorrow, all we had to was to get politics out of the way.  For instance, the tax credits that the government issued when they started raising taxes to help offset the effects of raising taxes for the small business owner, who then went and sold said credits to large corporations for a big profit was somewhat a two-sided sword.  I say that because while the small business people were able to make large profits, the large sum of tax money that the government hoped to collect from the large corporations wasn’t there either.  On the other side though, the private individual also saw a tax increase which created unease among the population.  Of course, what really got things moving was the compromise between the two parties to instead start limiting what private individuals or corporations could import into the country, which set off a chain reaction around the world that destabilized the world economy.  No longer could a corporation just move manufacturing jobs into somewhat third world country and continue business as usual.  Also, in terms of the American motorist both commercial and private the tax incentives to go to greener cars really gave the country the push it needed to start thinking in terms of renewable energy sources for both fuel and power.

The easiest way forward if we want to solve the current environmental crisis is by using the current framework provided by our society mainly, capitalism.  To start with I think that the government could start by giving out tax incentives for corporations and small business to start using more greener technology.  The most pressing issues regarding electric cars are the price tag which could be solved using tax rebates to encourage the purchase of such vehicles, otherwise it most likely takes our society too long to transition naturally.  Another thing, that the government can do to cut down on the number of non-green cars is to offer a tax incentive for citizens and business to switch over to greener cars like hybrids and electric vehicles like charging private citizens and businesses for having gasoline or diesel engines.  Of course, the transition time between business and private citizens will be different, considering that a private business owner is more likely to transition sooner than private citizen to cut down on costs.  For instance, the agricultural sectors of our economy already have green alternatives, but there are few barriers that keep them being used unilaterally.  According to Lindsay Campbell in her article, Dr Roger Hoy said that everything except the batteries was good and that the only thing holding it back was that the technology for the batteries had not been developed yet.  Also, in terms of commercial trucking a number of companies have already gone green and are trying to make the environment stable, and this list contains some very recognizable names like UPS.  Ultimately though agriculture and commercial transportation are somewhat easier to solve than some of the other problems we are facing in the coming years, but I do believe that we will survive the coming storm one way or another.