French Protesters Against Climate Change

Cole Barger
Mr. Roddy
GPHC
9 December 2018
French Protesters Against Climate Change

The protests in France started very recently when the French President, Emmanuel Macron, and his government announced an increase on taxes. This increase would be to try and lower greenhouse gases. They do this by increasing the tax on fuel to try and get fewer people on the road. This outraged the general public because they didn't like the fact that they would have to pay more for a daily necessity. One individual even noted that elite people like President Macron won't be affected by the economic hit, while the working class will. Which I think is a very good point, especially when you look at the numbers of who contributes the most to climate change. We can also start making changes to our agriculture and industrious sectors who waste the most water and are 2 out of the 3 major contributors to climate change. Or, at least do something that won't immediately effect the working and middle classes so much. It is important that we use less gas for transportation, but the fact of the matter is that individuals don't waste nearly as much resources as big industrious companies that should be taxed more. Obviously the people of France didn't like this increase of taxes, which means that most people in other countries won't either. However there are other ways to do this, an example is the President of Canada's plan. President Trudeau's plan is to tax people $20 per carbon ton, but around 90% of the money they make from these taxes will be paid back to the people as an incentive. This means that around 70% of Canadians will make more money from this tax than they lost. If you give people a potential reward like President Trudeau, I think they will be much more likely to be okay with it. Which is what went wrong in France, they didn't give the people a personal reason, other than saving the planet, a good reason to be taxed.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Emily Routbort Mr. Roddy GPHC R 20 September 2018 Social Sustainability Addressing social sustainability is a challenge for many places in the world. Social sustainability works to reduce factors that negatively affect human social well being (p. 61 in the reading). Some examples of social sustainability issues are corruption, unfit healthcare and education, disempowerment of women, and social inequality. These problems should be dealt with after fulfilling basic needs such as food, water, shelter, and rest. From another standpoint, you might find to achieve economic and environmental sustainability, you must achieve social sustainability before other proceeding to solve economic and environmental issues. My reasoning for this is because you should have a strong established base that you can work off of (where everyone is working in harmony) so we can then proceed to work on other issues. In most of the world though, this is not the case (considering that you place s...
Read more

Domestic Violence Survivors Access to Shelter - Social Sustainability

Anna Kaplan Mr. Roddy GPHC Domestic Violence Survivors Access to Shelter - Social Sustainability Many people in the country suffer from and escape dangerous domestic violence situations in their own homes. These people often bring their children with them to escape the threat, but once they have left their home they are faced with a new problem: homelessness. Many of these people have no where to go so they try to go to a type of shelter or living facility, but many places discriminate against domestic violence survivors. In Rhode Island, 64.8% of domestic violence shelter requests were unmet. This being the highest amount in the country in 2013. Many states don't even have enough fair laws protecting people from being discriminated while trying to obtain shelter. As president, I would propose that all states must have at least three shelters that cater to particularly this need. These shelters would also have an emergency shelter service to help survivors in immediate need. ...
Read more

State of the Dis-Union?

Image
Donald Trump will be getting his State of the Union Speech after all, after Nancy Pelosi threatened him with the removal of that possibility during the longest ever government shutdown. Many are wondering what exactly Mr. Trump could be planning to address at the speech, and whether or not he will continue to pursue his harsh rhetoric on immigration, which was the primary cause for gridlock during the shutdown where he refused to sign spending bills without a $5.7 billion dollar allocation for a "southern border wall." . Although there is some hope that perhaps the President has come to his senses about the issue, and is willing to compromise and work with the new Democratic majority in the House, the likelihood of that is doubtful, as there are also speculations that he will declare a National Emergency tonight to bypass Congress for his funds. This will certainly die a slow death in the court system, ultimately costing the government a fortune and accomplishing nothing. ...
Read more