Political Example

We maintained that we do not want to get into the political debate. The issue with politics is that things often are not as they appear.

Here is an example of exactly what we are referring to.

A carbon tax, on the surface, appears to make sense. The world is experiencing an on-going shift towards renewable energy. The pollutants that we emit are no longer necessary. We are seeing there are other options.

Many entities have their entire business model fully immersed in the production and distribution of fossil fuels. This is a situation that is going to cause them to dig in and defend what they can. We all understand this.

A tax on carbon emitters which, in turn, are passed along to the citizens as a dividend makes a great deal of sense. The State of Alaska operated this system for the past 30+ years with great success. This could be another example of where the population gets paid a basic income.

This idea is being supported by a number of long time industry lobbyists and some of the leading energy producers. On the surface, this looks like a winning combination. Unfortunately, here is where the politics enter the picture.

So what is the motivation for the support within an industry that fought it for so long?

First, US climate policy now seems inevitable. Even though it has been kept bottled up in Congress, and Trump is now squashing it at the federal agency level, it is busting out all over in states and cities, some of which are making plans to switch to 100 percent renewable electricity and ban gas and diesel cars in a few decades, among many other diverse initiatives.

Federally, there’s still the danger that Obama regulations like the Clean Power Plan could survive Trump’s crude attempts to overturn them. (See Mike Grunwald on “the myth of Scott Pruitt’s EPA rollback.”)

Overall, it makes for an extremely volatile and unpredictable policy environment — or rather, dozens of disparate policy environments. And oil and gas companies know that Trump won’t be in power forever. Democrats will return to federal power eventually, and when they do, they will have an appetite for bold climate policy.

Basically, oil and gas sees a big wave of climate policies building. That is what Lott meant when he told the Wall Street Journal that “the tide is turning on the realization that something needs to be done in this area.” He didn’t mean “we’ve been doing some reading and realized we were terribly wrong.” He meant “the jig is up.”

https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2018/6/22/17487488/carbon-tax-dividend-trent-lott-john-breaux

Now we see how the politics might be in play. There is no way to truly know the motivation of these companies. The fact that it even comes into question shows the difficulty in dealing on this level with such an issue.

Even the fact that the proceeds from this program be given out as a basic income could be seen as politics in action. The entire premise behind this could be to garner support from one side of the aisle or another. Plus, as the article stated, sometimes it is better to give up a little now to be able to cut off harsher legislation later.

Many feel the government route to change is the way to go. We wish them the best in their pursuit. Hopefully those individuals and groups following that path aid in the effort to change the sentiment regarding universal basic income.

In the meantime, we at the Manna Project are committed to approaching this problem using technology. Cryptocurrency is a route which offers a decentralized solution that avoids the interaction of government. It is easy to see how political winds can be a detriment to what is trying to be achieved.

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