James Qu
Professor O’Hara
CAS 138
April 9, 2019
Death from Carbon & the Carbon Tax
Intro/Issue Overview
Over the past century, carbon emissions have consistently been released, damaging the atmosphere and destroying our habitats. The EPA found that the United States released approximately 6,511 Million Metric Tons of CO2 in 2016, a number which has been holding steady for the past two decades. As our population grows, humans consumer more and more, further increasing our global emissions. As everyone knows, increased emissions damage our o-zone, increase global temperatures, and damage our overall environment. Something that is often overlooked is that it is also affecting us. The Laboratory for Aviation and the Environment found that air pollution causes over 200,000 early deaths each year in the US alone, and this number is expected to double if we continue on our current trajectory. The numbers are staggering as 3.3 million people die from emission related deaths on a global scale. As emissions increase in the air, humans are more likely to suffer from heart disease, lung cancer and respiratory disease which negatively affect overall health. Not only do industries including agriculture, electricity, and transportation pollute the air, another polluter that is often overlooked are cigarettes. The University of Washington found that cigarette smoke has a much higher CO concentration than does the exhaust from a clean, well-maintained vehicle. To quantify the impact, Stanford University found, “the United States was responsible for generating about 16 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalents…..if cigarettes were to disappear from the United States the country would see a carbon benefit equivalent to taking nearly 4 million cars off the road.” The amount of pollution is staggering on top of the 440,000 lives smoking directly takes away each year. As carbon-related products continue to increase, the environment will keep suffering and humans will too. To alleviate the issue, the U.S. government should instate a Carbon Tax to curb the issue as the policy would save lives, decrease emissions, and stimulate innovation and the economy.
The Carbon Tax Policy
- What is Carbon Tax
- http://www.c2es.org/publications/options- considerations-federal-carbon-tax
- Primary purpose of carbon tax is to reduce carbon emissions and slow GW – prefer impacts to emissions
- https://www.pwc.co.za/en/assets/pdf/cop17-the-case-against-introducing-a-carbon-tax-in-sa.pdf
Effects/Solvency/Why its Effective
- Cigarettes
- Decrease deaths by inreasing prices
- Decreased emissions
- Three pronged
- Impacts from each
- Green Technology Incentive
- Tech development
- Economic benefit
Graphics
This is a good introduction, I am sure the rest of the issue brief will also be great!
1. You have a good shock factor with your title. You could possibly allude to the proposed carbon tax in the title so people know what your policy is.
2. The introduction definitely makes the reader see the importance of the issue. Talking about personal effects, like cancer and disease, helps the reader to relate to the problem more than if you just talked about climate change. You could change some of the wording to make it flow better.
3. You have a clear thesis that does a good job outlining the rest of the paper.
1) Before I read the introduction I read the title and thought that this issue brief is going to talk about the negative effects of carbon and an unwanted carbon tax.
2) I think that it is good that you tied public safety into this as well by mentioning how many people die every year from smoking cigarettes.
3) Your thesis is very clear. You bring up the three main steps that you are going to go through to explain the issue and how to fix it.
Other Notes:
– I would write the meaning of acronyms out first, then put parenthesis around the acronym, use the acronym from there on out. For example, “The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)….. The EPA then….”
– I think it is great that you did not just talk about the carbon emissions alone, but also talked about the impacts and how to improve it. You also made comparisons, like with the amount of car emissions on the road, that made it very clear how much it would help.