Gasoline taxes and vehicle bans: environmental ethics and economic impact

¶ … politics full concern environment, related oil auto industry. There a number ethical considerations arise issues. Please answer questions: Some propose concerns alleviated cars limited increased gasoline taxes-- gas expensive,, a beneficial -product, improve environment.

Gas tax

Raising the price of fuel does appear to cut down on the amount of miles consumers drive. Even the CEO of General Motors has said: "People will start buying more Cruzes and they will start buying less Suburbans" with a higher gas tax (Blanco 2010). In Europe, for example, consumers are far more apt to use public transportation because of the high price of gas. High gas prices encourage consumers to purchase more fuel-efficient vehicles. The demand for hybrids increased as the price of gas increased. However, because gas, much like food, is a necessity for most consumers, a tax upon gas is disproportionately shouldered by the poor. Members of the poorer and working classes pay a larger percentage of their income for basic consumer goods like fuel. Thus, while wealthy members of society are less affected by an increase in gas prices because it takes up a smaller percentage of their income, when the price of gas goes up, poorer people can spend less money on other goods and services.

Increases in the price of gas also cause prices to increase overall, given that retailers must pass the additional costs of shipping over to the consumer, once again straining the income of the poor. Poorer consumers are also more likely to drive used cars, which tend to be more fuel inefficient since they were manufactured before hybrid technology and other fuel efficiency innovations were instituted. They thus also get fewer miles per gallon than a consumer wealthy enough to buy a new hybrid SUV. One possible solution would be to make public transportation more affordable -- however, this is not a feasible option in all areas, given the cost of adding to the nation's transportation infrastructure, and America is a much larger and more sprawling area than Europe. It will be many years before public transportation is as convenient and reliable as car ownership, and until then high gas taxes will be more onerous for the poor. From a utilitarian point-of-view, given the dependency of the public on low fuel costs to remain economically solvent, and the need to keep costs low to stimulate the consumer economy, higher gas taxes would have an overall deleterious effect upon the quality of individual's lives.

Q3. The developing world

One of the most troubling legacies of colonialism is that the U.S. has little legitimacy in telling the developing world not to engage in some of the practices that made it so successful. However, from a utilitarian perspective, encouraging the developing world to do so may stimulate productivity in the short-term, but in the long-term it causes harm to the planet for all consumers in both the developing and the developed world. In fact, the developing world is more likely to be harmed by the pollution and aftereffects of industrialization because of poor sanitation and healthcare systems. With this in mind, many developing world nations such as China are engaged in the production of green technology. Although China remains the world's largest polluter, it is mindful of the increased demand for 'green' technology, and has been heavily investing in solar and wind technology (Oster 2011). The size of its potential marketplace and the opportunities for investment in green technology suggest that encouraging the developing world to focus on 'green' development rather than to mimic the methods used by the developed world in previous decades will be salutary for all.