aRe TAxeS enOugH?

Believe me, one of the most important abilities a proactive ecologist must master is PROSELITISM. You must take Jehova’s Witnesses practices as your own…OK, you don’t need to bring a book with you, nor safe anybody else’s soul, but never miss any opportunity luck may bring you to let the rest of the world know what you think.

ONLY COWARDS AND LIARS FEAR OPEN DEBATE.*
*Note: ecologists should fall in none of those 2 categories

Thanks to celebrities such as Al Gore, Katrina, Dennis Quaid, Mr. Stern and many many more I’m sorry not being able to name, GLOBAL WARMING is the star topic.

It’s really hot, everywhere in the headlines, and we must take profit of this prime time issue to start the conversation. Come on, everybody’s heard about it!

There it is, we are talking, this means there are different points of view and we call it democracy. It’s fine, don’t worry, as Churchill said:

“Democracy is the worst form of government except all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.”

One opinion about Greenhouse Effect you may confront quite often is those people’s who pretend that the taxes we pay when we fill the tank in the pump are excessively high, so we are being already charges with the effects fossil fuels consumption has on global climate.

Compared with other goods or products, the tax burden over fossil fuels is remarkable. In Spain, it amounts for as much as 50% of its retail price.

On the other hand, I don't think present day taxation on fossil fuels could pay for its environmental effects. I would say it pays for other "expenses" originated in the fossil sector which the state is supporting totally or partially :

☻Infrastructures: harbors, oil and gas distribution networks.

☻ Medical expense to cope with fossil use health consequences on the population.

☻Army. Its main purpose is not humanitarian missions. NATO was established with the following aims: to secure territorial integrity of its members and their access to the resources their economies need wherever they are located. And that's not interpretation, that's what NATO's foundation chart says.

☻ To pay for other subsidies:

☺ Local coal extraction and burning for energy production in uneconomic and terribly polluting power stations (they call it energy security)
☺VAT exemption for fuel used for maritime trade fleet and crude oil imported by the petrochemical sector, as established by a European Directive dating from 1992.
☺Total tax exemption for aviation fuel established by international civil aviation treaties.

Do you think the taxes we common people support can pay for all of this? No, direct taxes on fuel don't suffice. Fossil fuels are financed with our indirect taxes as well (who wanted schools?)
So CO₂ and global warming effects should get its own costing scheme, apart from fighting to internalize fossil fuel actual cost in its market price, which nowadays is far from being a reality.

Verde que tE quiero VeRde

Uno o una puede haberse dado cuenta de que es ecologista de muchas maneras y en muchos lugares diferentes: delante del espejo por la mañana, atrapado con tu coche en un atasco, en la cola del hipermercado, en un momento de tranquilidad campestre...
Incluso la forma de sentir ese ecologismo va a variar muchísimo, será diferente en cada uno de nosotros.
Nosotros lo entendemos como la creencia de que las cosas que hacemos no tienen suficientemente en cuenta los derechos de los que vendrán detrás nuestro ni a la riqueza de los ecosistemas que nos sustentan, y que por tanto muchas cosas tienen que hacerse de manera diferente, sostenible.

¿Tú cómo sientes tu ecologismo?

...Y la pregunta difícil es....

Y ese ecologismo tuyo, ¿cómo se manifiesta?

Pues ahí el porqué de este Blog, vamos a compartir nuestra experiencia de llevar una vida diaria que se avenga con nuestras ideas verdes.

Está claro que no es fácil. ¡Son tantas cosas que tendrían que cambiar de nuestros hábitos cotidianos!

Pero vamos poco a poco, como se sube una montaña, mirando la cima pero poniendo primero un pie, luego el otro, luego otra vez el primero, y de nuevo el otro........¡ya hemos llegado!

No basta con ser ecologista, hay que salir del armario.


Muchos ecologistas todavía
han de salir del armario





Agradecimientos a nuestro patrocinador oficial:
Instituto Armado de la Guardia Civil (España)