You’re paying for someone else’s garbage
How our backwards system is screwing you — and your wallet
You wouldn’t pay for your neighbour to take his trash to the city dump, right? And you wouldn’t pay for a parking ticket that’s not yours. Nor would you pay for a stranger’s vacation or dry cleaning — because that’s absurd. So why are you ok with shouldering the costs for someone else’s pollution?
That’s what happens in Canada (and in most countries around the world) because people — and highly profitable companies — aren’t held financially accountable for the cost of their waste. Without a price on pollution, the air, land, and water here are used as a free dumping ground. Hard-working Canadians (like you) end up footing the bill in your taxes and in impacts to your health. That hardly seems fair, does it?
What’s worse is that there’s currently no incentive for these entities to reduce the amount they pollute because polluting is totally free — so they’re going to keep doing it and billing you for the cost of cleanup, disposal, and storage. And you’re going to keep paying for it.
Unless we price pollution.
With a price on pollution, businesses compete & innovate to lower their pollution — that means the consumer wins: we get cleaner, less toxic products at lower cost and there is less waste. It’s a virtuous cycle; a race to the top.
Larry Summers, a professor of economics and former economic advisor to the President of the United States (OK, he’s not a Canadian, but, you know… we won’t hold that against him), wrote recently that our system exists as it does because of the logic of the free market: “That which is not paid for is overused.” And he’s right. We over-pollute the land, air, and water because it’s free to do so.
This makes sense. There is no mechanism in place to tie the cost of pollution back to polluters. So just put a price on pollution and be done with it!
But wait — he goes on:
Wow. So Summers is saying that we could make the economy work better by putting the money made from putting a price on pollution back into the pockets of taxpayers.
That’s what we’re saying, too: pricing pollution is common sense — and good economic sense. If the government were to make pricing pollution revenue-neutral, it could return the money to its people (think cutting your income taxes!! ), so you & I come out at the other end with extra cash. Because who doesn’t need more of that?
It’s a no brainer — grow the economy and your pocketbook by charging polluters for their pollution.
Can you get behind that idea? Add your name to our petition.
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Written by: @taratmahoney
Canadians for Clean Prosperity is an economic non-profit looking to raise public support and awareness for polluter-pay.
It’s powered by people like you.
