Lucas deMey
9/4/17
Emerson
What english 110 has taught me
Through my english one class i’ve learned alot about my writing style and different writing techniques i believe i have effectively transferred the things i’ve learned into all of my other classes i find this especially evident in my paper about carbon taxes for my environmental class the first thing i’ve learned about my writing is that i have knack for word choice it’s one of the strongest points of my writing and my foundation to any strong argument i’ve realized word choice can elevate a claim just as much as anything else can you can see evidence in this excerpt of my paper “A plethora of governments around the world have started to implement carbon taxes to cut down on emissions because if there’s one thing big business notices to its a dent in their profits.”. This example helps me show my prowess with word choice and throughout the essay you can definitely tell that my skill makes my argument more robust throughout the the paper. One struggle that i had in english 110 was surface errors my writing was plagued with surface errors. Run on sentences and missing punctuation ran rampant through my essays luckily practice and the teaching i’ve been provided have rounded that rough spot in my writing and now with the revision techniques Along with peer review i’ve learned ive my writing has become way more refined than it was when i first got here. I think this has really helped me as a writer and student here at une . Another thing i’ve learned in class is the importance of a strong claim sentence at the beginning of each paragraph because without that all of the evidence and persuasive writing will be for not because the reader won’t be convinced that you’re passionate about this topic and by extension they too will be less enthralled by your writing. One exercise remember that actually helped me while writing this paper was the activity in which we wrote down our claims on index cards and after that went and found evidence in our texts to support each claim i did this while working on my environmental paper sadly the index cards were lost in the great folder clean out of november 7th or else pictures of these index cards would be included. I believe this exercise really improved my writing and made sure i focused exceedingly on my claims to make sure they were substantial enough to get my point across to the reader and keep them interested in what they’re reading. So in conclussion of learned so much about writing in english 110 and i plan to use every bit of this newly gained knowledge towards all my future writing.
Lucas demey
10/25/17
Vanwee
Mitigation of climate change
Carbon… With a price
In Today’s world if you want to motivate people to change you need to start taking dollars out of people’s pockets. A plethora of governments around the world have started to implement carbon taxes to cut down on emissions because if there’s one thing big business notices to its a dent in their profits. The carbon tax is strategy of mitigation on climate change this strategy is being implemented around the world in places such as japan south korea and india. all of these countries are heavily industrialized and for the most part have industrial based economies which rely on producing goods for the global market in factories which for the most part are powered by fossil fuels making them perfect candidate for this carbon tax to make a huge impact and hopefully leading the rest of the world by example.
The carbon price was first introduced in australia in australia where it was effective for multiple years cutting the countries carbon emissions by almost ⅛ in a 3 year period before being eliminated by a conservative dominated government in 2014 as mentioned by david suzuki in his article called “carbon tax or cap and trade”. Piggy backing off of australia japan ratified a carbon tax in 2012 which still stands today. It costs 20.85 dollars for every tonne of carbon released into the atmosphere this seems insignificant for businesses, but in the end when you realize how much coal and oil they burn the numbers add up enough to the point that it endangers their profit margin. Next on the list south korea this version of the tax is a little different in the fact that the government set limits on carbon emissions,then charges businesses for every excess tonne that goes over their limit. This style of carbon tax is a little risky because companies can take advantage of this system with a loophole that i will cover later. Clearly the carbon tax has a bit of history to it.
The carbon tax is form of mitigation for climate change meaning that it will slow the progress but cant fix the problem all by it self. The way carbon tax will slow the progress of climate change is fairly self explanatory. Businesses are now forced by pressure on their precious profit margins to cut emissions, how they do this can be one of three major methods the first one being using alternative sources of energy such as solar or wind power to lower the emissions significantly. The second option the least popular one is to cut production this isn’t a great idea economically because even though they don’t pay the tax their losing a share of their market because they won’t be keeping up with demand. The third concept is a loophole allowing companies to buy other companies unused emissions if their country uses a “cap and trade system like south koreans. Finally the last system, this system is kind of a cop out meaning that it doesn’t actually lower emissions it involves out sourcing most of your production to a company with no carbon tax like china or vietnam in order to “hide your emissions” and avoid taxes on the forbidden glasses. Furthermore the carbon offers simple but effective methods to meet its quotas.
Despite the good nature of the carbon tax it has its critics. Some say the tax will inhibit growth in an economic standpoint not allowing small organizations the freedoms they need to compete with the larger companies who can afford to pay the carbon tax.Others say that the carbon tax will just slow the emissions it won’t actually cause a drop just due to the taxes nature, and we are beyond the point where slowing emissions is a viable option that we need and immediate and sudden drop in emissions for their to be a difference. Another shot against this tax is that countries with the cap and trade system aren’t really encouraging the development of good clean energy because businesses can just buy unused carbon reserves from other businesses for cheaper than the tax with no penalty. So clearly the carbon tax has a long way to go before it pleases all of its critics.
The carbon tax is a viable and productive way to lower emissions this policy can work at every level but will work best on an international level because if everybody limits there emissions it can buy us valuable time in order to continue important research on clean forms of energy such as wind or power. This policy is feasible because the technology is ready and available all it needs is the enforcement of the government and it can be implemented. Cutting emissions through use of different more efficient technologies is nothing new and the newer cutting edge technology is becoming more and more available each and everyday making it no excuse about availability. The only arguments against the tax are all about possibly harm to the economy but people forget to realize that if we spend time to make clean energy cheaper and more available. It will negate the carbon tax and our goal of cutting emissions will be made any way so the tax had clearly served its purpose in the end the climate tax is certainly not a one trick pony !
So in the end the carbon tax is not a final solution but its a way to give ourselves a little extra time to continue our research and find the true solution to our problem. But until that day we must continue to so whatever we can to get by and try and help our planet. if that means spending a few extra dollars a month on light bulbs and cooking oil than i know i and a ton of other people would also be willing to in order to ensure we leave the earth a better place then where we found it, and make it a place for our kids and our kids kids to enjoy for as long as they live. Just this one policy has the chance to make a huge impact on the life of people everywhere and clearly we need to act now
