Boulder’s one thing. Boulder’s small. Boulder’s landlocked.

But affixing a carbon tax-like program to a heavily-populated port city like San Francisco is a whole different animal. The Bay Area Air Quality Management District wants to charge businesses a fee of 4.2 cents per metric ton of carbon dioxide. The draft regulation imposing the new fees would go into effect on July 1, 2008.

According to a fact sheet put out by the BAAQMD (PDF here), it would take stock of how much emitted greenhouse gases were reported over a year, and charge the fee before allowing a facility to re-apply for a permit to own and operate equipment that emits pollutants.

One example provided in the initial coverage of the proposal by the San Jose Mercury-News gives is that a Shell oil refinery in the affected area would be charged $186,475 a year for its carbon dioxide emissions.

That’s a lot of money, and even a huge corporation like Shell will take notice of it. But they’ll likely fight it, too. And they won’t be alone. (more…)

Sunday’s New York Times had a big story today on greening the suburbs. It’s not particularly ground-breaking, but it does make you think about drying your laundry on clotheslines and growing strawberries instead of lawns. What are some of the easiest things we’ve been overlooking in our attempts to make our suburban lifestyles lighter on the environment? PLUS, what kinds of restrictions are we seeing?

A lot of neighbors would be steamed if you propped up a wind turbine in your back yard — but what about drying your laundry? What about installing solar panels on your roof or in your yard? Which covenanted neighborhoods in Boulder ban such outwardly visible efforts to save energy or use local renewables? Please comment below.

Since another college town has been in the headlines as having endorsed a carbon tax, let’s get it straight that what Ithaca, N.Y., did not do was approve a municipal carbon tax in the Boulder mould.

But what Ithaca’s City Council did do had a significance of its own. It voted 9-0 approving a resolution urging state and federal officials to pursue a federal carbon tax. Here’s coverage from the Ithaca Journal and the Cornell Sun. Like a number of initiatives related to global climate change, perhaps this one will come from the ground up at the local and state level as well.

The Ithaca initiative was propelled forward by a local resident named Sylvester Johnson, a member of the Climate Change Action Group of Central New York who holds a doctorate in applied physics, and who believes the Clinton, Obama and McCain campaigns are wrong to for cap-and-trade emissions programs over what he considers a more equitable tax. Here’s his web site and a sample of the resolution that he hopes to see passed by other localities.

How far can this approach take the carbon tax concept? Share your thoughts below, or follow the discussion at our online forums.

In a National Public Radio report that led with Boulder’s carbon tax initiative, “All Things Considered” on July 31 examined how mayors across the nation aren’t waiting for federal action to combat climate change, but are taking the task on themselves (link).

Boulder Mayor Mark Ruzzin is quoted as explaining the targeting of electricity usage: “Electricity is the major contributor to the community’s greenhouse gas emissions, so it is the elephant in the living room, so to speak, and taxing that consumption makes a lot of sense.”

The report goes on to cite similar activity in other cities, from smaller towns like Fort Wayne, Ind., and Austin, Texas, to megacities like New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.

But adding some leavening to the enthusiasm over these efforts is David Morris of the Institute for Local Self-Reliance. Says Morris: “This is going to be very challenging.”