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Some people have no choice but to live in the countryside. I don't live in France anymore but in the village that I used to live in which was 40km from Paris,

Some people have no choice but to live in the countryside. I don't live in France anymore but in the village that I used to live in which was 40km from Paris, the rent for a decent size apartment i.e, not a broom closet was around 700 euros per month. Many people in France make less than 1800 euros per month. Which means that in the best case scenario they are left with 1k euro before any basic necessities such as food, electricity, water insurance, phone bill and what not. The result is that the end of the month they got nothing or barely anything. So what do people do, they move further away so they can save a few hundred euros in rent, even if that means paying more for fuel because they just want to live a little not just survive! And guess what, there is a reason that the rent is lower further away from Paris. The reason is that there are no trains, very little buses, so where does that leave those people, they are stuck! Yet the government comes around and says, you guys are polluting? Well Fk me, what do you want those people to do about it, they just want to survive! Do you think people are actually waking up in the morning and saying: "Today I am going to spend 60euros to fill up my tank and I am just going to drive in circles for hours to screw up the climate!" The governments have known about climate change for DECADES, now that it's actually threatening the economies of the world, they decided to react by making people pay their own lack of foresight? As always, the little guy is getting shafted while the biggest polluters in this world, the freighters, and the airline companies are spared. And for what?

IanCal 8y ago
Isn't this all the point though? People live further out and travel more because it's cheaper. The goal is to change behaviour by making more polluting choices less cheap. If the problem is the poorest, why not use the fuel duty raised to help them? They're surely not using all the fuel, so this could be a net benefit to them.
- shard972 8y ago
  > Isn't this all the point though? People live further out and travel more because it's cheaper. The goal is to change behaviour by making more polluting choices less cheap. The problem I have is that those incentives are driving people to kill themselves as they cannot afford to live anymore. I guess that's what the government wants though, less pollution. Can't pollute if your dead.
  - changchuming 8y ago
    This is massively cynical but I do see your point. I think a more viable solution is probably for the government to build low cost high rise public housing (NOT targeted at the homeless) near major cities, to reduce transportation word.
    - AstralStorm 8y ago
      Housing is energetically expensive to build... the balance sheet is not favorable for the energy investment. Better yet to build electric vehicle infrastructure (trains, trams, charging stations - cheap compared to housing) which could also be used by some business, tax non-train freight. Replace buses with electric ones. Farming cannot be done in the middle of the city and you probably do not want factories there either... Your move would likely kill the remaining parts of this business if successful.
  - IanCal 8y ago
    > The problem I have is that those incentives are driving people to kill themselves as they cannot afford to live anymore. Which is why I added the other paragraph.
AnthonyMouse 8y ago
People have to live far outside of the city because housing costs are too high in the city. How does it possibly make sense to make gas cheaper rather than adopting policies that create more housing so that more people can afford to live in the city? If rents go down, the poor get to pay less to landlords. If gas prices go down, the poor have to pay more to oil companies (because it "allows" them to live further away) and spend more of their lives commuting. Which policy actually helps the poor, which one helps the oil companies?

IanCal 8y ago

Isn't this all the point though? People live further out and travel more because it's cheaper. The goal is to change behaviour by making more polluting choices less cheap. If the problem is the poorest, why not use the fuel duty raised to help them? They're surely not using all the fuel, so this could be a net benefit to them.

shard972 8y ago
> Isn't this all the point though? People live further out and travel more because it's cheaper. The goal is to change behaviour by making more polluting choices less cheap. The problem I have is that those incentives are driving people to kill themselves as they cannot afford to live anymore. I guess that's what the government wants though, less pollution. Can't pollute if your dead.
- changchuming 8y ago
  This is massively cynical but I do see your point. I think a more viable solution is probably for the government to build low cost high rise public housing (NOT targeted at the homeless) near major cities, to reduce transportation word.
  - AstralStorm 8y ago
    Housing is energetically expensive to build... the balance sheet is not favorable for the energy investment. Better yet to build electric vehicle infrastructure (trains, trams, charging stations - cheap compared to housing) which could also be used by some business, tax non-train freight. Replace buses with electric ones. Farming cannot be done in the middle of the city and you probably do not want factories there either... Your move would likely kill the remaining parts of this business if successful.
- IanCal 8y ago
  > The problem I have is that those incentives are driving people to kill themselves as they cannot afford to live anymore. Which is why I added the other paragraph.

AnthonyMouse 8y ago

People have to live far outside of the city because housing costs are too high in the city. How does it possibly make sense to make gas cheaper rather than adopting policies that create more housing so that more people can afford to live in the city? If rents go down, the poor get to pay less to landlords. If gas prices go down, the poor have to pay more to oil companies (because it "allows" them to live further away) and spend more of their lives commuting. Which policy actually helps the poor, which one helps the oil companies?