Suggestions for Government Regulation on the environment

1- Tighten construction regulations in UK to achieve maximum insulation of buildings and to achieve similar construction standards as for the Passiv Haus model.
2- Make all environmental films public domain so that they can be shared and viewed by the masses.
3- Make reducing waste a national priority: make composting compulsory for the domestic marketplace and restaurant industry, make packaging completely biodegradable, make recycling compulsory everywhere.
4- Require that the use of methane producing pesticides and insecticide on UK soil be banned and replaced by organic production standards and for all products imported into the country to be produced based on the same standards.
5- Introduce regulation to stimulate the local economy and to discourage imports through the introduction of a carbon tax.
6- Make all the subsidies to insulation and renewable energy installation indefinite. Subsidize energy efficient boilers along with composting units nationwide.
7- Invest in building new rail tracks and regulate the road transport of merchandise through increased taxation to incentivise more rail transport of commercial merchandise.
8- Increase the road tax on all SUV vehicles by a substantial amount to dissuade their purchase and account for the existing stock's environmental cost. Use the proceeds to subsidize tidal wave power plants and other uneconomical renewable energy type of installations following REF's recommendations.
9- Tighten the regulations on the emissions of all road vehicles.
10- Introduce incentives for employers to get their employees to work from home.
12- Tax the airline industry substantially to dissuade airplane travel.
13- Regulate the beef raising industry and set targets to reduce UK consumption of beef.
14- Read Stormy Weather, 101 solutions to climate change which has many more suggestions for policy makers we don't list here.
15- Invest in biomass and landfill methane capture power stations that capture the greenhouse gas coming out of landfills.
16- Invest in a public transport fleet of buses that use methane instead of oil like Thailand does.
17- A Brit produces in excess of 900 tonnes of carbon emissions over their lifetime along with a huge amount of waste and other environmental externalities. Request that every new born's family be made to pay upfront the estimated cost of the child's carbon emissions over its' lifetime at the estimated "social" cost of carbon ie. ₤25-75 per tonne (79 years is the average lifespan and 12.5 tonnes of carbon). This should come to ₤25-75,000 pounds and should strongly contribute to reducing population growth and making space for climate refugees.
18- Eliminate all subsidies to child birth including married couple tax breaks and child benefits. Human population has been multiplied by 6 over the past century and people will have to die of hunger or not be born when the world begins to warm. A European uses the equivalent resources of 3.5 Planets, this overconsumption means that we need to reduce our numbers to more sustainable levels.
19- Require that all .co.uk websites and all UK companies with .com websites be hosted on environmentally friendly servers generating zero emissions.
20- Prohibit mobile phone providers from offering free mobiles on contract renewals. Get them to offer their customers a reduction in their tariffs. Mobiles contain at least 10 rare metals, offering them free is a waste of resources.
21- Ban the import of beef, soya and corn from Brazil that is destroying the rainforest and announce an official boycott of all Brazilian goods and services in the UK until there is clear evidence that the Amazon rainforest is no longer being logged.
22- Introduce a gradual tax on beef and lamb mounting up to 500% within 5 years to dissuade their purchase.
23- China is responsible for 20% of global greenhouse gas emissions and the government has no intention of reducing emissions. Introduce a 100% tax on chinese manufactured goods until we have evidence that China is making an effort to reduce its' emissions.
24- Require that all search engine searches in the UK be made from data centers operating with 100% green electricity.
25- Delist any companies listed on AIM or other markets profiting in any way from Amazon deforestation or causing it.
26- Impose a limit on the use of fossil fuels and a permanent moratorium on prospecting for new reserves. (Source)
27- Adapt the Hammarby Sjostad model to our urban environment. Hammarby Sjostad is an eco-quarter built in Stockholm in 1990. 80% of its home heating is supplied by local resources, water consumption was cut in half and it has 60% less garbage than other quarters.
28- Require that national supermarket chains source a growing portion of the goods they sell locally. Start at 10% and move up to 70%.
29- Outlaw or strictly regulate marketing to children and especially under fives.
30- Regulate and strictly restrict the use of bioaccumulative chemicals.
31- Outlaw media coverage that creates the impression that people should not take action on climate change, attempts to outline any benefits in climate change, criticizes efforts and policies designed to take action on climate change such as the adoption of energy efficient light bulbs or recycling. Any media coverage attempting to persuade people in any way to drop their efforts or not take action on reducing their carbon footprint is criminal and should be outlawed. Media has a strong cultural influence, is intrinsically biased towards business due to advertising revenue and ownership by corporations with other business concerns. As a result it is not an independent power: it is dangerous to have a business-biased press influencing the masses.
32- Increase the breadth of the Landlord's energy saving allowance to reflect the cost of replacing boilers from 1500 to 3500 and include the installation of condensing boilers as a tax deductable investment.
33- Barcode bins so that people who throw less rubbish can be monitored and qualify to receive council tax reductions, as they do in Peterborough.
34- Tax plastic bags. Ireland has a 10p plastic bag tax.
35- Legislate to encourage the use of synthetic paper for newspapers so that the ink can be washed off and the pages reused. This is already in use in America (Silicon Valley Technical Institute)
36- Create delightful streets. The properties of streets that have trees on them are more valuable. Trees serve as habitat to hundreds of species and retain vast amounts of water in floods. 95% of the native woodland in the UK has been cut down. Outlaw the cutting of trees located on pavements and legislate to have every naked pavement in the UK planted with trees. Holes dug out by council workers, trees planted by armies of school volunteers and cleaned up in autumn by the same.
37- Outlaw the construction of incinerators for recycling.
38- Teach ecology in school incompassing the Planet and how it works, how the natural ecosystems have been affected by mankind during the Industrial Revolution, industrial and consumer pollution, marketing to children, energy efficiency, industrial processes, why they pollute, which companies have had the worst environmental track records and why, the ecology of commerce etc...
39- The best way to incentivise less car travel is to make public transport free and to tax all private vehicles to pay for it.
40- Tax large screen TVs and use the proceeds to subsidize cinema style TVs that funtion with a projector and use less electricity. Keep subsidies for the most energy efficient models until the cost of making these home cinema systems aligns with the cost of making large screen TVs and the subsidy is no longer needed.
41- Use the same type of labelling for clothes made out of cotton as for cigaretter packaging. I suggest: "whilst this product is cheaper than organic cotton, it has a huge carbon footprint and contributes to global warming and the extinction of mankind".