"TORONTO -- Imagine if, tucked between your debit and credit cards, your wallet had a another piece of plastic: a points card designed to save the planet as you use it.
Loaded with a year’s worth of points, your carbon card would need to be presented to buy a pound of steak from the butcher, a flight to Mexico, a tank of gas – anything that adds emissions to the atmosphere and contributes to climate change.
Your annual points limit would be determined through a variety of factors, such as access to public transit or geography. A lobster fisherman in Nova Scotia who needs gas to power his boat would have more points than, say, a barista in downtown Toronto with access to public transit.
If you run out of points before the year ends, you could buy more from someone with extra points to spare – a financial reward for going green.
The idea was floated in a recent Globe and Mail opinion piece by Vancouver-based writer Eleanor Boyle. Her argument is that, during the Second World War, food rations helped galvanize citizens who weren’t at the frontlines of battle. Studies show rations were popular, too."
