Leaf blowers, just leave the grass and leaves on the sidewalk and
be done with it. The benefit of biomass-free sidewalks does not outweigh
the cost of listening to the jarring sound of those machines.
Unnecessary broadcast (beep, beep, beep), backing up a large vehicle
is dangerous, especially to young children, but there is no reason to alert
everyone within a quarter-mile radius every time someone puts a truck in reverse.
The situation should be changed such that trucks have a Doppler-type system on
their rear bumper that only alerts the driver when something or someone is in the way.
More examples of unnecessary broadcast.
Cigarette butts, why are they not considered to be litter?
Subsidized gasoline, our gasoline is subsidized in the sense that the
price does not include the costs of environmental damage and military
expenditures for securing supplies. Adding an additional $1 or $2 tax to the price
of a gallon of gasoline would simply and easily solve a number of problems.
It would be good for the environment, and billions of dollars that we pay
annually to import oil would go to us instead of overseas. It would of course
be a regressive tax, but changes could be made to the income tax rates so that
our net tax burden would be unchanged (modifying the rates as consumption
decreased).