Advocates of increased taxes on fossil fuel consumption should consider new taxation and legal structures whereby additional revenue is kept entirely out of the political process. For example, a trust fund could be established which sources investment capital and grants to new technologies and processes on the basis of deterministic formulae that compute the expected resultant reduction in consumption.

We have, in the U.S., the Social Security trust fund. This troubled economic structure serves as an excellent example of how not to organize the finances of such a scheme, but, at the same, provides a compelling precedent for how our economy can be improved with properly applied, socailly responsible taxation.