I'm sure this idea has been brought up on Eurotrib at some point in the past, though I mention it here because it's a new thought to ME, anyway, so:

One way of getting people to reduce their water/gas/electricity use would be to determine a "mean" usage for a household based on the number of occupants, period (NOT square footage or anything else.)  Then if a household used less than the mean, they would pay a smaller rate for that useage (gallons, KwH, etc) but if they used more than that average, they would pay a higher rate, and if they used a LOT more than the average, they would pay a much higher rate for it.

Same thing should apply to car size.  I know in some places people have to pay a tax on their vehicles based on the weight of them, and this should be universal as well, I think.

(We've gotten our electrical consumption down to about 700 KwH per month.  I don't even know if that's very good.)

Nothing new, I suppose, but please don't troll rate me.

Karen in Austin

'tis strange I should be old and neither wise nor valiant. From "The Maid's Tragedy" by Beaumont & Fletcher