A/D: The most effective way for government to encourage conservation is to increase the price of gasoline and electricity.

Views differ considerably when it comes to the issue of whether increasing the price of gasoline and electricity is good way for government to promote conservations. Based on my experiences and actual observations of life, I agree with the statement for several reasons.

First of all, citizens care about money and increasing the price of gasoline and electricity can encourage conservations effectively. For example, at the time Taiwanese encountered the oil crisis 30 years ago, the Taiwanese government increased the price of gasoline and electricity to reduce the tremendous dependence on the oil though the policy isn’t welcomed. Nevertheless, in order to reduce the cost, people in Taiwan tried many different ways to reduce the use of electricity and fuel by replacing light bulbs with LED or limiting times of using electricity. As a result, the government successfully led us to overcome the crisis. Apparently, if the government want to have people conserve the gasoline and electricity, the effective way is to increase the price.

Secondly, government put emphasis on the effectiveness of the policy and the incomes from the increasing price of fuel can bring about more budget and more policies to promote the conservation. For instance, nowadays, the Taipei City government aware of the serious problem about energy and then lifts the price of gasoline and electricity. Consequently, the Taipei government have abundant budget to give people lessons about the advantages of conservation and contribute to awareness of importance of conserving energy. By doing so, lots of people now are willing to conserve gasoline and electricity and support the policy to increase the price.

Last but not least, conservation research to find out ways to conserve energy can help encourage the conservation and the policy of increasing price can sustain the research. By way of example, I joined a research team so as to find effective way to use the gasoline and electricity and decrease the costs. Last year, our team receive a plenty of investment. Eventually, we figure out the most effective method to save the gasoline and electricity and promote our new discovery to public. Fortunately, most of people like to apply our approach because of its effectiveness of saving energy and lowering costs. Evidently, to encourage the conservation effectively, the government needs the money from this policy to invest in research of conservation.

To conclude, it is most effective approach to encourage people to conserve through increasing the price of petroleum and electricity. That is to say, due to caring about money, effectiveness and research funding, I tend to argue that the higher price of gasoline and electricity is effective encouragement for people to conserve energy.