Would financial incentives for people taking public transportation to school or work be a good strategy for carbon dioxide emissions?Would any of...

This strategy would not be very likely to work unless the
financial incentives offerred were quite substantial.  The main reasons for this
are:

• Traditions and tastes.  Americans are not
  very inclined to use mass transit.  American tastes are very centered around personal
  automobiles.  Cars are a part of our tradition and it is very difficult to get people
  out of their cars and on to busses or trains.  The financial incentives would have to be
  high to overcome these attitudes.


• Convenience.  American
  cities and towns are generally quite decentralized.  In many places, it would be very
  difficult to create transport systems that would serve enough different places so as to
  get near to most people's workplaces and homes.  People who use their own cars can go
  wherever they want without having to worry if it's on a bus route.  They can go whenever
  they want without having to worry if there is a bus running at that particular time. 
  This kind of convenience is something that Americans do not like to give up.  Again, the
  incentives would have to be quite high indeed to get Americans to change their
  ways.

Overall, then, it is hard to believe that
it would be possible to significantly reduce emissions by offerring incentives for using
mass transit.  It is likely that the size of the incentives that would have to be
offerred would be more than the government could afford.