Mother Jones - Comments for "Taxing Carbon"

indir

thanks for motherjones and ideas

links

In 1993, only 1 percent of Columbia's overall business came from footwear, with the lion's share of its revenue coming from its outerwear business. Last year, footwear accounted for 17 percent of the business, and that growth is only expected to continue. [To see a roundup of outdoor footwear firms' most recent earnings, see page 39.]

better to emphasize overall

better to emphasize overall pollution from coal and oil combustion which people can understand rather than carbon which is too abstract.

shoppingugg

thnks for your post. it's

thnks for your post. it's wonderful.....

We don't need ANY more taxes!

We don't need ANY more taxes! Taxes are already killing our companies and destroying our future and the future of our children! Cap and Trade "would be the equivalent of an atomic bomb directed at the U.S. economy, all without any scientific justification," says famed climatologist Dr. S. Fred Singer. It would significantly increase taxes and the cost of energy, forcing many companies to close, thus increasing unemployment, poverty and dependence. More and more scientists and thinking people all over the world are realizing that man-made global warming is a hoax that threatens our future and the future of our children. More than 700 international scientists dissent over man-made global warming claims. They are now more than 13 times the number of UN scientists (52) who authored the media-hyped IPCC 2007 Summary for Policymakers. http://www.climatechangefraud.com/content/view/3562/218/ Additionally, more than 30,000 American scientists have signed onto a petition that states, "There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gases is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate." http://www.petitionproject.org "Progressive" (communist) politicians like Obama seem determined to force us to swallow the man-made global warming scam. We need to defend ourselves from the United Nations and these politicians, who threaten our future and the future of our children. Based on a lie, they have already wasted billions and plan to increase taxes and increase the cost of energy, which will limit development, destroy our economy and enslave us. If not stopped, the global warming scam will enrich the scammers (Gore and Obama's Wall Street friends), increase the power of the United Nations and communists like Obama, and multiply poverty and servitude for the rest of us.

carbon tax

First of all, I support a revenue-neutral carbon tax and can assure you that I am not "angry." Further, agree wholeheartedly with James Hansen--a revenue-neutral carbon tax (or preferably, a carbon tax shift approach) avoids the creation of a complicated and convoluted "subprime carbon market," avoids the evasion and market manipulation inherent to cap and trade, is more straightforward and transparent than cap and trade, incentivizes the creation of green technology, predictably reduces emissions AND returns the revenue to the people (especially attractive given these political and economic times.) It’s a win for the economy and a win for the environment and it's an alternative to cap and trade that members on both sides of the aisle should be able to support.

another advantage of cap and trade

Philosophically I support a carbon tax. Cap and trade will create an entire industry of traders who will make a lot of money off this. However I have come to see this as a feature, not a bug. This policy has to live well beyond the Obama years, and the carbon trading industry will be a rich and powerful lobby to support its continuation. A tax can be repealed in a heartbeat.

I tend to agree that I think

I tend to agree that I think cap and trade has a better chance of passing than a carbon tax (although part of this I think is that various players think they might be able to water down a cap and trade plan to their favor.) On the other hand, Kevin, you seem to be reaching on a couple points. You know as well as everyone that a carbon tax will reduce emissions. How much is difficult to say, and sure, there's no hard "cap", but I expect that one could project the impact of a tax (and the amount it reduces emissions) pretty accurately. And more than that, due to the horse trading over a cap-and-trade plan, I don't think that hard "cap" will be quite as firm as you think it will. It will be subject to all sorts of accounting measures and manipulations, not to mention loopholes. I think when you get to the reality of the situation, all you can really say is that both mechanisms will reduce emissions, and how much will be greatly subject to the messy political process involved. So no, I don't see having a "cap", however it's measured, however it's legislated, is really going to be that much more reassuring than projections on a carbon tax. You also say of a cap: "This is something the public can easily understand." Well, yeah. But they can also easily understand a tax. And with a tax, they'd be able to easily see the external costs of their purchases and activities and be able to adjust where they think it makes the most sense. A cap and trade system can have this effect, too, but more indirectly, and subject to the machinations of the trading system that is largely out of the public view. I'd say, of the two systems, cap and trade has a much better chance of getting mucked around with in the legislative process and the end result is certainly going to be more complicated than with a tax, and the ins and outs are going to be harder for the public to understand and follow. But, to me, that's part of cap and trade's advantage: the public doesn't like taxes. Cap and trade is an easier sell (with the public) because they likely won't understand the effects until after it's passed. Personally, I don't care that much what plan we use, as long as emissions are reduced. If cap and trade is all that's on the table, I'm happy to push for the best cap and trade we can get.

People also ought to think

People also ought to think about the future here, the medium term future. Say 5-10 years out. Say enacting a carbon tax this year was just as easy as enacting a cap & trade & auction system for some odd reason (a hit pop song demands it or something). In either case the limit isn't very limiting at first. The cap is only a bit below what we would have emitted anyway or the tax is pretty low and doesn't effect behavior dramatically. So we have a system. In subsequent years we need to turn the screws on and get some serious reductions. In the carbon tax scenario each time we want to turn the screws we have to decide on a limit then decide on a tax to achieve that limit then pass a tax increase. The opposition has to say "cut taxes". In the cap & trade scenario we have to decide on a limit and pass it. The opposition has to say "that cap is to restrictive for the economy and unnecessary". I know which fight I would rather have year after year after year.

"So where has a carbon tax

"So where has a carbon tax worked? Has one even been successfully enacted anywhere yet?" Alcohol and tobacco taxes have worked well as part of a grand strategy to reduce alcohol and tobacco consumption. Gasoline taxes have behaved exactly as you'd expect in reducing European demand for gasoline. In both cases the taxes are simple and clean, there is no need to create a complicated system of carve-outs and giveaways, and the population understands what is being done, and while they may not be wildly enthusiastic about these taxes, they accept their necessity. I'd say the evidence that taxes reduce the amount of what they are taxing, and do so transparently, is substantially higher than is the case for cap-and-trade.

You seriously don't think

You seriously don't think that passing a "carbon tax" is harder than passing a "carbon cap and trade and zzzzz zzzz oh uh what where you talking about, I seem to have dozed off"? I am entirely certain that if you had it in your power to change the name of the policy from "cap and trade" to "carbon tax" you could go to Exxon today and get tens of millions of dollars from them to do it. Possibly hundreds of millions.

So where has a carbon tax

So where has a carbon tax worked? Has one even been successfully enacted anywhere yet? The SOx cap and trade system in the US is successful. Cap & Trade fishing regulation was successful in Iceland (unfortunately they just blew all the money on unregulated banking). Either policy requires a tremendous amount of political will to make it effective. If that does not exist obviously either will fail. The cap will be too large or there will be many exemptions or the tax will be too low or enforcement will be weak or nothing will ever be enacted or the developing world will never be brought in... If cap & trade is enacted and fails we could try a carbon tax in a few years. I don't see the political will magically vanishing just because one policy fails as the environmental damage continues to get more and more obvious.

"Seems there are three sets

"Seems there are three sets of reality, but no one accepts all three" Uhh... those three are roots of the cap & trade & auction idea which is hardly an obscure position. Anyone who did not accept #1 would have no interest in any greenhouse gas reduction scheme. Anyone who did not accept #2 would insist on a traditional pollution limitation scheme rather than either a carbon tax or cap & trade & auction. Anyone who did not accept #3 would be more inclined to support a carbon tax. To me it seems that anyone who rejects any one of those has a poor grasp of reality. "Cap-and-trade is simply a hidden, volatile and regressive tax..." A carbon tax would be similarly hidden (worked into the prices of stuff for the vast majority of people and businesses) and regressive. I imagine it would be less volatile in terms of revenue, but emissions would probably be more volatile. Mechanisms exist to spread revenue over time, and year to year emissions variations shouldn't be important in themselves so that isn't much of a downside. One nice thing about the cap & trade price is that it would be automatically counter cyclical. Credits would cost more in boom times and less in slack times like today. There would be a bit of automatic economic stabilization there. "Once that fact sinks in..." The thing about facts is that for a large fraction of the population (probably a majority) they never sink in. At best they stick lightly to the surface. A policy who's simplest description is two words the second of which is "Tax" is always going to be less popular than one that someone has to explain for a minute or two to show that it is in the end not much different from a tax. Always. That difference alone is worth hundreds of millions of dollars in marketing, who knows how many points in the polls, etc. The right would LOVE to be running against a "carbon tax" instead of a "carbon cap and trade plan". I am reminded of some recent republican genius. The "Death tax". That isn't just loony rhetoric it is carefully designed and focus tested language. There is something like a 20% swing in polling when questions are asked about the "death tax" rather than the "inheritance tax". I think it goes from 60% for to 60% against. When it comes down to it the policies are fairly equivalent if enacted. The main differences is that Cap & trade has a chance of being enacted this year while a carbon tax does not have a chance of being enacted for the next two years and possibly many more. Time is an issue here. Every year of delay is a year of emissions growing without control and more reductions that will have to be made later. I agree completely with Kevin and don't understand how people cannot.

"And even if you magically

"And even if you magically got the simple, efficient tax you wanted, a tax lacks the one critical thing that cap-and-trade provides: a cap." Hmm. If only there were some EMPIRICAL way of testing this statement. Like if we looked at how this has already played out in Europe. Oh dear --- not a great advertisement for cap-and-trade. Well maybe in other non-carbon markets where cap-and-trade has been tried, like the California RECLAIM market? Oh dear, didn't work there either. Look, Kevin, those of us opposed to cap-and-trade aren't just being tools. We are interested in, you know, policies that ACTUALLY FSCKING WORK. If what gets passed by Congress won't actually solve the problem, then what the hell does it matter whether or not it is feasible? More details on my claims here: http:// name99.org/blog99/?p=325