Tax Carbon, Not Jobs

Josh at Everyday Economist has a great riff on global warming. He links to CSU professor Bill Gray's claims that global warming is real but not man-made.

Then he links to Don Luskin discussing a speech by VP Gore that suggested "taxing carbon dioxide emissions instead of employees’ pay."

We've had varied discussions on these pages, but I want to point out the unseriousness of the opposition. Kyoto is obviously not gong to do anything but further impede the economies of its EU signatories. If anybody wants to take the former VP's idea and imbue it with any seriousness, I'll play along but think we'd all agree that it's a bit problematic at best.

An opposing view to Professor Gray makes a curious case:

There are uncertainties. It’s not like you change your light bulbs today, you’re going to have better weather tomorrow,” he said. “It’s even better if those actions you’re taking make sense for other reasons, like getting off Middle Eastern oil or saving money.-- Roger Pielke Jr., director of the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research at the University of Colorado

Y'know, sir, if it saved money you wouldn't have to coerce anybody to do it. That 's the thing about proposals which make economic sense. You are asking us to spend more and to forego pleasures to prevent an unproven phenomena.

The warmies want to enact the solution first, then prove the problems. That is unserious.

Environment Posted by jk at September 20, 2006 7:19 PM