Is a Carbon Tax a Good Idea?

.-.-.- (aka Fullstop) asks: "Cosmos Magazine is reporting that the rate of carbon dioxide emissions has more than doubled since the 1990's. Several researchers fear increased levels may be unstoppable. Australia's national science agency, CSIRO flatly states that current carbon reduction efforts are just not working. Add to this heady mix the fact that Toyota is pushing for a carbon tax and Australia, and the UK, are currently considering one, and a trend begins to emerge. If current reduction methods are not working what will? The United States currently employs a voluntary carbon reduction scheme based on market trading, with very limited corporate participation. Is a carbon tax a good way to stabilize emissions in the face of heretofore failed efforts at stabilization?"

Comments

Yes, but...

[Noryungi]

What I'd really like to see is this:

1. A carbon tax, levied on the f*ng idiots who drive SUVs in the city. Ideally, I'd like this tax to be paid each year, and it's amount to be directly proportional to the oil consumption of the car? Own an SUV? Fine, that will be 50% of its price, every year, as long as you own it. Own an hybrid/highly efficient/electric car? Fine, that will be 5% of its price every year. Don't own a car? Using your feet/your bike/ mass transit? OK, no taxes for you.
2. A carbon and pollution tax, levied on the industries that pollute the atmosphere, water and soil. Same principle as above: send an (independent) team to assess the damage and tax the company accordingly. The more CO2 and pollutants are released, the higher the tax. Inefficient industries will go under and/or will be forced to streamline their productions pretty fast unless they want to pay enormous taxes.
   And let me tell you one thing: most big companies can afford to lose money for a couple of years in order to lower their pollution rate -- sure, it's going to be painful, but everyone will benefit in the log term. Oh, and no outsourcing polluting plants to poorer countries either: the tax should be levied globally, if necessary by using estimates. Outsourcing to, say, India, in order to pollute freely? Sorry, bub, all your plants in India are now considered as "high" or "extremely high pollution": that will US$ 45 million. On the other hand, extremely efficient and non-polluting industries will win.

Still ideally, I'd like the revenue from these taxes to be used to plant trees, create recycling and de-polluting plants, and optimize natural resource usage. Other worthy uses are scientific and technical: developing renewable resources and developing the technologies needed to clean behind us most of the pollutants we have been dumping on Earth for the past 100+ years.

The key point is this: whether you believe in Global Warming or not (I do) the fact is that the Earth is Dying(tm). If we don't force the big companies -- and the individual citizens -- to face up to this fact, all solutions we'll apply to this problem will be too little, too late. There are solutions available right now . Carbon Tax is one of them, and it's probably one of the most effective.

And... Wait for it... Creating new technologies and optimizing our resources consumption may actually increase the wealth of everyone, by creating new jobs and improving/cleaning our habitat.

Of course, I am not holding my breath: most politicians will never have the guts nor the gonads to sign a Carbon Tax into law. We'll probably come around to it once the Earth is so polluted and the climate so out of whack it will taxation or death.