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National Academy of Science Urges Carbon Tax
eldavojohn writes "Moving for the first time from a cautious message to a message of urgency, the National Academy of Science has advised the United States government to either adopt a carbon tax or cap and trade legislation. This follows a comprehensive study in three parts released today from the National Academies that, for the first time, urges required action from the government to curb climate change."
In today's political climate, there's far far too much controversy surrounding the individual issues of taxes and energy, alone (much less combined), to permit any real legislation to succeed.
A sane society would tax things like gasoline, diesel fuel, fuel oil, etc., highly enough to discourage its profligate consumption and apply the funds to develop practical implementations of an array of alternative renewable energy sources (fusion, solar, biofuels, etc.).
But in the USA, if you proposed adding another $2/gallon tax on gasoline, it would be political suicide. (Hell, just suggesting it on /. risks karma suicide.) In the meantime, many of us still drive gas guzzling hummers and SUVs, and pride ourselves on it.
We need to break the loop somewhere. As long as that behavior is affordable, it will continue to be popular; as long as that behavior is popular it will continue to be affordable.
And eventually, when scarcity will inevitably drive up the cost of this fuel, it will be the energy corporations who will make the profits on the higher prices, not the governments... perpetuating another problem of too much corporate money influencing government policy. The smart thing to do is drive the price up now, via taxes, and use the revenue to do something more useful than line the pockets of corporate executives and stockholders.
I can see the fnords!
The only way to sell it to the masses would be to promote it as the elimination of Income Taxes. Set a date (20 years?) by which point income taxes will be eliminated, and slowly ramp up the Carbon (GHG) tax while reducing income tax over the same period of time.
What? You're opposed to eliminating Income Tax?
Reality has a liberal bias
That still doesn't explain why we need an entire class of people who are wealthier than the engineers, scientists, and workers they are supposed to be empowering to produce. I can almost accept that argument if not for the fact that it still doesn't justify those people, the bankers and Wall Street traders, being able to live better than the people who actually have the ideas they support in the first place. Perhaps there is a legitimate place for them, but I think the role they currently play has grown to the point of absurdity.
If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
How the CO2 concentration in our atmosphere during the Cambrian was 7000ppm and the average global temperature was 20C, and during the Jurassic the CO2 concentration was 2000ppm and the average temperature was still 20C? Shouldn't the temperature have been much, much higher during these periods? And shouldn't the temperature of the Cambrian be much higher than the Jurassic?
I also have religious beliefs, like you. I believe in pink unicorns and fairies.
There's a lot of both economic theory and empirical data backing up that cap and trade systems are more efficient. See for example this study showing that cap and trade would very well for handling levels of sulfur dioxide pollution in the US http://www.jstor.org/pss/2647033.
Good point. That's why I've been toying with the idea that loggers can fix the CO2 problem. Send them out to harvest pine trees at the end of their fast-growing (and thus fast-CO2-absorbing) phase. Stack the wood in warehouses or use it to build houses, just as long as it's treated so it doesn't decompose. If we can do this on a large enough scale, loggers might be able to sequester CO2 by cutting down enough trees, then planting another set of trees to continue the process.
This is why it needs to be a revenue neutral carbon tax, where revenues are redistributed equally to everyone. So if the average person uses 500 gallons of gasoline in a year and the tax is $.20 per gallon, then everyone would receive back $100 every year whether they used 500 gallons or not. No impoverishment necessary.
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
CO2 has been *linked* to global warming, there is still debate if CO2 is the main cause, and there is a *lot* of disagreement over the effects in years to come. There is no accurate model of what will happen and especially the upper bound is very uncertain (varying from return to normal temperature, stability at higher temperature, or even a runaway greenhouse effect like Venus), and if all details about the role of CO2 in the atmosphere were known they could predict the temperature changes for the next century with at least some precision.
Please understand me, I think there is some warming and I think CO2 plays a part in that... But if you blindly accept the CO2 as the only culprit you are not really looking for a solution but settling for one handed to you. Leaving some questions unanswered (or discarding them outright) only feeds the paranoia of some, and the hopeless feeling that other scientists experience because of the perceived demise of the scientific method(s). Until now the best success against these 'crackpot' opponents has been to refute their false statements (like the volcano's etc.), so this is the way to go, answer any and all arguments with good science and facts that can be checked.
As to your question 'what incentive do climate scientists have': funding, which can be quite a lot. The scientific community has commercialized, there is no denying that. I think 'mislead' might even be a big word, but it is understandable they won't say "we're not sure about the cause, we need to study more" and instead say "this is the likely cause, we need to study this more" which becomes a hyperbole 'fact' when competing for the funds. It's not exclusive to global warming, scientists are also trying to sell their services and any salesman can tell you that to sell it helps to exaggerate a little... This is no conspiracy on a massive scale, just some typical human behavior. These people are no saints here to save us, they're just another working guy making their living with this stuff...
Although people like Al Gore are plain opportunists. Sorry but it has to be said, if he had any altruistic goals he sure as hell would not have capitalized on it personally... fucking hypocrite.
Make no mistake, I think everything else you said is also wrong, but I though this deserved special attention. Of course, "carbon offsets" are a way to monetize a problem. It's quite obviously a bribe to capitalists to get them to support reducing CO2 by monetizing the problem.
You miss the point.
If the government gets money from CO2, the government will do everything it can to *encourage* the use of more CO2 so that it can get more money. As another poster further up in the thread said, this is like trying to make cows go extinct by opening hamburger restaurants-- it simply does not make sense.
The problem here is that you recognize that capitalists will (generally) take whatever action makes them the most money, but what you don't seem to realize is that the government will do the exact same thing.
4) Tax the people who release the CO2.
If you don't like option #4, what would you choose instead and why?
The only realistic option is to make "green" energy sources either cheaper, better, or both than existing carbon-based energy sources. Note: it will probably have to be both cheaper and better. After all, Linux is significantly cheaper than Windows, but even that isn't enough to get it widely adopted.
Now I'm not going to comment on *how* that should be done, because frankly I don't know. But any band-aid you put on the problem before "green" energy can effectively replace carbon-based energy is a costly waste of time-- it won't solve the problem, it *will* cost us all a buttload of money.
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