Put a Price on Carbon by Team MITACAL

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John Porterfield Oct 23, 2015 01:23 Member 1 \| Share via:	Nice to keep awareness of top-scoring Little Engine That Could campaign in motion! I observe little actual discussion of Climate in the US, and that attempts to extend discussion to Solutions is most often derailed. News professionals may need help managing opinion & discussion of this highly polarized (npi) topic. Here are Climate Solutions Questions, with a cabon tax policy bent, to help out news professionals and elected officials > http://tinyurl.com/o76bqfg Indecision is untenable and the selection of US policy beyond executive initiative needs to be opened to public debate Please feel free to pose these questions as you make yourself heard on Climate Solutions!
Ira Gershkoff Nov 1, 2015 07:31 Member 2 \| Share via:	Carbon pricing or carbon taxes are good economic approaches to the global warming problem, because burning of high-carbon fuels imposes costs on society that will be paid many decades from now. The economic growth that results from carbon being priced too low is a short-term gain that will result in much higher costs in the long run--a bit like taking out a credit card loan at 18% to pay for a vacation now. The only reason for making the taxes revenue-neutral is that no one believes the political system could possibly support it otherwise. Instead, I'd like to see the revenues go toward research in alternative energy production technologies. But a revenue-neutral carbon tax plan is better than nothing. It's certainly better than a cap-and-trade plan, which is a terrible idea because it puts a hard wall on carbon output. Unless there is a breakthrough in alternative energy production, any cap-and-trade plan will cause a never-ending recession. (And if there is a breakthrough in alternative energy production, then high-carbon usage will fall, and cap-and-trade will become unnecessary.) The hard part will be getting the entire world to set the carbon taxes uniformly. Any nation that cheats on the world standard for the tax will be pushing its carbon costs on the rest of the world. In spite of all the implementation difficulties, a carbon tax is the best economic/tax plan for dealing with global warming that I've heard of. It allocates the economic costs reasonably, and it doesn't stand in the way of promising new technologies that might solve the problem technically.
Jacob Hollander Nov 20, 2015 07:39 Member 3 \| Share via:	This is not a sound solution to combat climate change specifically because it turns it into a hot button political issue. In fact I'm certain I can become an Enormous Green Rage Monster before carbon tax will ever be the next "big thing". How about making not polluting sexy? Want some tips? I'm not trying to be rude, I am very serious about climate change but this type of thing is exactly why you can't get notable momentum and it's incredibly difficult to get people on board with the rest of it. It's just a bad idea. Build carbon sinks and make Nike's out of stuff that doesn't harm the environment at any point in it's life cycle and Airplanes that reduce travel time and prices for people to travel long distances and build them out of recycled.
James Martin Nov 21, 2015 02:07 Member 4 \| Share via:	Putting a price on carbon is the best way to allow people to know how to reduce global climate change. A revenue neutral approach is the only way to get a price on carbon through the US Congress. Before a price on carbon can get through Congress, Congress needs to agree that there is a problem caused by humans. The Gibson resolution has been introduced to do this, and it has at least 12 Republican supporters. Getting more Republican supporters can lead to passage of this important legislation.