{"id":374,"date":"2009-06-23T20:05:56","date_gmt":"2009-06-23T20:05:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/urbanthoreau.com\/blog\/?p=374"},"modified":"2009-06-23T20:05:56","modified_gmt":"2009-06-23T20:05:56","slug":"a-carbon-tax","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.urbanthoreau.com\/blog\/a-carbon-tax\/","title":{"rendered":"A: Carbon Tax"},"content":{"rendered":"

Q: What do Ralph Nader, James Hansen and The Wall Street Journal agree on?<\/a><\/p>\n

Why? I mean, how on earth could these three unlikely curmudgeons–one representing political progressives, another a defender of science’s role in society, and an economic editorial board known for denying global warming–actually agree on a solution to a vexing problem?<\/p>\n

Well, from an economic efficiency argument (the Wall Street Journal), it all makes sense–you tax a product and the economy will produce less of that product. It is simple and requires little government intervention over & above that which already exists.<\/p>\n

From a scientific efficacy argument (James Hansen, the NASA scientist who has been railing against GW gases, profiled in the New Yorker<\/a>), it captures *all* emitters of GW gases. From the big smokestack polluters down to the average homeowner\/car driver. (Cap & Trade only captures the huge, single point emitters; i.e., smokestacks).<\/p>\n

From a social justice\/progressive viewpoint (Nader’s Op-Ed in the Wall Street Journal here<\/a>), you tax the stuff we, as a society, don’t want, and, if the tax is implemented fairly, we get the pent-fecta: Lowered GW gases, higher taxes on rich energy gluttons, lower taxes for more productive pursuits, new jobs in energy efficiency & alt-energy production, and redistribution for the poor.<\/p>\n

It’s simple, tax carbon til we don’t use it. Or at least til we use a lot less of it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It’s simple, tax carbon til we don’t use it. Or at least til we use a lot less of it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,10,20,91,13,4],"tags":[186,187,1322,38,190,189,192,191,188],"class_list":["post-374","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-creative-business","category-energy-efficiency","category-greenwashers-greenwashing","category-perspectives-on-american-gluttony","category-politics","category-society","tag-cap-trade","tag-carbon-tax","tag-energy-efficiency","tag-gluttony","tag-james-hansen","tag-ralph-nader","tag-redistribution-to-poor","tag-social-justice","tag-wall-street-journal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urbanthoreau.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urbanthoreau.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urbanthoreau.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urbanthoreau.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urbanthoreau.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=374"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.urbanthoreau.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":378,"href":"https:\/\/www.urbanthoreau.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/374\/revisions\/378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.urbanthoreau.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=374"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urbanthoreau.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=374"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.urbanthoreau.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=374"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}