Environmentalism and Climate Change

[popeyespappy]

I don’t blame you for your cynical skepticism about taxes and AGW mitigation Kichi. After all, your country’s and the rest of world’s policies along those lines are half assed at best. I don’t know if Australia’s carbon tax policies are enough to cause any real difference on a local scale, but they will amount to practically nothing on a global scale unless the rest of us decide to play too. Despite that you and Badger are receiving benefits from those policies already. The solar panels on your new home, that I assume were purchased with the help of government incentives, have cut your annual electric utility bills to less than what I am going to pay on utilities for my 50 year old home in Alabama in August alone. I doubt that is enough to make up the difference in what you pay overall for increased energy cost. When energy costs increase the cost of pretty much everything else goes up too. But the point made by that paper was you and I need to pay for the financial losses future generations are going to suffer due to our actions. It didn’t say we should break even on that proposal.

As far as the paper itself goes I don’t personally agree with libertarian economic policy. History tells us that the idea industry will do the right thing regarding people or the environment of its own free will is ridiculous. So is the reasoning that if a giant multinational corporation fucks someone they can be sued and everything will be better. If you doubt that just ask the residents of Love Canal. If you can find any that haven’t died yet.

In my opinion carbon taxes could be an effective policy in the battle against AGW. That doesn’t mean they would be painless though. In order to be effective they are going to have to be high enough to make the price of alternative energy sources competitive with fossil fuels. There can be no boom in alternative energy jobs until alternative energy becomes cost competitive.

Funds raised through carbon taxes should be expended in a variety of ways. It should be used to finance research, provide incentives, and yes some of it should be put aside to provide compensation to future victims of AGW. I like incentives that encourage individuals to become more energy independent. It would make a long term difference if most of the population reduced their dependence on fossil fuels as much as you and Zen have at your home by installing solar panels. On the other hand incentives for energy producers should be limited to funds used to lower CO2 output. Carbon tax based incentives for energy producers should only be provided for things like development of alternative energy production or reducing the amount of CO2 released by fossil fuel plants.

None of this means I believe carbon taxes are the only or even the best answer for the problems AGW is going to cause in the future. Only that I think they could be part of an effective overall policy if implemented properly. What I do know though is that policy needs to be determined based on evidence as opposed to an ideological agenda.