Posted on 01/20/2019 5:35:01 PM PST by Kaslin
The Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, and other media outlets are reporting that a bipartisan group of top economic advisors has signed a statement supporting a carbon dioxide tax that returns all revenue to the American people. Prominent signatories include Alan Greenspan, Paul Volcker, and Ben Bernanke. Expect this to be a big messaging point in the weeks and months ahead for global warming activists.
More atmospheric carbon dioxide and gradually warming temperatures have brought net benefits to human health and welfare. Yet economists like Greenspan and Bernanke, who received appointments from Republican presidents, often make the argument that they are not scientists and they are merely crafting the best economic solution to a problem that most scientists say we need to address. Even if these economists remain unconvinced that carbon dioxide emissions and modest global warming bring net benefits, there are crucial flaws in their argument for a ‘revenue neutral’ carbon dioxide tax.
Here are the three biggest flaws of a ‘revenue neutral’ carbon dioxide tax designed to appeal to Republicans and conservatives:
1. A carbon dioxide tax may be crafted to be government revenue neutral, but it cannot be crafted to be household revenue neutral. The intent and impact of a carbon dioxide tax is to raise the price of coal, natural gas, and gasoline to the point that they are more expensive than high-priced wind power, solar power, and electric vehicles powered by wind and solar. When this happens, consumers will be purchasing wind and solar power that is much more expensive than what they presently pay for coal, natural gas, and gasoline. Consumers will therefore be forced to spend substantially more money on energy and energy-related bills. Yet the wind and solar industries will pay no carbon dioxide taxes, meaning a ‘successful’ carbon dioxide tax that dramatically reduces carbon dioxide emissions will collect little tax revenue and thereafter return little money to the people. This would be ‘revenue neutral’ for government, but households will see dramatic declines in discretionary income as a result of their uncompensated higher energy bills.
2. Republicans and conservatives are negotiating against themselves, in vain, when they advocate a ‘revenue neutral’ carbon dioxide tax. Democrats, environmental activist groups, and the political Left have made it clear that they will not support or accept a ‘revenue neutral’ carbon dioxide tax. They proved this point in the state of Washington in 2016 when a ‘revenue neutral’ carbon dioxide tax was put on the ballot with support from many establishment Republicans. Democrats, environmental activist groups, and the political Left opposed the ballot initiative, stating they would only support a carbon dioxide tax that authorized government to keep the tax revenues and direct the revenue to causes supported by the environmental Left. As a result – and thankfully – the ballot initiative failed.
3. Even if Democrats, environmental activist groups, and the political Left suddenly began to support a ‘revenue neutral’ carbon dioxide tax, they would only support such a tax in addition to, rather than instead of, expensive, intrusive, command-and-control schemes. As I noted in a recent Heartland Institute Policy Brief, “Prominent global warming activist David Roberts noted in Vox that CO2 taxes ‘are good policy, an important part of the portfolio, but unlikely ever to be sufficient on their own. It’s worth getting a price on carbon anywhere it can be gotten, but climate hawks should not believe, and definitely shouldn’t be saying in public, that a carbon price is enough ...’ [emphasis in the original].” I also noted from Bill McKibben, “We need to do everything. Not just a price on carbon, but dramatic subsidies for renewables to speed their spread. Not just a price on carbon, but an end to producing coal and gas and oil on public land. Not just a price on carbon, but a ban on fracking, which is sending clouds of methane into the atmosphere. Not just a price on carbon, but a dozen other major regulatory changes.&rdquo
Not only would a carbon dioxide tax be economically destructive, but Republicans and conservatives who are duped into supporting such a scheme will be getting something entirely different than what is being advertised.
Well, there's a troika of populists...
The only two things that the insane commie libs know how to do is lie, lie, lie...and lie some more. And, oh yeah, steal and spend other peoples’ money.
Remember: “If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor”? Lies and no credibility...not even with themselves.
Carbon tax....just another leftist way to steal money from the tax payer.
L8r
I believe this as much as I believe everything else from the globalist thugs.
Oh, the breathing tax. How cute.
NASA studies found that carbon dioxide was not a greenhouse gas, it has no effect on solar warming. But I am sure these wise [asses] will ignore reality for the big scam.
Of course it is
It is a ruse to get the camel’s nose inside the tent just like the income tax was to be a tax only on the rich. They said only the top 10% would be taxed. It didn’t take long for that to change.
Sure, anytime some politician tells you that a new tax is revenue neutral, grab your wallet and hold on!
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No smoking hot spot David Evans - THE AUSTRALIAN July 18, 20081. The greenhouse signature is missing. We have been looking and measuring for years, and cannot find it.
Each possible cause of global warming has a different pattern of where in the planet the warming occurs first and the most. The signature of an increased greenhouse effect is a hot spot about 10km up in the atmosphere over the tropics. We have been measuring the atmosphere for decades using radiosondes: weather balloons with thermometers that radio back the temperature as the balloon ascends through the atmosphere. They show no hot spot. Whatsoever.
If there is no hot spot then an increased greenhouse effect is not the cause of global warming. So we know for sure that carbon emissions are not a significant cause of the global warming. If we had found the greenhouse signature then I would be an alarmist again.
It is foolish to argue that more CO2 would benefit the earth when the entire concept of CO2 affecting the global climate is a hoax.
Sort of like free health care, re: Obamacare. No thanks!
The consequences are entirely foreseeable, but when they occur everybody will say they were unforeseen.
Anybody who argues for a carbon tax either knows the consequences and is lying or is stupid in the extreme.
everything to do with gloBULL warming is a costly hoax.
Any Republican “conservative” who would support this is 100% useless.
Basically, anythIng claiming to be revenue neutral, isn’t.
Also, “common sense” laws. There is an exceedingly small supply of that in Congress and squeezing it out of all legislators yearly since 1900 would produce only one actual common sense law every 20,465 years.
That's definitely untrue. We had the least CO2 in the atmosphere in the past million years out of the four billion years of data. The fact of CO2 starvation has placed the earth in a permanent ice age with brief interglacials like the one we are currently in. Without the extra CO2 generated by mankind we would be at risk of an ice age that would kill a large portion of the biosphere and billions of people.
The CO2 starvation also created the C4 plants like corn that are efficient enough to pull nearly all of the available CO2 from the atmosphere in the middle of the cornfield (well-watered in full sun). Greenhouse growers must use CO2 creating system in their greenhouses or their produce will die. They typically bump up CO2 to 1000 ppm. Not only does CO2 make it warmer but it makes plants grow better.
The plants would benefit but the ice age is not a result of CO2 levels. That is entirely due to continental shifting, changing sea currents and the rise of the Himalayas.
It is well documented that CO2 levels follow temperature not the other way around.
But there is another factor at play which is geographical, other than the mountains. The position of Anarctica, cut off from the other continents, allows it to be a freezer. The southern hemisphere has not warmed as much as the NH. The southern ocean near Antarctica has not warmed at all. Obviousky any warming of Antarctica is a good thing just like the warming of the Arctic. That's because of this simple reason: if the Antarctic sea ice sheild expands far enough north, it will trigger a full glacial period by reflecting the sun.
Our biggest threat is cooling not warming. Now you are correct that CO2 declines with cooling and increases with warming,. But higher CO2 also causes some warming. Not a lot, because if it caused a lot we would have had runaway warming some time in the past billions of years. But the reason we know there's a little warming from CO2 is that with low levels, mainly due to the weathering, we are in a permanent ice age.
Another simple way of looking at CO2 is that about one degree of warming (or cooling) causes about 5 or 10 ppm of increase (or decrease) in CO2. We have had 130 ppm rise of CO2 caused in the recent past by fossil fuel burning, etc. not by warming. Now the pertinent question is how much warming has that increase in CO2 caused. The answer: not much.
And not enough to make one iota of difference in plant growth. If it were greenhouses wouldn't pump it up to 1,000 ppm.
We have had 130 ppm rise of CO2 caused in the recent past by fossil fuel burning, etc. not by warming.
That's just a guess not a fact.
Quite the contrary. The reason growers use 1000 ppm in greenhouses is because most plants grow better at those higher concentrations. There are many science papers with statements like "Plants enriched with CO2 showed a significant increase in fresh and dry weight and yield of tomatoes." I just looked one of hundreds. I have read several in the past.
That's just a guess not a fact.
Of course. Science is only theories and sometimes there are decent measurements from well-understood instruments. Although even the understanding of the instrument relies on theory. We have no instrument measurements for CO2 from 1000's of years ago. Ice cores show a relatively stable level around 280. Those trapped bubbles are subject to diffusion however.
More recently we have instruments that show an increase in CO2 worldwide of about 2.5 ppm per year. Those measurements were replicated worldwide with a wide variety of measurement methods starting in the 1950's. It is about as well established as a scientific theory can be. Not just a "guess" although like I said, not a "fact" in the scientific sense. Then we have to ask where the 2.5 ppm per year increase comes from. Was there .25C of warming in the ocean per year in the past centuries to cause the rise now? No. The rise is simply due to fossil.
As I have always said, so what. There is a manmade rise in CO2 but we know from those same ice cores that the strongest correlation is from natural warming to natural CO2 rise, not from CO2 to warming.
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