Ithaca Council votes to endorse carbon tax

FingerLakes1.com Local Network ^ | 2008-02-08 6:34 AM

[Behind Liberal Lines]

ITHACA — Common Council voted Wednesday to support a federal carbon tax.

Council passed a resolution urging state and federal officials to pursue a federal carbon tax rather than emissions trading to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The resolution passed 9-0, with Alderwoman Nancy Schuler, D-4th, abstaining.

Schuler said some clauses of the resolution were “really just too emphatic because we really don't know.” “I certainly support the concept but I had trouble with the 25 ‘whereases' as a statement,” she said.

Sylvester Johnson, who is a member of the Climate Change Action Group of Central New York and largely wrote the resolution passed by Council, urged individuals who favor a carbon tax to visit his Web site: federalcarbontax.org.

Johnson argues that an emissions cap and trade system, supported by presidential candidates Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and John McCain, acts as a hidden tax but is less effective, more expensive and easier to abuse than a straightforward tax.

Johnson said he hopes Ithaca can serve as an example to other municipalities. With enough grassroots support, federal legislators will see a carbon tax as politically viable, he said.

[Behind Liberal Lines]

Ithaca is the City of Evil.

[Behind Liberal Lines]

City of Evil bump:

[NonValueAdded]

Hey, Ithica: think globally but act locally. Pass your own damned tax and we’ll get back to you in a year or so to see how it’s going.

[jocko12]

They sound like a bunch of fools.

[Digital Sniper]

I'm sure Ithaca's "maverick" plan will be embraced (and endorsed) by McCain before November.

[NativeNewYorker]

Climate Change Action Group of Central New York

Sorry, but all I can think of when I try to get my mind around this, is Circle Jerk.

[oblomov]

Can I pay my carbon tax in Ithaca clownbucks?

[omega4179]

Carbon taxing equals massive layoffs during a recession equals a typical dem progrom

[barneyrubble]

Oh Jeez. We are in deep doo doo.

[mmichaels1970]

I posted this on another thread:

From Carbon Tax Center

Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona)

Senator McCain was the first of the crop of 2008 presidential contenders to call for capping U.S. greenhouse gas emissions. With Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-Conn.), McCain introduced the McCain-Lieberman Stewardship Act in Jan. 2003, calling for a cap-and-trade system on CO2 emissions from power plants. As reported by the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, on Oct. 30, 2003 the two senators brought a revised version of their Climate Stewardship Act of 2003 (S. 139), covering a wider range of carbon emission sources, to a vote in the United States Senate. "While the measure failed by a vote of 43 to 55, the vote demonstrated growing bipartisan support for a genuine climate change policy," according to the Pew Center.

More recently (Oct. 2007), Sen. McCain stated his opposition to both carbon taxes and higher gasoline taxes on equity grounds while reiterating his support for carbon cap-and-trade, thereby indicating his confusion vis-a-vis the two, as economist-blogger (and Mitt Romney adviser) Greg Mankiw explains

Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-New York)

From the Grist/Outside interview

Q. Do you believe we need a carbon tax in addition to a cap-and-trade system?

A. There is a lot of interest now in figuring out what the most efficient and effective means of controlling and decreasing greenhouse gases would be. I'm looking for what will work and produce results. A cap-and-trade [program] can be designed and implemented in a number of ways. I would strongly favor using an auction for the allocation of the permits -- an auction that would [sell] as close to 100 percent of the permits as possible [rather than giving a percentage of them away for free]. But I think that there are a number of other serious proposals. I will entertain what I think are the best proposals that are politically viable. We still face tremendous opposition from the Republicans.

Sen. Barack Obama (D-Illinois)

From the Grist/Outside interview

Q. Do you believe that we need a carbon tax in addition to a cap-and-trade program?

A. I believe that, depending on how it is designed, a carbon tax accomplishes much of the same thing that a cap-and-trade program accomplishes. The danger in a cap-and-trade system is that the permits to emit greenhouse gases are given away for free as opposed to priced at auction. One of the mistakes the Europeans made in setting up a cap-and-trade system was to give too many of those permits away. So as I roll out my proposals for a cap-and-trade system, I will price permits so that it has much of the same effect as a carbon tax.

[Thommas]

As of the census[8] of 2000, there were 29,287 people, (2,071.0/km²). The racial makeup of the city was 73.97% White, 6.71% Black or African American, [with a few others mixed in.]

There were 10,287 households out of which 14.2% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 19.0% were married couples living together, and 71.2% were non-families. 43.3% of all households were made up of individuals and 7.4% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older.

So this little enclave of aging hippies gets a national bump in the MSM because of its overindulged sense of importance? Hey, 30,000 Indians in California get to expand their gambling operations and INCREASE the national carbon footprint! (crickets....chirp..chirp)

[Condor51]

Why do all these idiots HATE Carbon???

All living organisms contain carbon; the human body is about 18% carbon by weight. In green plants carbon dioxide and water are combined to form simple sugars (carbohydrates carbohydrate, any member of a large class of chemical compounds that includes sugars, starches, cellulose, and related compounds. These compounds are produced naturally by green plants from carbon dioxide and water (see photosynthesis ).

• It is a constituent of all organic matter.
• There are more carbon compounds than there are compounds of all other elements combined.
  
• The successful linking in the 1940s of carbon with silicon has led to the development of a vast number of new substances known collectively as the silicones silicone..
  
• Carbon has been known to humans in its various forms since ancient times. Although carbon makes up only .032% of the earth's crust, it is very widely distributed and forms a vast number of compounds. Carbon exists in the stars; a series of thermonuclear reactions called the carbon cycle nucleosynthesis or nucleogenesis, in astronomy, production of all the chemical elements from the simplest element, hydrogen, by thermonuclear reactions within stars, supernovas, and in the big bang at the beginning of the universe...

We are 'star stuff', we ARE Carbon.

Will these moonbats send a Carbon Tax Bill to Polaris (the North star)?

[Jimmy Valentine's brother]

Hey, Ithica: think globally but act locally. Pass your own damned tax and we’ll get back to you in a year or so to see how it’s going.

Exactly!

[steelyourfaith]

Beam me to Planet Gore !

The Best Global Warming Videos on the Internet

• Part I ... Documentaries
• Part II ............ Lectures
• Part III ............ Debates

[SuziQ]

Heh, I think I’m gonna die from NOT SURPRISE! Of all the towns in the country, Ithaca WOULD be the first. It’s a shame, too, because it is a beautiful area of the country, if there weren’t so many moonbats at the college.

[xcamel]

FReepmail me to get on or off
Click on POGW graphic for full GW rundown
Dr. John Ray's
GREENIE WATCH

---

It just never ends with these people..

[Chode]

more moonbattery from the Peoples DemocRATic Republic of Ithaca EVIL!!!

[dayglored]

> We are 'star stuff', we ARE Carbon.

Joni Mitchell?

We are stardust, we are golden
We are ten billion year old carbon
And we got to get ourselves back to the garden.

Actually I always thought it was:

We are stardust, we are golden,
We are caught in the Devil's bargain,
And we got to get ourselves back to the garden.

but the first version seems to be pretty popular on the lyrics pages...