<![CDATA[Grist - Comment Feed for Advocates launch the Price Carbon Campaign]]> Grist Comment Feed en Comment #1 by newnoah http://www.grist.org/article/can-the-promise-of-a-new-political-landscape-include-a-us-carbon-tax/ Fri, 21 Nov 2008 14:03:50 -0800 http://www.grist.org/article/can-the-promise-of-a-new-political-landscape-include-a-us-carbon-tax/1 well intentioned but still criminal mis-education

I'm not against a carbon tax per se - in PLAN-B 3.0 Brown's choice of instrument is a $150 increasing to $250 CT- but there is just no way that you can implement even a puny CT like our BC $10 one within our present political and economic BAU. Wake Up - why are you proposing a policy that is politically dead in the two Canadian arenas where it was recently proposed; and oil and other energy prices are going to go back up, then what?

But the real problem with such a thin edge of the wedge carbon tax is that it can't possibly scale up to even deal with New Denial, gradual, we've-got-time-to deal-with-it, mid-century target, climate change. And you know like I know that the real CC danger is not gradual warming but going over a tipping point to uncontrollable CC NOW, that CC is an emergency requiring massive systemic change not just incremental change within BAU, not just the paltry emission reduction produced by a carbon tax acceptable within BAU.

So why are you mis-educating with a supposed solution that we should all get activist behind at this crucial time?  Read your CLIMATE CODE RED. Help get cc recognized as the emergency it is; help by advocating for an emergency government with the power to accelerate the systemic socio-economic changes we need to make - and then it's time for carbon tax policy.

]]> well intentioned but still criminal mis-education

I'm not against a carbon tax per se - in PLAN-B 3.0 Brown's choice of instrument is a $150 increasing to $250 CT- but there is just no way that you can implement even a puny CT like our BC $10 one within our present political and economic BAU. Wake Up - why are you proposing a policy that is politically dead in the two Canadian arenas where it was recently proposed; and oil and other energy prices are going to go back up, then what?

But the real problem with such a thin edge of the wedge carbon tax is that it can't possibly scale up to even deal with New Denial, gradual, we've-got-time-to deal-with-it, mid-century target, climate change. And you know like I know that the real CC danger is not gradual warming but going over a tipping point to uncontrollable CC NOW, that CC is an emergency requiring massive systemic change not just incremental change within BAU, not just the paltry emission reduction produced by a carbon tax acceptable within BAU.

So why are you mis-educating with a supposed solution that we should all get activist behind at this crucial time?  Read your CLIMATE CODE RED. Help get cc recognized as the emergency it is; help by advocating for an emergency government with the power to accelerate the systemic socio-economic changes we need to make - and then it's time for carbon tax policy.

]]> Comment #2 by Zephaniah http://www.grist.org/article/can-the-promise-of-a-new-political-landscape-include-a-us-carbon-tax/ Sat, 22 Nov 2008 09:18:58 -0800 http://www.grist.org/article/can-the-promise-of-a-new-political-landscape-include-a-us-carbon-tax/2 How NOT to cap carbon

A carbon cap on the input side, meaning a limit on the amount of fossil fuel that can be purchased, that limit enforced through a permit system, with 5% fewer permits issued every year; and an auction system for the permits, this could function in the same way as a tax.  
However, it would just fuel global warming if the cap and trade law does the following:
1. gives away permits instead of auctioning them; 2. delays 3. puts the caps too high, allows as much or more fossil fuel use as now; 4. fails to establish the percentage of yearly reductions now leaving corporations unable to plan and therefore staying with familiar fossil fuel; 5. allows the giant loophole of offsets to be used; 6. fails to plan for possible violations.
If we avoid these, cap and trade may work. Of course there are still more issue, like how do you deal with corporations increasing fossil fuel burning offshore factories  to avoid the law?  


]]> How NOT to cap carbon

A carbon cap on the input side, meaning a limit on the amount of fossil fuel that can be purchased, that limit enforced through a permit system, with 5% fewer permits issued every year; and an auction system for the permits, this could function in the same way as a tax.  
However, it would just fuel global warming if the cap and trade law does the following:
1. gives away permits instead of auctioning them; 2. delays 3. puts the caps too high, allows as much or more fossil fuel use as now; 4. fails to establish the percentage of yearly reductions now leaving corporations unable to plan and therefore staying with familiar fossil fuel; 5. allows the giant loophole of offsets to be used; 6. fails to plan for possible violations.
If we avoid these, cap and trade may work. Of course there are still more issue, like how do you deal with corporations increasing fossil fuel burning offshore factories  to avoid the law?  


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