Carbon Tax | Grist

If the grass looks greener, it’s important to understand the nature of the fence 0
Posted 2 weeks, 5 days ago One of the things about politics is that solutions always seem easier to implement and more promising before they stand a real chance of being implemented.
Merkel and Sarkozy want carbon tax on imports 1
Posted 1 month, 2 weeks ago
The leaders of Germany and France called Friday for the United Nations to support a carbon tax on imports from countries who fail to back international efforts to fight global warming.
The quietism of mainstream economics

Economist Greg Mankiw’s bottom line on climate policy: Government can’t do anything right 10
Posted 2 months, 3 weeks ago
Gregory Mankiw reveals yet again that mainstream economists don't have much to offer in the way of fighting climate change.
Hansen mostly recycles myths in his mostly pointless attack on US climate action 0
Posted 3 months, 2 weeks ago
Moving money from A to B does not cause it to disappear

Cap & trade: Carbon tax or wealth transfer? 5
Posted 5 months, 2 weeks ago
It's an article of faith that cap-and-trade will raise our energy costs, but it's not necessarily true.

The ubiquity of this faith makes clear that the Smart People who write, talk, and vote about CO2 policy don't really understand the issues. A quick discussion, and then some math to clarify.

There are two core problems with the theory that carbon pricing schemes will raise energy costs: We habitually confuse sector-specific wealth transfers with economy-wide pain; the two are not necessarily the same. And rather than admit our failure to imagine how the world would adapt to carbon pricing, we tend to assume stasis, thereby overstating the costs of compliance.
Pearlstein Harbor

Washington Post columnist Steven Pearlstein gets climate bill wrong 2
Posted 5 months, 2 weeks ago
In a laudable attempt to draw more elite media attention to the Waxman-Markey bill -- which, like all things "environmental," has not exactly been a preoccupation of the political cable/blog/op-ed axis -- Steven Pearlstein makes a hash of a few important facts.
Look, over there, shiny!

Should the Republican carbon tax bill be taken seriously? 6
Posted 5 months, 3 weeks ago
A couple of House Republicans have just introduced a climate tax bill. Should anyone pay it any attention?
Tax away, eh?

Carbon tax gets big nod from voters in B.C. election 0
Posted 5 months, 4 weeks ago
British Columbia held its provincial election yesterday, with the province’s carbon tax playing a big role—and coming out a big winner. Aside from the economy, probably no issue was more important.
Stand By Me

BC voters back carbon tax 1
Posted 5 months, 4 weeks ago
Carbon emissions met its first big electoral test this week, as British Columbia voters rewarded BC premier Gordon Campbell, who last July instituted North America's first major carbon tax, with a third four-year term.
'Round the hamster wheel again

Cap-and-trade vs. carbon tax: a bird in hand is worth two on Alpha Centauri 8
Posted 6 months ago
The endless, fruitless debate over carbon pricing policies is back again. Herein, I settle it once and for all. Ahem.
Move on

Memo to James Hansen: Your opposition to Waxman-Markey is ill-conceived and unhelpful 8
Posted 6 months ago
There isn’t going to be a carbon tax nor should there be. Get over it and move on.
I backed your market-based policy, and all I got was this lousy filibuster

Did environmentalists get played on cap and trade? 0
Posted 6 months, 1 week ago
Give Fees A Chance

Pollution taxes work 1
Posted 6 months, 1 week ago
Pollution taxes have seldom been tried. But in the few cases where they've been tried, they've worked rather well.
Something Is Rotten on the NYT Op-Ed Page

A false choice from a familiar skeptic 5
Posted 6 months, 1 week ago
Bjorn Lomborg -- Danish statistician, self-styled "Skeptical Environmentalist," and long-time Grist nemesis -- is back, this time courtesy of the New York Times op-ed page.
Simple is as simple does

Myth: Climate policy must be simple 10
Posted 6 months, 3 weeks ago
Among the weird memes that has grown up around the cap-and-trade debate, one of the most puzzling to me is that C&T is fatally flawed because it is complex. Americans don't "get it." They'll only support a climate policy that is so "simple and transparent" that you can explain it on a napkin. As far as I can tell, that requirement was invented out of whole cloth, specifically for this problem, more specifically for this particular way of dealing with this problem.
The worst column of the year

Somebody hide Tom Friedman’s ball 46
Posted 7 months ago
Tom Friedman's recent column is a nuclear disaster: head-slappingly wrong on the merits, politically naive and tone deaf, and timed so poorly as to be malicious. Just about every single sentence is a train wreck.
Taxation with representation

Friedman uses perch at Gray Lady to push for carbon tax 0
Posted 7 months ago
In or out

Climate policy question #1 is simple: “Are we in?” 4
Posted 7 months ago
There is a policy choice that calls the essential question -- a single decision that will signify a genuine commitment to reduce fossil fuel dependence and deliver climate solutions at scale, with real accountability for results: a firm, science-based cap on climate pollution.
Myth: Unlike cap-and-trade, a carbon tax is simple, immune to manipulation, & politically palatable 44
Posted 7 months, 1 week ago
A strange-bedfellows political coalition, everyone from the CEO of Exxon to climate scientist James Hansen, supports a carbon tax as an alternative to cap-and-trade. Tax proponents allege that cap-and-trade is too complicated; too friendly to financial industry tricks and manipulations; too open to loopholes, cheating, and special pleading; too weak to work.
Everybody cool it

Regional climate policy is still moving forward in the Northwest 0
Posted 7 months, 2 weeks ago
Over the last couple of weeks, there's been a lot of hand-wringing about the state of climate policy in the Northwest. Washington's citizen-backed renewable energy standard is in jeopardy and neither Oregon nor Washington appears close to implementing the Western Climate Initiative. Even British Columbia's pioneering carbon tax is taking fire. Freak out! Everybody panic! Or not.