Posted on 09/28/2012 8:45:20 AM PDT by Sir Napsalot
.... I am a proponent of carbon taxes. One criticism of this policy that you hear, for instance here from Noah Smith, is that they are pointless because you need international cooperation to make a real dent. But among non-tradeable goods this is not really the case. We don’t have to worry about transportation shifting abroad, since you can’t really outsource driving your car or shipping a package. And this matters, as transportation accounts for 70% of U.S. fuel consumption, and 30% of U.S. greenhouse gases.
But even if carbon taxes are problematic, surely higher gas taxes are a good idea. In his Pigou Tax paper Mankiw cites on study that shows of the $2.10 optimal tax on gasoline, only 6 cents was due to global warming. The rest came from other externalities like congestion and accidents.
Gas taxes also show us that international “coordination” is possible, and that the U.S. is simply failing to coordinate with other developed countries. .....
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
"Other developed countries", which ones imposed a carbon tax and enjoyed booming economy growth?
Ping.
Stupid ideas. Carbon dioxide and Nitrous Oxides are valuable commodities, if you recognize and use them as such. Pumping them underground is a stupid waste.
Algae based biodiesel can be downright simple, and with the addition of CO2 and NOx gases, the algae grows much, much faster. Some types of algae are 50% vegetable oil by weight.
Squeeze out the oil, mix it with ethanol and lye, as a catalyst, then filter it, add 1% petroleum diesel as a preservative, and bingo you have biodiesel. The leftover algae makes good animal fodder.
You can use gray (non-potable) waste water, even before the first drop of biodiesel is produced it is profitable, because it is expensive as hell to dispose of CO2 and NOx otherwise. There are a vast number of diesel engines on the road right now, from motorcycles to cars and trucks to trains, and even ships. Minor modification and they work fine with it.
South of the Mason-Dixon, continual production is probably good for 10 months out of the year.
Add it all up: waste disposal, minimal infrastructure, small resource demand, existing engines and diesel pumps, and it probably even beats gasoline as being efficient.
I think most of us would rather live next to an oil well than the algae pond that will produce anything close to the equivalent. YMMV...
Problem solved.
Carbon credits are a financial scheme. No wonder Forbes is for the Carbon Tax.
BINGO BUMP!!
Raise the price of energy and you raise the price of everything.
Energy is how you multiply human effort. It is the basic building block of wealth. Jacking the cost of it puts your thumb directly on a country’s carotid artery. Freedom, rule of law, and abundant energy are fundamental for building prosperity.
surely higher gas taxes are a good idea.
///
i noticed several weird articles from Forbes this past week.
but this, by far, is the most insane!
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1) Global warming is a hoax.
2) higher taxes are bad for everyone, except politicians.
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http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2937374/posts?page=9#9
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http://thedogatemydata.blogspot.com/2009/12/raw-v-adjusted-ghcn-data.html
Absolutely. It does three things. Since absolutely everything you do generates carbon, it gives government veto power over every area of your life.
And it gives people who create nothing a percentage of everything you create.
And it is a world-class money laundering scheme that puts every other money laundering scheme to shame. The Madoffs of the world dealt in millions and occasionally billions. The carbon credit scammers will deal in trillions.
All central planners must be utterly destroyed (metaphorically speaking, not calling for violence)
Aye, it’s a rich mans con game.
If reducing fuel consumption is the goal, that's easy enough to accomplish, keep people too poor to drive.
But the goal of a tax is to bring in money and if a carbon tax really worked it would have to keep increasing just to maintain the same level of income.
Why this great enthusiasm for taking the few pennies I have left at the end of the month?
Newsweek? Time?
Trafficking in lines on paper to reduce a company or household’s tax burden. For a fee.
The gummit can’t manage social security, the most simple of all things the gummit does.
After all, it is nothing more than an annuity and there are thousands of investment managers that know how to do that.
Gummit can’t manage:
Medicare
Medicaid
Medicare Prescription
The post office....when the lowest ranking exec in UPS or FedX could.
Energy
Gummit Motors
And now we see what a mess they have made of foreign policy.
Can’t even tell the truth to people who already know the truth.
And we want to turn over more management duties to them?
Some people will never get it.
And to get to the heart of the matter, it has NOT been shown that man is heating up Earth’s environment or that man is capable of changing the weather by altering farming and production methods.
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