Posted on 10/23/2018 4:48:09 AM PDT by Mr. Mojo
What will it take to keep the planet habitable?
According to some eco-warriors, all that’s necessary is to end capitalism—the one economic system that has lifted billions from poverty and suffering.
The latest United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report led Eric Holthaus, a Grist writer, to tweet enthusiastically, “The world’s top scientists just gave rigorous backing to systematically dismantle capitalism as a key requirement to maintaining civilization and a habitable planet.”
The sentiment is not new. Three years ago, while pushing for the Paris Climate Accord, U.N. climate official Christiana Figueres described the strategy this way:
“This is the first time in the history of mankind that we are setting ourselves the task of intentionally, within a defined period of time, to change the economic development model that has been reigning for at least 150 years, since the Industrial Revolution.”
To accomplish such a feat, the new report proposes an energy tax of epic proportions. It claims that, to keep warming in check, by 2030 we’ll need to impose a tax of between $135 and $5,500 on every ton of carbon emitted.
And that’s just for starters. By the end of the century, the authors say, we’ll have to jack the tax up to as much as $27,000 per ton.
How would that play out in the real world, where conventional carbon-emitting fuels currently generate about 80 percent of all energy consumed? Carbon taxes of the magnitude suggested in the report would bankrupt families and businesses and trigger a global economic disaster.
Using the same model as the federal government’s Energy Information Administration, Heritage Foundation analysts estimated the economic impacts of a $37 per ton carbon tax—less than a third of the panel’s lowest recommendation.
The model indicates that, at $37 per ton, the tax would reduce U.S. aggregate gross domestic product by more than $2.5 trillion over the next 17 years. That translates to more than $21,000 in lost income, per family. It would also destroy more than a million jobs, half of them in energy-intensive manufacturing sectors.
The higher the tax goes, the greater the economic damage. At $135 per ton, the model crashes. These costs are far higher than most Americans are willing to pay.
According to a poll from the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago and the AP-NORC Center for Public Research Affairs, only a little more than half of us would shell out as much as a buck a month to reduce carbon emissions. At $20 a month, the poll found, only 27 percent of the public is willing to pay to combat climate change. Even among households earning more than $100,000, only 46 percent were willing to pay as much as $20 a month.
For zealous eco-warriors eager to impose far more expensive carbon taxes, that’s not very encouraging.
And it’s bound to be doubly discouraging when they consider that these polls failed to mention that, while high taxes would destroy the globe’s economic system, they would produce virtually no “climate benefit” at all.
In the developing world, more than 1.4 billion people still suffer from energy poverty. The U.N. report means nothing to them. Their priority is gaining access to energy and the economic growth it allows. They will continue to increase their greenhouse gas emissions, no matter how loudly the U.N. sirens blare.
Yes, developing countries are spending money on green technologies, but they’re also building a lot of new coal plants. The current and projected use of fossil fuels, including coal, almost certainly guarantees that the report’s reduction targets won’t be met through some massive energy overhaul.
Screaming that the sky is falling hasn’t worked well for climate activists in the past, and there’s little evidence that will change. Offering solutions to climate change that would require a complete makeover of the global economy and plunge developed nations into deprivation are unrealistic and counterproductive.
Nicolas Loris, an economist, focuses on energy, environmental and regulatory issues as the Herbert and Joyce Morgan fellow at The Heritage Foundation.
L8r
“End Capitalism” seems to be the U.N.’s plan for most everything.
if the public knew where the so-called “carbon” price was heading, the whole IPCC scam would be ended now.
if the public knew the plans to destroy agriculture, transport, etc., ditto.
I’m sure all these IPCC jacka$$es have dachas in Cuba and Venezuela.
I think we are in for some of Heinlein’s “bad luck”.
““End Capitalism” seems to be the U.N.’s plan for most everything.”
Seems kinda stupid to me being it’s the capitalist countries, especially the US, that picks up the tab for the UN and it’s programs.
Declaration of war.
It’s time we send the UN ***holes to Honduras seeking an asylum. Get them the hell out of OUR country.
Capitalism in one form or another has existed as long as humans had something to trade.
Once farms became efficient enough to produce a surplus and not every individual needed to farm for their own food, crafts and trades and arts developed.
These early non farmers were all capitalist. They risk beginning a business with the hope of “making a profit”.
What the left hates about capitalism is that the system allows individuals to fail, or lazy people to go hungry.
To them it is not fair that the blacksmith that works ten hours a day has more then the bum down the street that does not work at all.
To be fair the left would take the profits of the worker and give half to the bum. And here is where human nature kicks in, the worker will stop working hard and go back to make just enough for themselves and their family.
This is why socialism will always fail.
It’s not the tax. It’s the organization to collect a
tax on such a scale.
No, hell NO!
Socialists have embraced Environmentalism as a means to an end. Not the other way ‘round.
So everyone will be burning wood and cow dung for fuel. That will clean up air pollution. And when enough people don’t die when reduced to pre-industrial revolution standards, the UN socialists will do what socialists always do in the end. They will start killing people.
Under capitalism, people are customers. Under socialism, people are a burden. Of course they don’t care if they kill.
Capitalism: The ONLY economic system on earth that has generated enough surplus wealth to actually deal with threats to the environment.
Yet another reason why we should leave the UN.
Seeking power, they instill fear, using LIES!
This has been the plan of the Gaia Worshiping global socialist watermelons all along.
Wow!! End capitalism and SAVE THE PLANET. Socialism must do a much better job of protecting the environment than capitalism then? Lets take a hard look at Socialist Soviets and see if we can find how good of stewards Socialists are at protecting the environment. How about looking at the
ARAL SEA.
Chernobyl
Heavy metal poisoning
Nuclear waste and nuclear testing
and it goes on and on......
Socialism fails at Environmental protection because the state has no balance.
But if the goal is to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, mass-starvation is a feature not a bug.
Hmmm??? These “globalists” neo-Socialists are (#RustyIrony) are among the richest 1% and are the most mega-capitalists in world history! Jeff Bezos, Tom Steyer, Soros, Jeff green, Mark Zuckerberg, Google guys... WTH is with that? They own media and the entertainment industries (control of media is essential for tyrants to RULE).
What they seek IMHO is not (the “Serpent promise”) of socialism, but a new form of feudalism... owner and slave, master and serf... as was the plantations of the old south. They rule (not govern)... from their “mansions on the hill”, stealing the labor of their “subjects” (high taxes)! We “peasants” are to obey and serve, to dwell in the mud huts... living on little more than “trickle down” subsistence rations. To be herded, every aspect of life regulated and controlled by our “owners”… even to be “culled” (aka: “death with dignity”) if they deem it necessary (as our lives may “warm” the Earth). Such is an existence not a life!
Trump and we “deplorables” are an existential threat to their plan! He(we) must be destroyed!!!
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