Carbon fee and dividend plan is a free-market correction, not a tax
We know with certainty five things about global warming: It’s happening. It’s us. It’s bad. Scientists agree. We can do something about it.
Global warming is happening. Thousands of measurements around the globe from weather stations, buoys, ships and satellites confirm a steady rise in global temperatures.
Humans cause global warming by releasing greenhouse gases. We know how much coal, gas, and oil we burn each year. We added 50 billion tons of CO2e greenhouse gases alone last year. Basic physics can compute exactly how much extra heat that traps.
Climate change is bad. Bad for the victims of extreme storms, wildfires, flooding, droughts and heat waves. Bad for ecosystems as extinction rates have increased a thousand-fold. Scientific articles show the direct link between global warming and extreme weather events such as Hurricane Harvey, extreme weather events trending steadily up.
Climatologists don’t agree about everything, but they agree on these points. We must cut greenhouse gases. Many people see a carbon fee and dividend as the best place to start: scientists (including pioneer James Hansen), economists (including Reagan’s Secretary Schultz), politicians (including Reagan’s and Bush’s Secretary James Baker), businesses (including Exxon and Mobil), and thousands of citizens like me.
On July 19, Congress voted mostly along party lines to pass a nonbinding resolution opposing carbon taxes. The carbon fee and dividend as proposed by Citizens’ Climate Lobby is not a tax. The definition of a tax says it raises money to finance the government. Carbon fee and dividend raises no money. It finances no government services.
Instead, the carbon fee and dividend plan is a free market device to correct an inefficiency. When making something creates harm or costs to others, it is a hidden cost. The market price of the product does not reflect the true cost of making it. That cost is external to production and is called an “externality.”
Economists agree that putting a price on an externality equal to that hidden cost will cause the market to reduce the harm and correct for that cost. We know this works; when forests and fish started dying in the Northeast from acid rain, Reagan put a price on the sulfur dioxide and nitrous oxide causing that acid rain. To avoid paying the extra costs, most companies installed equipment to reduce these emissions. Acid rain levels dropped, saving billions of dollars in damage to forests and streams.
But wouldn’t a carbon fee and dividend still hurt the economy? Won’t gasoline prices go up? Yes and no. If the price climbed by a dollar a gallon costing you $40 a month extra but the dividend gave you $40 a month, would your cost of gasoline go up? Not really. That’s the way the dividend works. One-hundred percent of the fees collected returns to families.
In a free-market economy, carbon fees raise some prices — but since all of the dividend returns to us, it’s a wash. We find ways to save money by cutting carbon use. This unleashes American ingenuity. Further, the carbon fee rises slowly — about 10 cents a gallon of gas per year — and gives us plenty of time to adjust.
What about jobs? A transition to clean energy will create jobs. Seventy-nine solar workers produce the same amount of electricity as one coal worker. The dividend check would also increase spending, stimulating the economy and creating more jobs. The REMI Corp., a top econometrics firm used by dozens of universities and governments, including our own Texas comptroller’s office, shows this in a detailed study.
So, the carbon fee and dividend plan is not a tax but a free-market correction. It would create jobs; it would boost the economy; it would make a great first step toward stopping global warming; and it would avoid the chaos from millions of desperate families fleeing flooded homes. We still have time to avert this — and we must.
Forgiveness instead of renaming Austin is the path forward to reconciliation for the slavery issue and for any grievances.
Renaming places and relocating statues is easier than forgiveness, but it is also the first step on the slippery slope of retribution against each other. Once we’re done renaming and removing things, we’ll start to take vengeance against each other when values collide. However, forgiveness is a powerful virtue that allows wounds to heal, encourages enemies to collaborate and illuminates that path forward from conflict.
Yes, slavery is wrong, and we condemn it today in all its forms. But, to continue down a path of retribution ignores the options for healing and forgiveness. It denies that people can be in harmony when their values do not always match. And favoring retribution over forgiveness
Here are some rock-solid ideas that will guarantee crushing defeats for Democrats in future elections:
Continue to waste energy and ink on repeating how awful our president and his supporters are.
Base your whole strategy on emotions and identity politics — and don’t tell the American public your vision for leading us to a better future.
Refuse to acknowledge that red America has legitimate grievances and aren’t all knuckle-draggers. They couldn’t possibly have anything in common with “enlightened” types.
Downplay the importance of having voter turnout initiatives that leverage early voting periods.
Stay at home and don’t vote — and don’t volunteer to make the possible happen.
Keep the old guard in place — and hold out false hope that the far left is the key to winning important elections.