Fossil fuels, a taxing debate
Finite resource
Regarding “Unite behind a carbon tax” (Page A12, Tuesday), the authors advocate for a carbon tax as a means to draw down and halt our rate of carbon emissions. If 100 percent effective, which economists believe it would be if implemented robustly enough over a sufficiently long period, this would move our economy, and that of the world, to a renewable energy infrastructure more equitable and reliable than the fossil-based infrastructure we have now.
There are advantages to such a transition that they do not mention.
Consider national security. Most, if not all, of our military adventures since World War II have had petroleum-based energy security as their motivation. Our politicians, when they speak of energy security, speak in terms of domestic fossilenergy production. However, fossil fuels are finite, and while technology like fracking has moved us toward fossil fuel sufficiency, sufficiency for any finite consumable resource is inevitably temporary. What if our energy economy was powered completely by solar and wind? Would we care, even if 100 percent of the world’s oil was in the Middle East? We feel no need to invade countries whose principle export is, say, carrots. It would be the same with oil.
Even with plenty of fuel, our energy infrastructure remains vulnerable to climate disruption. During the 2011 drought we were in danger of brown-outs, not because we were running out of energy, but because our rivers, which provide the cooling necessary for our nuclear, coal and gas fired power plants, were running dry. However, wind and solar photovoltaic power production requires no water, and they would be unaffected during such a drought.
Citizens’ Climate Lobby and the Climate Leadership Council led by George Schultz and James Baker III advocate making a carbon tax revenue neutral by rebating 100 percent of the revenue to the citizenry on a per capita basis. Studies have shown that such a price and rebate would have a significant, positive effect on jobs across the economic spectrum relative to continuing our fossil fuel economy. Growing inequality is resulting in significant sociological and economic stress in our country. While it would not cure inequality, the per capita rebate would tend to reduce inequality over time.
Ron Spross, Humble