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July 11, 2007

| Zombies in Space! Just Kidding >>

The Carbon Tax

For the record, I am all in favor of a carbon tax. So is Anne Applebaum. So is Al Gore (who favors swapping it for payroll taxes). It’s simple… it’s fair… it’s Pigovian!

Because, you know, everyone has been emailing me asking what I think about a carbon tax. Um.

Robin-sig.gif
Posted July 11, 2007 at 2:26 | Comments (3) | Permasnark
File under: Briefly Noted, Snarkpolicy

Comments

How about personal carbon credits? SUV owners and jetsetters would actually have to buy credits off of bikers and public transit riders. Britain was considering this at some point...

You just want to be able to hawk your plentiful carbon credits on the street.

Seriously, it's a cool concept, but I worry that it would be so administratively 'heavy' -- whereas a carbon tax is relatively light. And they achieve the same result in the end (vis a vis incentives) albeit sort of in exactly opposite ways.

Exactly right Robin. I just really like the concept of having SUV drivers come to me to buy my credits while I laugh and say "haha morons you're working for me now!".

I suppose the carbon tax serves two purposes: 1) raise money to counter the effects of warming 2) change people's behavior to generate less CO2. The credits system seems more effective to me, in part because it /is/ heavier.

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