Recently when I was with family (this group spans the political and climate change spectrum and we don't get together that often), we were at a
restaurant discussing life, the universe and everything else. In
the conversation, my brother in law and step mother suggested that the Carbon Tax
(CT) will do nothing positive. I disagreed but withheld from
entering into the discussion as I tend to launch to the extreme left. In Australia the carbon tax was introduced July 1 2012.
If I had that moment again I'd present my argument in the form of a reference to
an intelligible article on the desperate need to reduce the
dangerous levels of CO2 or equivalents being poured into our
atmosphere. I just found this on page four of this article by Bill McKibben of 350.org in
Rolling Stone Mag (http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/global-warmings-terrifying-new-math-20120719?page=4):
If you put a price on carbon, through a direct tax or other methods, it would enlist markets in the fight against global warming. Once Exxon has to pay for the damage its carbon is doing to the atmosphere, the price of its products would rise. Consumers would get a strong signal to use less fossil fuel – every time they stopped at the pump, they'd be reminded that you don't need a semi-military vehicle to go to the grocery store. The economic playing field would now be a level one for nonpolluting energy sources. And you could do it all without bankrupting citizens – a so-called "fee-and-dividend" scheme would put a hefty tax on coal and gas and oil, then simply divide up the proceeds, sending everyone in the country a check each month for their share of the added costs of carbon. By switching to cleaner energy sources, most people would actually come out ahead.Unfortunately what this means is that those who can't afford to make such changes would become worse off. Also unfortunate is that the sales of televisions and the amount of money fed into poker machines would rise :)
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