Reply To: Cap and Trade

[Brian H]

Aeronaut wrote:

In my opinion it is a very good idea to create a carbon pollution tax – the oil and coal wont look such an attractive energy source.
The implementation is not so easy though, but something (imperfect) is better than nothing.

President Obama’s recent UN speech was right on the mark. It remains to be seen if his reasons align with ours, though, since his immediate concerns seem to be financially and politically motivated.

Once we do publicly show an alternative, people and corporations will effectively be taxed to burn fossil fuels. And it could happen in a New York minute. 😉
Obama’s speech was a travesty, as usual. Remember that suppressing carbon output pauperizes the already pauperized even more, and hugely distorts capital and other economic decisions. E.g.: Spain’s recent highly touted “Green Jobs” national initiative turns out to have cost 2.2 jobs elsewhere in the country for every Green Job ‘created’, according to its govenment’s own figures. You can’t drain capital out of the economy without encountering ‘the unseen’, to cite the classic economist Bastiat.

India and China have used diplomatic language to give him (and the IPCC, etc.) the right message: “Fuggedaboudit!”