April 13, 2019

Yes we sure need a carbon tax, but its revenues, should be shared out equally to all

Sir, Tim Harford writes: “The exciting thing about the Green New Deal is that it has serious political momentum focused at addressing climate change.” “Why the world urgently needs a carbon tax” April 13.

No! That “Green New Deal” “vague, and [with] grand aims [to] win… support than [with] hard practicalities”, far from being exciting is scary. As Harford thinks, “climate change is far too important a challenge to entrust to oil companies” I am sure that “climate change is far too important a challenge” to entrust its spending decisions of the fight against it, to some few who might be pursuing a different objective.

As I’ve said over and over again, the more you are concerned about climate change, the more you should be concerned with keeping the climate-change-fight profiteers as far away as possible.

Harford writes: “A lump-sum subsidy can encourage the uptake of electric cars — but a carbon tax will also reward those who cycle instead of driving.” Sir, I just ask, would the rewards for cycling not become so much real, if all carbon tax revenues were shared out equally to all?

PS. Harford mentions “a carbon permit auction” as a “close sibling” to a carbon tax. Not so. A carbon permit auction is nothing but a new type of those indulgences that were sold by the Catholic Church in order to permit sinning. It is a twist of history to see that Martin Luther’s Protestant Germany is one that now most supports such indulgences.

@PerKurowski