In a thinly veiled opinion piece, which appears in the business section, not the science section, writer Eduardo Porter is all about using a big stick on countries, especially the United States, which refuse to implement massive CO2 restrictions
Climate Deal Badly Needs a Big Stick
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Perhaps the word failure fits, however. More than a quarter-century of fruitless efforts to induce the world’s major greenhouse gas polluters like China and the United States to significantly cut their emissions suggests the entire approach may be fundamentally flawed.
Perhaps it does, considering that the majority of Kyoto Protocol signatories failed to meet their targets, all while implementing lots of restrictions and taxes/fees.
What if every other advanced nation, as a way to encourage energy efficiency and spur investments in alternatives to fossil fuels, agreed to put a price of $25 per ton on carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere? As a tax, that would add some 22 cents to the price of a gallon of gas, something few American politicians — fearing public anger — are yet ready to consider.
That would mean the price of almost everything, not just gasoline, would rise, causing lots of pain to lower and middle class Americans. This is what Eduardo is advocating, and you can bet that most other members of the Cult of Climastrology are right with him, not realizing that this would cause pain in their own lives. Eduardo probably hasn’t considered that the cost of doing business for the NY Times would rise, as they use fossil fueled vehicles to deliver their papers. Twenty two cents might not seem like much, but, it adds up for filling up your own vehicle, and for everyone else filling up theirs.
But if the other advanced nations had a stick — a tariff of 4 percent on the imports from countries not in the “climate club†— the cost-benefit calculation for the United States would flip. Not participating in the club would cost Americans $44 billion a year.
Here we have Eduard and the NY Times advocating for other countries (which will surely fail to meet their own goals) to harm the United States and its citizens, all for the mythical, un-scientific, and nonsensical cultish beliefs of Warmists.
This sort of approach offers perhaps the best chance of preventing a climatic upheaval.
How cute, a new term.
In an article published in April in The American Economic Review, Professor Nordhaus proposed just such a climate club, in which countries committed to reducing carbon emissions would impose a uniform tariff on imports from nonmembers.
Notice, countries that are committed, not ones which are actually succeeding.
“The issue is not whether we will have disastrous effects,†Professor Weitzman told me, “but when climate change will have disastrous effects.â€
Given the dearth of alternatives, Professor Nordhaus’s scheme, draconian as it may sound, looks like the only game in town.
It’s interesting that virtually every “solution” from the Cult of Climastrology, a subset of the Progressive (nice fascist) political movement, involves taxation, fees, an artificial cost of living increase, and lots of pain, all based on prognostication that something might possibly maybe happen.
Crossed at Right Wing News.
what is the cost to Americans who drive on poorly maintained roads?
If that carbon tax were used to fix our bad infrastructure how much would Americans saveIn the 50s and 60s we had the best roads and highways in the world. Europe now has that honor. Most everything in the USA moves by truck and everybody must pay for roads that damage trucks
John, we both know that the money wouldn’t be used for that. Furthermore, there would be less road miles driven as the cost of living artificially goes up. Plus all the unintended consequences.
What was one of the consequences of requiring higher fuel economy (also from consumer choice)? Lower returns for gas taxes. Less money for roads.
In 2014, about 136.78 billion gallons1 (or 3.26 billion barrels) of gasoline were consumed2 in the United States, a daily average of about 374.74 million gallons (or 8.92 million barrels).3 This was about 4% less than the record high of about 142.35 billion gallons (or 3.39 billion barrels) consumed in 2007.
The problem is not that Americans continue to put mileage on their cars or that we do not collect large amounts of taxes. The unfortunate aspect of maintaining the gazillion miles of roads and bridges is staggering and no where nearly is covered by gasoline taxes.
In 2012 there were 41.4 billion dollars collected in gasoline taxes.
According to data from the U.S. Department of Transportation‘s 2013 “Report to Congress on the Conditions and Performance of the Nation’s Highways, Bridges and Transit,â€â€”the most recent report— all levels of government should be investing $95.6 billion in highway improvements during 2014 just to maintain current physical and performance conditions on the nation’s highways and bridges. This would grow to $109 billion by 2020 if highway construction costs grow at the same rate as the overall inflation rate. The cost to improve our nation’s highways by making all investments with a positive benefit-cost ratio would be $161.7 billion in FY 2014, growing to $184.2 billion by FY 2020.
Now one has to remember that federal gasoline taxes are used also to help maintain and shore up railroads, airports and other means of transportations….So the dollars coming back to each state decreases.
The United States federal excise tax on gasoline is 18.4 cents per gallon (cpg) and 24.4 cents per gallon (cpg) for diesel fuel. On average, as of April 2012, state and local taxes add 31.1 cents to gasoline and 30.2 cents to diesel for a total US average fuel tax of 49.5 cents (cpg) per gallon for gas and 54.6 cents per gallon (cpg) for diesel.
SO lets look at this for a minute…..As my open paragraph put out bye the EIA government agency states…….137 billion gallons of GASOLINE per year consumed. Taxes paid would be 137billion x 50 cents tax(rounded up) or 68 billion in income.
Now we look at Diesel fuel which is on the order of 44billion gallons x 55cents tax total per gallon of diesel fuel for a total of about 25 billion dollars.
Collected Taxes from Gasoline and Diesel fuel equals 68 billion plus 25 billion or 93 billion dollars per year as of 2013.
As you can see its projected we need 161 billion to 187 billion to FIX IT….leaving a short fall every year which just keeps getting deeper and deeper and deeper.
To fix this problem the US government and the states would have to DOUBLE their respective taxes….making gasoline roughly 50 cents per gallon more expensive.
Something no Republican or Democrat would ever do…hence….get used to it….were in for riding on dirt roads in 20 years.
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