Elroy, CO2 emissions are overall beneficial, not harmful, in that they will stop the next glaciation. There are other benefits, such as increased ease of breathing for plants, which enhances crop production rates.
But we aren't going to stave off a glaciation for many centuries because over the next 400 years, our CO2 production rate will decline as the easy gas and oil reserves run down and we shift to heavy crudes, coal and shale which require more processing to be useful. Not to mention energy sources are likely to be increasingly nuclear, photovoltaic and people will shift away from inefficient use of energy as new methods of living and doing become available.
Nevertheless, it seems to me that a carbon tax and especially an import carbon tax, is a good way to collect taxes instead of nickel and diming hordes of people in their earning and spending which requires micro-management.
When a shipload of oil pulls up at the wharf, tax the carbon in it. Carbon at a wharf is easy to measure, easy to control, and the primary purpose of taxes is to define and protect political borders so it's economically good for providing the right incentives. From a security point of view, it's better to have local production than imports through Hormuz straits, for example.
Local production of energy would go up and imports go down. Funds would not flow to oil producing countries such as Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Russia, Iran, Libya, Indonesia, which in the case of Islamic Jihad, would be funding the attacks which Jihad desires.
Because imported oil is such a small part of GDP, tax on imported carbon wouldn't be able to offset much local tax reduction without causing huge economic distortions. But it would help push things in the right direction.
Mqurice |
