Volcker: Climate Inaction Will Be Costly (IHT)
02/15/2007 by Charles Komanoff
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Former Fed chairman Volcker’s suggestion that "it would be wiser to impose a tax… than wait for the market to drive up… prices" is visionary and worth thinking through.
The choice is: wait and give all our money to the fossil fuel industry and then crash (like the "addict" that Bush mentioned in last year’s State of the Union). Or tax fuel now to raise prices, giving conservation and alternatives a competitive boost before we "hit bottom" for both climate and "peak oil" reasons.
We reflexively dislike taxes, but a revenue-neutral carbon tax on fossil fuel production and importation (including tarriffs on the embedded energy in imported goods) could mean a per capita distribution check for every person in the country. If the tax increased gradually, investments in conservation and alternatives would be pretty sure bets and capital would start flowing there immediately — no big government program needed. Just stop tilting the table towards fossil fuels.
How about jobs, profits and the best shot we’ve got at avoiding catastrophe? Not bad for a tax proposal.
Comment by James — February 25, 2007 @ 11:03 pm
[...] Paul Volcker, former chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve: Click here. [...]
Pingback by Who Supports Carbon Taxes? « council of canadians | london — August 19, 2008 @ 12:27 am