I speak (¿type?) as one who knows. I have experienced extended periods of unemployment. And of underemployment. I suspect that the numbers of the underemployed exceed those of the unemployed by a goodly margin. When my wife & I were living in Mexico, we observed how that government counted the underemployed and marginally employed along with the employed, for purposes of determining unemployment rates; we came home to observe how our own republic is becoming ever more Banana Republican.

However, I deem climate protection more important by far than social justice for the financially challenged. Jesus had it wrong and backwards in Matthew 26:11; what he should have said was, “For ye have the RICH always with you…” And the rich have a way of having their way. And climate decay will hurt the financially challenged, while the rich will be merely discomfited.

“[W]e have sent a giant “use things, not people” price signal as payroll taxes have increased from 1% to almost 40% of federal revenues over the last several generations. This raises hiring costs, lowers employment, and hands an effective subsidy to resource consumption, skewing the relative prices of labor vs. resources over 30%… we are burning a lot more fuel, tearing up more land and emitting a lot more carbon, than if the relative prices of labor and resources were corrected…

If we cut payroll taxes and replaced the lost revenue with levies on non-labor inputs to business, such as a non-labor Value Added Tax (VAT), carbon permit fees and/or energy taxes, we could create tens of millions of jobs and stimulate economic growth while deeply cutting natural resource use and emissions.

Such tax switching is a revenue-neutral approach that involves no net increase in taxes. It also creates no bureaucracies, choosing of winners or losers, implementation delays, or risk of corruption. It is, not surprisingly, attractive to smart conservatives and liberals alike. Recent advocates range from Charles Krauthammer to Thomas Friedman, Al Gore to Richard Lugar and T. Boone Pickens. This year Rep. Bob Inglis (R-SC) and Rep. John Larson (D-CT) both introduced climate change bills that recycle over 90% of carbon pricing revenues into payroll tax cuts.

… It would align the relatively small contingent of committed environmentalists who want strong action on climate with the huge constituency of the tens of millions of Americans of all backgrounds who need a job and the hundreds of millions who want a stronger economy. Whereas now, climate negotiations are fractious and expectations from Copenhagen and Washington are depressingly low, such a coalition for real economic and environmental change would be unstoppable and allow us to aim higher.”

The atmosphere is a resource – a commons in that everyone has a common interest in it. When such a resource is characterized by scarcity (that is, we can’t all take all we want without causing damage), it is reasonable to charge for it and to derive as much income from it as possible. Homesteaders had to pay for their homesteads and revenue from those payments was a major part of federal government income (if I remember economic history correctly, we even ran surpluses during the heyday of homesteading).

Governments charge for other commons; such as water, mineral rights, grazing rights, etc. It would be stupid to just give them away.

No sensible entity – person, business, or government – would allow its valuable resouces (or capital) to be given away or depleted when it could get a good income by selling or renting them.

We have, in the atmosphere, a resource for which those who use it as a greenhouse gas disposal site are willing, or should be willing, to pay. It is bad business sense for the public to give it away for free.

The public needs to be convinced that it should charge for the use of its assets. To allow the atmospheric resource to be taken or used without charge is as irrational as allowing someone to take your crops, park in your driveway, or use your productive labor without paying for it.
This argument should appeal to those who think government should operate with the efficiency of a well-run private business.