Archive of Quotes of Note

Washington State’s coming vote on carbon taxes exemplifies the power of people to attack climate change meaningfully. It started with the efforts of one person, Yoram Bauman, who led the charge. Then more than 300,000 people signed a petition to put the issue on the ballot. And now the 4.2 million registered voters of Washington State will have a chance to register their position by checking yes or no on Nov. 8. That’s climate action, and leadership.”

Letter published in Nov. 1 New York Times from Janet E. Milne, professor and director of the Environmental Tax Policy Institute at Vermont Law School.

There is no hiding from climate change. It is real and it is everywhere. We cannot undo the last 10 years of inaction. What we can do is make a real and honest effort—today and every day—to protect the health of our environment, and with it, the health of all Canadians.”

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, in his Oct 3 address to Parliament in which he proposed a national carbon tax to start in 2018, quoted in Associated Press story posted later that day by Rob Gillies, Trudeau says Canada to implement carbon tax.

If she beats climate-denier Donald Trump on Election Day . . . Clinton will not have the luxury of spending four or eight years taking baby steps toward carbon reduction.”

Nothing to Lose: A President Clinton Should Take Aggressive Climate Action, by David Atkins, in American Prospect, Sept. 12.

We’ve got the first carbon tax initiative on the ballot in the nation because enough of us made the leap. We left the house. We got out from behind the computer. We gave what we could, in signatures and dollars, to make this happen. We became participants in our democracy. We stopped waiting for someone else to get it done.”

Purple Haze, Yes on I-732 Campaign Update, Aug. 15.

Monthly heat records … have fallen so frequently that the news stories announcing them almost write themselves.”

Andrew Freedman, “Extreme summer: From wildfires to deadly floods, global warming is increasingly apparent,” Mashable, Aug. 19.

I-732 is revenue neutral, to the best of anyone’s ability to forecast it.”

Does I-732 Really Have a “Budget Hole”?, Sightline Institute report on the I-732 Washington State carbon tax ballot initiative, Aug. 2.

Carbon and other greenhouse gases should be taxed at a rate high enough to spur the transition away from fossil fuels consistent with the temperature goals agreed to in Paris in 2015.”

Resolution by insurgent Democratic Party platform committee members led by Bill McKibben that was narrowly defeated in St. Louis in late June.

Putting a price on carbon pollution is by far the most powerful and efficient way to reduce emissions”

World Bank president Jim Yong Kim, quoted by New York Times reporter Coral Davenport in Carbon Pricing Becomes a Cause for the World Bank and I.M.F., April 23.

[S]ome leading [Canadian] Conservatives are rethinking the party’s stance. They are coming to the conclusion that it is time to wave the white flag and make peace with the concept of carbon pricing.”

Chantal Hebert, Toronto Star national affairs columnist, in Conservatives are rethinking the party’s stance on carbon pricing, March 8.

If it cost more to pollute, Americans would pollute less.”

From a Washington Post editorial, Take Mr. Obama’s Oil Fee Proposal Seriously, Feb. 7.

Is there any evidence for a pause in the long-term global warming rate? The answer is no. That was true before last year, but it’s much more obvious now.”

Gavin A. Schmidt, head of NASA’s climate-science unit (the Goddard Institute for Space Studies), in 2015 Was Hottest Year in Historical Record, Scientists Say, NY Times, Jan. 21.

Putting a solid price on carbon pollution, as Carbon Washington’s I-732 does, would massively accelerate the shift to clean energy.”

Jigar Shah, co-founder and president of Generate Capital and founding CEO of SunEdison, in Duncan Clauson, Endorsement From Jigar Shah, as reported by Carbon Washington, Jan. 5.

The evidence suggests that voters are more open to carbon taxation than the present Republican position that climate change is no big deal and requires little federal response.”

Niskanen Institute president Jerry Taylor, in “Ed Gillespie Is Dead-Wrong About Carbon Taxes,” Nov. 2.

It is just the right moment to introduce carbon taxes.”

Christine Lagarde, Managing Director, International Monetary Fund, quoted in Global Post, Oct. 7.

This is humanity as a geologic force, We’re not a subtle influence on the climate system – we are really hitting it with a hammer.”

Carnegie Institution for Science researcher Ken Caldeira, commenting on a new study he co-authored, reported in Study Predicts Antarctica Ice Melt if All Fossil Fuels Are Burned, by Justin Gillis, NY Times, Sept. 12.

[A] potential joint U.S.-China carbon tax is more important than whatever happens at the United Nations climate talks in Paris.”

Climate scientist James Hansen, quoted in “The Point of No Return: Climate Change Nightmares Are Already Here,” Rolling Stone, August 5.

It is a mystery why the Republican Party drives environmental policy away from using Adam Smith’s invisible hand.”

Gilbert E. Metcalf, Tufts University economist specializing in energy and the environment. U.S. Leaves the Markets Out in the Fight Against Carbon Emissions, NY Times, July 1.

[B]y far the biggest way countries reduce the [market] price of energy is by not taxing it enough to account for the damage that burning fossil fuels causes to human health and to the climate.”

The High Cost of Dirty Fuels, NY Times editorial, May 21, 2015.

A carbon tax has gone from a policy that only an economist could love to #carbontax.”

Adele Morris, policy director for Climate and Energy Economics at the Brookings Institution, in Carbon tax could replace Obama’s climate rules, Democrat says, EnergyWire, April 23.

The fact that cap-and-trade schemes are incredibly opaque is considered a feature, not a bug.”

Margaret Wente, conservative columnist, Toronto Globe and Mail (April 7).