China’s change from being an opponent of climate action to a proponent of the same is likely a manifestation of the government’s deep concern about the political tensions created by severe urban air pollution.”

Jerry Taylor (Niskanen Center), Debating Carbon Taxes with Oren Cass (and Bill Gates), April 19, 2017.

Debating Carbon Taxes with Oren Cass (and Bill Gates)

The Trump administration has become the first government of a major power to take opposite actions on the Paris Agreement. It is undermining the great cause of mankind trying to protect the earth.”

Editorial in Global Times, a Chinese paper that The New York Times characterized as “a state-run nationalist newspaper” in a March 29 news story, China Poised to Take Lead on Climate After Trump’s Move to Undo Policies.

If Midwestern states like Kansas start leading on renewable energy, choosing renewable energy, working in renewable energy jobs, associating their state identity and state pride with renewables — that, more than anything, is likely to shift their opinions on global warming (and openness to serious climate policy).”

Vox blogger David Roberts, in Renewable energy draws increasing Republican support. That could shift climate politics., Feb. 16.

Other assaults on civilization and reason eventually wore themselves out—fascism, communism, imperialism. But there’s no way to wait out climate change, because this test has a timer on it.”

Bill McKibben, It’s Time to Stand Up for the Climate—and for Civilization, Wired, Jan. 18.

Take no comfort in [Rex] Tillerson’s statements that climate change is real and that Exxon supports a carbon tax; that message was never delivered to the fossil-fuel industry’s political gun decks and is a perhaps a deliberate false flag.”

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), in Republicans want to fight climate change, but fossil-fuel bullies won’t let them, Washington Post, Jan. 10.

We need to focus: The most serious political fight on the planet — the need to end use of coal, oil and gas — is at the center of America’s current political crisis.”

Alex Steffens, Trump, Putin and the Pipelines to Nowhere: You can’t understand what Trump’s doing to America without understanding the “Carbon Bubble,” Medium, Dec. 15.

As recently as 2014 … ExxonMobil contributed hundreds of thousands of dollars … to what might be called the country’s most influential denialist group: the Republican majority in Congress.”

Elizabeth Kolbert, in Rex Tillerson’s State Of Denial, The New Yorker, Dec. 15.

Leadership on climate change policy has now gone to the developing countries, China among them.”

Erik Solheim, head of the United Nations Environment Program, quoted in “At U.N. Meeting, Diplomats Worry Trump Could Cripple Climate Pact”, by Coral Davenport, New York Times, Nov. 15.

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.