councilor.org
| Source | Joseph Green |
| Date | 12/06/08/11:15 |
| Patrick Bond wrote:
> Many of these libertarians believe climate change is a plot by Al Gore to > impose world carbon taxes. If only -- for Gore is actually instead a > self-interested huckster for carbon trading, which is failing miserably in > Europe, as well as in the US (except California) in the wake of the 2010 > closure of the Chicago Climate Exchange. Gore backs both tax and trade and a carbon tax. His book "Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis", states that "I have long advocated the first option--a CO2 tax that is offset by equal reductions in other tax burdens--as the simplest, most direct, and most efficient way of enlisting the market as an ally in saving the ecosystem of the planet." (p. 343) And "In my opinion, the real solution would include both a CO2 tax and a cap and trade system, and I believe that will eventually be our choice." (p. 345) Gore is correct in identifying the carbon tax, and nost just cap and trade, as a market method. He is wrong in advocating that market methods will save the environment, and in saying that both the carbon tax and cap and trade have worked. It makes sense for a "self-interested huckster" and neo-liberal such as Gore to back the carbon tax. It makes no sense for any opponent of neo-liberalism or friend of the environment to do so. So I hope that the "if only" in the quoted paragraph, with its implied support of the carbon tax, is an inadvertent error of writing, rather than the author's real stand. -- Joseph Green |
Copyright (c) 1998, Joongpil Cho