Pirate's Cove

I hate to keep going to this same well again and again and again, but, they keep going to this same well ad nauseum

The most powerful force for fighting climate change – now

This was first published by the Wall Street Journal.

Last week gave the world a ghastly climate show-and-tell.

First came the new report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, confirming that our climate is already changing rapidly and telling us we have a dozen years to act if we are to manage the risk of ecological and economic devastation. Then Hurricane Michael came ashore in Florida after growing from Category 2 to Category 4 in less than 24 hours – showing one reason scientists are so concerned.

The screed offers 3 “solutions”, of which includes

Stop letting companies pollute for free. In most of the world, there is no economic incentive for corporations to reduce pollution. But if they had to pay every time they put a ton of emissions into the atmosphere, they’d find creative ways to reduce pollution

By itself, a tax on pollution doesn’t guarantee reductions, so any carbon pricing policy must include enforceable limits to ensure emissions are cut as much as the science demands. As the work of the Nobel Prize-winning economist William Nordhaus makes clear, pricing carbon is a much cheaper way of hitting climate goals than command-and-control regulations.

So, wait, they might not work, but, let’s do it anyhow? Huh.

And, Big Government progressives Republicans are joinin in on pimping it, too

In an era of climate urgency, we need a carbon tax

…

As world policy makers cast about for solutions, one that is winning increasing attention is a steadily increasingly tax on carbon dioxide emissions, centered on fossil fuels. Details would need to be worked out, but the tax would likely be levied on refiners, or at the point of entry into the country. The IPCC report says that “a price on carbon is central to prompt mitigation.”

Under some proposals, the carbon-tax revenue would be rebated to consumers. A tax would provide an economic incentive to switch to greener power while also spurring innovation. Such a plan is being pushed by former Republican secretaries of state James Baker and George Shultz, former Federal Reserve chairwoman Janet Yellen, and former Clinton Treasury secretary Lawrence Summers, among other notables. At least three Nobel Prize winners in economics have also endorsed the idea. There’s solid support for such a plan among the public at large.

Baker and Shultz have been pimping their plan for years now, and Shultz just published another call for a carbon tax, which was spread all over newspapers, which surely led to the above Boston Globe screed. Funny how it always comes down to, as I’ve written ad nauseum, higher taxes/fees, a higher cost of living, and more Government.

EcoWatch has a fascinating article on whether taxes/fees even work, which mentions

Studies, however, indicate that greenhouse gas emission reductions from carbon taxes have been mostly underwhelming.

Consider that the EU has tons of these, and virtually no EU country is even close to fulfilling the Paris Climate Agreement obligations, and, really, their CO2 output has increased.