Several hundred attendees packed the large lecture hall in Exley Science Center, with overflow audience members watching video feeds in surrounding rooms. The College of the Environment's director Barry Chernoff kicked things off by acknowledging conference organizers and others who made this large undertaking possible. Calling global warming "the issue of our time", he then exhorted conferees to reach a consensus and speak in unison, going beyond political and economic expediency.
After a brief speech by Laura Bonham of Progressive Democrats of America, environmental activist Laurie Williams introduced the Million Letter March. Launched just recently with the Citizens Climate Lobby, the "march" has as its goal to get one million citizens to write actual letters (the old-fashioned kind that actually get legislators' attention) in support of a meaningful carbon tax, with proceeds distributed back to citizens. Already endorsed by some big names in the environmental movement such as James Hansen, Lester Brown, and Bill McKibben, its website is www.millionlettermarch.org/.
Next, James Hanley of the Carbon Tax Center outlined the case for legislation such as that authored by Connecticut representative John Larson. Praising it for its brevity, he said Larson's 2009 bill satisfied three important principles:
- It puts a price on carbon dioxide to give alternative energy technologies a chance;
- It returns the tax revenue to the citizens in the form of a dividend or tax reduction;
- It allows for adjustments over time.
The next speaker was Rep. John Larson himself. He immediately announced that he would reintroduce his bill in the next Congress, which elicited much applause. He said that we needed to provide a path forward that is clear, certain, and makes common sense. The business community needs a predictable environment in which to function. "We ought to reduce taxes on the things we need such as wages and raise taxes on things dangerous to us such as pollution and resource depletion". He said that a properly crafted carbon tax could improve the environment, improve the economy, and reduce the money we send to those who attack us. He decried the Supreme Court's Citizens United decision, saying that politics is now "awash in money", that both parties are guilty, and that without dedicated and persistent citizen involvement, things won't change.
The final speaker was Bill McKibben. McKibben is the author of numerous books on the host of environmental threats facing civilization, including the pathbreaking The End of Nature (1989). He got right down to business, telling the audience not to waste time: this year 19 nations recorded their all-time highest temperatures, including asia's all-time high temperature of 128 degrees recorded in Pakistan. This was the first year 100 degrees was ever recorded in Moscow, and it was recorded eight times in August. Russia, a major grain exporter, will export no grain this year and perhaps next year also. Grain prices have risen 70% this year. All this, he said, with just one degree of average global temperature increase.
McKibben said the great virtue of Larson's bill is that it is simple enough that its goal and how it works can be explained to people. He said the effort to put meaningful legislation in place to fight global warming faced the inertia of vested interests and the great gulf between the rich and the poor of the world. He pointed out that the average American family uses more energy from New Year's Eve to January 2 than the average Tanzanian family uses in an entire year.
He said that the poor of the world recognize that they are being asked to suffer the consequences of the pollution emitted by the world's rich. Never before could one predict, as one can now, that a child growing up in a nation such as The Maldives would be a refugee in another 40 years. But he indicated that there are reasons to hope. His organization 350.org organized the International Day of Climate Action, October 24, 2009. CNN called it "the most widespread day of political action in our planet's history." The great outpouring of citizen energy all over the world on that day gives him hope. "The Fossil fuel industry gets to use the atmosphere as an open sewer into which to dump their waste. That is how they got as rich and powerful as they are. There is absolutely no guarantee that we will win. We may have waited too long to get started, the political odds are steep. But all over the world there are people like us."
A) The carbon tax-costs will ultimately be borne by the consumer (as in higher prices for energy and goods with hydrocarbon content) - there is nothing in the bill to preclude this happening; of this end, I have no doubt.
ReplyDeleteB) The referenced "Tax Rebate" will likely never approach the actual cost to the consumer.
C) According to a quick reading of the bill, it appears, that the hydrocarbons and/or hydrocarbon containing goods can be exported AND avoid the taxation in the process (it even appears that a "credit" is possible). It follows that it must be considered acceptable for the hydrocarbons to flow to other countries where they will affect changes in the atmosphere BUT not in the good ole USA. It's all hogwash!
Mr. Fixit, I respect your skepticism. Regarding your comment A), making carbon-based energy more expensive is exactly the point! The premise is that other energy sources will progressively replace carbon-based energy; whether or not they completely do, the need to reduce emission of carbon dioxide is what the carbon tax addresses, by making it more expensive to consume fossil fuels.
ReplyDeleteBecause this means increased costs of energy and energy-intensive goods, the tax reduction/rebate/refund is designed to offset the impact on consumers of energy. Such tax legislation would certainly not be viable without it. Most proposals involve equal refunds for every taxpayer (or citizen), so built into the proposals is a redistribution from those who consume much carbon-based energy to those who consume little. Regarding your comment B), those who walk to work would in fact have more money in their pockets and those who drive a large car and heat a large house with electricity would have less.
I do not have enough expertise to properly address your point C), but I will tell you that there was some discussion of points such as this at the conference. In general, it is thought that taxing imports from countries without a carbon tax would help motivate them to adopt one, but there was little discussion about taxing exports. And my guess is that, realistically, we can expect Congress and the public to prefer legislation that favors Americans -- it's American legislation after all -- even at the expense of not reducing carbon dioxide emissions as aggressively as possible.
One more point -- you have to buy into the fact that carbon dioxide emissions are an important threat to be willing to undertake this in the first place. I will post more about the conference, but of course reporting on a conference doesn't take the place of other sources of information. I would hope some genuine experts in the field will write some articles for the Eye, since this is an important subject.
Re Brian Stewart's Comment on my prior comment A):
ReplyDeleteIf legislation would forbid the passing along of the carbon tax to the consumer, it would induce/force the commercial interests to reduce their use of hydrocarbons much more quickly & effectively.
If we wait for consumers to change their habits; i.e. with the concomitant reduction in purchases of hydrocarbons and/or hydrocarbon containing goods, it's going to be a very long time coming. It will be much less effective in inducing manufacturers to change their practices in a timely manner.
BTW - we've had solar hot water heating panels in use for 35+ years, have been using CFL bulbs since they cost US$20.00 each, and installed a new, more efficient oil burner. We are trying to do our part to reduce our footprint.