Why Are Carbon Tax Proponents Ignoring This Story

[Corduroy]

Are you against all carbon pricing or just a tax, specifically?

I don't think that taxation is good way to entice businesses to behave responsibly. While it might seem like a good idea in theory, if businesses can't be trusted to not destroy the environment, or people's health, or gouge consumers, or treat their employees well, and so need greed to entice them to do the right thing, why wouldn't that same greed cause them to avoid paying taxes.... as it already does?

If we assume that greed motivates corporate behaviour, as it does, then when faced with doing environmental damage, a corporation has a few options. It could:

• pay for the cost of greener policies and cleanup
• pay any fines associated with the damage it's done
• pay politicians to look the other way or overturn regulation

Since the primary motivation is making money, the corporation would choose the cheapest option, and that's usually paying politicians if not trying to find some other way to not pay at all.

 

[Cannuck]

Hehehe... I love watching progressives talk taxes

 

[Johnnny]

 

[mentalfloss]

I don't think that taxation is good way to entice businesses to behave responsibly. While it might seem like a good idea in theory, if businesses can't be trusted to not destroy the environment, or people's health, or gouge consumers, or treat their employees well, and so need greed to entice them to do the right thing, why wouldn't that same greed cause them to avoid paying taxes.... as it already does?

If we assume that greed motivates corporate behaviour, as it does, then when faced with doing environmental damage, a corporation has a few options. It could:

• pay for the cost of greener policies and cleanup
• pay any fines associated with the damage it's done
• pay politicians to look the other way or overturn regulation

Since the primary motivation is making money, the corporation would choose the cheapest option, and that's usually paying politicians if not trying to find some other way to not pay at all.

So would you be averse to cap and trade then?

 

[Corduroy]

Oh yeah. I almost included cap and trade in my last post but figured it was veering off topic. Cap and trade is a market solution for a problem created by our belief that markets solve everything. But it's an artificial market, so market economics only pretend to apply. So if the economic theory is true, it wouldn't matter anyway because it's not in effect with cap and trade. If it's not true, then it's not solving anything.

Of course that's all theory. In practice things may be different, and my reasons for being against cap and trade for practical reasons depend on the form of cap and trade we're talking about. And I wouldn't rule out being convinced that some form of it would work. The idea of using carbon tax to pay for the development of technologies that will reduce carbon is a good idea, if we're going to have the tax anyway.

 

[petros]

Based on our abstract ratings, we found that just over 4,000 papers expressed a position on the cause of global warming, 97.1% of which endorsed human-caused global warming. In the self-ratings, nearly 1,400 papers were rated as taking a position, 97.2% of which endorsed human-caused global warming

.
4000 out of 13000+ = 33%

Oh yeah. I almost included cap and trade in my last post but figured it was veering off topic. Cap and trade is a market solution for a problem created by our belief that markets solve everything. But it's an artificial market, so market economics only pretend to apply. So if the economic theory is true, it wouldn't matter anyway because it's not in effect with cap and trade. If it's not true, then it's not solving anything.

Of course that's all theory. In practice things may be different, and my reasons for being against cap and trade for practical reasons depend on the form of cap and trade we're talking about. And I wouldn't rule out being convinced that some form of it would work. The idea of using carbon tax to pay for the development of technologies that will reduce carbon is a good idea, if we're going to have the tax anyway.

Evil Corp made a killing off of SO2 cap and trade. Why not monopolize on CO2 whether a real threat or not?

 

[mentalfloss]

Oh yeah. I almost included cap and trade in my last post but figured it was veering off topic. Cap and trade is a market solution for a problem created by our belief that markets solve everything. But it's an artificial market, so market economics only pretend to apply. So if the economic theory is true, it wouldn't matter anyway because it's not in effect with cap and trade. If it's not true, then it's not solving anything.

Of course that's all theory. In practice things may be different, and my reasons for being against cap and trade for practical reasons depend on the form of cap and trade we're talking about. And I wouldn't rule out being convinced that some form of it would work. The idea of using carbon tax to pay for the development of technologies that will reduce carbon is a good idea, if we're going to have the tax anyway.

That last bit is the intention anyway.

It's worked in BC at least.

 

[petros]

What worked in BC? Carbon Tax or la Nina set this Oct as the rainiest of all time (since records were kept)?

British Columbia

Record breaking number of rainy days in Vancouver

It rained 28 out of 31 days this month in Vancouver, surpassing the old record of 26 days

Tina Lovgreen - CBC News

1 Hour Ago

The blob also died.

 

[mentalfloss]

The shocking truth about B.C.’s carbon tax: It works
https://www.google.ca/amp/s/sec.the...ks/article19512237/?service=amp?client=safari

 

[petros]

It can't work. It doesn’t invest in R&D.

 

[mentalfloss]

You invest in D&D

 

[petros]

What? No Mimi?

 

[taxslave]

CO2 accelerates warming (climate change) which causes more fires.

Why else do you think Fart McMurray was as bad as it was?


Umm no. Wrong again. THe ft Mac fire got that bad because of an inept provincial government.

 

[Cannuck]

The shocking truth about B.C.’s carbon tax: It works
https://www.google.ca/amp/s/sec.the...ks/article19512237/?service=amp?client=safari

Good for BC. Its also good for those in Lalas land that the tax is no longer needed

 

[petros]

It was Injuns who killed off the beaver that kept the boreal a swamp.

 

[taxslave]

The shocking truth about B.C.’s carbon tax: It works
https://www.google.ca/amp/s/sec.the...ks/article19512237/?service=amp?client=safari

Not true. But I don't expect anyone dumb enough to believe in AGW to understand or care. WHat it did was put an unfair burden on Rural BC and industry that runs on diesel. The only reason BC economy is doing better than the rest of the country is residential construction in the lower mainland and a few other specific locations. For the rest of the province the economy mostly sucks. thanks in part to the carbon tax scam which not only raised operating costs for industry but living expenses for rural residents that do not have public transportation, Natural gas or medical facilities down the block.

 

[petros]

Infrastructure funding.


Billions upon Billion thanks to ActionPlan.

 

[mentalfloss]

Not true. But I don't expect anyone dumb enough to believe in AGW to understand or care. WHat it did was put an unfair burden on Rural BC and industry that runs on diesel. The only reason BC economy is doing better than the rest of the country is residential construction in the lower mainland and a few other specific locations. For the rest of the province the economy mostly sucks. thanks in part to the carbon tax scam which not only raised operating costs for industry but living expenses for rural residents that do not have public transportation, Natural gas or medical facilities down the block.

Yes, it's true.

B.C. has shown carbon tax can work

 

[Cannuck]

B.C. has shown carbon tax can work

Good for BC but a tax to control carbon is as necessary a tax on horse shoes due to recent discoveries

 

[mentalfloss]

You continue to prove what a caring fiscal conservative you are ever day!



Carbon pricing — the method favored by many economists for reducing global-warming emissions — charges those who emit carbon dioxide (CO2) for their emissions. That charge, called a carbon price, is the amount that must be paid for the right to emit one tonne of CO2 into the atmosphere.[1] Carbon pricing usually takes the form either of a carbon tax or a requirement to purchase permits to emit, generally known as cap-and-trade, but also called "allowances".

Carbon pricing solves the economic problem that CO2, a known greenhouse gas, is what economics calls a negative externality — a detrimental product that is not priced (charged for) by any market. As a consequence of not being priced, there is no market mechanism responsive to the costs of CO2 emitted. The standard economic solution to problems of this type, first proposed by Arthur Pigou in 1920, is for the product - in this case, CO2 emissions - to be charged at a price equal to the monetary value of the damage caused by the emissions. This should result in the economically optimal (efficient) amount of CO2 emissions. Many practical concerns mar the theoretical simplicity of this picture: for example, the exact monetary damage caused by a tonne of CO2 is uncertain.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_price