Comments on: Megan McArdle on cap and trade

By: Jim Rose

Jim Rose — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 22:52:35 +0000

Louis Hissink, if a carbon tax is revenue neutral, there is an self-enforcing incentive to enforce it to fund the tax cut rather than grant more and more exemptions.

By: Pedro

Pedro — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 22:19:20 +0000

What McArdle leaves out is the second problem with cap and trade or whatever, the lack of sufficient concerted global action.

By: Up The Workers!

Up The Workers! — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 20:05:35 +0000

I think your headline is missing a letter “r”.

By: Louis Hissink

Louis Hissink — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 12:46:59 +0000

Jim, what has a carbon tax got to do with keeping budget deficits in control? It looks like a non sequitur.

By: Jim Rose

Jim Rose — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 12:40:40 +0000

The best writer on global warming is still Thomas Schelling. He specialises in strategy so he focuses on climate change as a bargaining problem. Schelling drew in his experiences with the negotiation of the Marshall Plan and NATO.

The Kyoto Protocol was not about actions but results to be measured over a decade later. International agreements rarely work if they talk in terms of results. They work if signatories promise to perform specific actions now.
• A member of NATO did not, for example, promise to slow a Soviet invasion by 90 minutes of it happened after 1962.

• NATO members promised to raise and train troops, procure equipment and supplies, and deploy these assets geographically. All of these actions can be observed, estimated and compared quickly.

Climate treaties should promise to do certain actions now such as invest in R&D and develop carbon taxes that return the revenue as tax cuts. If the carbon tax revenue is refunded as tax cuts, less reliable countries, in particular, have more incentive to collect the carbon tax to keep budget deficits under control.

By: Jim Rose

Jim Rose — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 12:32:50 +0000

great op-ed. Also see Environmental Concern and the Business Cycle: The Chilling Effect of Recession by Matthew E. Kahn and Matthew J. Kotchen NBER, July 2010

• an increase in a state’s unemployment rate decreases Google searches for “global warming” and increases searches for “unemployment,” and that the effect differs according to a state’s political ideology.

• increase in a state’s unemployment rate is associated with a decrease in the probability that residents think global warming is happening and reduced support for the U.S to target policies intended to mitigate global warming.

• In California, an increase in a county’s unemployment rate is associated with a significant decrease in county residents choosing the environment as the most important policy issue.

By: Poor Old Rafe

Poor Old Rafe — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 12:32:18 +0000

“Democrats were willing to do a suicide charge on health care because they (incorrectly, so far) assumed that it would be much more popular after it was passed.”

Suicide indeed. They didn’t even have time to read the legislation right through to find out what they were doing. “We will find out what it means when it is implemented”, or words to that effect.

You could say the same for carbon trading.

By: perturbed

perturbed — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 12:26:23 +0000

My opposition to C&T began with the assumption that AGW was real, something must be done, therefore what? Ditto my opposition to carbon taxes, to the rush towards wind and solar, to opposition to hydro and nuclear, etc. etc. etc.

Everything these useless muppets have done can be objected to, loudly, by someone who believes in AGW as the word of God. That I do not so believe is simply the icing on the cake.

By: entropy

entropy — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 12:06:46 +0000

This has certainly always been my position, and there is no need to buy into wether or not AGW is a real prediction. The two worse things about anything pricing carbon emissions are:
1. verifying that the purchased product actually exists. It’s too open to scamming;
2. The free rider problem. In fact I would go further and say that is little more than tilting at windmills, as are all mitigation approaches. Any carbon tax applied in Australia, for example, won’t make any difference to the outcome on its own. And given the likelihood the big emitters won’t do anything, it is insanity.

The productivity and wealth generation lost to a domestic trading scheme would be better off being used to adapt to the climate change that would happen anyway, regardless of what we try to do. In fact, adaptation in the Australian context could well cost less. Given Australia has a highly variable climate anyway, adaptation investment would probably pay off through better climate risk management well before any AGW effects could become observable.

By: David

David — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 11:42:31 +0000

Why not get into an argument! Science has two facets – a falsifiable hypothesis and a repeatable measurement. Climate-crap has neither. This should be repeated ad nauseum.