At this point, I don't think any carbon tax can prevent all five degrees (or however much actually occurs--there is still some uncertainty) of warming. It's more a matter of reducing warming from five degrees to two or three degrees.
There is another uncertainty as well: We don't know the price elasticity of emissions of CO2. Suppose we decide to replace payroll taxes with taxes on CO2. It may turn out to be the case that getting rid of CO2 is significantly less costly than everyone expected. This is a good thing in that lots of CO2 emissions will disappear, but it's a bad thing in the sense that the tax revenue collected will be low, and we'll be forced to either cut spending or impose some other tax to make up the difference (and we all know how unlikely it is that spending will be cut).
David White
· 2 years ago
Everyone chill out and let advanced technology tack care of it:
"We are awash in energy (10,000 times more than required to meet all our needs falls on Earth), but we are not very good at capturing it. That will change with the full nanotechnology-based assembly of macro objects at the nano scale, controlled by massively parallel information processes, which will be feasible within twenty years. Even though our energy needs are projected to triple within that time, we'll capture that .0003 of the sunlight needed to meet our energy needs with no use of fossil fuels, using extremely inexpensive, highly efficient, lightweight, nano-engineered solar panels, and we'll store the energy in highly distributed (and therefore safe) nanotechnology-based fuel cells. Solar power is now providing 1 part in 1,000 of our needs, but that percentage is doubling every two years, which means multiplying by 1,000 in twenty years. Almost all the discussions I've seen about energy and its consequences, such as global warming, fail to consider the ability of future nanotechnology-based solutions to solve this problem." -- http://www.kurzweilai.net/meme/frame.html?main=...>
Slocum
· 2 years ago
"I'd also like to see an estimate of the risks involved in living with an emissions tax large enough to stop five degrees of warming."
Yes, the assumptions are always that the tradeoff is merely, say, 2% of GDP with no possibility of unexpected non-linear effects. For example, what would happen if the airline/leisure travel business shrunk to a small fraction of its current size, with a glut of used airplanes and orders to Boeing and Airbus drying up? This is not really far-fetched as high-altitude aircraft emissions are supposedly several times worse than an equivalent amount of CO2 and water vapor emitted at ground level.
I don't see any reason not to think the effects of manipulating global economy are any more inherently predictable than manipulating the global environment.
Tim Lundeen
· 2 years ago
I agree with Mike's post that this discussion about what we should do today totally disregards techological change -- it is pretty linear thinking, when relevant technology is on an exponential path.
Bruce Hall
· 2 years ago
Read an online exhange (in the comments for this post) regarding the complexity of Global Warming issues between Dr. Gavin Schmidt of NASA who writes for RealClimate and Dr. Roger Pielke, Sr. of Colorado University (CIRES) who writes for Climate Science:
There is considerably more disagreement among scientists... who actually talk about those disagreements... regarding drivers of climate change than the IPCC (and politicians') pronouncements would lead people to believe.
It wasn't too long ago when we were all going to die from skin cancer if we didn't stop using air conditioning... ozone holes... remember? Policy based on hyperbole is probably not good economics.
Bruce Hall
· 2 years ago
You may also want to refer to Dr. Lubos Motl, Harvard physicist, who brings up some important points about models being used by the IPCC.
Again, this reinforces the point that organizations with political agendas are not necessarily the most reliable sources for interpreting science to politicians for purposes of policy making.
Yes what are the effects of a carbon tax to mitigate the effects of global warming that the technical people say? I thought that's what you policy types were supposed to do. Why don't you do the research and come up with some scenarios of what might happen if what they say is true rather than just saying they're wrong? How about some win-win possibilities to meet their predictions with approaches that are flexible enough to remain win-win even if they are wrong or that can be adjusted if the predictions are simply slower that expected. Or is that too much more difficult than simply criticizing? You seem to give more weight to anyone who disagrees; but then I guess it's not any different for you to latch on to the 5% of the climatologists who disagree than it is for me to latch on to the 5% of the economists who disagree with you - mea culpa.
pj
· 2 years ago
So, what is the optimal global average temperature? Just asking the question should be sufficient to highlight the absurdity of the notion that we should impose carbon taxes, yet nobody is asking that question.
All Comments
At this point, I don't think any carbon tax can prevent all five degrees (or however much actually occurs--there is still some uncertainty) of warming. It's more a matter of reducing warming from five degrees to two or three degrees.
There is another uncertainty as well: We don't know the price elasticity of emissions of CO2. Suppose we decide to replace payroll taxes with taxes on CO2. It may turn out to be the case that getting rid of CO2 is significantly less costly than everyone expected. This is a good thing in that lots of CO2 emissions will disappear, but it's a bad thing in the sense that the tax revenue collected will be low, and we'll be forced to either cut spending or impose some other tax to make up the difference (and we all know how unlikely it is that spending will be cut).
Everyone chill out and let advanced technology tack care of it:
"We are awash in energy (10,000 times more than required to meet all our needs falls on Earth), but we are not very good at capturing it. That will change with the full nanotechnology-based assembly of macro objects at the nano scale, controlled by massively parallel information processes, which will be feasible within twenty years. Even though our energy needs are projected to triple within that time, we'll capture that .0003 of the sunlight needed to meet our energy needs with no use of fossil fuels, using extremely inexpensive, highly efficient, lightweight, nano-engineered solar panels, and we'll store the energy in highly distributed (and therefore safe) nanotechnology-based fuel cells. Solar power is now providing 1 part in 1,000 of our needs, but that percentage is doubling every two years, which means multiplying by 1,000 in twenty years. Almost all the discussions I've seen about energy and its consequences, such as global warming, fail to consider the ability of future nanotechnology-based solutions to solve this problem." -- http://www.kurzweilai.net/meme/frame.html?main=...>
"I'd also like to see an estimate of the risks involved in living with an emissions tax large enough to stop five degrees of warming."
Yes, the assumptions are always that the tradeoff is merely, say, 2% of GDP with no possibility of unexpected non-linear effects. For example, what would happen if the airline/leisure travel business shrunk to a small fraction of its current size, with a glut of used airplanes and orders to Boeing and Airbus drying up? This is not really far-fetched as high-altitude aircraft emissions are supposedly several times worse than an equivalent amount of CO2 and water vapor emitted at ground level.
I don't see any reason not to think the effects of manipulating global economy are any more inherently predictable than manipulating the global environment.
I agree with Mike's post that this discussion about what we should do today totally disregards techological change -- it is pretty linear thinking, when relevant technology is on an exponential path.
Read an online exhange (in the comments for this post) regarding the complexity of Global Warming issues between Dr. Gavin Schmidt of NASA who writes for RealClimate and Dr. Roger Pielke, Sr. of Colorado University (CIRES) who writes for Climate Science:
http://climatesci.colorado.edu/2007/02/15/science-errors-or-at-best-cherrypicking-in-the-2007-ipcc-statement-for-policymakers/
There is considerably more disagreement among scientists... who actually talk about those disagreements... regarding drivers of climate change than the IPCC (and politicians') pronouncements would lead people to believe.
It wasn't too long ago when we were all going to die from skin cancer if we didn't stop using air conditioning... ozone holes... remember? Policy based on hyperbole is probably not good economics.
You may also want to refer to Dr. Lubos Motl, Harvard physicist, who brings up some important points about models being used by the IPCC.
http://motls.blogspot.com/2007/02/climate-models-and-disaster-prophecies.html
Again, this reinforces the point that organizations with political agendas are not necessarily the most reliable sources for interpreting science to politicians for purposes of policy making.
Carbon nanotube batteries.
http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.as...>
Spray on solar cells
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/01...>
Solar cell achieves 40% efficiency
http://www.gizmag.com/go/6563/</p>
Yes what are the effects of a carbon tax to mitigate the effects of global warming that the technical people say? I thought that's what you policy types were supposed to do. Why don't you do the research and come up with some scenarios of what might happen if what they say is true rather than just saying they're wrong? How about some win-win possibilities to meet their predictions with approaches that are flexible enough to remain win-win even if they are wrong or that can be adjusted if the predictions are simply slower that expected. Or is that too much more difficult than simply criticizing? You seem to give more weight to anyone who disagrees; but then I guess it's not any different for you to latch on to the 5% of the climatologists who disagree than it is for me to latch on to the 5% of the economists who disagree with you - mea culpa.
So, what is the optimal global average temperature? Just asking the question should be sufficient to highlight the absurdity of the notion that we should impose carbon taxes, yet nobody is asking that question.