Carbon Tax

Today's NY Times ran an encouraging yet disappointing article about climate change and carbon taxes. Rep. John Dingell, Democrat of Michigan and chair of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, plans to propose a carbon tax some time in the near future. There's only one problem though: he expects it to be defeated so that people will see just how little political support for such a measure there is. Hopefully he's wrong.

Go to Rep. Dingell's contact page and let him know that you support a carbon tax. While you're at it, let your own representatives and senators know where you stand.

What would a carbon tax do? Among other things it would:
-allow the price of energy consumption to more closely reflect its true costs
-help curb the looming climate crisis by incentivising the use of renewable energy and efficiency in place of carbon-intensive sources
-decrease US dependence on foreign oil
-offset more regresive taxes like those levied on sales and income
-encourage better land use and city planning
-allow public transit to compete more effectively with private automobiles
-make local economies based on the exchange of local goods (like Sandtown Farm's goodies) more viable

One key aspect in building support for something like this is to emphasize that a carbon tax will not be an additional tax burden on people but will just represent a shift of other taxes. Of course it doesn't require too much imagination or book learnin' to invision how taxing carbon now could cause a dramatic reduction in the costs of things that our government now pays for (wars, road building, health costs for the uninsured, environmental clean-up, etc.) some time in the distant future.

Enough of my yackin.' Here are some links to some sources much more knowledgeable than I:
-Carbon Tax Center
-Sierra Club's global warming site
-Joe Romm'sClimate Progress(currently covering Live Earth.)