Carbon tax

We face two major foreseeable problems in the near future. One is that the carbon emissions upon which our society is based seem to be heating the atmosphere, and will continue to do so in the future. At a certain point, and we may already be past it, these emissions will trigger what are known as "feedback effects", where the process becomes self-reinforcing and impossible to stop. An example would be the melting of the icecaps causing the surface of the earth to be darker on average, hence reflecting less light and absorbing more heat.

The other problem is that we are running out of the sources of carbon emissions upon which our society is based, particularly oil. Discovery of new fields has been declining, and new sources such as the oil sands are much more costly and take much more energy to extract. While this is good as far as the global warming problem is concerned, it is bad in that:

1. Almost every economic activity we do now uses oil as an input in some way.
2. We have done very little to prepare for when this is not true.

In other words, when oil demand exceeds oil supply, it will hit every area of our economy, and we have done little to prepare for it.

Both of these problems could be mitigated in the same way: learn to use less oil now. If we wait until a crisis is forced on us by oil demand exceeding oil supply, the transition will be more painful than it could have been otherwise. And if we somehow do find a way to keep using as much oil as we do now, and don't stop, then we'll only aggravate the climate crisis.

So, it makes sense to cut back on oil use. The problem is that this means transforming our society, which people are usually hesitant to do until forced. But it we wait until we're forced, the transition will be much more painful. It means, for example, eating more locally produced food, relying less on goods shipped in from overseas or on large transport trucks, shifting away from a suburban model of development, and many other things.

But, we're going to have to do these things sooner or later, so it would make sense to prepare for the transition now, by imposing a tax on carbon emissions and oil use. The problem is, if a politician says: "I want to impose a carbon tax, to shift us away from driving, towards locally produced food, and to make it more difficult to live in the suburbs and commute every day", then people say something like:

"My god, a carbon tax. But I use gasoline! That would make it more difficult to commute in to work from the suburbs each day, and to drive, and to buy things from overseas. That idiot, his plan would never work, it would have all of these negative effects."

The negative effects are the point of course. And while it would cost everyone money, we could give it back by cutting other taxes. That, and the fact that it would help prepare us for a low carbon, low oil future, constitute the positive effects.

Also, you could start it at a low level and gradually increase it, smoothing the adjustment. It would be simple, effective and fairly efficient.

Which is probably why almost no one is interested (though French president Sarkozy put a small one in place recently), because no one really wants to prepare for the future if it means inconveniences today. Instead, you get oddities like the 3000 page cap and trade bill the Democrats are trying to push through congress. It's hard to say what that bill will do if passed, but it seems doubtful that reducing carbon dioxide or oil dependence will be among its major effects.

The alternative to putting in plans for an effective transition yesterday is having the adjustment roughly thrust upon us if and when oil prices spike, or never adjusting and continuing to heat the atmosphere, with severe impacts upon civilization as we know it. We eventually have to do the things that a carbon tax would promote, the question is how hard the adjustment is going to be.

And, based on the short-termism of most political discourse today, the answer is probably that the adjustment will be much harder than we like.