Carbon Taxes: The Heart of the Solution
I've given this PowerPoint presentation a dozen times in 2006-07, including at "Peak Oil" meetings in New York and Boston, at a Climate Crisis Coalition strategy meeting in NYC, and to groups at Queens College (NYC) and Princeton University. The most recent presentations were at a Capitol Hill briefing by the Environmental & Energy Study Institute in March, at the Green Renter lecture series sponsored by Solar 1 in NYC, also in March, and at the monthly Auto-Free New York meeting in April. The latter, longer PowerPoint is the one available here. The response has been very positive, especially to slides #13 & #14 pointing up the limits to reducing oil use and carbon emissions with efficiency standards and targeted subsidies alone. Another eye-opener is slide #27 showing how states and the federal government could apply revenues from carbon taxes to shift out of regressive taxes like sales taxes and employees' FICA contributions. Slides #21 through #25 sketch some of the positive impacts of carbon taxes.
- C.K., April 24, 2007
