There is an ever-growing consensus that global warming is manmade; that we need to drastically reduce greenhouse gas emissions right now; and that, if not addressed quickly and thoroughly, global warming will cause irreparable and catastrophic damage to the planet.

If that’s the case, then why are the most plausible solutions so quickly dismissed, scoffed at and discarded?

After reading an article in today’s New York Times, I was left asking myself this. The article described Rep. John B. Larson (D-CT) and his mission to enact a nationwide carbon emissions tax.

Such a tax would, The Times’ John M. Broder reported, “set a modest price on a ton of emissions, gradually increasing it each year until the desired reduction in heat-trapping-gas pollution is achieved.” The tax revenues under Larson’s proposal would be given back to citizens in the form of lower payroll taxes.

Yet, as the story says (much to my own frustration), Larson’s carbon tax proposal is more a quixotic quest than a seriously considered piece of legislation.

[F]or a variety of political, environmental and economic reasons, a national carbon tax is probably going nowhere.

 

Mr. Obama and Democratic leaders argue that cap-and-trade, in which polluters must either reduce emissions on their own or buy credits from more efficient companies, is a better system for assuring reductions, letting the market set the right to pollute.

 

But the main reason most in Washington recoil against a carbon tax is political: few are willing to openly advocate billions of dollars in new taxes at a time of economic distress, even though a cap-and-trade program also means higher energy prices.

 

Many Congressional Democrats were around in 1993 when President Bill Clinton and Vice President Al Gore pushed an energy tax and then abandoned it after it failed to generate any Republican support. Some noticed last fall when the Liberal Party in Canada suffered its worst loss ever running on a platform that included a national energy tax.

In other words, a carbon tax is political suicide—especially during a worldwide financial crisis. But a cap-and-trade system, supported by Obama and other Democrats as Broder points out, is hardly the solution.

For starters, cap-and-trade systems aren’t exactly an ideal way to decrease emissions, in that companies exceeding emissions limits need only to buy permits from companies emitting less than the capped emissions limit. As long as those emitting too much pay for their excess emissions, they’re in the clear. In a cap-and-trade scenario, the capped amount of emissions is supposed to decrease over time, forcing everyone to continually reduce their emissions because it’s eventually becomes too costly to continue buying permits to exceed the cap.

But even Broder writes in today’s article about the doubts over whether cap-and-trade actually works:

The supporters of a carbon tax have watched as the new European cap-and-trade system has failed to achieve its emissions goals while prices for carbon permits have gyrated. They see taxing as a more effective means of cutting emissions than cap-and-trade or other hybrid plans now under consideration.

A carbon tax, on the other hand, dispenses with the emissions-permits nonsense and forces everyone to meet a certain emissions limit, or be penalized. That limit is then lowered over time to reach an acceptable level.

But alas, substantive solutions like a carbon tax (and, in my opinion, a fuel tax) are mocked and rejected, even though they best address a problem threatening to wipe out so many species and habitats on our planet.

I can only that hope that the Obama administration, and in particular Energy Secretary Steven Chu who has been impressive so far, give a fair hearing to all climate change proposals out there, Rep. Larson’s included.

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