Well duh, Jimmy. We already price carbon: see coal trades; crude oil prices; natural gas… Our civilization has been pricing carbon since the industrial revolution and before (people used to buy wagon loads of wood, peat or coal then for home heating, cooking etc.). Domestic and international trade has included carbon since at least the Roman era and probably much earlier. And we have traditionally done it for warmth Jimmy, the “halting warming” is relatively new and we call it “cooling” or “air conditioning“.
Putting a price on carbon is the world’s best hope at staving off runaway global warming, said James Hansen, the top climate-change scientist at the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
Carbon emitted from cars and factories will have to be reduced by an average of 6 percent a year to stabilize Earth’s climate by the end of the century, Hansen said late yesterday in Vienna. Government subsidies to oil, gas and coal companies, worth up to $500 billion worldwide each year, have impeded the transition to alternative technologies, he said.
“The most efficient and economically affordable approach is to put an honest price on the different energies,” Hansen said yesterday at a European Geosciences Union meeting. “Presently, we’re subsidizing fossil fuels and not making them pay for their costs to society.”
Hansen and 17 co-authors, including Colombia University economist Jeffrey Sachs, last month published an updated report that argued real carbon costs are distorted because of their long-term impacts on the climate and people’s health. A fair carbon price, phased in over 10 years, would stimulate development of new technologies that don’t burn fossil fuel.
State spending to cut retail prices of gasoline, coal and natural gas was about $409 billion in 2009, the Paris-based International Energy Agency said in November in its World Energy Outlook. Aid for biofuels, wind power and solar energy was $66 billion.
Someone needs to come up with a price for the health benefits of cheap energy. Cheap energy improves health from having heat, air conditioning, clean water, clean cooking, and numberous other items like refrigeration. Eliminating the benefits of cheap energy will kill millions annually and leave no hope for those in poor countries to have an improved standard of life.
Renewable energy sources such as solar, wind, and biofuels are expensive and thus limit their availablity only to the rich. I suggest a carbon credit of $50 per ton for carbon dioxide from fossil fuels. An ad on cost of the equivalent carbon dioxide be placed on renewable sources to be paid by the advocates for and users of renewble energy. A megawatt-hour of renewable energy reduces between one-half and one short ton of carbon dioxide. So a fair tax on loss of carbon dioxide from renewable energy sources could be $40 per megawatt-hour.
Those arguing burning fossil fuels is in the best interest of the U. S. and the rest of the world need to become more active. Experimental science indicates additional atmospheric carbondioxide has a negligible effect on global warming(climate). In addition, small amount of warming will probably be good for the planet. Atmospheric carbon dioxide is an air borne fertilizer which increases crop yields and the ability for crops to resist water shortages. This may be needed to support the more than 7 billion on the planet.
The anti-fossil fuel group have nothig going for them but computer predicted climate catastrophies and poverty for most of those on the planet.
James Rust