But do you know that the government has been acting on the potential threat of AGW for 10 years already. And they are certain to do more. So you can hold hands and sing kumbaya, waiting for the messiah… but some of us would like to contribute to the real debate and argue for a relatively more free-market (and low-cost) action.

The carbon-fuel tax swap would have a roughly neutral impact on the economy, on distribution, and on revenue. It is pretty much a “no-regret” policy.

By getting an economist to propose a system to combat “global warming”, we are being pulled into accepting the whole thing – without discussing it directly. Sales people call this “involvement” i.e. “Mary, which room would become your bedroom?” They haven’t decided to buy the house yet, but the salesperson won’t let that stop the sales process.
How come nobody (except 1 comment that someone posted) remembers Ice Age(s)? Even after 3 (three) movies with this name in the last 4 years! During the last Ice Age more than half of Europe was covered by ice sheets – not some snow in the middle of winter, but serious ice sheets – like over some of Greenland and Antarctica today. And then, about 10,000 years ago, all that ice melted. That was one hell of a global warming, wasn’t it? And not a single factory on the whole planet. Not one car to blame it on. What caused that global warming?
Is it not possible that same/similar forces of nature are at play again?
The climate is changing – as it always did! Do we need to prepare and/or adjust for the changes? I think it is a great idea. But not by way of redistribution of wealth through either trading or carbon tax.

What’s that got to do with Freud? Watch the 4 part doco series “Century of the Self” on Google Video.

We are being sold something that we do not need.

$30/tonne co2-e is about right I think. That puts a few alternatives (eg nuclear) within striking distance… but not quite as cheap as “dirty” coal.

The big difference between “tax & spend” and “tax & tax-cut” isn’t a distributive issue… but an efficiency issue. All taxes create inefficiencies. By linking a new tax with the reduction/removal of an old tax, this helps offset the efficiency problem.

I like the carbon-fuel tax swap in part because it is not a regressive tax swap (as a carbon-income tax swap would be). And as transport & electricity both contribute to the underlying costs of everything else, a carbon-fuel tax swap will not feed through as generally higher prices.

I suppose the tax needs to be set to make existing alternatives immediately competitive or nearly so, otherwise there is too much lag in the emissions reductions.