Tax Carbon Now

“When something is free, you tend to use more of it. It’s true for buffets and open bars, and it’s the same with carbon,” says The Atlantic while advocating for a carbon tax to slow global warming. “Today producers and consumers can burn coal and drive gas-guzzlers without fully paying for their contribution to rising carbon dioxide levels. Carbon emissions have a cost, but carbon emitters don’t pay the price. Economists call this a ‘market failure.’ You can call it, ‘a recipe for toasting the planet.’ We normally talk about two ways to price carbon: a carbon tax or a cap-and-trade system…Both policies raise the price of carbon in the hopes that producers shift toward cleaner technologies and consumers use less dirty energy.”