You should be attacking the carbon emissions, period, and whether it's cap-and-trade or carbon tax or whatever, that's the realm in which we should be playing.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
For the U.S., I think we should have a carbon tax, for environmental reasons.
I think we can lower our emissions. I think the world will be better off if we did that, and we can do it without cap and trade.
Many scientists and economists also say putting a price on carbon through carbon taxes and/or cap-and-trade is necessary.
Putting a tax on carbon could be an effective approach for curbing global warming pollution.
There are some that feel like human activity is the cause for carbon emissions, and because of that, we need to revert to where we were in the 1870s for carbon emissions. I just choose to disagree with that.
When you have energy companies like Shell and British Petroleum, both of which are perhaps represented in this room, saying there is a problem with excess carbon dioxide emission, I think we ought to listen.
The struggle against poverty in the world and the challenge of cutting wealthy country emissions all has a single, very simple solution... Here it is: Put a price on carbon.
Make no mistake: Tackling climate change is vital. But to see everything through the lens of short-term CO2 reductions, letting our obsession with carbon blind us to the bigger picture, is to court catastrophe.
Why not put a tax on carbon emissions. It would raise a lot of money, it would reduce the environmental damages in the future, it would solve so many problems, and it would be a much more constructive thing to do than to think about raising the income tax.
We don't need a War on Carbon. We need a new prosperity that can be shared by all while still respecting a multitude of real ecological limits - not just atmospheric gas concentrations, but topsoil depth, water supplies, toxic chemical concentrations, and the health of ecosystems, including the diversity of life they depend upon.