Guest essay by Eric Worrall
h/t Daily Caller – US Libertarian Presidential Candidate Gary Johnson wants to impose a government enforced carbon fee to combat climate change.
Climate change and health care
Johnson has been to Alaska several times, including a trip where he summitted Denali. (He’s reached the top of the highest mountain on each continent and is an Ironman triathlete.) He campaigned in Anchorage during his 2012 run for president, holding a rally on the Delaney Park Strip.
“I envy all of you,” he said. “I think it’s the most beautiful state in the country.”
Climate change and a warming world might threaten that.
“I do believe that climate change is occurring. I do believe that it is man-caused,” Johnson said.
To address climate change, Johnson said he believes “that there can be and is a free-market approach to climate change.”
That would include a fee — not a tax, he said — placed on carbon. Such a fee would make pollutants bear a market cost.
“We as human beings want to see carbon emissions reduced significantly,” but at the same time, he says the United States is only “16 percent of the (global) load” of carbon, and “I don’t want to do anything that harms jobs.”
“The rest of the world has to catch up with us,” he said.
The alternative to a carbon tax is a carbon market, but as the European experience demonstrates, carbon markets lead to massive corruption and inevitable collapse.
The reason is very simple – with a carbon market, unlike a real market, fraud benefits all the market participants.
Fraud benefits the issuers of fake carbon credits – they get to make money for nothing.
Fraud benefits the purchasers of carbon credits – a flood of fake carbon credits keeps prices down.
Fraud benefits market regulators – they get rich turning a blind eye to the fraud.
The only people carbon fraud doesn’t benefit is anyone silly enough to think that market based carbon pricing can make a long term difference to CO2 emissions.
Thanks to Jonson we now have a new political acronym: LINO – Libertarian In Name Only.
The dustbin of history just got a tiny bit heavier.
This is one of my big sticking points with Johnson, one of his big “not so Libertarian” positions that he hasn’t articulated well. If I had to choose between him or Clinton “doing something about climat change” though, it would be him in a heartbeat, but he needs to say what he means by a fee, and how he imagines that not being a tax
Since libertarians believe in freedom to define “libertarian” it is trivial to co-opt the word and form a Libertarian Party. But a real libertarian party probably could not exist for any length of time.
The Feds take 20% of my income. The State takes 6%. of my income and wants 8% sales tax when I buy things. There is already a gasoline tax. My house is taxed. Just how much of a carbon fee is needed to save the planet. Considering that none of the other taxes have stopped me from destroying the planet I would guess that the carbon fee needs to take all the money I have left. However the government supported banking system will gladly give me a 30 year loan at record low interest rates to buy a huge carbon burning house. The government supported banking system will give me $50,000 6 year loan to buy a carbon belching monster truck. Maybe all the government / bank interference in the economy is resulting in inefficient utilization of our resources and a huge excess of carbon emissions. Maybe balancing the government budget through spending cuts would decrease carbon emissions more than a carbon tax.
Gary Johnson accepts the consensus Science, and the most efficient and effective policy–a carbon tax.