Wall Street Journal: Climate Skeptics Should Back a Carbon Tax, Just in Case

The precautionary principle is no way to make policy. First, there is no reason to believe that limiting carbon dioxide emissions to some arbitrary number will slow/reduce/prevent additional warming (or other bad climatic outcomes). In other words, we could waste a lot of money on a carbon tax and the warming continues. My second objection is the exact opposite of that. If skeptics are right and the mild warming turns out to be a net benefit to humanity or it is easily adapted to, then we have wasted money to implement a carbon tax to address a non-problem. It makes no sense to do very much until we get more certainty on the possible outcomes and can better quantify the potential risks.
The other thing to keep in mind is that carbon dioxide emissions in the U.S. peaked in 2006. Our CO2 emissions have been mostly flat since then (thanks to substituting natural gas for coal to generate electricity). The rest of the world is responsible for the marginal global increase since then. And I promise you that even if we get fooled by charlatans into enacting a carbon tax to “save the fricking planet”, there are about 4-5 billion people living in countries that will not reduce their emissions. So, globally, emissions will continue to rise whether we enact a carbon tax or not. What the proponents of a carbon tax are essentially lobbying for is for us to reduce our standard of living so the 4-5 billion people living in “developing” economies who have no intention of limiting their emissions can improve their standard of living.

Taking vaccines is good.
Wearing a helmet and bubble wrap every day is bad.
Ask yourself why one is good and one is bad, when both provide clear benefits to health and safety. Perhaps this deep thinking exercise here as well.

That is an insult. But two can play that. My suggestion is that they ought to not bother with carbon tax because there will be no warming caused by CO2. This is actually true and is based on science while their advice comes from scientific ignoramuses. It can be demonstrated that carbon dioxide is not warming the world now and never has bone it. Proof of this is so simple that even a child will understand it. Simply put the Keeling curve and global temperature curve (from NOAA, HadCRUT, or someone else) side by side on the same graph. What do you see? You see that the Keeling curve is smooth from start to finish but the temperature curve has ups and downs. If these ups and downs are anthropogenic they must be caused by greenhouse warming or greenhouse subtraction.. To start any greenhouse warming you must add carbon dioxide to the atmosphere and this will show on the Keeling curve that records atmospheric carbon dioxide. But guess what? There is no sign of any such carbon dioxide added or subtracted , going back as far as the year 1850. This means that none of the warm peaks or coolings (yes, there was a thirty year cooling too, from 1850 to 1910) that coincide with peaks and valleys of the global temperature curve. Obviously none of these peaks can be anthropogenic. They are all of natural origin and the anthropogenic greenhouse effect simply does not exist. It follows that no amount of mitigation can change the climate. All mitigation/decarbonation projects are worthless and have been started for nothing. They should all be shut down and the money refunded to states and organizations who were swindled out of it.

Here’s the text of the WSJ essay:

According to polls, the majority of Americans are worried about climate change and want their leaders to act on it. Suppose, though, you are in the minority. You think the scientific consensus is wrong, or too uncertain.
Even if you’re skeptical, you should probably still back a carbon tax. When you consider the range of things that could happen, odds are the country will still be better off.
Here’s why.
It’s an insurance policy. How certain are you that human-caused global warming is not causing irreversible harm? Let’s say 90%. That means you accept that there’s a 10% risk of serious economic damage. That’s enough to merit some sort of insurance policy. After all, attacks by unfriendly countries and terrorists are also pretty unlikely, but the U.S. still takes extensive and costly precautions against them.
Adopting a carbon tax now, especially if its revenues are used to reduce other, growth-damaging taxes, is a pretty cheap insurance policy. It is a much lighter burden on growth than command-and-control regulations or green-energy subsidies. It can also be implemented gradually so that the growth effect isn’t felt for a long time.
Indeed, a study by Resources For the Future found that a carbon tax of $45 per ton rising at 2% above inflation per year would reduce household incomes by just 0.5% to 0.8% in the year 2030 (depending on what the money is used for). That would reduce annual economic growth by a barely perceptible 0.06 percentage points per year.
By 2030, any remaining uncertainty over global warming should be dispelled. If the proof of damaging climate change has become incontrovertible, you’ll be glad action was taken. In the unlikely event the scientific consensus has been overturned, little harm done.
Something worse could come along. Since public opinion favors action on climate change, something is probably going to happen. Better that it be a carbon tax, such as the one Washington state will vote on in November, which returns the money to taxpayers, than burdensome regulations, ad-hoc bans such as of the Keystone pipeline, and subsidies for technology that may never be profitable.
Of course, some political leaders may still demand such measures. Opponents can cite the carbon tax as proof action has already been taken. And if those regulations get imposed anyway, the presence of the tax means they’ll be less harmful, because it will have already nudged the economy away from fossil fuels and toward renewables.
Other countries will act. Even if the U.S. takes no action on climate change, other countries increasingly will. That will change the sorts of products and services that sell well in their markets.
Take cars. Toyota’s Prius owes its success in no small part to the fact it was introduced in Japan, where gasoline costs roughly $4.50 per gallon. The two top-selling cars in Japan are both Prius models. If American companies are forced to design goods and services in a domestic market with a carbon tax, they’ll be better placed to compete in foreign markets that also penalize carbon content.
There are non-climate-related benefits. Even if you dispute the harm of carbon dioxide, there is no dispute that burning fossil fuels release all sorts of other pollutants: particulate matter (soot), sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and mercury. While a carbon tax is not the most targeted way to reduce such pollutants, it still reduces the need for other mitigation measures.
Fossil fuels also kill people more directly: coal mines collapse, gas pipelines explode and rail cars filled with oil catch fire. Furthermore, imported oil props up unsavory regimes. Whether or not you believe carbon-dioxide emissions are harmful, a carbon tax reduces all these collateral costs.
So there you have it. Even if you’re a climate skeptic, think of a carbon tax the way you think of fire insurance. You don’t think you’ll need it, but if you’re wrong, you’ll be glad you have it.