Comments on: The T3 Tax

By: David Towery

David Towery — Wed, 08 Oct 2008 19:13:23 +0000

I’m coming late to this discussion and don’t know whether it’s still being monitored.
The proposed tax is proportional to the temperature anomaly in the upper troposphere. My question is, wouldn’t the tax rate be more closely coupled to CO2-induced warming if it were proportional to the *difference* between the tropospheric anomaly and the surface temperature anomaly (using the same baseline time period)? As I understand it, the AGW fingerprint is, faster warming of the troposphere than of the surface; if AGW is occuring, then at any given time from the baseline, the troposphere will have warmed more. If the difference between the two is used, surface warming from other causes — say, natural variability — would not increase the overall tax, since the resulting tropospheric warming would be slower and smaller than the surface warming.

By: John Creighton

John Creighton — Fri, 18 Jan 2008 17:44:25 +0000

Or, they could tie the grant money of the climate modelers to how good a prediction they can make.

By: Does Cordato favor carbon taxes? McKitrick's "innovative carbon tax proposal" - TheTokyoTominator

Fri, 18 Jan 2008 12:45:25 +0000

[...] the proposal up at the Climate Audit blog here – which is apparently still open for comment: http://www.climateaudit.org/?p=1700.  This tax was discussed on ealier on the Mises blog [...]

By: Ken Fritsch

Ken Fritsch — Sun, 17 Jun 2007 16:23:15 +0000

What is the best way to spend this collected money?

The tax revenues are to be returned in the form of tax reductions and thus there is no collected money to spend. This is a major part of the brilliance of the idea and very practical in light of the know tendencies of governments once they have access to a pile of money.

The major intent of the proposal as I see it is the put up or shut up challenge to the climate modelers and the timing issues, as modeled, would be part of that challenge.

By: David

David — Sun, 17 Jun 2007 08:57:33 +0000

#93: It is much more difficult to get rid of a tax than it is to pass a tax, so one should be highly skeptical of any tax proposal. Most real Conservatives that I know have a view of taxation that is not entirely different from our founding fathers. If anything, we should get back to it, not untrain ourselves from it.

By: Pat Frank

Pat Frank — Sat, 16 Jun 2007 07:29:05 +0000

#95 — Got it, thanks for the clarification. I like the challenge. It’s put up or shut up.

By: Geoff Sherrington

Geoff Sherrington — Sat, 16 Jun 2007 07:24:17 +0000

Ross, I think your idea is brilliant because it places the burden of proof in the right place. But you must agree that it has impracticalities.

Supposing temperatures rise for 10 years, payments are collected, then the temperature falls back to base line in the next 10 years, with reduced payments.

What is the best way to spend this collected money?

Almost any activity I can contemplate will merely produce another method of CO2 emission. For your theory to work purely, the collected funds should not add to the CO2 burden, because that muddies the waters of interpretation and leads to argument and non-compliance.

The only effective use that comes to mind is the construction of more nuclear power generators, whether for electricity or for desalination or for hydrogen production. As my employee company also operated one of the World’s major uranium mines (Ranger), I had to keep current on nuclear matters as well as fossil fuel. (My latter function was heading our Government Relations).

You would then have a double-barrelled package to sell. You would have to achieve adoption of your revenue plan and you would have to sell a use for the funds – a use that is unpopular among the very same people as are calling for a reduction in fossil fuel use because of alleged AGW.

The philosophy of the world is dividing again between the Malthusians and the practicalists. The Luddites and the progressives. So far the latter has come out tops each time, but society seems to find a way to do that without the massive intervention of monetary controls. (I have not seen a practical CO2 emissions scheme either).

Historical study loosely indicates that you need a third barrell. Teachers have to be trained to tell the truth about science. To me, that is the top imperative. Now work out an incentives scheme for good teachers and a penalty for bad ones and the Nobel Prize might await you.

Geoff.

By: Ross McKitrick

Ross McKitrick — Sat, 16 Jun 2007 03:10:12 +0000

#91: Pat, this may be semantics, but I don’t endorse the forecast, I merely observe that this is what all the forecasts say, so if the forecasters believe their own forecasts, they will be endorsing a rapidly rising carbon tax. If they object that the T3 tax won’t be high enough, they are contradicting their own forecast. For me, as you know, I think the forecasts are wrong and the T3 tax will go down to zero over the next 10-20 years. Which, under the circumstances, would be the right outcome.
#92: there’s a huge literature on how to implement carbon taxes, so for the purpose of a short op-ed I didn’t need to work out all the specifics. We already implement excise taxes on fuels, the CTax is just a rule for setting the rates, and the T3 tax is a variant on that.

By: Bob Koss

Bob Koss — Sat, 16 Jun 2007 03:06:44 +0000

BigCityLib,

Both liberals and conservatives comment on this site without slinging mud.

Your gratuitous injection of the phrase “knuckle draggers” won’t win you any friends around here.

But it does say something rather distasteful about you. Thanks for clueing us in.

By: bigcitylib

bigcitylib — Sat, 16 Jun 2007 02:58:39 +0000

Ken,

It isn’t my job to fill in the lacuna’s in McKitrick’s tax. If he were in baking class, his teacher
would tell him he was but half finished. However, if Ross wants to work out some of the basic details of his proposal, I might be willing to endorse it.

However, the real resistance to him will come from the political Right (check out comments on The Shotgun Blog, for example). Conservative intellectuals have trained their knuckle draggers to see all TAX as commie evil. They will not be untrained at the whim of Mr. McKitrick.