Tax students, or polluters?

From Robert Reich’s blog:

A basic economic principle is government ought to tax what we want to discourage, and not tax what we want to encourage.

For example, if we want less carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, we should tax carbon polluters. On the other hand, if we want more students from lower-income families to be able to afford college, we shouldn’t put a tax on student loans.

Read his post here.

Unlocking our climate wealth

Econ4’s James Boyce on how to translate good principles into good practice:

Source: http://tedxtraversecity.com/videos/

Development: beyond aid and trade

Dani Rodrik explains how rich countries could promote development overseas:

First, a new global compact should focus more directly on rich countries’ responsibilities. Second, it should emphasize policies beyond aid and trade that have an equal, if not greater, impact on poor countries’ development prospects.

A short list of such policies would include:

• carbon taxes and other measures to ameliorate climate change;
• more work visas to allow larger temporary migration flows from poor countries;
• strict controls on arms sales to developing nations;
• reduced support for repressive regimes; and
• improved sharing of financial information to reduce money laundering and tax avoidance.

Notice that most of these measures are actually aimed at reducing damage—for example, climate change, military conflict, and financial crime—that otherwise results from rich countries’ conduct. “Do no harm” is as good a principle here as it is in medicine.

Read his piece here.

Superstorm Sandy: Harbinger of things to come?

Five years ago, this picture appeared in report titled Nation Under Siege: Sea Level Rise at Our Doorstep. It depicts what would happen – and this week, did happen – as a result of a 3-meter rise in sea levels in New York City:

Was superstorm Sandy a preview of what sea level rise will bring—permanently—to New York and other coastal cities by century’s end?

 

Read about it here.

Know your climate’s enemy

Bill McKibben breaks down the “new math” of global warming:

We have five times as much oil and coal and gas on the books as climate scientists think is safe to burn….

Yes, this coal and gas and oil is still technically in the soil. But it’s already economically aboveground – it’s figured into share prices, companies are borrowing money against it, nations are basing their budgets on the presumed returns from their patrimony. It explains why the big fossil-fuel companies have fought so hard to prevent the regulation of carbon dioxide – those reserves are their primary asset, the holding that gives their companies their value. It’s why they’ve worked so hard these past years to figure out how to unlock the oil in Canada’s tar sands, or how to drill miles beneath the sea, or how to frack the Appalachians.

Read it here.

Colbert: United Against Them

Stephen Colbert finds common ground between liberals and conservatives: blame immigrants for climate change.

Cap-and-dividend climate policy

This short cartoon from www.capanddividend.org lays out how a cap-and-dividend climate policy would work:

Source: Cap’n Dividend.

“Get It Done”

Youth delegate Anjali Appadurai at the Durban climate summit.

Source: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ko3e6G_7GY4.

I’m a Client Scientist

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