Wednesday, January 2, 2019

The Green Trojan Horse

The Green New Deal is another catch phrase form the extreme left. Now I am not arguing that such things like CO2 should be disregarded. To the contrary, it is a technical creation of our own making and like many other such distortions to the environment should be recognized and dealt with technically.

However it seems to the far left taxing is the only solution to everything. It is akin to the adage that if all you have is a hammer then everything looks like a nail. But we have more. Yet starting anew in Nature we have the following:

Federal and state governments should eliminate harmful subsidies and use pollution taxes and carbon pricing to account for the toll on human health and on natural capital (clean air, functioning ecosystems, and so on). Fees, tradeable permits and other market mechanisms would put a cost on pollution, carbon emissions and excessive resource use. Such green incentives are doubly productive. They benefit health and the environment, and stimulate sustainable growth.  

Yes, just tax everything. Yet from Nature, one would expect a more rational and scientific response, not the emotional and simplistic one of taxation.

If one starts to add up the taxes for Medicare for All, a Green New Deal, and the like brought by the new far left, there will be no money left.

Worse, we will have managed to destroy the incentives to technically mitigate the issues. Frankly nothing has ever been solved by taxation or by Government oppression, just look at liquor.

On the other hand we have a wealth of technology that can solve this problem. The Green Trojan Horse is just another mechanism to tax, not solve.