that other guy’s thoughts

I’m a fan of the ceiling/floor school of analysis.

The idea is that for any given option, there is a best case and worst case scenario. If you have several options, I find that writing/thinking these cases over helps to flesh-out a better and fuller point of view. I won’t give you everything, but it’s at least interesting. With this in mind, here’s my take on the ceiling and floors of our current crop of applicants for leader of the free world.

Rudy Guiliani
He’s ruling with an iron fist, regardless of the situation. He’s never falling to the level of the whimpering mass of indecision that was Jimmy Carter, but he’s also incapable of transcending the good vs. evil line of thought.

Best case is an uneventful term of Capital hill partisanship where everyone argues but Guiliani and his impressive administrative skills streamline government processes from top to bottom and we get a balanced budget on time every year. Pay some debt, cleans some house, and the government gains an austere efficiency unseen in decades.

Worst case is another large-scale terror attack on American soil. Not for what it is, but for what it brings. President Guiliani sprints to declare marshal law and signs the necessary papers with power-hungry smile. He looks the other way when his newly installed Homeland Army chief fires on protesters on the national mall. All civil liberties are revoked indefinitely. If the attack is nuclear, all bets are off and we may well be looking at World War III and the disillusion of the republic.

Ceiling: Poor Man’s Harry Truman
Floor: The cloned offspring of J. Edgar Hoover and the Crazy General from Dr. Strangelove.

Tomorrow: Mitt Romney, and you know you want to be around for that.

Screw the limits, no conference in deli, no 10-year wing-and-a-prayer emission targets, no cap & trade system, no international reduction goals. There is but one way to morally save the planet.

Enact Carbon Taxes now.

Jigga-Whaaaaaaaaaah?

How is it possible that such a principled capitalist with libertarian-ish instincts is demanding a new tax? Have I gone ’round the bend? Have I fallen prey to the propaganda of Chairman Mao? Have I been kidnapped by a clan of militant uber-hippies and replaced with a Greenpeace lawn-jockey?

Nope. I am still me, of sound mind and body. So why am I inviting further government erosion of my pocketbook? The answer is inevitable if you grant me these two assumptions:

1. Pumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere will change the climate.

2. Any climate change will negatively affect some people, their property, and their livelihoods.

You burning oil could put my house underwater. Therefore, what you’re dumping into the atmosphere is very much my business.

Can we safely grant this point? Yes, I think so.

The government ought to stop individuals from actions that destroy a shared societal natural resource (i.e. the current climate.) That is a just and proper role of the government, preventing the infringement of personal rights and property.

But how do we do it?

I don’t like the idea of a cap-and-trade system, (one in which individuals are given a “ration” or set level of pollution they can cause, then they buy/sell/trade those credits to others.) It requires a large bureaucracy to oversee and regulate such a system effectively. Also, granting pollution levels based on what a person or company is dumping today seems to be rewarding them based on the amount damage they did yesterday.

The alternative is to tax fuels based on how much pollution they will produce when burned, and then use that money to offset the damage done. Whether it’s buying land and planting a rainforest or funding research to create man-made carbon sinks. The tax would be used to completely and entirely offset and prevent any damage from being done to society’s natural resources.

To pull this conversation out of the abstract; if a gallon of gas puts eight pounds of CO2 in the air, and it costs 43 cents to remove it, then the tax on a gallon of gas should be 43 cents. With that money the government buys a tree that will convert eight pounds of CO2 into oxygen. That way, at the end of the day, you can still drive your SUV to the Dairy Queen, and I can still get to my house without a canoe. Everyone still has a choice, no one’s rights get trampled, and it’s all done as efficiently as possible.

If we implement this, the entire energy sector becomes fair. Suddenly it becomes economically advantageous to operate a wind farm or a nuclear power plant. It’s doesn’t just feel good to get energy from a wind farm, there is a real economic benefit. It is an incentive not to pollute. This is the only way we make any real progress. Energy is a business, and in business it’s all about the moo-moo.

A carbon tax system is fair, moral, and efficient. It advances our goals and speaks to our sense of conservation and sustainability. It neither hampers growth nor harms our future. It imposes no undue hardship or rewards unjust actions. It would be simple to understand and administrate. It doesn’t create any levels of government that don’t already exist. It would cost less than any patchwork of cap & trade systems.

Which is of course, why our government will never go for it.