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Last week’s Washington Post carried an interesting op-ed that argued for a carbon tax. The nut graph: The only effective way to begin reducing greenhouse gas emissions and slow global climate change is to make it more expensive to emit carbon dioxide. Unless businesses and consumers pay a price for carbon dioxide, neither will make the investments in technology and changes in energy use needed to dramatically reduce emissions. Well...

You can color me unimpressed by the big news today in the Globe and Mail: Quebec just became the first Canadian province to pass a carbon tax. For one thing, the tax is tiny, just 0.8 cents per liter of gasoline, and at comparably low levels on natural gas and diesel. (For non-metricized Americans, that’s 3 cents per gallon.) So that makes Quebec’s new approach not quite as aggressive as—to...

New York, which is probably the most energy-efficient city in North America, is taking things to a new level. Mayor Bloomberg is planning to convert the city’s entire fleet of 13,000 cabs to hybrids—or at least drastically improve their fuel efficiency. Wow. That’s a far cry from what’s happening here in the Northwest. Take Seattle, for example. We scarcely even have cab service, much less an all green fleet. First,...

Despite record-setting gas prices, US drivers haven’t changed their gas-guzzling habits, says AP. Not only are we consuming as much as we always have, new vehicle sales seem to be tilting even more in favor of trucks than cars. But wait, USA Todaydisagrees. They say that drivers are, in fact, starting to cut back on how much they drive—a clear sign that higher gas prices are starting to bite. Who’s...

I’ve written before that buying a hybrid car may not always be the most climate-friendly choice; sometimes, buying a cheaper (but still efficient) car can be greener, provided that you’re willing to use the savings to do something else for the climate (see, e.g., Green Tags to ramp up solar, wind, or other renewable electricity generation in the Northwest). Of course, my earlierposts on the subject were written before the...

Like many environmentalists, I tend to think that gasoline prices—even at today’s wallet-rending heights—are still too low.  [Picture me ducking under my desk right now, trying to avoid rocks that angry consumers are aiming my way.] Here’s what I mean.  Petroleum has lots of so-called “external” costs—costs that are borne not by the consumer, but by society at large. Whenever I burn a gallon of gas in my car, for...

The basic point here (NY Times, registration required) is pretty good: the idea of coupling a gasoline tax increase with a cut in payroll taxes deserves a much closer look.  It makes sense as a policy—gas taxes should be higher, and a payroll tax cut could help soften the blow.  Plus, pairing a tax increase with a tax cut seems to draw far broader political support than a straight-out hike...

I’m not sure, exactly, whether this news is promising or disappointing: the San Jose Mercury Newsreported last week that environmental advisers to Governor Schwarzenegger are calling for a new fee on gasoline that would help pay for incentives to reduce climate-warming emissions. The good news here is that they’re considering fees on gasoline in the first place.  The bad news is that the proposed fees are tiny—just 2.5 cents per...

This is days old now, but the blogosphere wasalla-twitterearlierin the week about this paper by economist Jayanta Sen, arguing that a stiff tax on crude oil, far from bankrupting the US economy, would actually transfer more than $100 billion a year from foreign governments to US consumers.  Yes, consumers would pay steeper prices for gasoline. But since all of the oil tax revenue stays within the US, that money continues...

Wouldn’t you know it—as soon as the New York Times puts its editorials behind a subscription-only wall, they publish something worth reading:  semi-libertarian John Tierney waxing rhapsodic about gas taxes (sorry, the link is subscription only). To summarize, Tierney argues for a 50 cent per gallon gas tax, with all receipts used to fund private Social Security accounts.  This, he says, would simultaneously reduce gas consumption, pollution, congestion, and all...