What are your thoughts on the carbon tax?

Don’t you feel that it’s a start to taxing other natural elements, say dihydrogen monoxide?

I don’t think it would extend to simple water - the purpose of the tax is to restrict the use of an environmentally harmful substance whereas water is not a harmful substance.

Oh and Colleen here’s something that I found that might interest you. “ Former Vice President Al Gore has a novel approach for dealing with global warming: tax carbon dioxide emissions instead of employees’ pay.” I got this from : http://funadvice.com/r/3k80g0qv8h

Now, as far as I know, carbon dioxide emissions can be simply breathing out, right? According to that site, the workers who emit carbon dioxide. This doesn’t paint a pretty picture, or else you can clear some of this up for me, I’m hoping I read that article wrong.

I think the emissions they are referring to are pollutions from factories and such, not breathing ;)

I hope so! No one wants to wake up to a tax collector going “5 cents for breathing!”

Actually… individual carbon footprints are mentioned in the bill…ie farmers will have to buy carbon credits in order to maintain certain herd sizes or to plant certain crops. A household will be fined through excise tax if it exceeds the energy allotments.

dihydrogen monoxide… I suppose if this carbon tax has too big of an effect we will have to start rationing that too.

The carbon tax is a scam. Cap and trade… lets the already huge energy companies monopolize the business. The big companies have already bought into the derivative offsets. When the derivatives cap is set… they will have all the cards to play with… creating a monopoly. Monopolies are never conducive to research and development… meaning alternative energy sources will be hindered regardless of the massive increase in energy costs we will be doling out. Not a smart move from the proletariat… but most Americans are not inclined to pay enough attention to figure it out.

I don’t think it is feasible or desirable to replace all taxes with a carbon tax.

That said a carbon tax would be a good idea. Mankind is releasing the carbon stored over million years as fossil fuel in a short period of time; we are releasing carbon more quickly than the environment can absorb it.

A carbon tax should be a tax specifically targeted to make carbon neutral energy more competitive by making fossil fuels a little more expensive and carbon neutral energy a little cheaper. The tax should start small and slowly increase to move us to a carbon neutral future without major disruptions.