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When climate agenda got conflated & burdened with SJW agenda (political fashions) - Printable Version

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When climate agenda got conflated & burdened with SJW agenda (political fashions) - C C - Sep 27, 2020

Cynical Sindee: The article doesn't touch on how the fraction of states that did adopt carbon-policy initiatives have had those programs infiltrated by parasitic scams, corporate exploitation, and quasi-fraudulent use of funds by various operations and small projects/endeavors.

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Why is the carbon tax, after years of debate, no longer popular in Washington?
https://massivesci.com/articles/carbon-tax-politics-climate-republicans-democrats/

EXCERPTS: Somehow, over the past decade, what was once considered the policy-of-choice has gotten shunted to the sidelines. [...] In 1776, the Scottish economist Adam Smith, writing in The Wealth of Nations, noted that certain goods like sugar, rum, and tobacco - which hurt their consumers and society as a whole - had nevertheless become “objects of almost universal consumption.” As a result, he said, they were “extremely proper subjects of taxation.”

Smith was focused on 18th-century scourges, but he could just as easily have been talking about fossil fuels. [...] To those who spend their days thinking about money and markets, there’s a simple fix: Put a price on carbon to reflect its actual costs to the planet and human health. If fossil fuels are more expensive, the thinking goes, individuals, corporations, and governments will not only use less energy, they’ll also boost wind and solar power, expand public transportation, and take other steps necessary to build a green economy.

[...] More than 40 countries around the world have already implemented one policy or the other. The European Union has a cap-and-trade system ... Under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Canada launched its carbon tax program ... Successes in the U.S. have been scattered: California has a cap-and-trade program that began in 2013, as do 10 Northeast states that belong to the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, founded in 2009. But national action has remained elusive...

[...] According to ... Ocasio-Cortez ... the Green New Deal should include plans to produce all electricity in the United States from renewable sources by 2030, provide universal healthcare to all Americans, guarantee every American a job, and a whole lot more. By the following summer, a Politico writer noted: “The national discussion around climate change has moved more in the past eight months than it did during the previous eight years.”

[...So...] One of the simplest explanations for the demise of the carbon price is that ... the left has gotten, well, left-er. Set against the sweeping, systemic changes advanced by Green New Deal supporters, taxing or capping carbon looks tepid and unambitious. The focus of the Sunrise Movement and allied organizations is on tethering climate goals to a whole host of other Democratic priorities. They’re not trying to unite Republicans and Democrats; they’re trying to pull the entire party to the left.

The theory of change to some extent has shifted,” said Parrish Bergquist, a professor of environmental policy at Georgetown University. If advocates for the Green New Deal want to connect global warming to income inequality, public health problems, and racial justice, “having a carbon tax kind of recedes into the background,” she said. [...] In a paper published in May, Bergquist and her coauthors found that bundling climate policy with other goals - like a $15 minimum wage, expanded affordable housing, or a nationwide job guarantee - increased public support, particularly among Black and Hispanic Americans.

[...] Although concern over global warming has climbed in recent years, it’s still only the 13th most significant issue for U.S. voters overall, according to the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication. The economy, COVID-19, and health care rank much higher. And although carbon pricing generally polls well (68 percent of Americans say that they would support a revenue-neutral carbon tax), that hasn’t translated to success at the ballot box, even at the local level. “The word ‘tax’ is really not something Americans are excited to sign up for,” Bergquist said. [...] “If we’re really serious about climate change, the very first question is, ‘Is this policy going to keep fossil fuels underground?’” said Tamra Gilbertson, a staffer for the nonprofit Indigenous Environmental Network. “And if the answer is ‘No,’ we’re going on the wrong track.”

[...] Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden's ... is far from a capitalist critique, but it can still be seen as a scaled-back version of what many Sunrise Movement activists had been calling for. (“Joe Biden is campaigning on the Green New Deal - minus the crazy”.) Though there’s no push for universal health care or a federal jobs guarantee, it does call for generating all of the country’s electricity from clean energy sources by 2035, and spending $2 trillion over 10 years to get there. The plan also promises that 40 percent of the benefits would go to historically disadvantaged communities - those Americans most vulnerable to heat, pollution, and extreme weather.

There’s no mention of a carbon tax, no cap-and-trade program. That could partly be because the Biden camp doesn’t think those policies will galvanize the electorate. And a campaign pitch isn’t a guarantee of what a Biden White House might actually propose. “From a political standpoint, why would you lead with the idea that you’re going to tax someone?” said Kaufman, the Columbia researcher. “You want to lead with all the things you’re going to give people.”

Still, besides economists and supporters of the Citizens’ Climate Lobby, it’s hard to find many people who are excited about carbon pricing. It’s become a policy that a lot of people like, but no one loves. Nowadays, most Democrats would rather spend big and regulate; most Republicans would rather ignore the heating planet altogether... (MORE - details)