West Coast Publishing Carbon Pricing Topic 2015-16, Part 1 Page 2

West Coast Publishing Carbon Pricing Topic 2015-16, Part 1 Page 2

West Coast Publishing
Public Forum
Carbon Tax
Feb 2016
Edited by Jim Hanson
Research Assistance
Jonathan Barsky
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WEST COAST DEBATE

PUBLIC FORUM FEB. 2016

Carbon Taxing

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Resolved: The United States federal government should adopt a carbon tax.

WEST COAST DEBATE 3

Resolved: The United States federal government should adopt a carbon tax. 4

Carbon Tax-Pro 6

Pro 7

Pro Extensions / Answers to Con Arguments 13

Carbon Taxes Solve Warming – Laundry List 14

Carbon Taxes Solve Warming – Externalities 15

Carbon Taxes Solve Warming – Market Coordination 16

Carbon Taxes Solve Warming – New Tech 17

AT: Econ Turns – Laundry Lists 18

AT: Econ Turns – Comparative Studies 19

AT: Econ Turns – Energy Prices 20

AT: Econ Turns – Fossil-Fuel Costs Outweigh 21

AT: Econ Turns – Job Creation 22

AT: Econ Turn – AT: War MPX 23

AT: Clean Energy Subsidies Solve Warming 24

AT: Future Tech Solves Warming 25

AT: Taxes Don’t Solve Globally – China 26

AT: Taxes Don’t Solve Globally – Renewables 27

AT: Taxes Don’t Solve Globally – Tariffs 28

AT: Taxes Don’t Solve All Industries 29

Precautionary Principle Good – Environment 30

Warming Bad – Extinction & Carbon Pricing Solves 31

Warming Bad – AT: MPX Uncertainty 32

Solving Warming is a Prerequisite to Growth 33

Carbon Taxes - Con 34

Con 35

Con Extensions / Answers to Pro Arguments 38

Carbon Taxes Bad – Economy – Consumer Costs + Regressive 39

Carbon Taxes Bad – Economy – Energy Prices 40

Carbon Taxes Bad – Economy – Energy Prices + Offshoring 41

Carbon Taxes Bad – Manufacturing + Energy Prices 42

Carbon Taxes Bad – Economy – Offshoring 43

Carbon Taxes Bad – Economy – Double Bind 44

Carbon Taxes Bad – Economy – AT: Job Creation 45

Economic Decline Bad – Wars 46

Carbon Taxes Don’t Solve Warming – Australia 47

Carbon Taxes Don’t Solve Warming – Carbon Leakage 48

Carbon Taxes Don’t Solve Warming – Global Emissions 49

Carbon Taxes Don’t Solve Warming – No Clean Energy 50

Carbon Taxes Don’t Solve Warming – Signaling 51

AT: Warming Bad – No Impact 52

Util Good – Growth Key 53

Creating Growth Is a Prerequisite to Solving Warming 54

Carbon Tax-Pro

When considering moral decisions, we owe special consideration to future generations because of our asymmetrical power over them

Lukas Meyer, philosophy professor at the University of Graz, 8-10-2015, “Intergenerational Justice” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/justice-intergenerational/#Bib

First, present generations may be said to exercise power over (remote) future generations when, for example, they create conditions that make it costly for future generations to decide against continuing to pursue present generations’ projects. In this way, present generations effectively manipulate interests of future generations, and can successfully achieve the intended result of having their projects continued. Remote future generations cannot exercise such an influence on presently living people, and in this sense the power-relation between present generations and remote future generations is radically asymmetrical: remote future people do not even have the potential for exercising such power over presently living people. Analogously, presently living people cannot exercise influence over past people (Barry 1977, 243–44; Barry 1989b, 189). Second, not only can the present generation influence the conduct of future people by affecting their desires and circumstances, it can also exercise power by setting back the interests of future generations. It can, for example, pursue a natural-resource policy with long-term negative consequences. In this case, the present generation imposes upon future generations the risk of having their options reduced to an inadequate range—unless, that is, future generations will have available to them and can afford to use technologies that allow them to adapt to the circumstances (Barry, 1999; Beckerman, 1999). By contrast, remote future people cannot at all affect the value of the lives of the presently living, at least while the latter are alive. Still, such future people might nevertheless be considered able to set back the interests of or even wrong present or past persons insofar as the latter have, or had, interests with respect to posthumous future states of affairs. In the same way, the presently living may be morally constrained in their actions that relate to people who lived in the remote past (see Section 5.3). These power relations are quite different from those among contemporaries, which are relatively fluid and subject to change.

Environmental preservation is key to human survival and well-being – the precautionary principle means we must value preservation first

Robert Paehlke, professor of Environmental and Resource Studies at Trent University, 2000, “Environmental Values and Public Policy” CQ Press, http://courses.washington.edu/alisonta/pbaf590/pdf/Paehlke.pdf

Human well-being, and indeed human survival, depends on the success of an almost endless list of plant and animal species, often in ways we barely understand. Our global food reserves would endure for but a matter of months should our food production capabilities suddenly decline. That capability is determined in turn by rainfall and temperature, by the activities of many insect species such as bees, and by microbiological life within the soils of the planet. All of these in turn are affected by both plants and animals. Our well-being is determined by other species in other ways as well, not the least of which is our deep need for contact with, or awareness of the existence of, wild nature. The significant place of wild nature in human history has been captured by Max Oelschlaeger, who writes: "By abandoning the view that nature is no more than an ecomachine or a stockpile of resources to fuel the human project, preservationists tend not to be bulls in an ecological china shop. They typically reject a strictly economic approach to valuing wilderness, and entertain other considerations such as rarity species diversity, and even beauty. And by adopting a holistic view, preservationists are attentive to the pervasive linkages and interactions essential to any concept of a wilderness ecosystem."

A carbon tax solves warming – reduces emissions, creates incentives for conservation, renewables, and energy efficiency – and it generates economic benefits

William G. Gale, Arjay and Frances Miller Chair in Federal Economic Policy and former Vice President and Director of the Economic Studies Program at the Brookings Institution, 3-12-2013, “Carbon tax: A win-win for the economy and the environment” http://www.csmonitor.com/Business/Tax-VOX/2013/0312/Carbon-tax-A-win-win-for-the-economy-and-the-environment

A carbon tax could significantly reduce emissions. Tufts University economist Gilbert Metcalf estimated that a $15 per ton tax on CO2 emissions that rises over time would reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 14 percent. Another study estimated that the European countries’ carbon taxes have reduced emissions significantly. Estimates suggest that a well-designed tax in the United States could raise as much as 1 percent of Gross Domestic Product in new, revenue—money that could be used to reform other taxes, as discussed by Donald Marron and Eric Toder. Alternatively, those new revenues could help reduce the country’s substantial and unsustainable budget deficits. A carbon tax would also reduce America’s dependence on foreign sources of energy and create better market incentives for conservation, the use of renewable energy sources, and the production of energy-efficient goods. The permanent change in price signals from enacting a carbon tax would stimulate new private sector research and innovation in developing energy-saving technologies and in harnessing renewable energy. The implementation of a carbon tax also offers opportunities to reduce and reform federal spending on other energy-related programs.

Carbon taxes drastically lower carbon emissions, which are the major cause of global warming – empirics from Canada prove

Yoram Bauman, environmental economist at the Sightline Institute, and Shi-Ling Hsu, law professor at Florida State University, 7-4-2012, “The Most Sensible Tax of All,” NY Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/05/opinion/a-carbon-tax-sensible-for-all.html?_r=1

Of course, carbon taxes also lower carbon emissions. Economic theory suggests that putting a price on pollution reduces emissions more affordably and more effectively than any other measure. This conclusion is supported by empirical evidence from previous market-based policies, like those in the 1990 amendments to the Clean Air Act that targeted sulfur dioxide emissions. British Columbia’s carbon tax is only four years old, but preliminary data show that greenhouse gas emissions are down 4.5 percent even as population and gross domestic product have been growing. Sales of motor gasoline have fallen by 2 percent since 2007, compared with a 5 percent increase for Canada as a whole.

It’s not too late – US action solves and gets the international community on board – a carbon tax is uniquely key

Denise Robbins, degree in Natural Resource Management and Biometry and Statistics, member of the Media Matters Climate and Energy team, 5-12-2014, “The Self-Fulfilling Prophecy of Fatalistic Climate Rhetoric,” http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/05/12/the-self-fulfilling-prophecy-of-fatalistic-clim/199267

A Washington Post columnist claimed that there is "no solution" to global warming in an op-ed that itself included -- and buried -- a possible solution to mitigate climate change. The damage done by advancing the defeatist claim that nothing can be done about climate change may make it become a self-fulfilling prophecy. This year has brought one landmark climate report after another, each stating with more certainty than ever that the cost of inaction against climate change will be far greater than the cost of mitigating catastrophe. The National Climate Assessment found that unchecked global warming will affect every region of the country and cost the U.S. ECONOMY billions of dollars. The report also found that it's not too late to implement greenhouse gas reduction policies to avoid this scenario. The United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change released the findings that climate change is having "sweeping effects" on every continent, and made the case for "immediate mitigation" in a subsequent report, providing hundreds of different pathways for countries to take in order to avoid the worst effects. The American Association for the Advancement of Science published an explainer on the current state of climate science, stating that "The sooner we act [on climate change], the lower the risk and cost. And there is much we can do." Yet in a May 12 op-ed, Washington Post columnist Robert Samuelson brazenly declared that "we have no solution" to climate disruption. He suggested for every report on global warming to come with a "disclaimer" that "we now lack the technologies to stop it," despite the fact that the reports he detailed in his op-ed actually found that these resources already exist. The "reality" Samuelson provides, that global emissions are currently projected to increase nearly 50 percent by 2040, mostly from fossil fuels, should warrant an even stronger case for action. The longer the world waits to take action on climate change, the costlier it will be -- up to $1.9 trillion in the U.S. alone, according to an analysis by Tufts University. In other words, Samuelson's "solution" -- to do nothing -- would end up costing the ECONOMY more in the long-run. Just because one U.S. policy may not be sufficient to negate global climate change does not make an action "futile." Dana Nuccitelli, an environmental scientist and writer for The GUARDIAN and Skeptical Science, analogized Samuelson's argument to "saying that somebody who's obese shouldn't stop eating deep fried Twinkies, because by itself that's not sufficient to LOSE 100 pounds" in an email to Media Matters. Nobel-prize winning economist Paul Krugman has also spoken out against this logic in the New York Times: What about the argument that unilateral U.S. action won't work, because China is the real problem? It's true that we're no longer No. 1 in greenhouse gases -- but we're still a strong No. 2. Furthermore, U.S. action on climate is a necessary first step toward a broader international agreement, which will surely include sanctions on countries that don't participate. Despite his fatalistic rhetoric (for which he has previously been criticized), Samuelson does offer a potential solution at the end of his column, one he has advocated in the past: a carbon tax: The most obvious idea is a carbon tax to help FINANCE government and stimulate energy-saving technologies and new forms of non-carbon energy. If these technologies went global, the gap between rich and poor countries would narrow. So why is Samuelson claiming that a "central truth for public policy" is that "we have no solution?" Solutions exist, as he himself admitted later in the column. But the longer they are delayed, the worse the problem will become, especially if global warming worsens past a potential tipping point. Providing solutions to global warming in the media is essential for closing the "science-action gap" and creating change. Without knowing the solutions, the Washington Post's readers are more likely to reject the threat of climate disruption. Framing climate change as a solution-less problem may create a scenario where that's true.