Carbon Tax Purgatory
Washington State is famous
for Starbucks, Microsoft, the Space Needle, and decades of Democrats at the
helm. Residents in the Evergreen State have legalized some of the most liberal
abortion, pot-smoking, and mercy-killing laws on the books. It begins young
too. Kindergarten students learn about tolerance and gender discrimination
before they learn to read.
On the ballot November 8, is
a carbon tax initiative. Hidden under layers of rhetoric and promises to reduce
the state sales and business taxes, is a new carbon tax on businesses that burn
fossil fuels. The tax rate starts at $15.00 per metric ton increasing 3.5% per
year until it reaches $100.00 per metric ton—levied against any business polluters.
But will it really help
reduce greenhouse gas?
Using the Environmental
Protection Agency’s climate model this sweeping carbon tax would reduce
temperatures by twenty-five one-hundred-thousandths of a degree.
And that’s by
the year 2100—if all the greenhouse gas emissions were eliminated immediately
and permanently. Well, by that calculation my young grandson would be 95 by the
time this insignificantly cooler temperature was achieved.
But what if ALL the United
States sunk into carbon tax purgatory and taxed all the polluters? Wouldn’t
that cool off those temperatures? Only by less than three one-hundredths of a
degree by the time my grandson is 95 (the year 2100).
Climate change is a sketchy
deal. The increase in greenhouse gas does create a small warming effect, but
not to the catastrophic conditions we keep hearing about.
The polar ice caps
don’t show much statistical difference from 1981-2010. The intensity of
tornados is declining. Cyclones are at their lowest levels since 1970. Since
1895 there has been no recordable drought trend.
So why the carbon tax? It’s
about control. So, Americans we need to become more informed. Here in
Washington we have a chance to vote. But if sensibility doesn’t return to the
climate change debate we may not have a vote, and then we’ll all be in carbon
tax purgatory.