Warming Up to Taxes

Former Vice President Al Gore wants to tax carbon dioxide emissions instead of your paycheck as a way to stem global warming.
Say what?

Mr. Gore delivered a speech at New York University’s School of Law, in which he said, “Penalizing pollution instead of penalizing employment will work to reduce that pollution."
Will it work??

The pollution tax would replace all payroll taxes, including Social Security and unemployment, but the overall level of taxation, would remain the same. Does that not presume that the tax would fail--I mean, if it were to actually work, we'd be in trouble, because if it were effective, we'd be breathing clean, cool air and paying NO taxes...

There’s something appealing about the notion of a toll on toxic waste to cool the warming…but I wonder if we’re really just looking at taxes and taxes and taxes until Hell freezes over.

"Instead of discouraging businesses from hiring more employees,” said Mr. Gore, “it would discourage business from producing more pollution."
Hmmm…a little social engineering for business?
Possibly.
No more outlandish an idea than selling “pollution credits” to industrial users, and then trading those credits on a pollution “exchange:”

“Hello, Chevron? BP here. Listen, we need to blow off some toxins tonight, and were wondering if you have any spare pollution credits we could buy from you? And we’ll throw in an aging refinery in Texas City just for fun; whaddaya say?”

Of course, about the time Al Gore starts to wander off into foreign territory of rationality, he jerks himself back onto the wack-track by proposing the United States sign on to any successor to the Kyoto Protocol for curbing global warming beyond 2012.

Some scientists believe global warming is caused by the trapping of greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, in Earth's atmosphere. The alleged consequences of this climate change supposedly include rising seas, stronger storms and intense heat waves. Personally, I think we've just gotten more accurate at measuring atmospheric phenomena that have always been with us.

According to Junk Science.com, since February, 2005 the Kyoto Protocol has cost the US $238-billion, while potentially saving .002-degrees-C in warming by the year 2050.

President George W. Bush wisely withdrew from the Kyoto pact in 2001, predicting its caps on greenhouse gases would cost jobs.

"The absence of the United States from the treaty means that 25% of the world economy is now missing,” according to Gore.

No, it’s not missing.
It’s just being spent more effectively elsewhere.

Cool it, Al.