tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post7895350055653233354..comments2024-03-06T06:34:42.881-05:00Comments on EconoSpeak: Environmental Action as Conversion: The Projection HypothesisUnknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-21377022996892905962016-03-08T11:45:40.668-05:002016-03-08T11:45:40.668-05:00Peter - thanks. I guess she has never heard of th...Peter - thanks. I guess she has never heard of the incidence of the tax. Or maybe that too is against her moral out view. ProGrowthLiberalhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17138489390594441753noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-29790581913346846212016-03-08T11:15:42.814-05:002016-03-08T11:15:42.814-05:00The current situation has plenty of ironies. Back...The current situation has plenty of ironies. Back in the early 70s it was the advocates of quantity controls, which are the basis for cap and trade (the cap part) who were more likely to take a semi-theological attitude and accuse their opponents of advocating letting people "pay to sin." Now the shoe seems to have shown up on the other foot, with people like Hansen taking a moralistic view that cap and trade is sinful and any right-thinking person should support his version of the Pigouvian tax. What can one say?<br />rosserjb@jmu.eduhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09300046915843554101noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-74996487856936094322016-03-08T11:08:58.630-05:002016-03-08T11:08:58.630-05:00Klein is in favor of a carbon tax, largely as a mo...Klein is in favor of a carbon tax, largely as a moral statement against the evils of polluting. She seems to think it would be paid entirely by fossil fuel companies, and the rest of us would be liberated to live our sustainable lives. At one point she goes so far as to say that the green energy transition can be financed by a tax on the *profits* of fossil fuel corporations. As economics it is bizarre, but it makes a certain kind of ethical sense. (It's about the amount of evil, not the amount of money.) I also think it says something about politics, but I'll save that for another time.Peter Dormanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00093399591393648071noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-6348218191974015832016-03-08T09:21:45.057-05:002016-03-08T09:21:45.057-05:00I take it that Naomi Klein is not the biggest fan ...I take it that Naomi Klein is not the biggest fan of the carbon tax. I wonder what is her view on the James Hansen fee and dividend approach since it is a carbon tax – with a different label. Hansen himself is no fan of cap and trade even if this approach would be very similar to his fee and dividend approach. I guess labeling and not economics is key to some. ProGrowthLiberalhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17138489390594441753noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-52914104815245716912016-03-08T04:07:13.266-05:002016-03-08T04:07:13.266-05:00It is the strength of the Puritan tradition in the...It is the strength of the Puritan tradition in the US. We are simply far more religious than pretty much all Europeans, as evidenced by the fact that among OECD nations, only Turkey has a higher percentage of people who reject evolution.<br /><br />It goes back to the Puritans and their Shining City on the Hill, but also the long tradition of accepting religious refugees from around the world, deeply linked with our commitment to religious freedom, and its competitive model of religion: pick your religion at the great supermarket of religions in good old America. <br /><br />So we simply have this much stronger evangelistic streak than much more secular Europeans. This was even shown in our initial environmental laws in the early 70s when most economists argued for Pigouvian taxes (this was before cap and trade) but we got straight command and control quantity rules (some of which later morphed into cap and trade systems, such as SO2). The political arguments at the time got down to religion: pollution is sin, and people should not be allowed to pay for sinning, even though the quantity limits were generally not set at zero emissions for most pollutants, so people were still being allowed to "sin."rosserjb@jmu.eduhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09300046915843554101noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-6535079871000325512016-03-07T16:13:17.139-05:002016-03-07T16:13:17.139-05:00Yeah, Sandwichman, what can you.....
Anyway, I...Yeah, Sandwichman, what can you.....<br /><br />Anyway, I've been arguing for a while that there is no necessary connection between the policy preferences that make up "the left". The political spectrum metaphor suggests that, like purple and blue are next to each other thanks to closely sized wavelengths, so to environmentalism and trade unionism have objective qualitites which place chemical next to each other.<br /><br />My point has been that there is no physical quality underlying the political spectrum and that Trump demonstrates how things can be jumbled up. <br /><br />Examples on this blog suggest that the quality of religious belief does provide an objective common element between environmentalists and trade unionists and believers that "big money" controls the world. That is to say, Bernie has a religious following. <br /><br />But... Is it not the case that Ayn Rand acolytes behave in exactly the same way?<br />Thornton Hallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11402495641975262697noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4900303239154048192.post-45279250941453143512016-03-07T14:02:34.389-05:002016-03-07T14:02:34.389-05:00"Have you noticed that most environmentalists..."Have you noticed that most environmentalists (in the US at any rate) take a religious approach to their cause?"<br /><br />Not an welcoming first line. Have you ever noticed that most economists take a condescending know-it-all approach to their conversation?Sandwichmanhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11159060882083015637noreply@blogger.com