Earth Equity News

Charles Komanoff: Carbon Tax Advocate Interview by Kiera Butler, Mother Jones, November/December 2008 issue. "Charles Komanoff: The idea of a carbon tax, philosophically, is that it's the idea of protecting the commons. The atmosphere is a commons. It's something that we all hold in common. And if some of us, if all of us, are allowed to pollute the commons without having to pay a price for it then we're all going to have to pay a price for it if we use more than is sustainable. Knowing what the price is -- that's difficult to set -- no one's ever going to know it exactly. But we all know that the appropriate price is not zero... A carbon tax would do two things to move business toward less carbon emissions. One is that it would increase the cost of using or wasting carbon, but second is that it would focus attention. It would enable people within any business who desire to become more energy efficient leverage. With the carbon tax it would be phased in or ramped up. The amount would be known at least some years in advance, so bean counters within corporate America could point to investments that right now are not good for the bottom line for energy efficiency. They can have greater leverage once they can show that the returns are going to get greater and greater." Charles Komanoff is cofounder of the Carbon Tax Center (carbontax.org).