Columbus, Ohio chemist-turned-cartoonist Drew's (website, blog, email) Toothpaste for Dinner cartoon of January 9, 2008, "Climate Change: A Libertarian View.""Selling B.C.'s historic carbon tax similar to anti-smoking campaigns, say experts" in Canadian Press hosted by Google draws an interesting parallel between carbon emissions and smoking and reveals a marketing strategy for addressing the argument I've heard raised by Mr. Morris, the CEO of American Electric Power on Monday when addressing Tech students that "cap and trade" is necessary rather than a more efficacious (according to a recent study) carbon tax, because you can't pass a tax.
Obviously British Columbia, which is admittedly not the U.S., has passed such a tax, and it was supported, according to other coverage, by the business community, although the public isn't sure that it will work. The article provides some background on trends in other provinces.
Although the story provides the conservative position, it devotes only one line and doesn't really offer evidence of the pros and cons of each approach. I would have also liked to have seen information on how the initiative gained support for its passage.
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I need to leave because I have friends due for dinner before the contra dance tonight in Giles County with Toss the Possum and Shawn Brenneman, but I will provide links tomorrow.
Hopefully, I'll also be able to catch up on the "coming soon" entries I've been doing all week, while working for NewsTrust (we've had the usual workload, plus I hosted U.S. Congress and blogged and participated in staff conference calls Monday, Thursday and Friday), while researching Fairmont LLC for BURG Sunday, helping address AEP on Monday and spending time with Jack Spadaro on Tuesday and Wednesday and conducting a lot of correspondence by email and working on organizing the poetry reading.
Thank you patient readers.
