Krugman’s Big Green Test for Conservatives

Paul Krugman says that Henry Paulson and other conservatives need to go beyond endorsing a carbon tax, as laudable as that is. He argues that getting policy to address climate change law makers will have to get their hands dirty, considering suboptimal solutions that may be more political feasible than sweeping measures like a carbon tax, but that still move us in the right direction.

New York Times by Paul Krugman June 22, 2014

“On Sunday Henry Paulson, the former Treasury secretary and a lifelong Republican, had an Op-Ed article about climate policy in The New York Times. In the article, he declared that man-made climate change is “the challenge of our time,” and called for a national tax on carbon emissions to encourage conservation and the adoption of green technologies. Considering the prevalence of climate denial within today’s G.O.P., and the absolute opposition to any kind of tax increase, this was a brave stand to take.

But not nearly brave enough. Emissions taxes are the Economics 101 solution to pollution problems; every economist I know would start cheering wildly if Congress voted in a clean, across-the-board carbon tax. But that isn’t going to happen in the foreseeable future. A carbon tax may be the best thing we could do, but we won’t actually do it.” More>