- Here’s the latest 2-pager on the Green Economy / Transportation option.
- Eric de Place and Ian Siadak at Sightline have a great new post about the BC carbon tax. The punch line: “The province is living proof that emissions reductions and GDP growth can go hand-in-hand.”
- Wednesday evening Nov 14 there’s a panel discussion at SPU featuring Bob Inglis (formerly R-SC, now head of the Energy & Enterprise Initiative, which makes the conservative case for revenue-neutral carbon pricing), Todd Myers of the free-market Washington Policy Center (which is co-sponsoring the event), and UW climate scientist Mike Wallace; I’ll be moderating. More info at http://energyandenterprise.com/washington-policy-center-event/. Please come and please spread the word!
- The day before, on Tuesday Nov 13, there’s a day-long carbon tax conference in Washington, DC, with live video (and later full video at the same link). The conference is sponsored by American Enterprise Institute, the Brookings Institution, the IMF, and the environmental economics think tank Resources for the Future.
- I’ll be in Portland Dec 5 to talk carbon taxes (and do some comedy shows, including at Lewis & Clark). Details here.
- UPDATES FROM KEN C: Boulder Colorado voted to extend their carbon-tax-ish policy. And Dieter Helm has a new piece on Yale’s Environment 360: “Forget Kyoto: Putting a Tax on Carbon Consumption”
Hi Yoram,
I’m very pleased to see your update!
I would love to lend my support however it would be most efficacious.
Couple quick impressions:
I endorse your sustained effort to bridge social and ideological divides in an approach to this issue.
Still preferring to frame “climate” as a “security” issue, rather than a matter of “environment” or “economics”. Therefore I encourage an understanding of this constructive revenue shift as part of “smart climate security policy” rather than a new “carbon tax”.
While I am glad to hear of an effort to get this proposal to the ballot, I’m thinking an initiative of this degree of novelty might do better in a big general election (ie Nov 2016) than in an off-year or special election. I’d argue that the recent passage of the Marijuana and Marriage reform initiatives, for example, were well served by their place in the electoral calendar.
Also, I think the community at large would be well-served by a 3 year program of education and grassroots coalition building in preparation for an electoral effort.
How about a PAC? The name I was pushing last year was: Washington Families for Climate Security.
Would be cool to have an online venue for discussion. (Of course I appreciate your invitation to post here.)
I’m sorry but I probably won’t be able to attend tonight’s talk.
Looking forward to further opportunities to connect.
Rich
rich at richjensen dot com
Thanks Rich!
* Climate security is a fine idea, and I like your idea for a PAC title. I don’t think we’re quite ready to move on that front (still just having conversations and exploring ideas) but… keep pushing!
* We might end up looking at 2016, but we’re talking about 2014 for now. (Focuses the mind 🙂 I think concerns about off-year elections are mostly about odd-numbered years like 2013, and I personally worry a bit that a Presidential year will feature too much polarization and too little oxygen. If part of the goal is to educate folks and talk to them about climate then we don’t want too much other stuff going on.
* I’m open to ideas about ways to communicate better online… what do you suggest?
Here’s the data for voter participation in Washington State since 1952. In recent cycles, voter participation in the Presidential quadrennial is roughly 50% higher than the alternate cycle. The higher participation rates correlate strongly to a younger demographic, exactly the cohort with the greatest concern and the greatest amount at stake regarding Climate Security.
http://www.sos.wa.gov/elections/voter_participation.aspx
If there is a group of folks who would like to open a forum for this kind of discussion, basically hang out a shingle and invite people to engage the conversation, sharing work, news and projects, I’d be happy to help launch and maintain such an online space. And if there isn’t such a group, I’m still tempted to open up my own space anyway and invite you all over to hang out.
😉