The Carbon Tax part 2

First installment

To start off on the second installment I will be giving a closer look on how we (U.S.) contribute to the carbon footprint and how important a carbon tax is since we are not making the progress that we need to make with renewable resources. In 2006, the U.S. greenhouse gas emissions of CO₂ were at 80% totality from fossil fuel combustion. Under this percentage, petroleum makes up 34%, coal 29%, and 16% of natural gas. Coal has the riches carbon concentration per unit of energy (93 to 104 kg of CO₂ per million BTUs (“MMBtu’), which depends on coal content). Petroleum has the second most content of carbon with a 74 kg of CO₂ per MMBtu for crude oil. Natural gas has 54 kg of CO₂ per MMBtu. The U.S. has four major fossil fuel sources and they are industrial, transportation, residential, and commercial. Industrial emissions amount to roughly 29% of total U.S. emissions and 2/3 of that is from direct combustion of fossil fuels via steam engine or heat for other purposes. The other 1/3 comes from the electricity that is consumed by the industry during operation. Transportation is the second largest factor of emissions, which is almost 28% of all U.S. emissions and comes nearly all from petroleum. Personal vehicle usage is responsible for 60% of all emissions from transportation. The rest mostly comes from heavy-duty vehicles and aircraft. Electricity performs as an transitional source of emissions, which can be generated through non-emitting methods such as hydroelectric, nuclear, or geothermal energy. Electricity can also be generated through emitting methods such as combustion of coal and natural gas. “Almost all coal used in the United States (93% in 2007) is used for electricity generation. Conventional use of coal to generate electricity is by far the highest-emitting method of generating electricity.” 

https://www.cartoonstock.com/directory/c/carbon_tax.asp

We have a couple options for marketing the amount of carbon being emitted. A carbon tax simply taxes the content of carbon in fuels burned and a cap and trade system enforces a cost by demanding the submission of valuable permits in comparison to the carbon content they use. Several bills have been proposed in the Congressional legislative to tame the critical issue of climate change and the reduction of greenhouse gases being emitted. According to an article by Kevin A. Hassett in The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, President Bush called for the United States along with other major greenhouse gas emitting countries to "set a long-term goal for reducing greenhouse gases". The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has reported that the major greenhouse gases include carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and various fluorocarbons and other gases. A carbon tax or cap and trade system will include all GHGs by enforcing the 100 year global warming potential coefficient for the GHGs and convert the coefficient to CO₂. Working Group 1 under the IPCC have provided further proof that support our role of anthropogenic warming, which describes the role of human activity since 1750 and how ice cores show the evidence.

The most concerning matter is that a carbon tax or a cap and trade system will cause a regression and that poorer households will be effected by it the most. Conversely, Gilbert E. Metcalf, the author of “The Design of a Carbon Tax”, argues that even if a carbon tax is regressive, a carbon tax reform (combining a carbon tax with a revenue neutral reduction in some other tax) can be distributionally neutral or even progressive if desired. The burden of this tax can be split up into direct and indirect factors. The direct factor of the carbon tax is the household consumption of fossil fuels (gasoline, home heating, and electricity) and the indirect factor is the increase of cost in goods that are being produced stemming from the higher fuel costs.

 

http://www.usnews.com/opinion/economic-intelligence/2014/09/10/california-carbon-gas-tax-could-cost-drivers-big

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vkxPs9MOVzo

After watching this video, it has come to my attention that a carbon tax would obviously be a difficult task for many people in the nation. According to the video, the carbon tax would add 2,000 dollars to the average Americans budget. This would make it very hard for people living in poverty and would not help with the overall prosperity in the country. So, at this point I feel that the only option we have with a carbon tax is to start off with a small tax and at least see how it works because at the end of the day we are not fixing the problem of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere when all the oil companies are living in luxury as our planet goes to hell. It’s funny how the human mind works, it’s hard to understand or comprehend the severity of something that is probably not going to affect us directly. Our children and children’s children will be the ones who live with our mistakes and that is a hard concept to grasp.

Comment on Erika's post: https://envirojpo.blogspot.com/2016/11/my-first-installment-i-will-be.html?showComment=1481058563891#c5142403010996144194

Comment on Madeline's post: http://envirojpo.blogspot.com/2016/12/before-flood-discussion-pt-1.html#comment-form

Work Cited:

“The Design of a Carbon Tax”. By: Metcalf, Gilbert E., Weisbach, David, Harvard Environmental Law Review, 01478257, 2009, Vol. 33, Issue 2

"Taxing Carbon in Washington State." New York Times, 24 Oct. 2016, p. A20(L). Biography in Context, ezproxy.mtsu.edu/login?

“The Incidence of a U.S. Carbon Tax: A Lifetime and Regional Analysis”. Kevin A. Hassett, Aparna Mathur, Gilbert E. Metcalf., The Energy Journal, International Association for Energy Economics, vol. 30(2), pp. 155-178, October 2007,