New York Times columnist Tom Friedman criticizes cap and trade as politically unworkable and suggests that greens shouldn't be the spokespersons for the climate agenda.
In his column today, New York Times columnist Tom Friedman criticized cap and trade as politically unworkable and suggested that greens shouldn't be the spokespersons for the climate agenda. This comes on the heels of an interview with Newsweek's Sharon Begley where he attributes the increase in Americans who say news of global warming is being exaggerated to Al Gore.
The mood must be transatlantic, as British environmentalist Stephan Hale has also published an op-ed piece in the Guardian titled "Climate change is too big a problem to be left to the environmentalists," which makes many similar points.
In the Newsweek interview, Friedman claims that polling by the Times shows that while voters oppose taxes, they support them if you target the money for action on global warming and energy independence. But Friedman has mis-remembered the Times poll in ways that support his policy agenda of a high carbon tax. The difference has significant policy implications
I went back and read the 2007 Times/CBS poll Friedman is referring to. Voters told pollsters they would pay more in taxes or for electricity from solar and wind and would pay more for gasoline to reduce oil dependency. But they said they would NOT want to pay higher taxes if it 'combats climate change' or 'relieves us from living under the thumb of petro-dictators,' as Friedman claimed to Begley. The difference is critical.
Here are the questions that Friedman is mis-remembering. Voters told the pollsters that they:
* Would be willing to pay more in taxes on gasoline and other fuels if money went to research for renewables like solar and wind (64-33)
* Would pay more for electricity if it came from solar or wind (75-20)
* Oppose raising gasoline taxes to deal with global warming (5838)
* Support a gasoline tax to reduce dependence on foreign oil (64-30)
* Oppose a gasoline tax to pay for war on terrorism (49-44)
* Oppose a gasoline tax if it was $2/gallon, or $1/gallon (76-20, 70-27)
Contrary to Friedman's claim, voters in the Times/CBS survey support paying more in taxes or for electricity for solar and wind for reasons that are independent of their concern over global warming. Indeed, what this survey found is that voters oppose paying more in gasoline taxes to deal with global warming or the war on terror.
This is consistent with other polls, and is the reason that we have long encouraged a policy agenda focused on increasing investment in clean energy for economic and energy independence reasons, rather than increasing the price of fossil fuels for global warming reasons. If the money for investment comes from a modest carbon tax, all the better. But the public has clearly and repeatedly stated it would only support a tax or higher fossil fuel prices if it used for clean energy investments.
He made some rather good points there, it true why pay more for electricity if you are using solo power and wind, surely this makes no sense. Thank for an interesting post.
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