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Plan B.
3. Tax carbon aggressively just like we are taxing cigarettes today:
To push the transition to a cleaner, more efficient economy -- the Plan B economy -- Brown argues for a worldwide carbon tax to be phased in at $20 per ton each year between 2008 and 2020, topping out at $240 per ton. That might seem excessive, but Brown points out that even a carbon tax higher than $240 per ton wouldn't cover all the environmental and health costs of burning fossil fuels, from climate change to air pollution-related illnesses.
Brown believes that to make these changes which would lead to 80% reduction in carbon emissions world-wide by 2020 would cost around $190 Billion per year. It looks like a lot, but actually this is really a very small amount of money to spend to save our planet, especially when you compare the money on what the world spends for military expenditures per year: $1.2 trillion.
So how can we build a global consensus that makes it possible to address this problem with the urgency needed? And how do we do this when the current US administration cannot be depended upon to do its part? We need better leaders for these times. We need to elect leaders that truly understand the urgency and the need to work collaboratively with the rest of the world if we really want to save the world for our children.
[1] The Basket Our Eggs Are In, Celsias, December 30, 2007, http://www.celsias.com/2007/12/30/the-basket-our-eggs-are-in/
[2] Ibid.
[3] Lester Brown, Plan B: How to Stop Global Warming, Time, January 4, 2008, http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1700189,00.html
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