PAY CARBON’S REAL PRICE (OR DON’T BURN IT)

Think about it: Global warming changes are going to cost--who pays?

Panel urges U.S. "carbon price" to fight warming
December 14, 2006 (Reuters via Yahoo News)
- The United States needs to urgently set a "carbon price" as the first step in cutting emissions of carbon dioxide contributing to global warming, a panel of environmental and energy experts [such as Dan Reicher, former Energy Department official & president of New Energy Capital, Stanford University climatologist Stephen Schneider, Sierra Club President Carl Pope, Duke Energy Chairman Paul Anderson] said…

- Whether in the form of a tax on carbon dioxide emissions or a system of caps as under the Kyoto Protocol, putting a firm monetary value on the greenhouse gas would spur businesses to implement new technologies and energy-saving techniques…
- U.S. President George W. Bush's administration has consistently rejected capping greenhouse gas emissions as bad for business and U.S. workers…Bush withdrew from the Kyoto Protocol, an international agreement aimed at cutting greenhouse gases by setting limits on emissions from industrialized nations. He offered an alternative plan offering incentives for voluntary emissions cuts…

- Former U.S. Vice President Al Gore, who has become a vigorous campaigner in the fight against global warming, endorsed the panel's findings…Earlier…Gore urged more than 4,000 scientists at a meeting of the American Geophysical Union scientific group to become more active in explaining the dangers of global warming to the public…
- [Duke Energy Chairman] Anderson said the lack of a clear signal over what form government action may take could delay plans among energy companies to invest in new technologies…a company was unlikely to build a power plant with a 50-year life span if it did not know whether the plant would face onerous new taxes…