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Thom's blog
We Need to Put a Price on Carbon
 Just a few months from now, world leaders will meet in Paris to try and put together a plan to cut down on greenhouse gas emissions. It's a big occasion, and given the state of the planet these days, a deal is absolutely necessary. At the rate we're going, the earth's atmosphere is set rise 4 degrees Celsius by the end of the century, double what scientists say is an "acceptable" level of warming. And here's the thing, even that 2 degree Celsius benchmark of "acceptable warming" might be not be enough to hold off environmental devastation on a scale we haven't seen in millennia. According to former NASA scientist James Hansen, 2 degrees Celsius is a recipe for disaster, no matter what public officials say. He explained why in a recent interview with Australian radio. Hansen now says we have to limit ourselves to 1 degree Celsius warming - a number we're already dangerously close to reaching. So a lot is at stake at this year's climate talks, which makes the fact there won't be any discussion of carbon pricing all the more frustrating. In fact, earlier this week, Christina Figueres, the head of the UN body in charge of the Paris talks, explicitly ruled out that possibility saying that it just wasn't possible at this moment in time. Now, that may or may not be true, but in terms of pure policy, there's no question that putting a price on carbon is the single best way to clamp down on greenhouse gas pollution and stop global warming once and for all. Right now, the fossil fuel industry is the only industry in the world that doesn't have to pay to clean up its own waste. Instead, these guys pass the costs of that waste (carbon pollution) on to the rest of us in the form of what economists call "negative externalities." |
Wednesday's Daily Stack 
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Speech: " A Rendezvous With Destiny", 27 June 1936 acceptance speech by Franklin D. Roosevelt. " An old English judge once said: "Necessitous men are not free men.""
Hour Two: GOP & the New Speaker Could Kill our Social Safety Net- Gayle Trotter 
Hour Three: What Have You Always Wanted to Ask About Social Security?- Alex Lawson, Social Security Works |
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