A Carbon Tax Should be Implemented in The United States.

It means a lot to me. Contention 1: Human Health; Global WarmingWhy should we use a Carbon Tax in the first place? To reduce CO2 emissions, which lead to global warming. I will now show the severity of the global warming problem which will necessitate a Carbon Tax in the first place. To begin, I will quote David Keith, an award winning experimental physicist:“There is no controversy among anybody, even the skeptics, that the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere is going up — unless you pick ones that are just nutballs” [1]The effects of this is one of the most debated issues today, but scientifically, it’s increasing much faster than normal because of the CO2/Carbon emissions. I will go into more detail on this later, but according to this chart, almost all of these emissions are caused by humans. . http://www.debate.org...[2] Now, it’s pretty easy to draw conclusions about what this means. When CO2 increases, the earth emits heat that the Carbon Dioxide prevents from leaving , which means the place is going to get warmer, and warmer, and warmer. Don’t we all know that that means trouble? 2014 being the hottest year by record is only trailing 2016 by three years, as well as the corresponding forest fires. Climate change caused more than half of these fires since 1979. [3] [4]Here are some other added effects of global warming:The sea level will go way up. Because ice is very easy to melt into water, once we cross the line of 32 degrees all over Antarctica, with much of the ice melting inside it, it’ll mean disaster. [5] [6]. The thing is, we lose about a hundred cubic kilometers of ice in Antarctica every year since 2002, according to a study by NASA. This means that many areas close to the sea level, such as Hawaii, might lose their footing sooner or later. This is worrying. Now, here are even more effects caused by global warming: [7] The water supplies we have will decline, especially in the American Southwest. And finally, the obvious 3 points:1: 1980’s was the hottest decade on record. 2: Wait, I forgot. 1990’s standard was hotter. 3: Oh wait, and I forgot about the 2000’s. HOTTER. Having a Carbon Tax combats all of the global warming problems. Honestly, it’d be too long to list all of them. But Carbon Tax, being the taxation system based on CO2 emissions, is certainly necessary to reduce global warming. Contention 2: Overestimates on the Regressivity of a Carbon Tax. A Carbon Tax is needed, but on the other hand, we could wonder to ourselves “Is it worth reducing global warming at the cost of a less good taxation system? ” This contention shows that the Carbon Tax is economically overestimated in it’s regressivity. The main complaint about a Carbon Tax is how it is a Regressive Tax, which leads to the same amount of taxation on the poor and the rich. The thing is, the Carbon Tax doesn’t really have to be this way. We don’t even need to change anything to see that Carbon Taxes are less regressive than you think. The conventional wisdom is that a Carbon Tax is regressive, because even if the rich have to pay more in numbers, the poor have a larger percentage of their income taken away. According to a study, Progressing Towards a Fair Carbon Tax, [8], this isn’t as true as you think. “Does annual income accurately represent a household’s well-being over time? Not necessarily. Some researchers argue that using annual income as a measurement of household well-being overstates the degree of inequality of excise tax burdens, exaggerating the effects of both progressive and regressive taxes (Poterba 1989). This may be the case for a number of reasons. First, the annual income of households follows a predictable path: younger households earn less income as members earn education and first enter the workforce; middle-aged households earn the most income as members’ careers mature; and older households earn less income as members retire. Second, annual income can vary significantly year to year. Temporary unemployment, for example, changes income drastically. ”This states that most studies exaggerate the regressive effects of a Carbon Tax, due to the changes in income over the course of a lifetime. In early working years, according to these charts on advisorperspectives. com, the income is lower. (i. e. college years. ) [9]. http://www.debate.org...And another chart, proving age differences in income:. http://www.debate.org...These both prove major differences in income from different ages. This negates the ideas that Carbon Tax information can be properly inserted as a regressive tax. One more thing; readers, when reading my opponents sources, make sure to only legitimize sources that show that Carbon Taxes affect producers and companies, as well as consumers. Not including the former can result in a biased study. There is a lot of information about the misconceptions of what a Carbon Tax does, and listing it all would be a lost cause; I believe, however, I’ve already made my point about the misconceptions of a Carbon Tax. Even with all of this, we can still do more to make a Carbon Tax even better. This point brings me onto my next contention. Contention 3: Refining a Carbon Tax. This contention may be a bit short; I apologize. To begin, this is a quote from The New York Times. ’s article The Case for a Carbon Tax:“Revenue generated by carbon taxes could be used for a variety of purposes. A lot of the money should surely be given to households, especially the poorest, through tax credits or direct payments to offset the higher prices they would have to pay for gasoline, electricity and other goods and services because of the tax. Some of the money could be used to invest in renewable energy and public transportation, or to lower other taxes. ” [10]We need to think about the revenue for discussing a Carbon Tax. Don’t think of a Carbon Tax as simply a way to lower fossil fuel amounts because of Global Warming; We can do even more with the revenue. First off, rebates. Rebates are very important when discussing the revenue of a tax, especially one that can be considered regressive if no thought is put into it. Rebates are a direct payment from the government at a later date. The thing with rebates, is, that they’re very easy to be made progressive. Ideally, we can simply give a larger rebate to the bottom 20 or 10 percent, while cutting off more, which simply makes it more progressive, since the more wealthy, having more, therefore likely spend more; people in scarcity are subject to not having the liberties of industrializing everything they do. As the New York Times said, there’s even more to do with the revenue, just like the revenue of any tax is important. Public transportation and increasing the quality of schools and homes in poorer neighborhoods may even benefit from a relatively high Carbon Tax. Conclusion: An income tax is naturally more progressive than a Carbon Tax, which was really the whole reason I had to make those last two arguments, but here’s where we add up everything. 1+2= 3. 3>2As a logical argument, I have proven that a Carbon Tax has simply outweighed a Progressive Income Tax. Let’s say the fact that a Progressive Tax gets two points for having no problems in terms of regressivity. Even under the most generous terms, a Carbon Tax still wins. A Carbon Tax, as I have shown, really almost builds up to the progressive nature of a purely Progressive Tax. Let’s give it one point for that. With the rise of a global warming problem, we’ll give it 2 points for that, as global warming could very well possibly be the end of humanity, soon enough. Now, since there’s two points for the global warming and one for almost living up to a progressive tax. 3 is bigger than 2, and the resolution is affirmed. Finally, I’d like to thank the readers of the debate, whether you agree with me or think I must be living in an Insane Asylum somewhere. Also, thank you to my opponent, for accepting this debate, and I look forward to a good argument from you. I await my opponent, and goodbye! SOURCES:[1]. http://www.seeker.com...[2]https://en.wikipedia.org...[3]http://www.nytimes.com...[4] . http://www.nytimes.com...?rref=collection%2Ftimestopic%2FGlobal%20Warming&action=click&contentCollection=science&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=3&pgtype=collection&_r=0[5] . https://www.reference.com...[6] . http://www.nasa.gov...[7]https://ourfuture.org...[8] . http://www.rff.org...[9] . http://www.advisorperspectives.com...[10] . http://www.nytimes.com...