The US should adopt a carbon tax

Note: I actually support a carbon tax, and am playing devil's advocate. == Rebuttal ==(1) Is climate change a threat?Pro exaggerates the effects of climate change. The notion that global warming as we know it is nearly as much of a threat as he's making it out to be (e.g. "the world is coming closer and closer to levels of no return") is nonsense, and it's been shown over and over again. He first suggests that "excess of fossil fuels has killed nearly 7 million people worldwide." That claim is hilariously false. The WHO is talking about air pollution, not excess fossil fuels, and his own source concedes that the main cause is overly polluting household fuels... which has nothing at all to do with a carbon tax. He lies about the source, making it seem like those deaths were caused by climate change, which isn't the case. Pro's second source talks about methane emissions caused by "exceptionally large changes" to the global carbon cycle, which aren't even observed at the current rate of human emissions. Most research that suggests any major rise in temperature caused by carbon dioxide emissions as they are right now relies on climate models that have been disproven over and over again. All serious scientists agree that, per doubling of CO2 concentration in the atmosphere, mean temperature will rise by between 1.1 and 2 degrees Celsius. Nir Joseph Shaviv's analysis of climate sensitivity to carbon dioxide found that cosmic ray influx drove temperature rise for the most part, which, when positive and negative feedbacks were added into the equation, created an average estimate of 1.3 degrees Celsius. He also found that climate sensitivity to CO2 was between 1 and 1.7 degrees Celsius at 99% confidence. [1] That much temperature rise isn't destructive at all... there's not much damage that could result from it, because: (a) we haven't reached the point of doubling in CO2 concentration yet, and it's unlikely that's to happen anytime soon; and (b) a rise in temperature of 1.3 degrees Celsius isn't harmful at all; a certain amount of CO2 would increase plant growth, on balance, and also increase rainfall. Most research that suggests any sensitivity higher than 2 degrees Celsius is based on climate modeling, which can be wildly inaccurate. Researcher John Christy analyzed 117 climate models, and found that the results of 114 were wildly exaggerated estimates. [2] So data from climate modeling is wildly unreliable. There's no sense in claiming that the world is in a "tipping point" or that we're in some sort of apocalyptic scenario caused by climate change. Climate change exists, and is probably influenced significantly by human activity, but it isn't really a threat. (2) Would a carbon tax work?Even if we were led to believe that climate change is a threat by attention-seeking "progressives" and politically correct SJWs -- because scientists who believe that climate change isn't a threat are regarded with the same level of disdain as "micro-aggressors" are in society -- there's no reason to think a carbon tax would even work in reducing carbon emissions sufficiently to mitigate the threat. Pro doesn't offer a reason to think so. A carbon tax won't cut emissions drastically, and that's already been seen in Australia. Australia's carbon tax reduced emissions by less than 0.1%, and it isn't even proven that that's the effect of the carbon tax so much as societal norms. The reality is people are going to keep using carbon-based fuels, and the tiny impact the carbon tax would have would do nothing to mitigate the highly unlikely scenario of extreme weather events. [3](3) Nuclear powerMoving to nuclear power makes no sense. First, it's prohibitively expensive. According to the EIA, the average cost of electricity produced by a next-generation nuclear plant - which is cheaper than plants that already exist - is $0.1084 per kilowatt-hour. [4] The cost of nuclear plant construction averages at $9 billion per unit. [5] Conventional coal and natural gas are significantly cheaper. [4] Added to this is the cost of waste management, which, in 2008, was $96 billion. [6] Furthermore, a carbon tax would increase demand for nuclear power, which would further increase costs, and nuclear waste (which it isn't easy to dispose at all). Second, nuclear power has dangers to it. Nuclear meltdowns aren't a common occurrence, but when they do occur, they are particularly destructive. Failures can and will happen. We've seen the impacts in Fukushima, Chernobyl, Windscale, and Three Mile Island - all supposedly impossible, but they still occurred. There's also obviously significant risk of releasing hazardous materials, which creates extreme unreliability. Third, there's also hilarious irony to this. Production of nuclear power causes significant fossil fuel emissions. Many nuclear power plants, due to the need to mine, transport, and enrich uranium and to maintain the plant itself, are as carbon-intensive as coal plants. [7] Nuclear plants also use Freon gas, a gas more potent than carbon dioxide as a climate forcing. It is an ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbon used as a coolant. In 2002, the Paducah plant emitted 197.3 metric tons of Freon. [8] Nuclear plants have been put on "low-level alert" on occasion because of Freon release. == Disadvantages ==There are some pretty clear disadvantages to a carbon tax, which outweigh any benefits. Outsourcing. Carbon taxes increase the cost of carbon-based fuels such as oil, coal and natural gas. Carbon-based fuels make up 80% of American energy sources. Nuclear power is also prohibitively expensive and prices will continue to rise, so companies aren't going to shift to nuclear power. This offers companies another incentive to move production outside of the United States (i.e. "outsourcing"), in addition to incentives of cheap labor. Jobs will be lost, and the supply-side will be affected. [9] This also means pollution will be outsourced to other countries, to countries like China that refuse to implement carbon pricing... which completely invalidates Pro's case. Implementation. It's impossible to implement a carbon tax. Australia tried and failed to enforce carbon pricing. That's part of the reason Australia repealed it: it did nothing to reduce emissions, but it still took up a lot of money to enforce it. Economic harm. The carbon tax reduces households' disposable income, and the amount of money industries have. This will provide an incentive to reduce wages and fire employees, but these unemployed people and low-wage workers will still continue to pay high carbon taxes because carbon-based fuels are needed for a livelihood, these days. So jobs will be lost, and wages will reduce, and people will be driven into poverty. [10] Imagine a world like that. That's the world Pro wants implemented. Don't buy into that. Those disadvantages outweigh the uncertain "advantages" that Pro brings up that really barely even exist. Instead, if climate change is really a threat, we could invest in researching climate engineering (e.g. putting sulfates in the upper atmosphere to allow volcanoes to naturally cool temperature) and avoid authoritarian measures that merely compromise on human welfare. Conclusion. Pro exaggerates the threat of climate change, and then proposes introducing a tax that would be altogether ineffective at countering it. He then proposes the alternative of nuclear power, which is even more harmful. I've shown that a carbon tax is an unnecessary authoritarian measure that reduces the disposable income of households, destroys jobs, causes companies to move, and can't even be implemented. In addition, I've shown that carbon emissions can be "outsourced," generating the same negative impact. For those reasons, vote Con.[1] http://www.phys.huji.ac.il...[2] http://www.dailymail.co.uk...[3] http://www.heraldsun.com.au...[4] http://www.eia.gov...[5] http://www.ucsusa.org...[6] http://usatoday30.usatoday.com...[7] http://www.nirs.org...[8] http://ieer.org...[9] https://www.theguardian.com...[10] http://www.forbes.com...