February 2017 Macro Pulse -- Carbon Taxes: 21-Century Bloodletting Therapy?

Difficult as it may be to imagine today, bloodletting was used well into the 19th century as the “go-to” treatment for hysteria, heart disease and just about every other imaginable malady. In fact, bloodletting for treatment of a still-undiagnosed ailment likely contributed to the untimely passing of the first U.S. president, George Washington.

Today, we are told, a malady is upon us – one that, unless dealt with quickly and decisively, will result in the interrelated calamities of drought, flooding, famine, rising sea levels, and world war. That malady is the crisis of anthropogenic (i.e., human-caused) climate change (ACC) – more commonly called global warming – in which the average temperature of the Earth’s climate system is increasing as the result of greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, being released into the atmosphere, mainly by burning fossil fuels. Debating whether or not the ACC “science is settled” – or the existence of ulterior motives associated with suggested remedies – is beyond the scope of this publication; rather, our focus here is on a method being proposed in the United States to address the crisis.

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The Macro Pulse blog is a commentary about recent economic developments affecting the forest products industry. The monthly Macro Pulse newsletter typically summarizes the previous 30 days of commentary available on this website.