Clear the Air

Climate change has been called everything from a hellscape to a hoax. Both characterizations are political dead ends: the former because it feeds a sense of futility (“What’s the point?”) and the latter because it excuses business as usual (“Drill, baby, drill”). Between these extremes, however, is the promise that we can take steps to lower emissions and adapt to a hotter planet. After all, hope comes in doing, and it can be found in small, everyday acts, like driving less or eating local, and in large-scale public policies, including a price, or a tax, on carbon.

No one says pricing carbon will solve the climate emergency, because it won’t — there being no magic bullet. As the name suggests, a carbon tax is just that: a tax on carbon. If you want to burn coal, oil, or natural gas, it’s going to cost you, at the smokestack or at the pump. But industry can lower its tax burden by investing in efficiencies and economies, and consumers who don’t want to pay more to...