Nelson Otto
Jefferson City
Dear Editor:
In a recent letter to the editor the writer referred to Exxon Mobil as a support of climate skeptics and therefore any data from realists/skeptics wasn't valid. So I found this article in Energypost.eu by Paul Griffin entitled "Taxing carbon may sound like a good idea but does it work?" Very interesting as Exxon Mobil is financing lobbying for a U.S. plan to tax oil, gas and call companies for the carbon they emit. Exxon even gave $1 million to a group urging Washington to enact a carbon tax. Economists theory says the tax should curb the supply and demand for fossil fuels thus reducing emissions, but economists have to look at accumulated evidence so as not to repeat mistakes of the past.
According to the article "Unfortunately, the findings and outlook for carbon taxes alone as a way to reduce emissions are not promising. Studies, however, indicate that greenhouse gas emission reductions from carbon taxes have been mostly underwhelming." It is suggested by the author that Exxon and its peers would be absolving themselves of what someday could amount to trillions of dollars in liability due to climate change lawsuits. "Exxon Mobil's support for this carbon tax, in other words, does not signal any generous altruism on its part." In another article one of the cases against Exxon was dismissed because Exxon used the excuse that CO2 was a regulated pollutant and they were below the emissions levels set by the EPA and were therefore couldn't be held liable.
Gotta love it though, alarmists fight to have CO2 listed as a pollutant, rejoice at being successful and now the very companies they hate are using it to protect themselves from lawsuits. The same will happen with the carbon tax, just you and I will be paying for it in higher taxes.