“Professor Dolan is invited to study the Hayek literature to see if any of the above nine points are not valid. The burden of proof is on him to try to square a classical liberal with disputed externality pricing, ‘tax-bads’ public finance, international tariffs, equity tax-dividend adjustments, and government planning.”
Yale economics PhD Ed Dolan recently attempted to link the classical liberal scholar F. A. Hayek (1899–1992) to a carbon tax in a piece published by the (misnamed) Niskanen Center. [1]
“Friedrich Hayek on Carbon Taxes” is more than unconvincing. It is shoddy. It fails to make its point and (purposefully?) neglects the obvious themes of Hayekian economics and political economy for a generic issue such as climate change.
Professor Dolan begins by admitting that Hayek never wrote anything on the subject.…
…“Watch what happens in Paris carefully to see if all that the leaders do is sign off on the pap that UN bureaucrats are putting together, indulgences and promises to reduce future emissions, and then clap each other on the back and declare success.”
“Big Green consists of several ‘environmental’ organizations, including Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) and National Resources Defense Council (NRDC), each with $100+M budgets, each springing from high-minded useful beginnings, each with more high-priced lawyers than you can shake a stick at. EDF …was chief architect of the disastrous Kyoto lemon. NRDC proudly claims credit for Obama’s EPA strategy and foolishly allows it to migrate to Paris.”
– James Hansen, “Isolation of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue: Part I,” November 27, 2015.
“[The Paris agreement] is a fraud really, a fake.
“Energy consumption is not a villain. Nations that consume the most energy per person discharge the lowest level of air and water pollutants per person. Low-cost energy provides economic growth and generates capital for pollution control.”
Editor note: Steve Goreham has written another primer of note. The author of Climatism!: Science, Common Sense, and the 21st Century’s Hottest Topic (2010) and The Mad, Mad World of Climatism: Mankind and Climate Change (2012), Goreham has just published a fun, readable book with great political timing.
The audience for Outside the Green Box: Rethinking Sustainable Development is not only any classroom studying energy choices and related public policies. Goreham is targeting the green consultant. The back cover explains:
…Your firm spends millions to be environmentally sustainable. Carbon credits, renewable energy, ethanol fuel, and electric vehicles demonstate your company’s commitment.