The Consensus Has Spoken

All Hail the Consensus!

For the past few decades, we've been told that burning fossil fuels that emit CO₂ is an Intolerable Burden on Future Generations (frequently from people who also tell us not to produce future generations). For some reason, they have not been that eager to quantify the damage. Now, at long last, we have a figure on how much damage that CO₂ does. According to the consensus, the Social Cost of Carbon is $21 per ton of CO₂. That's $1 per day for Americans. That's it.

Needless to say, this has produced whining in some quarters. Apparently, we're supposed to believe the consensus unless it's useless for the plan to bring down Western civilization.

Meanwhile, we can publish a guide book, “Destroying the Planet on $1 a Day.”

On the other hand, just in case the high-end estimate of the Social Cost of Carbon ($321 per ton) is accurate, that amounts to around $40 per barrel of oil, a livable (but painful) amount. What's more, a carbon tax of $321 per ton will not only be enough to make nukes economically unbeatable, it will be enough to make nukes politically unbeatable as well.