Persuasive Essay On Carbon Tax

Glaciers are thawing, sea levels are rising, and natural disasters are becoming harsher and more frequent. Those examples are just the tip of the (melting) iceberg when it comes to concerning environmental side effects of climate change (Effects, 2016). The urgency of this topic has many world lawmakers scrambling to come up with a solution that will slow, if not terminate, severe consequences caused by global warming. One idea being considered is a carbon tax. This is "a fee intended to make users of fossil fuels pay for climate damage their fuel use imposes by releasing carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, and also to motivate switches to cleaner energy (What, 2016)". In other words, a short-term solution where both everyday people and large industries will have to pay to use energy sources like crude oil, coal, and natural gasses for transportation, household energy usage, and production of manufactured goods. A
A carbon tax is in effect in Ireland, Chile, Sweden, and many other nations around the world. Ireland passed the law on fossil fuel users in 2010, yet most positive feedback said the country has "seen it's emissions drop more than 15 percent since 2008 (Rosenthal, 2012)." 2008 is years prior to the carbon tax which begs the question: how much of that is due to factors other than the tax? Both the New York Times and CDC wrote, "much of that decline can be attributed to a recession," which is a decrease in economic participation for an extended amount of time. Meaning, the reason carbon emissions went down was because of the global economic crash two years prior to the implementation of the tax, and actually had very little to do with the law. In addition, acknowledged researcher of carbon tax and economist at University College Dublin, Frank Convery, wrote, "Ireland is a pioneer in the implementation of a carbon tax. This has allowed us to avoid (more) increases in income