It seems like I'm not the only one talking about carbon emissions from air travel.  The New York Times reports today on the challenges of reducing emissions from low-cost airlines even as fuel prices rise.

The growth in emissions from air travel had “far exceeded growth by any other mode,” a European Environment Agency report issued this year said. Between 1990 and 2005, the last full year from which data were available, total carbon dioxide emissions from aviation in the European Union grew by 73 percent.

“This could threaten the ability of the E.U. to meet increasingly ambitious emission reduction targets,” the report’s authors said.

The climate change debate began in ernest in the Senate yesterday afternoon.  Few are questioning the science anymore; the earth is warming.  The question is how best to control carbon emissions to reduce future global warming?

We economists usually recommend a carbon tax as the best way to go as Andrew eloquently explained on NPR last night.  We like that fact that the tax is explicit, not hidden, that it is efficient, minimizing collateral damage to the economy, and that it is effective, raising the price of greenhouse gas emissions and encouraging alternatives.

I kid my friends that "I formulated three carbon taxes for Bob Dole back in the early 1980's that are still in his filing cabinet."  I'd be very surprised if the former Senate Finance Chair really kept them, but the fact that they were formulated at all shows that Senate leaders, then as now, were fully aware of of the advantages of a carbon tax.  That none of those proposals saw the light of day is conclusive evidence that:

Political leaders don't want

I was on NPR's Marketplace this evening with a commentary titled, "We need a carbon tax on gasoline."  Here's the teaser:

Can you put a price on pollution? That's the question Congress takes up this week as they begin debate on the Climate Security Act of 2008. The legislation would enact a cap-and-trade system, whereby large polluters would buy and sell emission permits.

Commentator and economist Andrew Samwick has taken a look at his carbon output and his family's. He says if we're serious about cleaning up our act, we should consider a straight tax on carbon.

In a nutshell, while it is true that the largest part of our emissions come from automobiles, plenty still come from heating our homes and traveling by air.  The more emission reduction we can get at the thermostat and in the air, the less we need to squeeze out of automobiles.

Enjoy!

Last week, renowned philosopher Dan Dennett visited Dartmouth as part of the Neukom Institute's symposium on "The Human Algorithm." He gave a thought-provoking keynote address affirming the brain as a type of computer (with a competitive, not cooperative, design) and the mind as software. I've been reading through some of his other writings and thought this one, with the same title as the post, would be interesting to share. Here's my favorite part:

Noam Neusner, one of President Bush's former economic speechwriters with whom I worked while at the CEA, has a nice piece in the Forward this week taking passionate but casual environmentalists to task for not living up to their own policy prescriptions. 

His editorial reminded me of an observation I made about conservation (this time while on the ground) during my trip to San Francisco last month.  There is no carpool lane on U.S. 101 south of the city until you get to San Mateo county and, in particular, south of the airport.  Ever the economist, I made sure to check that this was not because Bay Area commuters seemed to carpool extensively without need of those pesky incentives.  Plenty of driver-only vehicles, maybe a bit fewer driver-only SUVs than other places I've been.  I've decided that I'll defer to the Google folks on conservation and alternative energy.  The rest of you Hippie-Crites in SF can call me when you get a carpool lane on the major North/South artery.  Reach me on my cell phone as I'm walking to work.

Transportation Secretary Mary Peters announced an acceleration in the CAFE standards this afternoon.  I think a gasoline tax is superior to the CAFE standards as a policy mechanism to reduce CO2 emissions.  From the Vox Baby classic, "Don't Linger in this CAFE:"

I've been on the road this week for the Samwick family sorta-annual trip to the Bay area. The trip out here, originally scheduled for a Boston to San Francisco nonstop, would read like one of those Fortunately/Unfortunately stories we remember from childhood. It is amazing that the airline industry survives in any form with fuel costs as high as they are and fares as low as they are.

Let's run the numbers:

4 seats x 2700 miles/segment x 2 segments = 21600 seat-miles

21600 seat-miles / 60 seat miles per gallon (here or here) = 360 gallons

360 gallons x $2.60 per gallon (here) = $936

Monica Prasad, a sociology professor at Northwestern, holds forth on the successes and "failures" of carbon taxes in Europe in an op-ed in today's New York Times.  She makes two key points about implementation in Denmark, the country where emissions actually fell after the tax was imposed.  I think Prasad is mistaking sufficient conditions for necessary conditions.  Here is the main part of her argument: