Around the time Al Gore's movie came out, a number of conservatives criticized the film for not advocating a carbon tax. By obscuring the necessity of that policy choice, he was making his case look too easy, and the solutions artificially simple. But whether he popped it into the film, Gore has long been a lover of carbon taxes, and today he came out for one (and basically every other pro-renewable policy you can think of) in a major speech at NYU.
The address is an enormously detailed look at global warming and the myriad ways in which America could respond, so I urge interested readers to take a look at the whole thing. For now, however, I want to comment on the most buzz-worthy of Gore's proposals: He wants to eliminate all payroll taxes (including those for Social Security, unemployment, and Medicare) and replace the revenue with pollution taxes. The proposal would be revenue neutral, which is to say that total revenue would be precisely the same. Which, concerns about progressivity aside, seems impossible.
