Why carbon tax?

Life became numerous around Cambrian Period, more than five hundred million years ago. Now we are in Quaternary Period, which began around 2.6 million years ago. Most of the time, Quaternary Period is ice age, with occasional interglacial periods. We are in one of the interglacial periods right now.

The current temperature of the earth is around the lowest temperature in the last five hundred million years. Why worry about the warming of the earth?

Some would say warming cause the rise of sea level. Since the end of the last glacial period about 12,000 years ago, sea level has risen over one hundred meters. At the same time, carrying capacity has increased tremendously due to higher temperature. Further rise of temperature will further increase the overall carrying capacity of the earth.

Many claim they hate warm weather. But most people will live in warmer weather if they have a choice. Canada is a vast country. The vast northern Canada have very few inhabitants. Canada is much larger than US. Canadian population is much smaller than US population.

Carbon is the backbone of life. Carbon dioxide is the essential nutrient for plants. Since carbon dioxide is so important to life, its concentration in atmosphere has become very low. At Venus and Mars, our neighbouring planets, carbon dioxide constitutes about 95% of the atmosphere. On the earth, there are only 0.04% carbon dioxide in Earth’s atmosphere. At 0.04% in atmosphere, carbon dioxide is a scarce resource for life. Why worry about the increase of carbon dioxide in atmosphere?

Some say planets only need 0.015% carbon dioxide to survive. 0.04% carbon dioxide is excess and dangerous. Some people survive on less than one dollar a day. Is anyone needing more than three dollar a day excess?

Some planets indeed need only 0.015% carbon dioxide to survive, when other conditions are optimal. At 0.04% carbon dioxide, more plants can survive and grow better in broader range of environment. When the levels of carbon dioxide increase further, plants grow even better. Farmers often pump carbon dioxide into greenhouses to promote plant growth.

Higher carbon dioxide and higher temperature are very beneficial to life in general and to human beings in particular. Why there is a high degree of consensus among academics to denounce the increase of carbon dioxide?

Academics, like politicians, reporters and farmers, need to make a living. Academic findings follow fundings. Fundings dictate findings. When fundings only support one type of opinion, academic findings will only align with that type of opinion.

 The talk of climate change has one purpose: To impose carbon tax. The official reason for carbon tax is to save the world. What is the real reason?

Before the imposing of carbon tax, the cost of energy is generally less than 5 cents per kilowatt hour. Human energy output for long term is roughly 100 watt, or 0.1 kilowatt. This means human labor value, from the energy perspective, worths less 1 cent per hour. But human labor value often costs more than 10 dollars per hour. This shows how cheap energy is priced currently. This also suggests that there is a potential room for 1000 fold increase for the cost of energy.

In other words, there is a potential for huge carbon tax in the future. This will represent the greatest wealth transfer in human history. This is why carbon tax is so aggressively pushed across the globe by the ruling class.

Related articles

Carbon dioxide and carrying capacity

https://blog.creaders.net/u/10630/202010/385883.html

Energy consumption and cost

https://blog.creaders.net/u/10630/201612/274227.html

Energy consumption and cost, a comparison with human power 

I summarize the average daily energy consumption per person and the associated costs in US. All numbers are approximate to give a sense of magnitude. Please correct me if the magnitude is wrong. For ease of comparison, all energy units are in kWh, kilowatt hour. 

To compare with human metabolic energy consumption and muscle power output, our metabolic energy consumption is roughly 100 watts, with a daily consumption of about 2 kWh. Our sustainable muscle power output is less than 100 watts. Assuming a 8 hour workday, human muscle power out is less than 1 kWh daily.

The prices of natural gas, gasoline and electricity per kWh in US are roughly 3, 6, and 12 cents. The average daily consumptions per person are 100, 30 and 10 kWh for natural gas, gasoline and electricity respectively. From the above numbers, natural gas is the cheapest and most consumed energy source while electricity is the most expensive and least consumed energy source. This is consistent with our intuition.

Overall, energy is extremely cheap. The total average daily energy cost, calculated from the above numbers, is only 6 dollars. The amount of energy consumption is higher than 170 human power output. This means we are hiring more than 170 human labours for 6 dollars. In other words, the value of our daily work, from the energy perspective, worth less than 5 cents. It is the employment of this extremely cheap energy source that we enjoy our energy intensive lifestyle, such as frequent long distance travels.

Many of us make more 500 dollars a day, which is 10,000 times of  5 cents, the price of our energy output. This extreme ratio is the reason why we enjoy such an affluent lifestyle. In a society where energy is scarce, our affluent lifestyle will also end.