Most Californians Have Decided.
“California Needs to Decide If It Wants Low Carbon or Low Gasoline Prices.”
That’s the title of an article published by the “Haas Energy Center,” part of the University of California, Berkeley.
From James Bushnell, a professor of economics at UC Davis who received his Ph.D. In Career Research. The article is here.
First, as co-blogger Pierre Lemieux is quick to point out, this article has the wrong title. “California” cannot decide anything; it is not a sentient being.
But Californians, if they’re like most Americans—and they might not—have already made up their minds.
In his long article, Bushnell talks about the trade-off between lower fuel prices and lower carbon consumption. But, unless I missed it, he doesn’t give the reader a sense of how much Californians have to pay to meet the goals set forth by the California Air Resources Board (CARB.) My sense is that it’s too expensive.
But maybe Californians are willing to bear the big cost to reduce carbon consumption, right?
It’s wrong.
“68% of Americans Wouldn’t Pay $10 a Month in Higher Electricity Bills to Fight Climate Change,” Cato at LibertyMarch 8, 2019, Emily Ekins, vice president and polling director of the Cato Institute, presented a graph that speaks volumes. Part of it is in the title of his episode. And $10 a month should be a huge understatement. The cost of having a significant impact on global temperatures would almost certainly be at least $100 per month. Only 16% of the people asked would agree to pay that amount.
Although Bushnell doesn’t give us cost numbers to compare to the numbers in the survey, in a very early article, Robert P. Murphy does. He cited an MIT study that found a generic cap and trade program would cost $3,100 for the average household. As Murphy pointed out, although the MIT professor strongly disputed the citation of his number, he did not deny it. Instead, he argued that, because the income would be returned to the people, the total cost per household would be “only” $800 a year. As Murphy noted, however, for that to be true, income would have to be effectively reduced. Does that sound like the government you and I know?
But let’s assume, against all evidence, that the government has distributed income fairly. A sum of $800, when this MIT professor wrote (he said in 2008), adjusted by the Consumer Price Index, would be about $950 in 2019, when Emily Ekins wrote. That’s $80 a month. Only 15% of people surveyed would pay $75 a month.
So, again, unless Californians are very different from the rest of America–and unless Californians have changed a lot on this issue in 5 years–James Bushnell can rest easy. Most Californians have spoken.
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