"A gasoline tax will reduce global warming, reduce depletion of petroleum reserves and cause the price of petroleum to fall"

A good point made on Robert's Stochastic Thoughts:

"Major category error...

((( I SHOULD ADMIT THAT I RARELY USE THIS PHRASE SINCE I ASSOCIATE WITH RYLE, A PHILOSOPHER I CAN'T ABIDE.

A category mistake, or category error, is a semantic or ontological error by which a property is ascribed to a thing that could not possibly have that property. All (propositional) mistakes involve some sort of misascription of properties, so in a sense any mistake is a "category mistake": putting a thing into a class to which it does not belong. But a "category mistake" in colloquial philosophical usage seems to be the most severe form of misascription, involving the endorsement of what is in fact logically impossible. Thus the mistaken claim that "Most Americans are atheists" is not a category mistake, since it is merely contingently true that most Americans are theists. On the other hand, "Most bananas are atheists" is a category error. To show that a category mistake has been committed one must typically show that once the phenomenon in question is properly understood, it becomes clear that the claim being made about it could not possibly be true.)))

... from Harvard Philosophy concentrator.

Matthew Yglesias writes

"Given what we’ve learned about the risks of catastrophic climate change, it [] seems like a concept that’s been somewhat overtaken by events. A carbon tax, or a cap on greenhouse gas emissions with auctioned permits, would constitute a tax on gasoline among other things. And there’s no particular( SPECIFIC ) reason that burning fuel in a car should be disfavored versus other carbon-intensive activities."

via Kevin Drum
http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/index.html?welcome=true

The fact that there is a reason to tax both coal and petroleum consumption does not mean that "there is no patricular reason that burning fuel in a car should be disfavored compared to other carbon-intensive activities."( I DON'T SEE THE CATEGORY ERROR. HE SIMPLY IS WRONG ABOUT THE FACT THAT THERE ARE PARTICULAR OR OTHER REASONS. ) A newly understood problem with petroleum consumption doesn't eliminate that many excellent longer understood reasons to limit petroleum consumption. It can't. A newly discovered problem with burning gasoline and other things can't eliminate the case that burning gasoline is worse. A positive number plus a constant is greater than 0 plus a constant. ( GOOD POINTS )


Those of us who are roughly twice Yglesias's age remember the original logic of a gasoline tax, which was designed to reduce dependence on foreign oil. That argument is, for some reason, out of fashion, but it is much more compelling now than it was then.( TRUE )

The fact that we have a new concern -- global warming -- which will be partially addressed by a gasoline tax isn't and can't be a reason why burning fossile fuels in cars isn't particularly bad( TRUE ). The case for a carbon tax as opposed to a carbon tax plus a gasoline tax is that there is no problem with gasoline consumption except for global warming( NOT TRUE ).

It is odd that criticism of this nonsensical position from the author of dozens of "peak oil" posts is so measured.

A gasoline tax will reduce global warming, reduce depletion of petroleum reserves and cause the price of petroleum to fall. It is fairly likely that the cost will be entirely born by oil exporting countries and not at all by -- well us.

If one opposes a gasoline tax, one should logically advocate aid for Kuwait Saudi Arabia and Russia. If that sounds crazy then so is the current minimal US gasoline tax."

We should add the tax now while the price of gas is low.