A libertarian Warmist?


Isn't he pretty?

It seems that Jerry Taylor is one.  He must be the only libertarian advocating a new tax.  He advocates a carbon tax in exchange for wiping all other State and Federal Warmist regulations.  And he states clearly that he believes in urgent action to limit CO2.  He is a Warmist.

When he was at Cato he was a climate skeptic.  He once compared Warmists to Maoists. Now he calls skeptics "denialists". So how come the big change?  He set up his own thinktank in 2014 called the Niskanen center.  It's stated objectives give the game away.  An excerpt:

Established in 2014, the Niskanen Center is a libertarian 501(c)(3) think tank that works to change public policy through direct engagement in the policymaking process: developing and promoting proposals to legislative and executive branch policymakers, building coalitions to facilitate joint action, and marshaling the most convincing arguments in support of our agenda.  The Center’s main audience is the Washington insiders – policy-oriented legislators, presidential appointees, career civil servants in planning, evaluation and budget offices, congressional committee staff, engaged academics, and interest group analysts – who together decide the pace and direction of policy change

He is getting on in years and he wants to be an insider.  Warmists are in power so he wants to be in there.  The sniff of power is what he wants.  He wants to feel significant before he dies.  He wants to feel important.  Ego has got the better of him.

His proposal to wipe all other Warmist regulations in exchange for a carbon tax  sounds like something that could be attractive to the Left and there may even be some sense in it but since we know what he really thinks it would seem that he has sold his soul for 30 pieces of silver.

There's some background on Taylor here and an interview with him here

Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).