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Raising money with taxes is practicable in theory, but what do you do with the revenue?  Buy new power producers for utilities?  Build wind/solar and sell to utilities?

Would that appreciably make things happen faster than they are now? 

I'd focus on closing the coal power plants, as I said, but even that sounds tough.

The revenue from the carbon tax goes to the SS/Medicare trust fund, to replace the lost revenue from the payroll tax. I'm not trying to "raise" revenue, I'm trying to change the revenue source such that it discourages the use of fossil fuels rather than discourages employment. 

Taxes make things more expensive. Subsidies make things cheaper. The key accelerant towards adoption of cleaner energy sources isn't the raw price of those sources, but the relative price of those sources. 

The key is that we--as a society--don't necessarily care WHICH clean energy source ends up winning the race relative to carbon. We're not "pro-solar", we're "anti-CO2". So instead of trying to pick winners, why not just implement a carbon tax to put a handicap on the one we all want to lose and then see who wins the race?

Lake Michigan (Huron) is at an all-time high, which is being blamed on climate change.


In 2013, when Lake Michigan (Huron) were all-time lows, it was blamed on global warming.


I see what they did there.

Lake Erie is at it's highest levels since 1986.It's been so wet the last month people are starting to resemble tadpoles

The key is that we--as a society--don't necessarily care WHICH clean energy source ends up winning the race relative to carbon. We're not "pro-solar", we're "anti-CO2". So instead of trying to pick winners, why not just implement a carbon tax to put a handicap on the one we all want to lose and then see who wins the race?

I bet if nuclear "won", people would care.

I bet if nuclear "won", people would care.

I'm not anti-nuke. If it is the most economical solution, then let's do it. 

some people would

some folks don't care for wind power

Lots of folks don't care for wind power. Especially those who live nearby. That lease money looked good up front, and then flicker happens.

I thought Flicker was some TV show about a dolphin or something ...

There have been numerous projections in history that humanity was going to kill itself off, Malthus is the most famous perhaps.  There was the Population Bomb circa 1970 ss I recall.  In about 1890, someone did a projection of the amount of horse poop over time in NYC and stated they'd be 10 feet deep and unable to remove it all in ten years, or something like that.  I clearly recall the various "Zero Oil" arguments in 1980 or so and even bought a more fuel efficient car because I thought gasoline prices would only go higher and higher and higher.

Missed projections of course do not mean the next one is not right, but it is a sobering reminder that our models may have errors.

All models are wrong, some models are useful.

My hope for climate change is that the models are wrong the right way, and of course they could be wrong in the bad way.  I see no practicable means to limit CO2 emissions globally fast enough to make sufficient difference in the outcome.  Humanity MIGHT with some effort level CO2 emissions by say 2030, I doubt even that happens, but it's possible, and that would not be sufficient.