SEATTLE NEWS ARCHIVES & FEATURES

Nobody believes a Washington state carbon tax will save the planet

Jul 29, 2015, 10:49 PM | Updated: Jul 30, 2015, 5:33 am

Dori asks, are you ready to get taxed much, much more in our state to reduce carbon emissions? (AP)...

Dori asks, are you ready to get taxed much, much more in our state to reduce carbon emissions? (AP)

(AP)

Taken from Wednesday’s edition of KIRO Radio’s Dori Monson Show.

Are you ready to get taxed much, much more in our state to reduce carbon emissions?

Jay Inslee, governor of the state, says he’s going to go it alone and pass executive action &#8212 so without the Legislature he is going to go ahead and take executive action to put a cap on carbon emissions.

Inslee’s statement:

“Carbon pollution and the climate change it causes pose a very real and existential threat to our state.”

Now, I’ve talked to the governor about this before. Passing billions in taxes onto the citizens of this state when we are a tiny, tiny percentage, a fraction of one percent of the worldwide carbon emissions &#8212 it’s not about saving the environment.

You can tax the citizens of Washington 100 percent and as long as China, India, and all of these other countries are pumping their carbon emissions into the atmosphere, it’s not going to make one bit of difference.

I don’t think anybody believes it’s going to make a difference. I don’t think the governor thinks it’s going to make a difference, but they see this as a way to exploit the ignorant among us. It’s just a lever for them to get more money from us.

What they’re talking about is rolling it back a few years. Well, statistically, that makes zero difference on global climate emissions. And taxing the people of Washington billions of dollars for zero impact &#8212 they are just hoping…

I fear that the media and the majority populous in this state are just knee-jerk reactionaries that they’ll accept it while not understanding that there is a cost of billions of dollars and a reward of zero, as far as helping the planet.

And maybe that’s why only 30 percent of voters in this state say that they want to re-elect Jay Inslee next year. Those are horrible poll numbers for the governor. In all fairness, only 25 percent say they’d be willing to elect a Republican opponent. So once again, it’s a general dissatisfaction with government rather than a specific statement.

Taken from Wednesday’s edition of KIRO Radio’s Dori Monson Show.

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Nobody believes a Washington state carbon tax will save the planet