Proposal: Take sunlight, ocean water and atmospheric nitrogen and make ammonia. Ship ammonia to where it's needed as fertilizer or fuel. Extract hydrogen from the ammonia to power aircraft.
All I'm claiming is this proposal deserves study as one possibility for how a capitalistic economy can turn challenge into opportunity. Is there a role for public policy in facilitating capital to flow to where it is urgently needed to meet a big challenge we face?
Proposal: Not to destroy capitalism but to preserve it, we need mechanisms to price fossil carbon emissions at their true costs. A carbon tax is one way to price carbon emissions. A carbon tax is not an assault on capitalism. It's about successful capitalism through good accounting practices.
An inherent downside of a carbon tax is that it's a regressive tax in that it has more impact at lower incomes. That has to be addressed too.
Proposal: Clean the Darn Air is a 2020 ballot measure campaign in Utah that proposes $100 million a year for air quality programs, $50 million a year for rural economic development, and long-needed tax reforms like eliminating the state sales tax on grocery store food, all of it paid for with a modest carbon tax on the fossil fuels that are the main source of both local air quality problems and global climate change.
Charles Ashurst, Logan