Archive of Quotes of Note

Once people have to pay for their emissions, they find ingenious ways of reducing them.”

Cornell University economics professor Robert H. Frank, in Shattering Myths to Help the Climate, NY Times Sunday Business section, August 3.

A straight-up, revenue-neutral carbon tax clearly is our first-best policy, rewarding an infinite and unpredictable variety of innovations by which humans would satisfy their energy needs while releasing less carbon into the atmosphere.”

Wall Street Journal columnist Holman W. Jenkins, Jr. in Birth of a Climate Mafia, July 2.

The history of leaving $100 bills buried in the ground is really a short one.”

M.I.T. professor of environmental economics Michael Greenstone, in The Potential Downside of Natural Gas, by Matt Wald, NY Times, June 3.

When you pay for something, you don’t ask for more you ask for less.

NYC resident “Omar,” heard on a March 26 Radio 1010-WINS news report on proposed City legislation requiring retailers to charge 10 cents for bags. (Sorry, no audio link.)