December 22, 2019: Learning from the 'Balance of the planet'

At Marquette, I found another simulation, this one an environmental simulation, back when the major concerns were the coming Ice Age, Small is Beautiful, mass starvation, nuclear winter, acid rain, smog and other related environmental issues of the day. In this simulation, you had to manage carbon fuels while investing in alternative energies, recycling and other 'green' strategies. It was Balance of the Planet (https://youtu.be/CnRJE-7ZC3I).

Unlike MacManager, this game was relatively easy to 'game,' meaning that there was a relatively quick and obvious strategy. What the game rewarded was a massive tax on carbon -- and I mean really massive and increased regularly -- and a just as massive investment in green energies. The result would be an idyllic, garden of Eden world.

The lesson here was that a carbon tax could be the best way to reduce carbon use, but the tax revenues need to be directed wisely and the conversion should not be overnight. Rather, a long-term strategy of curbing carbon use, generating huge carbon tax revenues, and finding the best alternatives. Once carbon fuel markets became very expensive, the market found all sort of alternatives; the government need not play nanny or central planner.

Since that time I have been a strong supporter of carbon taxes, but only if these consumption or sin taxes reduced the taxes on work, income and wealth. Most of the first half and all of the second half of the equation is always ignored by the climate change alarmists. Like healthcare, if there is 'Medicare for all,' where will all the private insurance payments go? Will an employer's healthcare costs, now eliminated, go to increased wages? And if those wages are increased by the healthcare savings, will the raises be wiped out by the new healthcare taxes? Like highly regressive Social Security and Medicare taxes, most people pay more in these social insurance taxes than they do of federal income taxes. And then the top half of earners pay 95% of the federal income taxes.

Lesson learned? Simple, one-sided solutions usually make things worse and government-imposed 'solutions' usually negatively impact the very rights the government was supposed to ensure.