A funny economist gets serious about carbon taxes on CNN.com

Yoram Bauman on carbon taxes on CNN.com:

Yoram Bauman learned about the idea that would change his life, and the course of the world, as a nerdy undergraduate at Reed College.

The economics professor's pitch was so simple he couldn't shake it.

 

We should make bad stuff more expensive.

And, by doing that, make good stuff cheaper.

 

"I remember thinking that it was such an intellectually beautiful idea," he told me.

 

It is beautiful. And, as it turns out, this old theory, which dates back at least to the 1920s and an economist named Arthur Pigou, is essential to fixing one of the world's biggest problems.