I don’t post often about environmental things, but I found this interesting as I wandered around on MSN. The Republicans are looking at proposing a carbon tax.

If you aren’t familiar with the idea, that’s fine. I haven’t paid much attention to such in the past either. Carbon is created by burning fuel, so obviously this kind of idea hasn’t been popular in the past with Republicans or their energy and gas company supporters.

The fact that the Republican party relies so much on such groups for support is a part of what makes the source of this so surprising. They tore into Al Gore for recommending such an idea several years ago. Now they’re getting into it.

Now, I don’t consider myself to be a member of any one particular party. The two major ones annoy me too often and I just can’t find enough to agree with the smaller ones on. But seeing such a turnabout is fascinating. Such a tax would be a huge change, especially coming from a party which had mocked the idea for so long.

I would have to see how it comes about to know exactly how I feel about it. The problem with such taxes is that they can be regressive, that is, impacting the poor more than the rich, and I really don’t like that. On the other hand, I can see the point of charging people for excess carbon creation, which is a major environmental problem.

I suppose it really comes down to what they want to use the money for. If it’s to clean things up it might be a good idea. But if it’s just more random money for the budget to be used unwisely, I don’t know about it being such a good idea.