Yoram Bauman, Ph.D. (economics) came to The Evergreen State College (TEST) on 10/30/13 in Olympia, WA to lecture as a proponent for carbon taxes in an effort to save the planet from global climate collapse.
Yoram bills himself as the world’s first and only stand-up economist with over 1 million hits on YouTube. He performs at colleges, corporations, and comedy clubs around the world. His PhD in economics is from the University of Washington and he teaches part-time at UW, at Lakeside High School in Seattle, and at Bainbridge Graduate Institute. He studies the economics of climate change and thinks carbon taxes can save the world.
He grew up in San Francisco, received an undergraduate degree in mathematics at Reed College in Portland, Oregon, then attended graduate school at the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington, receiving his Ph.D. in Economics in 2003.
Gar W. Lipow
Gar W. Lipow
Arrived & left early
Professor Larry Mosqueda on right
Unidentified Videographer
Yoram Bauman (left), Larry Mosqueda (right)
Yoram Bauman
Larry Mosqueda (left), Yoram Bauman (right)
Yoram Bauman reveals logo
Professors Peter Bohmer (left) & Larry Mosqueda (right)
Peter Bohmer, Larry Mosqueda, Yoram Bauman
Yoram Bauman
Peter Bohmer (left), Larry Mosqueda (right)
Unidentified Videographer w/Sony camcorder
Larry Mosqueda (left), Yoram Bauman (right)
Gar W. Lipow
Gar W. Lipow
Larry Mosqueda (left), Yoram Bauman (right)
Professors Peter Bohmer (left), Larry Mosqueda (right)
unidentified attendees
Mary ‘Spokane’ Hathaway (left), et ux
Bauman is an ‘environmental economist’, working as a teacher at the University of Washington, in the Program on the Environment, Bainbridge Graduate School, and Lakeside School. He is the co-author of the 1998 book, Tax Shift, which advocates switching taxation from income and property to resource consumption.
Bauman proved brittle for a ‘comedienne’ when challenged on the morality of applying a ‘tax’ to CO2 emissions as the critic compared it to tax dioxin emissions or any other catastrophic environmental pollutant. A shift from taxing income and property for resource consumption might prove attractive to those on the lower rungs of the economic ladder, but appears to fly in the face of the primary argument in favor of capitalism’s existence as the dominant current form of economies the world over. Mr. Bauman didn’t provide an opportunity for a follow up question regarding whether taxing bad/destructive behavior doesn’t constitute tacit approval for those who can afford to indulge in it. Capitalism currently affords rewards and protections for the most conspicuous/gluttonous consumption despite some taxation on accumulated wealth/property. His proposal would remove even that limited barrier to insufferable displays of consumption at the expense of the dispossessed with a system designed to increase privilege by allowing those most favored capitalists to deplete the world’s resources, pollute the environment, and letting the Devil take the hindmost for want of them keeping up with the more financially secure Jones. The ‘diamond lane’ perversity of allowing single occupant vehicles whose drivers can afford it to utilize what the rest must refrain from doing under penalty of law would be visited in a far more pernicious form to how resources, including activities like air/water/environmental pollution, would be distributed. Once again, the wealthy would find themselves in the catbird seat while those with less wherewithal would be relegated to subsisting on ever fewer scraps, gasping for a breath of clean air and fighting debilitating illnesses from unclean water.
Mr. Bauman freely admitted his approach to the science of economics was amoral. His co-lecturer, Nobel Laureate Gar W. Lipow, who has authored Cooling A Fevered Planet, defended his colleague’s position on the subject of permitting continued emissions of CO2 into the atmosphere through a scheme of taxes, cap & trade, and those machination within existing financial empires planning on taking full advantage of such schemes.
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In defense of his carbon tax scheme for Washington State (which he hinted was already a ‘done deal’), Yoram says, “I spend a lot of free time working on carbon taxes, especially revenue-neutral carbon taxes (where the revenue from the carbon tax goes to reduce existing taxes). I even talk about it in my comedy routines, and to some extent I do comedy so that I can talk to people about carbon pricing. So… why? Three reasons. One, climate change has the potential to be a huge huge issue this century: I’m not convinced that a climate catastrophe is looming, but I think the threat of a climate catastrophe should be taken seriously. Two, economics has a lot to add to this discussion: the theory of externalities, cost-benefit analysis, economic instruments like carbon taxes and cap-and-trade… all of these and more make economics a crucial part of the discussion; people who wonder what economists have to say about environmental issues couldn’t be more wrong. Three, economists more or less agree on what should be done. This is very different than, say, many questions in macroeconomics, which everyone agrees are important but which elicit wildly different opinions from experts. In contrast, just about all economists think that putting a price on carbon (with a carbon tax or cap-and-trade system, but especially with a revenue-neutral carbon tax) is necessary if not sufficient in tackling climate change. Paul Krugman, Greg Mankiw, arguably even Milton Friedman, the list goes on.
In short, I’m hoping I can add an economist’s voice (and to a great extent the voice of almost all economists) to the discussion of a major policy issue. That seems like a good way to spend part of my life.”
