Charles Komanoff launched the Carbon Tax Center (“CTC”) in 2007 to give voice to Americans who believe that taxing emissions of carbon dioxide — the primary greenhouse gas — is imperative to reduce global warming. He brought to CTC  decades of experience in economics, public policy and social change. Today, Charles serves as CTC director, while James Handley, a chemical engineer and attorney who previously worked for private industry and for U.S. EPA, serves as our Washington D.C. rep.

Program Description

Panel: How Will A Carbon Tax Change Our Lives?

Friday, Nov 1, 2013

6:00pm- doors open, light refreshments will be served

6:30pm- panel begins

Rauschenberg Project Space
455 W. 19th Street
New York, NY

This structured conversation will look past the usual numbers and policy-talk surrounding a carbon tax and consider whether and how enactment of a U.S. carbon tax will impact larger/deeper cultural values about energy use, mobility, consumption and acquisitiveness. In short, will a carbon tax begin to de-valorize consumption and re-valorize awareness of and affiliation with the natural world?

The panelists:

Denis Hayes: Author, organizer, activist. Chair of the Seattle-based Bullitt Foundation that advances sustainability in the Pacific NW. Former director of the U.S. Solar Energy Research Institute, co-founder and coordinator of Earth Day (1970).

Elizabeth Yeampierre: Attorney, organizer, activist. Founder and e.d. of United Puerto Rican Organization of Sunset Park (UPROSE), Brooklyn’s oldest Latino community-based organization. Spearhead of the NYC Environmental Justice Alliance (NYEJA). Former chair of USEPA’s National Environmental Justice Advisory Council.

Juliet Schor: Professor of sociology at Boston College. Author of four books, including “The Overspent American: Why We Want What We Don’t Need” (1999) and, most recently, “Plenitude: The New Economics of True Wealth”(2010). Co-founder of the Center for a New American Dream.

Tim DeChristopher: Activist, student at Harvard Divinity School. Co-founder of the civil disobedience environmental group Peaceful Uprising, recently (2013) released from federal prison for successfully hacking an oil and gas lease auction in wild redrock country. Profiled in the documentary film, “Bidder 70.”

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Special Thanks

Ballroom Marfa
Public Concern Foundation
Robert Rauschenberg Foundation