How can you disbelieve directly-observed physics? The carbon dioxide molecule in the upper atmosphere absorbs energy and re-emits it in all directions, trapping heat below. Carbon dioxide emissions have been increasing for some time, and that’s only one greenhouse gas.

Let’s say you're my neighbor and I burn piles of trash in my yard, and the smoke gets in through the screen door and causes damage throughout your house, what is the right thing to do? I should pay you for the damages I caused.

If around the world people burn fossil fuels and the years pass and the greenhouse gases trap enough heat that the glaciers melt and the ocean swallows peninsulas, lowlands, and coastal cities, and the deserts grow and farms are abandoned and people starve and attack each other and die, what is the right thing to do? The fossil fuel burners should pay for the damages, and we should go even further and use that revenue to prevent these future catastrophes, because as we know an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. In short: A carbon tax is right because it charges active polluters to offset the negative externality of carbon-intense energy production.

That is what environmental responsibility demands of us all. Even Gary Johnson, the penultimate small government champion, argued that there is a place in government for environmental protection. At some point, I expect a cap-and-trade system to be a widely supported and common sense policy in America. I appreciate that you give environmental issues at least some concern, so many conservatives do not.