Stephen Downes

It is of no real surprise to me that Alex Usher has read a completely different version of Mark Carney's book Value(s), even to the point of getting the title wrong. I've written a couple of posts about the book (part one, part two) and have some more parts planned, though there's no rush. Carney's thesis is not "about the importance of values", as Usher says, it is that "values determine value", which is totally different. And while consistency in a crisis is a good thing, it's not one of Carney's core values. And what becomes clear through reading Carney is that he never depicts things as binary good/bad. For all the good that carbon pricing (which in fact Carney barely talks about at all) produces, it's only one tool, and it's pretty easy to understand that if the concept has become toxic as a result of a misrepresentation as a 'carbon tax' then its utility changes. The value of carbon tax isn't determined by a simple calculation; it is derived from the complex of values we have as a society, for better or worse. (I won't discuss the Liberal party platform here because this isn't the place and because, without a corresponding Conservative platform, there's no real comparison to be made - if one ever appears you can check my other blogs for commentary, if you're interested).