Did you see the claim that $200/t carbon tax would only cut a tiny impact on climate change, specifically 4%?
Well, there's a bit of "science news cycle" telephone going on... 1/n

https://twitter.com/RBrulle/status/1155654110101803008

Let's start with the abstract.

https://twitter.com/mmildenberger/status/1155605563767701504

Pretty clear, right? Actually, the details really matter...

Heal and Schlenker 2019 model the impact of a Pigouvian carbon tax on cumulative oil-associated CO2. Let's step through what this means term by term.

Did you hear how cotton bags are worse than plastic bags, specifically 7000x worse? Well, the story is much more complicated than that. I find 3 major problems & 2 minor problems, and I fault not only the media but also the LCA study's authors. ... 1/n First, some bad takes:
-"nobody possibly uses their cotton bags 7000x - cotton is so much worse than plastic"
-"everything we do is bad for the environment (pick your poison!), AND the greenies who love cotton and organic are literally the WORST" 2/n

Idea:
Communicating in 1GW-nuclear-reactor-electric-output-equivalents could be helpful, since TWh/yr can be inaccessible & a nuclear reactor might be more tangible (for some).
Divide TWh/yr by 8 to get 1 unit of "reactor-equivalent." Trying this out... 1/

https://twitter.com/arthurhcyip/status/1113318474925973504

Electric energy generation in US, 2018 & change from 2017

In units of 1GW-nuclear-reactor-electricity-output-equivalent

Nuclear: 101, +0.3
Renewables: 93, +4
Coal: 143, -7.5
Nat gas: 184, +21

Total: 522, +18

With these simple units, here are some arithmetic + observations: 2/