Can a Conservative Push Republicans from 'Scientific Denialism' to a Carbon Tax?

Jerry Taylor considers himself a convert on climate change.  But others might wonder whether climate change converted his conservatism.

White-bearded and slim, Taylor is the newest conservative outlier to promote aggressive action on greenhouse gas emissions.  He left his post as vice president at the libertarian Cato Institute last year to make the case for what might be one of the least-liked policies in Republican circles:  a new tax.  His tax would be on carbon dioxide.

Taylor, now president of his own policy shop, the Niskanen Center, says Republicans are losing the fight over climate change.  They look "alien" and "odd" to the public by rejecting atmospheric science and other areas, like gay marriage, he said.  He also dismisses conservative arguments about a warming hiatus and warns that Democrats are primed to establish tough emissions policies, largely because Republicans refuse to talk lucidly about climbing temperatures.
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"The Republican Party, I think, has a branding problem," Taylor said in a recent interview. "Increasingly, they look odd to the American people on a number of different fronts.  And climate is one of them.  You don't find this kind of vigorous scientific denialism outside of certain bastions in the right in the GOP."

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