I'll sort through the comic strip and leave some arguments. Take what you will and form a rebuttal.
"Environmental policy is not a matter of black and white.""They are the unintended side-effects of human progress and development?""Human progress is merely a series of unintended side-effects, children!" FAIL. Refusing to assign value to the actions of INDIVIDUALS consequently leads to the notion that it is acceptable to measure the value of action at a societal level, which is ethically nihilistic and ultimately bears no responsibility for the creation of "good" OR "bad", however the author perceives these concepts.
While green may be a color residing somewhere between the poles of black and white, the author's advocacy of 'green taxes' several panels down is actually a painfully failing 'black and white' concept.
The comic is self-defeating:
"Economic markets fail when the total costs of an activity are not measured by its price."First off, 'economic markets' is a redundancy in terms, absurdly suggesting there are markets not based in economics.
Secondly, the solution this comic strip concludes upon is to socially engineer (read: force) a solution, which is an explicit disregard for the 'total costs' of said activity. Again, this is self defeating as it destroys the argument for value.
"If the total societal costs are not internalised by the company conducting an activity...""... these costs are 'externalized' and passed to society to remedy."The argument cannot qualify itself as value judgments are formed by, and serve to inform, individuals. Society is not a concept which can be measured on an economic level. This form of argumentation tends to imply that the author knows best what "society", aka billions of individuals, want, and therefore presumes to make value judgments on behalf of it.
The author mentions 'the company', implying that the subject matter is solely applicable to 'companies'. Government is the largest cause/enabler of pollution and harm to individuals.
"This is an inefficient way for our world to operate, and it is created unintentionally by our current laws and mindset."Opinion, followed by a potentially useful fact, followed by a collective generalization.
"Our current approach to taxation is twisted and tangled."One day you'll get it right, I'm sure...
"So often it discourages the activities we want more of...""...and encourages activities that we want less of"The author is following a train of thought which leads to a personality disorder, insanity, or at the worst a series of contradicting and indefensible beliefs.
"Our current system throws a blanket over all businesses operating in the economy, regardless of the burden their activities place on society and the environment."Solution: Businesses that operate outside of the economy?? Profit!? (Think this one has been tried before)
Author is relying on oversimplified characterizations (society, environment, business, pollution, current system, etc) and trying to demonstrate their relationships like some half-baked Greek philosopher explaining the classical elements of nature. It does not stand the test of scrutiny when challenging each element and the perspective by which they are measured.
Speaking of half baked Greeks...
http://www.ashersarlin.com/archives/2005/01/oh_come_on_plat.php"We need a "green tax shift"..."Old faithful...
It gets better in the following panel, where the author argues, in black and white, that 'good activities' should be taxed less, while 'bad activities' should be taxed more. It even has cute antonyms sprinkled between the two sides, such as "services" and "disservices"
This comic strip insults its own target audience, which appears to be 4th graders.
"Following a green tax shift, the tax a business pays would be proportional to the amount of waste generated."And libertarians or agorists are accused of being utopians???
"...let's turn industry itself into the force that reverses humanity's impact on the planet."Enforcement of this author's utopian vision brings up more questions than answers. If the solution is to use government to influence change, then politicians have a mandate to grow the government, which is an ever-expanding sink-hole with the nasty side effect of attracting people who want to seize power so they can be above the law, or so that corporate friends can benefit. Repeat indefinitely by growing enforcement if you need more fail to convince you.
If people can't be motivated to see the good in an activity, then what purpose is there in using force? Furthermore, if you object to violence, pollution, or any other harm, why would you entrust the government to solve for these when it is evidently inadequate and clearly detrimental?
A side note: Here in the "green" state, you can't set up tall wind power generators on YOUR OWN PROPERTY because people feel they are entitled to a view. These are the green aesthetes as I like to call them. They aren't much different from environmentalists actually who want to force their opinions on others.