Jerry Taylor

Jerome Cogburn "Jerry" Taylor (born August 2, 1962) is an American environmental activist and policy analyst. Taylor is the president of the Niskanen Center, a Washington, D.C. based think tank that advocates for market environmentalism and the adoption of a carbon tax system to combat global warming.

Early life and education

Taylor attended the University of Iowa as a political science major. As a student, Taylor became an editor of the Hawkeye Review, an conservative student newspaper that served as an alternative to the Daily Iowan. Taylor's activism stirred several controversies including the alleged plagiarism of a Joseph Sobran column from National Review in the Daily Iowan, and his involvement in a harassment campaign against LGBT patrons at a local gay bar. When asked about the controversy, Taylor responded "I was a version of the campus conservatives who invite Milo [Yiannopoulos] to campus" and indicated he had since changed his views.

Career

Before founding the Niskanen Center in 2014, Taylor was a senior fellow at the Cato Institute, where he previously espoused a skeptical position on environmental issues. Taylor's case is a prominent example of a former climate-change skeptic who came to embrace policies to address climate change after researching the scientific consensus behind man-made global warming. During the 1990s and 2000s Taylor made regular media appearances as a global warming skeptic, including on Penn and Teller's show Bullshit as well as a special edition of the John Stossel show devoted to attacking climate science. Taylor changed his prior beliefs because "the scientific evidence became stronger and stronger over time." In 2015, Taylor published a recantation entitled the "Conservative Case for a Carbon Tax" in which he espoused a global carbon taxation system, enforced by tariffs and implemented as a revenue neutral tax swap.

He is also a board game designer who has released three wargames, Hammer of the Scots, Crusader Rex, and Richard III.

Personal life

He resides in Arlington, Virginia with his wife and their children.