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"Carbon taxes will cost us thousands of dollars a year!"

Actually you have been paying a 'revenue neutral' carbon tax since July 1, 2008 meaning that most of the money gained through Carbon Taxes would not be retained by the government but be returned to consumers via tax returns, tax breaks and incentives. Below is a link showing the most recent tax schedule:

http://www.sbr.gov.bc.ca/documents_library/shared_documents/Carbon_Tax_Rates_by_Fuel_Type_from_Jan_2010.pdf

Many other areas of the world are also paying carbon taxes. Finland, who was the first country to enact Carbon Tax, enacted it in 1990 with the current tax costing tax payers roughly $24.39 US dollars. Sweden, with costs of $150 per ton, enacted a Carbon Tax in 1991. Great Britain introduced a 'climate change levy' in 2001 with rates of $0.0014/kWh for liquid petroleum gas to $0.0087/kWh for electricity. Boulder, Colorado implemented the United States first Carbon Tax on April 1, 2007 at a level of $7 per ton of carbon and cost the average tax payer roughly $1.33 per month. The first North American province or state to institute a Carbon Tax was Quebec, with the most recent rates being 3.1 cents per gallon of gasoline and 3.6 cents per gallon of diesel. Electricity in Quebec is largely unaffected given that most of the energy is produced from renewable resources. BC was the most recent province to institute a Carbon Tax, the most substantial in the western hemisphere, that would see a rise of 2.8 cents per litre in 2008 to 7.24 cents per litre in 2012. (Source)

"Polar bear numbers are increasing!"

The Multilateral Conservation of Polar Bears Agreement was signed by 5 circumpolar countries, Canada, Denmark, Norway, the USSR and the United States, in Oslo on November 15, 1973 and was meant to limit killing, hunting and the capturing of polar bears except for limited purposes and by limited methods. Today the worldwide polar bear population ranges from between 20,000 to 25,000 in 19 distinct populations and was listed as a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act of 1973 on May 14, 2008.

Although most populations have returned to healthy numbers since the agreement of 1973 was signed it appears that many of them are now declining. The map below shows 1 of the populations is rising, 3 are stable, 8 are declining and the remaining 7 show insufficient data.



Locations of polar bear populations around the Arctic as of July, 2009. A World Wildlife Fund image courtesy of Panda.org

Atmospheric gasses are measured in ppm (parts per million), ppb (parts per billion) or ppt (parts per trillion). Carbon Dioxide, Methane, Nitrous Oxide, Ozone. CFCs and many other types of gasses have seen vast increase since the industrial revolution began nearly 200 years ago. You can see the pre-1750 concentration of greenhouse gasses compared to the concentration today of those same greenhouse gasses in the link below.

http://cdiac.ornl.gov/pns/current_ghg.html

A few of the most important increases in greenhouse gasses, at least the ones we're talking about here, are Carbon Dioxide, with an increase of 280ppm to 384.8ppm, Methane, with an increase of 700ppb to as much as 1865ppb, and Nitrous Oxide, with an increase of 270ppb to 322ppb. On the previous page I posted a link to a flash file that showed the relative absorption wavelengths of specific types of greenhouse gasses. This should have an increasing effect on the amount of radiation trapped by these gasses and should be shown in the outbound radiation re-emitted by the Earth's surface. And that is exactly what we see. A Nature article, written over 9 years ago, shows the following:

"Here we analyse the difference between the spectra of the outgoing longwave radiation of the Earth as measured by orbiting spacecraft in 1970 and 1997. We find differences in the spectra that point to long-term changes in atmospheric CH4, CO2 and O3 as well as CFC-11 and CFC-12. Our results provide direct experimental evidence for a significant increase in the Earth's greenhouse effect that is consistent with concerns over radiative forcing of climate."

You can view the entire article on nature.com with a subscription.

In a more recent publication it was found that between 1973 and 2008 daily downward longwave radiation increased at a rate of 2.2W m^-2 per decade.

From Global atmospheric downward longwave radiation over land surface under all-sky conditions from 1973 to 2008

Philipona et al conclude "The resulting uniform increase of longwave downward radiation manifests radiative forcing that is induced by increased greenhouse gas concentrations and water vapor feedback, and proves the ‘‘theory’’ of greenhouse warming with direct observations."

From Radiative forcing - measured at Earth’s surface...