Did William Petty pioneer the carbon tax?

It is stable, easier to measure, hard to game

"Of all the Accumulative Excizes, that of Harthmoney or Smoak-money 
seems the best; and that onely because the easiest, and clearest, and 
fittest to ground a certain Revenue upon; it being easie to tell the 
number of Harths, which remove not as Heads or Polls do: Moreover, 
'tis more easie to pay a small Tax, then to alter or abrogate Harths, 
even though they are useless and supernumerary; nor is it possible to 
cover them, because most of the neighbours know them; nor in new 
Building will any man who gives forty shillings for making a Chimney 
be without it for two."


Michael Perelman