Global warming is so rampant that some scientists say we should begin altering the stratosphere to block incoming sunlight, even if it jeopardizes rain and crops
Does taxed carbon do less damage to the environment
Just put your ignorance on a big billboard for us.
A tax on carbon, administered properly, is the most effective single way to get people to reduce their carbon usage over time by increasing the cost of polluting.
You start with it fairly low, and you crank it up over the years such that businesses and other groups are encouraged to move away from carbon wherever possible in order to save money, because the carpet is more expensive than non-carbon alternatives.
The point is to make a gallon of gas so expensive that’s someone chooses to carpool or drive a bike or move closer to where they work. So yeah it’s going to increase consumer prices, but that’s what you have to do in order to reduce carbon emissions. Our lifestyle is where the carbon emissions are coming from.
No other scheme is as effective and as simple as a ramping carbon tax. It’s very easy to tax carbon at its origin, the oil wells and ports. And the market ensures that all prices you apply at the oil well slowly filter down through the economy and impact areas that use more fossil fuels more thanks to the increased costs.
And then with a revenue neutral carbon tax, You can make it so that there is near zero net impact on people’s well-being, short of the fact that people who pollute and emit more carbon will get less money back relative to their increase in cost.
Companies are the biggest polluters. And production of products with high CO2 footprint would simply move to countries that don’t care. That’s what happens with most environmental or financial regulation. What makes you think a carbon tax would be different? Imho a system that is based on unlimited exponential growth is the problem.
Companies are the biggest polluters. And production of products with high CO2 footprint would simply move to countries that don’t care
Then you apply import taxes. Any restriction we take on carbon will have that effect.
Imho a system that is based on unlimited exponential growth is the problem.
Our current existence is unsustainable. If we stop growing we will snuff ourselves out. The only way out through shrinking would be a thanos style culling.
Import taxes on carbon would only work if we could track the carbon along the supply chain. Don’t get me wrong, we’re on the same side basically I’m just pessimistic that it’ll be that easy. Having said that, I have to admin that I don’t have any idea about how to fix that.
There’s more than the oil. There’s gas, other resources like lithium, deforestation and the list goes on. Let’s say you buy solar cell panels. Were they produced using electricity from renewables or burnt oil? That should make a big difference if you want that tax to reduce carbon output. Right now there’s no way to track that.
Edit: Maybe your idea is to tax the resources right at their sources. That would help indeed, but good luck with the leaders or countries like Saudi Arabia, China, Russia, …
That should make a big difference if you want that tax to reduce carbon output
It would be a difference. If you tax carbon at the pump you couldn’t build the solar panels without paying the carbon tax that was charged at the pump.
As for countries like China, that’s what tariffs are for
That might work theoretically. The problem with that is that you cannot differentiate between that absolutely wasteful things (like private jets) and things we need in day to day life (like pharmaceuticals). You might even want to exempt the solar panels from the example above, because they will probably save more carbon than what was used to produce them. So that’s really the “sledgehammer” kind of solution.
you cannot differentiate between that absolutely wasteful things (like private jets) and things we need in day to day life (like pharmaceuticals).
The point is to make things that use carbon cost more than things that use less. Some sectors like private aircraft will have people willing to pay whatever because they’re already hugely expensive, but on the larger scales a carbon tax will clean up the vast majority of waste.
For a few of the worst examples like private jets it’s possible to pass regulation against them, but I’d be very very hesitant to accept the government deciding what is or isn’t wasteful across the board. It’ll be hilariously harmful in the long term.
And the tax should apply to important things too. We need carbon removed across the whole economy, including medications.
Then you apply import taxes. Any restriction we take on carbon will have that effect.
Every country now has to measure the carbon output of factories in every other country in order to correctly impose import taxes on carbon. Either that, or just blanket raise import taxes, which would strangle any country that is isn’t large and developed enough to at least theoretically reach self-sufficiency, which none currently are in practice. This is not realistic or sustainable. Stop trying to tax the problem away. The invisible hand of the free market is a myth. Real problems require real hands to fix them.
Our current existence is unsustainable. If we stop growing we will snuff ourselves out. The only way out through shrinking would be a thanos style culling. The only way forward is forward.
This is capitalist jibber-jabber. There is no reason we can’t slow down on the non-essential overconsumption rampant in modern society, and still be able to efficiently manage and redirect those resources and labor towards necessities in a more sustainable way. We have way more than enough resources to live in comfort and still be sustainable. “Yolo, floor it” is not a sane policy.
Every country now has to measure the carbon output of factories in every other country in order to correctly impose import taxes on carbon
No you don’t. Just text the shit out of any of the imports until they are cost competitive with the domestic ones.
which would strangle any country that is isn’t large and developed enough to at least theoretically reach self-sufficiency
Boo hoo. Cry me a river, I don’t give a shit. I give a shit about global warming not happening. They can tax their oil in the same way and they won’t have issues.
There is no reason we can’t slow down on the non-essential overconsumption rampant in modern society, and still be able to efficiently manage and redirect those resources and labor towards necessities in a more sustainable way.
Yeah, there’s a slight problem in that. You’re talking about a Soviet economy. You’re talking about intentionally impoverishing people.
You’re talking about taking people’s freedom away from them in order to mandate what they can and can’t have.
And you’re doing it all in the name of an end goal that won’t even fix the problem, because at the end of the day as long as we are still using fossil fuels we are still going to run out of time when it comes to global warming.
A shutdown Soviet style economy is not going to create the innovation we need to actually innovate our way out of this problem.
“Yolo, floor it” is not a sane policy.
It’s almost as if my actual proposed policy would be one that encourages innovation and movement away from fossil fuels while not absolutely annihilating the economy and empowering government to fuck over our lives.
No you don’t. Just text the shit out of any of the imports until they are cost competitive with the domestic ones. […] Boo hoo. Cry me a river, I don’t give a shit. I give a shit about global warming not happening.
And this is the fundamental problem right here that you don’t understand. It doesn’t matter if you don’t give a shit; if it means suffering because they cannot sustain themselves now, they are not going to do it. When a solution doesn’t work, you don’t whine and demand the world reshape itself until your solution does work, you look for a better idea. We need real solutions that work in the real world, not technocratic dreaming of alternate realities.
Everything else in your post is just more jibberjabber that doesn’t mean anything. What I’ve proposed isn’t “Soviet”, it isn’t impoverishing (but what you suggested absolutely is, so don’t pretend to care about that), and it actually solves the problem instead of these candy-ass solutions. “Just tax everything and then the problem will just magically solve itself through innovation, somehow!” The product of a deeply unserious mind.
Get it through your head that these indirect methods that supposedly set in motion a series of events that will totally eventually fix it have never worked, they’re not going to work now, and we need real action and not people soying out over idealistic nonsense. Your time to try this passed by 30 years ago. Give up your silly Rube Goldberg contraptions and start looking for real, direct solutions.
Just put your ignorance on a big billboard for us.
A tax on carbon, administered properly, is the most effective single way to get people to reduce their carbon usage over time by increasing the cost of polluting.
You start with it fairly low, and you crank it up over the years such that businesses and other groups are encouraged to move away from carbon wherever possible in order to save money, because the carpet is more expensive than non-carbon alternatives.
The point is to make a gallon of gas so expensive that’s someone chooses to carpool or drive a bike or move closer to where they work. So yeah it’s going to increase consumer prices, but that’s what you have to do in order to reduce carbon emissions. Our lifestyle is where the carbon emissions are coming from.
No other scheme is as effective and as simple as a ramping carbon tax. It’s very easy to tax carbon at its origin, the oil wells and ports. And the market ensures that all prices you apply at the oil well slowly filter down through the economy and impact areas that use more fossil fuels more thanks to the increased costs.
And then with a revenue neutral carbon tax, You can make it so that there is near zero net impact on people’s well-being, short of the fact that people who pollute and emit more carbon will get less money back relative to their increase in cost.
Companies are the biggest polluters. And production of products with high CO2 footprint would simply move to countries that don’t care. That’s what happens with most environmental or financial regulation. What makes you think a carbon tax would be different? Imho a system that is based on unlimited exponential growth is the problem.
Then you apply import taxes. Any restriction we take on carbon will have that effect.
Our current existence is unsustainable. If we stop growing we will snuff ourselves out. The only way out through shrinking would be a thanos style culling.
The only way forward is forward.
Import taxes on carbon would only work if we could track the carbon along the supply chain. Don’t get me wrong, we’re on the same side basically I’m just pessimistic that it’ll be that easy. Having said that, I have to admin that I don’t have any idea about how to fix that.
You don’t have to track the carbon along the supply chain because carbon is sourced very easily from a single place, the oil taken out of the ground.
Theoretically you could do stuff like tax the manufacturing of CFCs, but those are largely handled and easily handled by regular regulation already.
There’s more than the oil. There’s gas, other resources like lithium, deforestation and the list goes on. Let’s say you buy solar cell panels. Were they produced using electricity from renewables or burnt oil? That should make a big difference if you want that tax to reduce carbon output. Right now there’s no way to track that.
Edit: Maybe your idea is to tax the resources right at their sources. That would help indeed, but good luck with the leaders or countries like Saudi Arabia, China, Russia, …
It would be a difference. If you tax carbon at the pump you couldn’t build the solar panels without paying the carbon tax that was charged at the pump.
As for countries like China, that’s what tariffs are for
That might work theoretically. The problem with that is that you cannot differentiate between that absolutely wasteful things (like private jets) and things we need in day to day life (like pharmaceuticals). You might even want to exempt the solar panels from the example above, because they will probably save more carbon than what was used to produce them. So that’s really the “sledgehammer” kind of solution.
The point is to make things that use carbon cost more than things that use less. Some sectors like private aircraft will have people willing to pay whatever because they’re already hugely expensive, but on the larger scales a carbon tax will clean up the vast majority of waste.
For a few of the worst examples like private jets it’s possible to pass regulation against them, but I’d be very very hesitant to accept the government deciding what is or isn’t wasteful across the board. It’ll be hilariously harmful in the long term.
And the tax should apply to important things too. We need carbon removed across the whole economy, including medications.
Every country now has to measure the carbon output of factories in every other country in order to correctly impose import taxes on carbon. Either that, or just blanket raise import taxes, which would strangle any country that is isn’t large and developed enough to at least theoretically reach self-sufficiency, which none currently are in practice. This is not realistic or sustainable. Stop trying to tax the problem away. The invisible hand of the free market is a myth. Real problems require real hands to fix them.
This is capitalist jibber-jabber. There is no reason we can’t slow down on the non-essential overconsumption rampant in modern society, and still be able to efficiently manage and redirect those resources and labor towards necessities in a more sustainable way. We have way more than enough resources to live in comfort and still be sustainable. “Yolo, floor it” is not a sane policy.
No you don’t. Just text the shit out of any of the imports until they are cost competitive with the domestic ones.
Boo hoo. Cry me a river, I don’t give a shit. I give a shit about global warming not happening. They can tax their oil in the same way and they won’t have issues.
Yeah, there’s a slight problem in that. You’re talking about a Soviet economy. You’re talking about intentionally impoverishing people.
You’re talking about taking people’s freedom away from them in order to mandate what they can and can’t have.
And you’re doing it all in the name of an end goal that won’t even fix the problem, because at the end of the day as long as we are still using fossil fuels we are still going to run out of time when it comes to global warming.
A shutdown Soviet style economy is not going to create the innovation we need to actually innovate our way out of this problem.
It’s almost as if my actual proposed policy would be one that encourages innovation and movement away from fossil fuels while not absolutely annihilating the economy and empowering government to fuck over our lives.
And this is the fundamental problem right here that you don’t understand. It doesn’t matter if you don’t give a shit; if it means suffering because they cannot sustain themselves now, they are not going to do it. When a solution doesn’t work, you don’t whine and demand the world reshape itself until your solution does work, you look for a better idea. We need real solutions that work in the real world, not technocratic dreaming of alternate realities.
Everything else in your post is just more jibberjabber that doesn’t mean anything. What I’ve proposed isn’t “Soviet”, it isn’t impoverishing (but what you suggested absolutely is, so don’t pretend to care about that), and it actually solves the problem instead of these candy-ass solutions. “Just tax everything and then the problem will just magically solve itself through innovation, somehow!” The product of a deeply unserious mind.
Get it through your head that these indirect methods that supposedly set in motion a series of events that will totally eventually fix it have never worked, they’re not going to work now, and we need real action and not people soying out over idealistic nonsense. Your time to try this passed by 30 years ago. Give up your silly Rube Goldberg contraptions and start looking for real, direct solutions.
I’d say bring able to trade with one of the biggest nations in the world is a pretty darn good incentive to implement a carbon tax of their own.
You understand your idea of sustaining themselves is burning more carbon and letting their needs undercut our emissions reduction. This is a net loss.
Says the person whose “simple” solution involves a far far more disruptive answer whose unexpected consequences will far surpass a tax.
What trade? You told them to levy hefty import taxes on everything. You’ve killed most trade.
I want a collective effort to directly end carbon emissions. You just want to make it more expensive.