6 ms·

> Its almost like we're going to fix the climate change issue, slowly (ramping up quickly)....by sheer luck of technological advancement. Which is an argument

by bhauer 10y ago

> Its almost like we're going to fix the climate change issue, slowly (ramping up quickly)....by sheer luck of technological advancement. Which is an argument made by those on the free-market side of the political spectrum—that technology will help us solve this problem more quickly and efficiently than central planning and energy austerity. As someone who favors free markets, I have gone out of my way to be an early adopter of electric cars (2008 for me) and home solar (2015 for me) because I want the free market to solve these issues. To be clear, I recognize that incentives such as tax breaks have facilitated this. I obviously take advantage of these programs, but I would be on board with electric cars and home solar even without the tax breaks.

toomuchtodo 10y ago
As a free market proponent, I assume you support including the externalities of pollution from fossil fuels into their costs? Which would've made the cost of electric cars and renewables cheaper much sooner?
- codemanneil 10y ago
  I have yet to hear a non-political argument against a revenue-neutral carbon tax. It's a little infuriating.
- maratd 10y ago
  > As a free market proponent, I assume you support including the externalities of pollution from fossil fuels into their costs? How do you even calculate that? For you to calculate externalities, you'd need to be able to assign costs. What's the cost of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere? You can't calculate something like that. So let me answer with a simple NO. We don't need anything like that. Cleaner technologies are overtaking and will replace fossil fuels. Our energy generation technology has never been stagnant and it won't be now. We'll move on to the next thing soon enough.
  - chrischen 10y ago
    The cost is how much people would pay to prevent you for emitting it into their air.
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
  - toomuchtodo 10y ago
    > For you to calculate externalities, you'd need to be able to assign costs. What's the cost of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere? You can't calculate something like that. You are wrong. http://www.worldbank.org/en/programs/pricing-carbon http://www.worldbank.org/en/programs/pricing-carbon
  - darawk 10y ago
    You can absolutely calculate that. There is an entire sub-field of economics devoted to doing just that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_economics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_economics And it is pretty obviously the right way to think about the problem, if you spend two seconds considering it: The environment is a public good. Which means that it is owned by all of us. Which means that when it is harmed, we have all lost something of value. Therefore, the people doing the harm owe us money in the same way that Subway owes you money if they accidentally put arsenic in their meatballs. Why do places like Subway so rarely have arsenic in their meatballs? Because it imposes an enormous cost on them, so they optimize their business to avoid that cost. If environmental pollution entailed similar costs, businesses would optimize those costs away (to the extent possible). This is ultimately a far more effective solution than any regulation ever could be. It's just a matter of choosing the right price. Because then what you have is the ability for private individuals to make a living for themselves rooting out cheaters and suing them in court. The system becomes self-policing because everyone's monetary incentives are aligned with the environment, and it is all mediated by one very simple, elegant idea: property rights. The environment is our collective property and right now private individuals and entities are destroying it for free. That is simple theft, and fixing the enforcement of those rights is the solution.
- danhak 10y ago
  And don't forget the costs of all the overseas entanglements associated with securing fossil fuel supplies.
- dmix 10y ago
  This is an excellent point and a perspective I hope more free-market learning people (such as myself) come to appreciate. Although making externality influenced descisions in when factoring in your own energy expenditure and limited resource allocation, it may be a luxury of those of us in the 1st world and nearing the top of maslow's heirarchy. Some climate change reducing habits can be cost-saving though. Such as biking vs cars, reducing meat consumption, long-term investments in solar power, etc.
brooklyndavs 10y ago
Not soon enough and at the scale that we need to address the problem. Keep in mind the ability to adopt electric cars and go home solar is still a very privileged position and will be for quite a while. Think about how many cars that are 10 or 20 years old on the road now. Or how many people live in apartments. And this is just in the developed world. This is why most climate scientists advocate for at least a tax on all carbon. While the free market might be able to solve this world-wide on a long enough time scale we don't have the time for that to play out. We've been building our current energy and transportation infrastructure out for the past century globally based on fossil fuels. To get a good idea on the scope of the problem I'd highly recommend start reading through some of the forum below. Some of the brightest (to me anyway :)) experts on the climate post regularly here. http://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php http://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php
pyoung 10y ago
I can't quite tell what you are trying to argue, because you acknowledge that government incentives have helped, yet you seem to be claiming that the success of solar was due to free market economics. Just to set the record straight, the solar industry would not exist without government support. Nearly every company past and present has taken grant money from the DOE, or directly benefited from cash rebates or stimulus money. Local utilities in many states are required by local regulatory agencies to buyback excess solar power at retail prices, which for many regions is the difference between hitting the break even point in a reasonable time frame. And before the ITC (tax credit) was unexpectedly extended last year, companies were preparing to downsize considerably and were warning local politicians that without an extension, there would be massive layoffs in the industry. With battery tech starting to become viable and with continuing efficiency improvements, we are getting closer to a point where solar might be able to compete on it's own, but in it's current form, the industry is still highly dependent on subsidies and tax breaks.
- toomuchtodo 10y ago
  > With battery tech starting to become viable and with continuing efficiency improvements, we are getting closer to a point where solar might be able to compete on it's own, but in it's current form, the industry is still highly dependent on subsidies and tax breaks. Small quibble: Wind and solar are already cheaper than utility power in ~20 states (unsubsidized), and cheap wind drove Exelon to close two nuclear power plants in the last week. While wind and solar can now "stand on their own" as it were, we should be doing nothing but increasing subsidies to deploy them faster.
- Brakenshire 10y ago
  Not to mention that the entire global market was massively supported (you're talking 20-50% of the global shipping volume) by crazily high subsidies from the German government for 5-10 years, over the period when cost went from $5/W to $1/W.
- nickik 10y ago
  While that is true, it also goes in the other direction. How much money has been put into keeping fossil fuels cheap? We simply don't have a free-market price in energy. I would say that in the long run the market would probably, by itself switch to renewable non-polluting energy but the governments investment has probably helped. Governments can make really drag most markets (with a few exceptions), but they can usually kick it in the butt.

by bhauer 10y ago

toomuchtodo 10y ago

As a free market proponent, I assume you support including the externalities of pollution from fossil fuels into their costs? Which would've made the cost of electric cars and renewables cheaper much sooner?

codemanneil 10y ago
I have yet to hear a non-political argument against a revenue-neutral carbon tax. It's a little infuriating.
maratd 10y ago
> As a free market proponent, I assume you support including the externalities of pollution from fossil fuels into their costs? How do you even calculate that? For you to calculate externalities, you'd need to be able to assign costs. What's the cost of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere? You can't calculate something like that. So let me answer with a simple NO. We don't need anything like that. Cleaner technologies are overtaking and will replace fossil fuels. Our energy generation technology has never been stagnant and it won't be now. We'll move on to the next thing soon enough.
- chrischen 10y ago
  The cost is how much people would pay to prevent you for emitting it into their air.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- toomuchtodo 10y ago
  > For you to calculate externalities, you'd need to be able to assign costs. What's the cost of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere? You can't calculate something like that. You are wrong. http://www.worldbank.org/en/programs/pricing-carbon http://www.worldbank.org/en/programs/pricing-carbon
- darawk 10y ago
  You can absolutely calculate that. There is an entire sub-field of economics devoted to doing just that: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_economics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_economics And it is pretty obviously the right way to think about the problem, if you spend two seconds considering it: The environment is a public good. Which means that it is owned by all of us. Which means that when it is harmed, we have all lost something of value. Therefore, the people doing the harm owe us money in the same way that Subway owes you money if they accidentally put arsenic in their meatballs. Why do places like Subway so rarely have arsenic in their meatballs? Because it imposes an enormous cost on them, so they optimize their business to avoid that cost. If environmental pollution entailed similar costs, businesses would optimize those costs away (to the extent possible). This is ultimately a far more effective solution than any regulation ever could be. It's just a matter of choosing the right price. Because then what you have is the ability for private individuals to make a living for themselves rooting out cheaters and suing them in court. The system becomes self-policing because everyone's monetary incentives are aligned with the environment, and it is all mediated by one very simple, elegant idea: property rights. The environment is our collective property and right now private individuals and entities are destroying it for free. That is simple theft, and fixing the enforcement of those rights is the solution.
danhak 10y ago
And don't forget the costs of all the overseas entanglements associated with securing fossil fuel supplies.
dmix 10y ago
This is an excellent point and a perspective I hope more free-market learning people (such as myself) come to appreciate. Although making externality influenced descisions in when factoring in your own energy expenditure and limited resource allocation, it may be a luxury of those of us in the 1st world and nearing the top of maslow's heirarchy. Some climate change reducing habits can be cost-saving though. Such as biking vs cars, reducing meat consumption, long-term investments in solar power, etc.

brooklyndavs 10y ago

Not soon enough and at the scale that we need to address the problem. Keep in mind the ability to adopt electric cars and go home solar is still a very privileged position and will be for quite a while. Think about how many cars that are 10 or 20 years old on the road now. Or how many people live in apartments. And this is just in the developed world. This is why most climate scientists advocate for at least a tax on all carbon. While the free market might be able to solve this world-wide on a long enough time scale we don't have the time for that to play out. We've been building our current energy and transportation infrastructure out for the past century globally based on fossil fuels. To get a good idea on the scope of the problem I'd highly recommend start reading through some of the forum below. Some of the brightest (to me anyway :)) experts on the climate post regularly here. http://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php http://forum.arctic-sea-ice.net/index.php

pyoung 10y ago

I can't quite tell what you are trying to argue, because you acknowledge that government incentives have helped, yet you seem to be claiming that the success of solar was due to free market economics. Just to set the record straight, the solar industry would not exist without government support. Nearly every company past and present has taken grant money from the DOE, or directly benefited from cash rebates or stimulus money. Local utilities in many states are required by local regulatory agencies to buyback excess solar power at retail prices, which for many regions is the difference between hitting the break even point in a reasonable time frame. And before the ITC (tax credit) was unexpectedly extended last year, companies were preparing to downsize considerably and were warning local politicians that without an extension, there would be massive layoffs in the industry. With battery tech starting to become viable and with continuing efficiency improvements, we are getting closer to a point where solar might be able to compete on it's own, but in it's current form, the industry is still highly dependent on subsidies and tax breaks.

toomuchtodo 10y ago
> With battery tech starting to become viable and with continuing efficiency improvements, we are getting closer to a point where solar might be able to compete on it's own, but in it's current form, the industry is still highly dependent on subsidies and tax breaks. Small quibble: Wind and solar are already cheaper than utility power in ~20 states (unsubsidized), and cheap wind drove Exelon to close two nuclear power plants in the last week. While wind and solar can now "stand on their own" as it were, we should be doing nothing but increasing subsidies to deploy them faster.
Brakenshire 10y ago
Not to mention that the entire global market was massively supported (you're talking 20-50% of the global shipping volume) by crazily high subsidies from the German government for 5-10 years, over the period when cost went from $5/W to $1/W.
nickik 10y ago
While that is true, it also goes in the other direction. How much money has been put into keeping fossil fuels cheap? We simply don't have a free-market price in energy. I would say that in the long run the market would probably, by itself switch to renewable non-polluting energy but the governments investment has probably helped. Governments can make really drag most markets (with a few exceptions), but they can usually kick it in the butt.