4 ms·

Haha, sure! :D Carbon tax. Sounds legit! Here's what's gonna happen: Corporations just jack up prices accross the board according to the tax, and then everybody

by kebman 8y ago

Haha, sure! :D Carbon tax. Sounds legit! Here's what's gonna happen: Corporations just jack up prices accross the board according to the tax, and then everybody else gets to pay. And then nothing changes. It'll be like the sugar tax in Norway. Do you really think people are buying less sugar over here because of it? Get real! :D We're well past incentives. The change has to be law, and the law has to be protected with the threat of force. (Force sounds so much better than violence, don't you think, but all this is gonna end in the latter, eventually, if we just let it slide, because when people get hungry, they also get desperate.) And where people don't respect the law, force has to be actually used. However, nobody in their right mind is willing to do that as long as we're boiling frogs... So I guess we'll just die then. We had a pretty good run, though. :)

pimterry 8y ago
> It'll be like the sugar tax in Norway. Do you really think people are buying less sugar over here because of it? Get real! I can't speak for Norway, but in the UK the sugar tax has had a huge impact - a _majority_ of soft drink manufacturers have significantly reduced sugar in their products, to avoid them becoming unaffordable, and it's had a very noticeable effect. The UK tax is still pretty new so it's difficult to get hard numbers on that, but sugar taxes in general are fairly well studied and have been very effective worldwide. https://www.nature.com/articles/sj.bdj.2018.603 https://www.nature.com/articles/sj.bdj.2018.603 has a good summary, some highlights: * "Overall 21.6% decrease in the monthly purchased volume of the higher taxed, sugary soft drinks" * "People living in Philadelphia were 40% less likely to report consuming sugary drinks every day after the tax policy" * "Mexico's 10% tax on sugar-sweetened beverages implemented in January 2014 is said to have led to a 5.5% drop in sugary drinks purchases by the end of that year and a further 9.7% fall in sales in 2015, yielding an average reduction of 7.6% over the study two-year period"
adrianN 8y ago
Since consumers have limited amounts of money, increasing the cost of everything will lead to less consumption, which will lead to less carbon being emitted. Furthermore, any company that can produce the same product with less carbon emissions will be at an economic advantage.
thinkcontext 8y ago
Consumers are definitely sensitive to prices. In the US in the couple years before the financial crisis gasoline prices spiked to above $4/gallon. This had a dramatic effect on buying habits, with a marked shift to more fuel efficient vehicles. And it hurt SUV happy US automakers to the advantage of more fuel efficient foreign companies. In Europe, gas prices are 2 to 3 times what they are in the US. As a result, cars are dramatically smaller and more fuel efficient. Transportation patterns are dramatically different, with many fewer miles driven per person. It's Econ 101 that people adjust their spending in response to price changes. It varies exactly how they do so for different products, this is known as elasticity.

by kebman 8y ago

pimterry 8y ago

> It'll be like the sugar tax in Norway. Do you really think people are buying less sugar over here because of it? Get real! I can't speak for Norway, but in the UK the sugar tax has had a huge impact - a _majority_ of soft drink manufacturers have significantly reduced sugar in their products, to avoid them becoming unaffordable, and it's had a very noticeable effect. The UK tax is still pretty new so it's difficult to get hard numbers on that, but sugar taxes in general are fairly well studied and have been very effective worldwide. https://www.nature.com/articles/sj.bdj.2018.603 https://www.nature.com/articles/sj.bdj.2018.603 has a good summary, some highlights: * "Overall 21.6% decrease in the monthly purchased volume of the higher taxed, sugary soft drinks" * "People living in Philadelphia were 40% less likely to report consuming sugary drinks every day after the tax policy" * "Mexico's 10% tax on sugar-sweetened beverages implemented in January 2014 is said to have led to a 5.5% drop in sugary drinks purchases by the end of that year and a further 9.7% fall in sales in 2015, yielding an average reduction of 7.6% over the study two-year period"

adrianN 8y ago

Since consumers have limited amounts of money, increasing the cost of everything will lead to less consumption, which will lead to less carbon being emitted. Furthermore, any company that can produce the same product with less carbon emissions will be at an economic advantage.

thinkcontext 8y ago

Consumers are definitely sensitive to prices. In the US in the couple years before the financial crisis gasoline prices spiked to above $4/gallon. This had a dramatic effect on buying habits, with a marked shift to more fuel efficient vehicles. And it hurt SUV happy US automakers to the advantage of more fuel efficient foreign companies. In Europe, gas prices are 2 to 3 times what they are in the US. As a result, cars are dramatically smaller and more fuel efficient. Transportation patterns are dramatically different, with many fewer miles driven per person. It's Econ 101 that people adjust their spending in response to price changes. It varies exactly how they do so for different products, this is known as elasticity.