5 ms·

Why stop at a CO2 tax? All kinds of problems could be solved with a dictatorship.

cmrdporcupine 8y ago
It's not having a dictatorship -- it's having a national economic strategy and a popular will to make decisions without letting very particular selfish interests get in the way. It does not require an authoritarian central leadership. But it does require stopping and rolling back the capture of political bodies and the public sphere generally by private interests.
- moduspol 8y ago
  Respectfully, it's a pipe dream. If gas, energy, or home heating prices double, whoever's in power is going to be voted out. It's not the capture of political bodies that drives that--it's normal people. It'll take a suspension of democracy or a long time to make a measurable impact on climate change.
  - MagnumOpus 8y ago
    Not if the tax revenues get distributed back as a carbon dividend - then the only people against it are heavy polluters who lose out. (And since emissions are not distributed linearly, the losers from a cost-neutral carbon-tax with per-capita-dividend will always be a minority.)
    - moduspol 8y ago
      Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but: From what I'm being told, fundamental changes need to occur in our consumption to have a measurable impact on climate change. That won't happen with normal people continuing to consume at the same rates they have. Could a carbon tax be designed such that normal people are effectively reimbursed and heavy emitters pay more? Yes. But you're not going to measurably impact climate change without somehow incentivizing people to use less. At some point, people need to use less, and when you force them to (through taxes or restrictions), it won't be popular politically.
      - razorunreal 8y ago
        Redistributing money from people who use more to people who use less is an incentive to use less. It can be an arbirarily large incentive depending on how much you decide to redistribute. It's not like the money is destroyed or something.
  - thinkcontext 8y ago
    Its not impossible, vehicle fuel prices in Europe are over twice what they are in the US because of taxes.
    - moduspol 8y ago
      People don't use nearly as much vehicle fuel in Europe as they do in the US. More clearly stated, my point is that what's really needed is people to adjust their consumption downward dramatically, but the taxes necessary to cause that will be politically infeasible.
      - thinkcontext 8y ago
        > People don't use nearly as much vehicle fuel in Europe as they do in the US. And you don't think the difference in prices has anything to do with that?
        moduspol 8y ago
        I'm sure it contributes, but I think the key reason it's more politically feasible is because it doesn't hit as many (especially poorer) Europeans as hard (EDIT: I meant to imply here there are a lot fewer miles driven). Looking up the statistics on miles driven, the gap isn't as big as I expected, though, so I'm probably not giving the tax as much credit as it deserves.
        twblalock 8y ago
        Increasing fuel prices will only incentivize people to drive less if there are alternative means of transportation. Those are absent in most parts of the US. You could double the price of gas in the US and driving would not change much, because people would have no other way to get to work and get their kids to school. The most you could hope for is that people would buy more efficient cars.
        chillacy 8y ago
        Maybe a similar situation is traffic in large cities, if time = money then there's an increased cost to driving during rush hour. Yet most people clearly chose to pay this price rather than trying to structure their life around cheaper (less time consuming) hours.

It's not having a dictatorship -- it's having a national economic strategy and a popular will to make decisions without letting very particular selfish interests get in the way. It does not require an authoritarian central leadership. But it does require stopping and rolling back the capture of political bodies and the public sphere generally by private interests.

moduspol 8y ago
Respectfully, it's a pipe dream. If gas, energy, or home heating prices double, whoever's in power is going to be voted out. It's not the capture of political bodies that drives that--it's normal people. It'll take a suspension of democracy or a long time to make a measurable impact on climate change.
- MagnumOpus 8y ago
  Not if the tax revenues get distributed back as a carbon dividend - then the only people against it are heavy polluters who lose out. (And since emissions are not distributed linearly, the losers from a cost-neutral carbon-tax with per-capita-dividend will always be a minority.)
  - moduspol 8y ago
    Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but: From what I'm being told, fundamental changes need to occur in our consumption to have a measurable impact on climate change. That won't happen with normal people continuing to consume at the same rates they have. Could a carbon tax be designed such that normal people are effectively reimbursed and heavy emitters pay more? Yes. But you're not going to measurably impact climate change without somehow incentivizing people to use less. At some point, people need to use less, and when you force them to (through taxes or restrictions), it won't be popular politically.
    - razorunreal 8y ago
      Redistributing money from people who use more to people who use less is an incentive to use less. It can be an arbirarily large incentive depending on how much you decide to redistribute. It's not like the money is destroyed or something.
- thinkcontext 8y ago
  Its not impossible, vehicle fuel prices in Europe are over twice what they are in the US because of taxes.
  - moduspol 8y ago
    People don't use nearly as much vehicle fuel in Europe as they do in the US. More clearly stated, my point is that what's really needed is people to adjust their consumption downward dramatically, but the taxes necessary to cause that will be politically infeasible.
    - thinkcontext 8y ago
      > People don't use nearly as much vehicle fuel in Europe as they do in the US. And you don't think the difference in prices has anything to do with that?
      - moduspol 8y ago
        I'm sure it contributes, but I think the key reason it's more politically feasible is because it doesn't hit as many (especially poorer) Europeans as hard (EDIT: I meant to imply here there are a lot fewer miles driven). Looking up the statistics on miles driven, the gap isn't as big as I expected, though, so I'm probably not giving the tax as much credit as it deserves.
      - twblalock 8y ago
        Increasing fuel prices will only incentivize people to drive less if there are alternative means of transportation. Those are absent in most parts of the US. You could double the price of gas in the US and driving would not change much, because people would have no other way to get to work and get their kids to school. The most you could hope for is that people would buy more efficient cars.
        chillacy 8y ago
        Maybe a similar situation is traffic in large cities, if time = money then there's an increased cost to driving during rush hour. Yet most people clearly chose to pay this price rather than trying to structure their life around cheaper (less time consuming) hours.