You've raised two different objections here. Both reasonable: > what would the import tax be on a macbook? How about the tax on a google search? This policy

You've raised two different objections here. Both reasonable: > what would the import tax be on a macbook? How about the tax on a google search? This policy, like any other, is less than perfect. In particular, many imports will likely go untaxed. But the administrator of the program can continuously iterate. Start with the obvious things like steel and cars, and then keep attaching prices to the most egregious outstanding goods and services. I'm not saying this is trivial, but there are all ready many scientists who have put a lot of work into calculating the carbon footprints of things like smartphones and agricultural products. > whoever collects this carbon tax will have an incentive to increase carbon emissions to collect more tax. I was (perhaps mistakenly) trying to keep my comment short, and left out one or two crucial aspects of the policy I'm advocating. Definitely read the wiki page and/or the bill if you're interested. They're both quite short. The tax can be revenue-neutral, with the proceeds divided equally among all residents of the country, who can receive it as a monthly check or deposit. People will be paying increased prices for all the goods and services that they consume (energy providers will have raised prices in accordance with the new tax they have to pay). The result of this is that those whose carbon footprint is smaller than average will receive a dividend that is larger than the mark up they have to pay as a consumer, while those whose carbon footprint is above average will receive the same dividend, but will have to endure a markup that is greater.