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I had no real reason, I was just throwing ideas out. A carbon tax by the amount produced is the most fair. The point would be to make all polluting activities u

I had no real reason, I was just throwing ideas out. A carbon tax by the amount produced is the most fair. The point would be to make all polluting activities uneconomical, but there is still the problem that in a democracy this will be deeply unpopular because the rich will likely be able to continue to afford some amount of pollution.

belorn 8y ago
A way to get around that (which I have heard some countries is currently testing) is to return the tax evenly to the population, so that money flow from those that pollute to those that don't. If the rich continue to afford some amount of pollution then it basically become redistribution of wealth from the rich to the poor, and the harsher the tax is the more money flows in that direction.
- biztos 8y ago
  Isn't there a risk that in order to, say, stop nonessential air travel, you have to set the tax so high that people can't have spinach anymore? (Leaving aside the question of how much economic downside there is to stopping, say, nonessential air travel.)
  - belorn 8y ago
    Not a major risk. If you tax based on carbon emissions, the food that don't produce a lot of emissions will become more attractive. If spinach is a high pollution food group then people will switch over to other food groups that has smaller footprint and thus cheaper price. There are crops like seaweed that can even capture carbon, which if we allow for the carbon tax to go negative could maybe become so economical attractive as to change food culture. Food choice is already 100% based on culture and if pollution would be the deciding factor then our plates would look very different from today. Arguing that generating pollution through spinach is more morally right than nonessential air travel will only lead emotional debates over what is essential to one person vs what isn't to someone else (specially for products that not that clean cut). Pollution is bad, and given the threat to the planet it seems like the greater good is better served without trying to distinguish between a moral pollution and a immoral one. I would be a miss if I did not mention that what is even worse than nonessential air travel is nonessential car travel in cities that has every kind of mass transit imaginable. We could turn most cities into a place where cars are not allowed and the most anyone would have to walk would be a few minutes. I would be that would translate to more carbon saved than the combined nonessential air travel, save more lives with cleaner air, reduce noise and increase the average health of people living there. Not going to politically happen but one could always dream.
- crispinb 8y ago
  Actuarial approaches die on the horns of a dilemma. They can only succeed by stemming the flow of matter and energy from complex well-functioning systems evolved over millennia (so-called 'nature'/'the environment') to crude technological systems. But of course this is not what their designers, ensnared by the 'economic growth' myth, can possibly wish for. So, as with taxation systems, they must be designed to fail, with a welter of loopholes and enforcement weaknesses allowing business-as-usual to essentially proceed.

belorn 8y ago

A way to get around that (which I have heard some countries is currently testing) is to return the tax evenly to the population, so that money flow from those that pollute to those that don't. If the rich continue to afford some amount of pollution then it basically become redistribution of wealth from the rich to the poor, and the harsher the tax is the more money flows in that direction.

biztos 8y ago
Isn't there a risk that in order to, say, stop nonessential air travel, you have to set the tax so high that people can't have spinach anymore? (Leaving aside the question of how much economic downside there is to stopping, say, nonessential air travel.)
- belorn 8y ago
  Not a major risk. If you tax based on carbon emissions, the food that don't produce a lot of emissions will become more attractive. If spinach is a high pollution food group then people will switch over to other food groups that has smaller footprint and thus cheaper price. There are crops like seaweed that can even capture carbon, which if we allow for the carbon tax to go negative could maybe become so economical attractive as to change food culture. Food choice is already 100% based on culture and if pollution would be the deciding factor then our plates would look very different from today. Arguing that generating pollution through spinach is more morally right than nonessential air travel will only lead emotional debates over what is essential to one person vs what isn't to someone else (specially for products that not that clean cut). Pollution is bad, and given the threat to the planet it seems like the greater good is better served without trying to distinguish between a moral pollution and a immoral one. I would be a miss if I did not mention that what is even worse than nonessential air travel is nonessential car travel in cities that has every kind of mass transit imaginable. We could turn most cities into a place where cars are not allowed and the most anyone would have to walk would be a few minutes. I would be that would translate to more carbon saved than the combined nonessential air travel, save more lives with cleaner air, reduce noise and increase the average health of people living there. Not going to politically happen but one could always dream.
crispinb 8y ago
Actuarial approaches die on the horns of a dilemma. They can only succeed by stemming the flow of matter and energy from complex well-functioning systems evolved over millennia (so-called 'nature'/'the environment') to crude technological systems. But of course this is not what their designers, ensnared by the 'economic growth' myth, can possibly wish for. So, as with taxation systems, they must be designed to fail, with a welter of loopholes and enforcement weaknesses allowing business-as-usual to essentially proceed.