4 ms·
Incentives work really really well. Almost nothing else does over the long term. For a concrete alternative with incentives: https://citizensclimatelobby.org/b
by joshe 7y ago
Incentives work really really well. Almost nothing else does over the long term.
For a concrete alternative with incentives: https://citizensclimatelobby.org/basics-carbon-fee-dividend/ https://citizensclimatelobby.org/basics-carbon-fee-dividend/
A massive $600 billion dollar per year incentive based nudge.
- sandworm101 7y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montreal_Protocol https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montreal_Protocol : absolute ban on CFCs worked. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetraethyllead https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetraethyllead : EPA mandated reductions of lead in gasoline worked. Not to mention the thousands of little things (drunk driving, slavery, universal suffrage, speed limits etc) that were overturned relatively successfully without any market-based approaches. There is a right-wing philosophy that all government actions are inherently inefficient, but the reality is that laws work. It is possible to ban a behavior on day one and see it substantially reduced on day two.
- thebooktocome 7y agoChina has continued to leak CFCs despite the ban.
- wcoenen 7y agoCFCs in the atmosphere are still dropping. (The news was that the rate at which CFCs disappear has slowed down a bit, and some are pointing at China for that.) I'd say the policy was pretty effective.
- thebooktocome 7y agoI don't think China deserves the benefit of the doubt on this topic. "From the Korean and Japanese data, we used our models to show that emissions of CFC-11 from north eastern China had increased by around 7,000 tons per year after 2013, particularly in or around the provinces of Shandong and Hebei," said Luke Western, a University of Bristol atmospheric modeler. "We didn't find evidence of increasing emissions from Japan, the Korean peninsula or any other country to which our networks are sensitive." https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/22/health/china-cfc-pollution-environment-intl-scn/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2019/05/22/health/china-cfc-pollution-en...
- wcoenen 7y agoOK, the emissions were indeed confirmed to be coming from China. Fortunately they are tracking down the CFC producers now and shutting them down: https://nationalpost.com/news/world/china-makes-arrests-shuts-down-rogue-chemical-factories-that-spewed-banned-ozone-depleting-gas?fbclid=IwAR2D_XkH2BtI20r1AeessWBVp8uMXyIWpe5L4wQ1FZAPaWUreQjuwoszVU4 https://nationalpost.com/news/world/china-makes-arrests-shut...
- kortilla 7y agoThere are substitutes for CFCs and leaded gas. The switch was trivial for the majority of the population. Drunk driving is still not solved, and Uber/Lyft have done more to reduce drunk driving in huge parts of the US with poor public transportation than harsher penalties. Laws outright banning things don’t work when a huge chunk of the population will do it anyway. See, prohibition, the war on drugs, etc. Incentivize alternatives, don’t ban without a replacement. Otherwise it will just disrupt and get overturned a few years later.