3 ms·

A world where we have cheap shipping/flights but pay the same excessive total or more elsewhere to deal with the externalities isnt better, it is just shifting

• Spivak 7y ago
  I don't disagree at all but shifting the costs of these externalities to individuals who really have no power doesn't really accomplish anything and is basically the definition of regressive. Telling someone who was living paycheck to paycheck before the change that their cost of living doubled and they should think of the environment is insane. So yes. Please shift the misery.
  • epistasis 7y ago
    We are already shifting the misery to people have no control of it, that's what an externality is. First, most carbon taxes I have seen proposed are revenue neutral, and give the money back to those with lower incomes or provide lower carbon options to people like transit. Though vehicle access and use has climbed in recent years in places like Southern California, it's not as though a carbon tax is an unavoidable expense, people always have other options. A doubling of the cost of living is just so far outside of the plausible realm as to be ridiculous. A $3/gallon gas tax is way higher than any carbon tax I've seen proposed, but even if the economy didn't adapt to it and optimize a ton, that's not enough for a doubling of the cost of living. The key is that we must change behavior, and change our carbon use. It's not enough to say "if we do this bad it will hurt this small group of people," we must say that and show how to mitigate that harm or show that it's greater harm than our current course of action. The status quo is not justified as a default option.