6 ms·

Great idea. Then when the air gets dirty we can just charge people for purified air.

• triceratops 7y ago
  I get that you're being facetious. But if purified air became sufficiently expensive, and it was the only way to breathe, everyone really would get serious about polluting less.
  • mikepurvis 7y ago
    Would they? The whole point of a polluted commons is that no one actor is able to make an impact from their own choices. Only collective action can make a difference, and that requires an enforceable agreement to cooperate plus enforcement to make sure that no one cheats. In a world of unbreatheable air, the most rational individual action is not to reduce polluting; rather, it's to pollute as hard as possible in order to make lots of money with which to buy purified air.
    • triceratops 7y ago
      > Only collective action can make a difference, But how do you motivate collective action and fight apathy? High prices are one way to do it.
  • thatoneuser 7y ago
    Or more like the people at the bottom would be choking to death while the top % of the world would go on without changing anything because it wouldn't affect them. Unless you're proposing to apply a sliding cost based on income (good luck) this would just lead to poor genocide.
• driverdan 7y ago
  That's not a reasonable comparison. A more realistic one would be to tax anything that pollutes the air to compensate for the cost of purifying it. Which is a great idea.