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I find it amazing that if an alien civilization descended on us and taxed all fossil fuel usage by 100%, and took all that money out of planet Earth forever, bo
by abraae 7y ago
I find it amazing that if an alien civilization descended on us and taxed all fossil fuel usage by 100%, and took all that money out of planet Earth forever, both we and the aliens would be better off.
- bryanrasmussen 7y agoAn alien civilization would be better off if they started using our money?
- vinay427 7y agoWhy just fossil fuels? Other massive contributers like the meat industry should be taxed as well.
- jessaustin 7y agoAre you referring to cow farts? ISTM that cow farts come from cow food, which in turn comes from plants that pull carbon out of the atmosphere. Elsewhere ITT this cycle is used to justify using paper products. This seems very different than pulling fossil fuel out of the ground and burning it?
- aitchnyu 7y agoWhy be especially drastic on air travel when its 2% of carbon emissions, per Huffpost?
- vkou 7y agoIf you account for the impact of the emissions, rather than their weight, air travel is ~6-10% (Because emissions at 30,000 feet have a larger greenhouse effect.)
- pfdietz 7y agoSince CO2 is mixed in the atmosphere on a timescale short compared to how long it's going to linger there, your argument does not work.
- jdietrich 7y agoAir travel is particularly carbon intensive on a per-journey basis and cannot be decarbonized using current technology. We can replace your car with an EV, we can run your air conditioner on renewable electricity, we can swap your gas furnace for a ground-source heat pump, but passenger aviation is going to involve burning tonnes of kerosene for the foreseeable future.
- wormseed 7y agoDirect Air Capture can pull carbon out of the atmosphere for ~$200 per tonne. Flying generates about 0.1 tonne per passenger-hour. We can make flying carbon neutral and it'd only be ~20% more expensive.
- NikkiA 7y agoSo about 100 tonnes per flight.
- turk73 7y agoSo then every fat cat with a private jet should stop flying and set a good example. I bet 95% of what they do can be done remotely anyways. But that would let them schmooze and drink with other fat cats and get hooked up with underage girls.
- primroot 7y agoSociety tends to underestimate the power of inefficiencies and shortcomings to keep us in the right track by making it difficult to attain our immediate aspirations. The exception is in the case of the underclasses. In this case most people just find it obvious that if they have too much too easily then the entrepreneurial spirit would collapse and along with it society.