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Sure. Countries that are vital to stopping climate change should be paid to by countries who are causing it. That’s how you mitigate the externality that’s goi

by sprafa 7y ago

Sure. Countries that are vital to stopping climate change should be paid to by countries who are causing it. That’s how you mitigate the externality that’s going on.

AnthonyMouse 7y ago
Aren't "countries that are vital to stopping climate change" and "countries who are causing it" the exact same people? They're vital to stopping it by discontinuing their harmful activities. And a tariff works as well as a subsidy, but is easier to get the party imposing it to enact because it generates revenue rather than consuming it.
- sprafa 7y ago
  No, they’re not. Not necessarily. https://medium.com/@indica/climate-winners-and-losers-in-two-maps-c89f17ef0a80?fbclid=IwAR1gff7oAyfhnAsgYPTBgojZJoH7mz0WHsEtxVul2zbwqFyt9ix7C3ZSN0c https://medium.com/@indica/climate-winners-and-losers-in-two... Essentially countries that are causing climate are the industrialised world (obv.). Countries that are vital to stopping climate change because they have huge green areas, ie Brasil, are actually being heavily impacted by climate change and now they are being climateblamed by the first world for chopping down their forests for productive activities. Well if the first world wants the forest to stay they ought to pay for it. They also ought to drastically reduce their carbon emissions. It’s funny how the same citizen of the same countries who are not doing their share of reducing emissions (US) are claiming in the same breath that Brasil should be punished for destroying a forest the West is desperate to protect. Well then protect it - tax your corporations for carbon emissions and buy up the amazon to protect it. Simple.
  - AnthonyMouse 7y ago
    > No, they’re not. Not necessarily. It seems like a pretty direct relationship. Your link is comparing who caused the damage to who suffers it, but that's not the same as comparing who caused to who can prevent it. The people who can prevent it are the people still causing it. Notice that Brazil is the same color (red) in both versions of that map. (It's also a misleading comparison because the "harm" side is measuring change in GDP growth per capita, but GDP growth per capita is smaller in developed countries to begin with. And then comparing that per capita number with absolute rather than per capita CO2 emissions.) > Countries that are vital to stopping climate change because they have huge green areas, ie Brasil, are actually being heavily impacted by climate change and now they are being climateblamed by the first world for chopping down their forests for productive activities. Well if the first world wants the forest to stay they ought to pay for it. Should we make the same argument all around? Generating electricity is for productive activities. If the third world wants the US stop burning coal then they should pay for it? No. The country doing the bad thing should suffer the cost of stopping it. > Well then protect it - tax your corporations for carbon emissions and buy up the amazon to protect it. Simple. It's easier to get tariffs put on a foreign country than pass a tax on your own people. It would be nice if some other countries (China? Europe?) could put some tariffs on the US tied to some CO2 targets as well.
    - sprafa 7y ago
      Regarding your argument about electricity, isn’t that what the US does? It burns coal and oil and has afaik virtually no limits or carbon taxes because “it would hurt American industry”. Yeah sure if there were tariffs all around. But the US hegemony was until recently sort of predicated on little tariffs and global trade. So your advocating a sort of ... I don’t even know how to describe it - reverse carbon mercantilism where everybody attacks each other’s carbon emissions through tariffs? That sounds like a good recepy for dramatically worsening international relations.
      - AnthonyMouse 7y ago
        > Regarding your argument about electricity, isn’t that what the US does? It burns coal and oil and has afaik virtually no limits or carbon taxes because “it would hurt American industry”. Because nobody is forcing them to do otherwise. So get somebody to. > That sounds like a good recepy for dramatically worsening international relations. Not really, because the point of the tariffs is to change behavior, not to actually collect the tariffs. You impose a high enough cost that reducing CO2 emissions is less expensive than paying the tariffs, so countries do that and then the tariffs don't get imposed because they're only imposed on countries that don't hit their targets.
        sprafa 7y ago
        There’s a strange sort of perversion to your idea that other countries should shoulder the responsibility to change your climate and carbon policy. Essentially the citizenship gets off free for not voting in more responsible politicians, and hey, “it’s the other countries fault for not forcing us to do it”. Hilarious.
        rbanffy 7y ago
        Leaving an uninhabitable planet for future generations is not exactly my idea of getting off free.
        7y ago
- sprafa 7y ago
  It’s hilarious that you’re so centred in your own politics that you don’t see the hypocrisy in that statement btw. “Tariffs are easier to enable”. Sure, FOR YOU. By you are fucking over Brasil twice - once by enacting climate by your irresponsible, untaxed and unregulated carbon emissions. Then by BLAMING Brasil for doing something productive with THEIR forest land. Why don’t you just tax your own carbon emissions and make a difference instead? Oh it’s politically difficult. Same as any action against carbon emissions. So let’s fuck over the third world twice by A) causing climate change which will affect them more than us and B) making THEM PAY for OUR IRRESPONSIBILITY. Why ? Because it’s more politically feasible to fuck them than to limit our own industrial capacity. America First
  - AnthonyMouse 7y ago
    Distributing blame and accusing people of hypocrisy doesn't change anybody's behavior. Countries screw over other countries for their own benefit all the time and they're not going to stop as a result of moralizing rhetoric. And it doesn't even necessarily change anything. Read this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coase_theorem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coase_theorem The difference between tariffs and subsidies is who gets the money. But even that doesn't really change very much unless the different people have significantly different preferences. If the American fat cats are just going to invest the money into the same ventures as the Brazilian fat cats then there is no real difference at all.
    - sprafa 7y ago
      American fat cats should buy up the amazon for the purpose of protecting it. I’m obviously not defending the idea that they exploit it same as the Brazilians.
      - AnthonyMouse 7y ago
        That's not what I'm talking about. Suppose we give them money for the rain forest so they leave it alone, and they take the money and invest it in the S&P 500, and then take the returns from that and reinvest it in the same thing. Suppose instead we threaten them with trade sanctions if they don't leave the rain forest alone, keep our money and invest it in the S&P 500 ourselves. It's the same result in practice. The real cost to Brazil is that they don't get to have an agriculture industry where there used to be rain forest. Which fat cat subsequently gets to be the nominal owner of some shares of SPX has no real effect on ordinary humans. The fat cats care but nothing real changes for anybody else.

by sprafa 7y ago

Sure. Countries that are vital to stopping climate change should be paid to by countries who are causing it. That’s how you mitigate the externality that’s going on.

AnthonyMouse 7y ago

Aren't "countries that are vital to stopping climate change" and "countries who are causing it" the exact same people? They're vital to stopping it by discontinuing their harmful activities. And a tariff works as well as a subsidy, but is easier to get the party imposing it to enact because it generates revenue rather than consuming it.

sprafa 7y ago
No, they’re not. Not necessarily. https://medium.com/@indica/climate-winners-and-losers-in-two-maps-c89f17ef0a80?fbclid=IwAR1gff7oAyfhnAsgYPTBgojZJoH7mz0WHsEtxVul2zbwqFyt9ix7C3ZSN0c https://medium.com/@indica/climate-winners-and-losers-in-two... Essentially countries that are causing climate are the industrialised world (obv.). Countries that are vital to stopping climate change because they have huge green areas, ie Brasil, are actually being heavily impacted by climate change and now they are being climateblamed by the first world for chopping down their forests for productive activities. Well if the first world wants the forest to stay they ought to pay for it. They also ought to drastically reduce their carbon emissions. It’s funny how the same citizen of the same countries who are not doing their share of reducing emissions (US) are claiming in the same breath that Brasil should be punished for destroying a forest the West is desperate to protect. Well then protect it - tax your corporations for carbon emissions and buy up the amazon to protect it. Simple.
- AnthonyMouse 7y ago
  > No, they’re not. Not necessarily. It seems like a pretty direct relationship. Your link is comparing who caused the damage to who suffers it, but that's not the same as comparing who caused to who can prevent it. The people who can prevent it are the people still causing it. Notice that Brazil is the same color (red) in both versions of that map. (It's also a misleading comparison because the "harm" side is measuring change in GDP growth per capita, but GDP growth per capita is smaller in developed countries to begin with. And then comparing that per capita number with absolute rather than per capita CO2 emissions.) > Countries that are vital to stopping climate change because they have huge green areas, ie Brasil, are actually being heavily impacted by climate change and now they are being climateblamed by the first world for chopping down their forests for productive activities. Well if the first world wants the forest to stay they ought to pay for it. Should we make the same argument all around? Generating electricity is for productive activities. If the third world wants the US stop burning coal then they should pay for it? No. The country doing the bad thing should suffer the cost of stopping it. > Well then protect it - tax your corporations for carbon emissions and buy up the amazon to protect it. Simple. It's easier to get tariffs put on a foreign country than pass a tax on your own people. It would be nice if some other countries (China? Europe?) could put some tariffs on the US tied to some CO2 targets as well.
  - sprafa 7y ago
    Regarding your argument about electricity, isn’t that what the US does? It burns coal and oil and has afaik virtually no limits or carbon taxes because “it would hurt American industry”. Yeah sure if there were tariffs all around. But the US hegemony was until recently sort of predicated on little tariffs and global trade. So your advocating a sort of ... I don’t even know how to describe it - reverse carbon mercantilism where everybody attacks each other’s carbon emissions through tariffs? That sounds like a good recepy for dramatically worsening international relations.
    - AnthonyMouse 7y ago
      > Regarding your argument about electricity, isn’t that what the US does? It burns coal and oil and has afaik virtually no limits or carbon taxes because “it would hurt American industry”. Because nobody is forcing them to do otherwise. So get somebody to. > That sounds like a good recepy for dramatically worsening international relations. Not really, because the point of the tariffs is to change behavior, not to actually collect the tariffs. You impose a high enough cost that reducing CO2 emissions is less expensive than paying the tariffs, so countries do that and then the tariffs don't get imposed because they're only imposed on countries that don't hit their targets.
      - sprafa 7y ago
        There’s a strange sort of perversion to your idea that other countries should shoulder the responsibility to change your climate and carbon policy. Essentially the citizenship gets off free for not voting in more responsible politicians, and hey, “it’s the other countries fault for not forcing us to do it”. Hilarious.
        rbanffy 7y ago
        Leaving an uninhabitable planet for future generations is not exactly my idea of getting off free.
        7y ago
sprafa 7y ago
It’s hilarious that you’re so centred in your own politics that you don’t see the hypocrisy in that statement btw. “Tariffs are easier to enable”. Sure, FOR YOU. By you are fucking over Brasil twice - once by enacting climate by your irresponsible, untaxed and unregulated carbon emissions. Then by BLAMING Brasil for doing something productive with THEIR forest land. Why don’t you just tax your own carbon emissions and make a difference instead? Oh it’s politically difficult. Same as any action against carbon emissions. So let’s fuck over the third world twice by A) causing climate change which will affect them more than us and B) making THEM PAY for OUR IRRESPONSIBILITY. Why ? Because it’s more politically feasible to fuck them than to limit our own industrial capacity. America First
- AnthonyMouse 7y ago
  Distributing blame and accusing people of hypocrisy doesn't change anybody's behavior. Countries screw over other countries for their own benefit all the time and they're not going to stop as a result of moralizing rhetoric. And it doesn't even necessarily change anything. Read this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coase_theorem https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coase_theorem The difference between tariffs and subsidies is who gets the money. But even that doesn't really change very much unless the different people have significantly different preferences. If the American fat cats are just going to invest the money into the same ventures as the Brazilian fat cats then there is no real difference at all.
  - sprafa 7y ago
    American fat cats should buy up the amazon for the purpose of protecting it. I’m obviously not defending the idea that they exploit it same as the Brazilians.
    - AnthonyMouse 7y ago
      That's not what I'm talking about. Suppose we give them money for the rain forest so they leave it alone, and they take the money and invest it in the S&P 500, and then take the returns from that and reinvest it in the same thing. Suppose instead we threaten them with trade sanctions if they don't leave the rain forest alone, keep our money and invest it in the S&P 500 ourselves. It's the same result in practice. The real cost to Brazil is that they don't get to have an agriculture industry where there used to be rain forest. Which fat cat subsequently gets to be the nominal owner of some shares of SPX has no real effect on ordinary humans. The fat cats care but nothing real changes for anybody else.