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It doesn't make sense to frame the issue as a matter of guilt, and neither is it relevant to look at the relative emissions of others. The simple matter is tha

It doesn't make sense to frame the issue as a matter of guilt, and neither is it relevant to look at the relative emissions of others. The simple matter is that we have a carbon budget per person on Earth. If you're above that, you should voluntarily reduce yourself below it. If you (we) don't, more aggressive mechanisms will eventually force us all to. Fly as much as you want, but you must capture or offset the emissions. This applies equally to all direct or indirect usage of fossil fuels. Driving, heating, goods, whatever. It's basic mathematics at this point. Guilt and shame are one potential social mechanism for getting people to realise what they must do. Taxation is another. People dying out is another. Etc. I suppose in that lens it's probably the lesser of the evils. But it's very much indirect, the shame is a sort of evolved potential solution rather than anything "real".

sorenjan 7y ago
Emission offset is just a way for rich people to absolve their sins. If you release CO2 in the atmosphere that was previously sequestered in the ground it's out. Sure you can plant some trees, and they'll bind the carbon as they grow, but what happens when they get old and die? Bacteria and fungi release the carbon back into the air.
- baq 7y ago
  burn and bury, i.e. put it back where it came from.
- mc32 7y ago
  That can be said about all forests though. As long as they produce new trees that replace them, it’d be okay.
- AJ007 7y ago
  It’s morally absurd, no one has suggested Jeffrey Epstein or Bill Cosby could donate money to sex abuse victims and then what they did would suddenly be acceptable. It’s one thing to be wealthy and claim global warming is the most serious threat to life on earth, and fly normal commercial planes with other people. It’s another to zoom around in a private jet to your personal vacation spot and board someone’s private yacht for a week. If you really wanted to be terrible, you could be like Sir Richard Branson and launch a cruise line.
- adriand 7y ago
  That doesn’t sound like a well-informed opinion to me. Have you looked at rigorously certified carbon offset and capture programs? It is not just treeplanting.
  - sorenjan 7y ago
    I would be very interested in any programs that actually capture and sequester CO2 long term. Do you have any good links?
    - adriand 7y ago
      Here's a list of featured projects associated with the nonprofit I buy offsets from: https://www.less.ca/en-ca/projects.cfm https://www.less.ca/en-ca/projects.cfm
      - sorenjan 7y ago
        I don't see anything about removing CO2 from the atmosphere, only spending money to prevent CO2 and methane being emitted elsewhere. While those projects are obviously good, they don't negate any fossil CO2 anyone else emits.
- esotericn 7y ago
  When I state that people must capture their emissions - I mean precisely that, as a simple matter of mathematics, the matter released must be captured and sequestered. Offsetting is a different matter entirely and is more of a transitionary exercise, because we ultimately need to hit net zero, for which offsetting is not a solution. The mechanics of either of those are done are left as an exercise for the reader. On geological timescales all of this stuff is quite hard. For example, you could populate massive forests, fell the trees and just stack up massive piles of wood. Assuming all of that is net carbon negative - what if there's a massive fire in the next thousand years? Oops.
- bryanlarsen 7y ago
  > but what happens when they get old and die? Bacteria and fungi release the carbon back into the air. And at that point the forest is in steady state: growth of new trees offsets the decay of old ones. Planting trees is only a temporary solution; you only get to count the credits once. Eventually much of the world will be covered in forests and different solutions will be needed. But it's an extremely valuable temporary solution. More forests are a good thing, and hopefully by then electric airplanes will be a cheaper option than offsets.
- adriand 7y ago
  People keep referring to tree planting as the thing that these offsets are funding. Of the featured projects funded by the company I purchase offsets from (https://www.less.ca/en-ca/projects.cfm https://www.less.ca/en-ca/projects.cfm), none consist of tree planting. Here is the overview of one of the projects (you can read the verification report at https://www.netinform.de/blueregistry/showpdf2.aspx?ID=39 https://www.netinform.de/blueregistry/showpdf2.aspx?ID=39): ------------ The objective of the Fredericton Region Solid Waste Commission (FRSWC) Landfill Gas Capture and Flare project is to capture and flare the landfill gas produced at the landfill located in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada, to further avoid emissions of methane to the atmosphere. The Fredericton Region Solid Waste Commission (FRSWC) Landfill began operations in 1986, covers 120 hectares of area and has over 1 million tons of waste in place. The landfill is currently accepting 75,000 tonnes per year of municipal solid waste and has the capacity to accept waste for the next 45 years. The New Brunswick province where the project is located has no regulatory requirements mandating the capture or flaring of landfill gas. Hence, the business as usual practice prior to the implementation of the project activity was complete release of Landfill Gas (LFG) into the atmosphere. The project activity is defined as the construction of 26 vertical wells, installation of 2,100 meters of pipeline and a flare for the purpose of LFG capture and methane destruction. A blower was installed to create a slight vacuum to draw the LFG through the pipeline and capped wells to the flare. The flare is an enclosed drum flare with high destruction efficiency to combust LFG and prevents direct methane emissions into the atmosphere. The forecasted amount of GHG emission reductions from the project is estimated to be 241,585 tonnes of CO2 equivalents (tCO2e) during the period of 8th December 2006 to 31st December 2010. ------------ You may disagree that this is an effective project, but I am more likely to trust an independent auditor (that's who produces these reports) that outlines the scientific basis in terms I can understand, that make sense, and that clearly identify the environmental impact. To me the biggest question is, would this project have existed regardless of whether or not I purchased offsets? I choose not to take this attitude of helplessness. I choose to fund, with my own money, scientifically verified and audited projects like this as opposed to doing nothing. By doing so, I believe that I mitigate and possibly eliminate the negative environmental impact of the choices I make to travel. Then I can focus on the positive impacts: The trip I took benefited me personally and broadened my world view. It improved my relationship with my wife. We contributed a little bit to the economy of Greece. Etc.
helpPeople 7y ago
I'm not a fan of giving anyone free polution. I was born into a world where people can "litter" in the air without fine. Could we simply consider this littering? If you want to drive a car, you must pay for your own polution cleanup. (I find this works better with conservatives as I call the alternative socialized air)
adriand 7y ago
I offset all my flights now (I probably fly about three round trips per year). My wife and I recently went to Greece (from Toronto), which were two trips of 10+ hours and IIRC almost 7 tons of carbon emissions. I purchased $170 CAD of offsets from a Canadian nonprofit (https://www.less.ca/ https://www.less.ca/). Not a perfect solution, but it’s something. I’m also considering calculating our family’s total yearly carbon emissions and offsetting all of them. But here’s the thing: why aren’t offsets just baked into the price of all air travel? It would not be a huge increase in ticket prices. I would guess perhaps 10, maybe 15%. We need to change the idea that we have some god given right to externalize our environmental impacts.
- baq 7y ago
  how is the price of the offset calculated? that sounds rather cheap.
- goodcanadian 7y ago
  I've always been somewhat skeptical of the offsets. It isn't as though there is a company (or non-profit) that is sucking an equivalent amount of CO2 out of the air. Planting trees only goes so far. I guess that generating funds to pursue other reductions is worthwhile, but it doesn't really undo the damage from the CO2 that was emitted in the first place. The cynic in me thinks it is simply a mechanism for people to buy away their guilt without actually accomplishing anything. why aren’t offsets just baked into the price of all air travel? Sounds like a carbon tax to me, which I am completely in favour of. If the proceeds are used to develop renewable energy or subsidise electric car purchase or other such things, so much the better. Call it a carrot and stick approach.
  - bryanlarsen 7y ago
    > undo the damage from the CO2 that was emitted in the first place. CO2 is fungible: one CO2 molecule is the same as another. And global warming is a global problem, not a local one so yes, removing one from location A at the same time as creating one at location B is very similar in effects to just not creating it in the first place. Air travel is one of the few exceptions: altitude has a large effect in the damage caused by a CO2 molecule. And of course it's not just CO2 that's being reduced when you limit CO2: most of the other pollutants emitted by combustion have very local effects. > > why aren’t offsets just baked into the price of all air travel? > Sounds like a carbon tax to me, which I am completely in favour of. If the carbon tax is below the cost of sequestration a carbon tax is not fully effective: it's still cheaper to pollute than to sequester or offset. A carbon tax above $100 per tonne or so will have the effect you desire: everybody will either reduce or will pay to offset/sequester rather than pay the tax. And if nobody pays, there are no proceeds.
samvher 7y ago
Unfortunately many of the offsetting strategies also require additional natural resources which puts more and more pressure on the whole system. It's also not really fair that access to resources then ends up determining how free you are (e.g. in terms of mobility) to a large extent.
vintermann 7y ago
There's one thing I disagree with: the notion that we should voluntarily stay "within our share" in order to not be forced to do it. I tried for years to avoid flying. I guess I stayed on the ground for about a decade It was a royal pain, because e.g. visiting the UK (where I have close relatives) from Norway is really, really painful by surface travel. It shouldn't be: it's close, after all, and there used to be ferries. But they all got closed down due to cheap flights (more recently than you'd think). "Voluntarily" reducing your carbon footprint will usually run into this obstacle. It means taking a lot of costs and inconvenience on yourself, which wouldn't have been there if we'd been forced (or rather, used our collective decision mechanisms to decide) to share these costs fairly. Concretely in my case, there might have been a ferry from Bergen again. That's why I welcome legislation. Even "oppressive" legislation that I wouldn't go for myself, like banning meat. I wouldn't go for it, but I'd respect it if it was passed, because I realize we have to make these decisions together, consciously, rather than individually and according to our personal guilt levels. This is what's missing. Thunberg and co are raging at the politicians, but politicians are probably more willing to accept big changes than the public is. They're as bold as the public allows them to. We need to get together and establish what our duties are. Maybe we'll let some get a bigger share of the carbon budget. Maybe we'll let the rich buy themselves a bigger share of those resources, just like they currently get to buy themselves a bigger share of everything else. But whatever we decide: the important thing is not your personal decisions, but that you accept that contra Bush the elder, your way of life IS up for negotiation.
- esotericn 7y ago
  Well, it's certainly the case that voluntarily performing these actions increases market demand. Consider for example the enormous proliferation of vegan food. I don't know about Norway, but Sweden has stuff everywhere, in rural village supermarkets for example. It certainly helps that a lot of activists skew towards the higher income end of the spectrum.
- me_me_me 7y ago
  The biggest impact on climate is industry. No eating meat, or not flying is a drop in the bucket. I think meat industry was estimated at 3%. Politicians are picked by big business and that's why there is a resistance to deal with the issue systematically. Also sad truth is that N America and Europe are reducing their footprint while China and India are happily growing on heaps of burning plastics. This is global problem and we don't have tools to deal with it globally. Give money to China to reduce the emissions, they will take it and put up a front of them doing something. The horrible truth is that we can barely do anything about the global warning. All we are really doing is watch this tragic play called "The tragedy of the commons" slowly playing out as we seep coke through paper straw from a plastic cup. I really hope I am wrong.
jokoon 7y ago
> you should voluntarily reduce yourself below it. I don't think you can reasonably expect people to do those things voluntarily The problem is that politically it's very difficult to reduce emissions because it often means it reduce their comfort, so legally it's complicated. Shaming people and making them feel guilty is a good alternative and a first step, because there are no legal means to make good progress, like a carbon tax.
beatgammit 7y ago
The problem is that there's no short term downside to using more than your share, and most people won't live to see the longer term effects of their decisions. People tend to maximize their own utility, and cutting back typically is the opposite. I don't think we should go the opposite direction, though, and legislate our way out by, for example, banning popular polluting products like meat and cars. Instead, I think we should just add in the long term costs so short term decisions are appropriately adjusted. I believe strongly that a carbon tax (or a more general pollution tax to cover things like methane) can significantly improve things generally without any bans. If you increase the price of jet fuel, airline ticket prices go up, which discourages use of airlines and encourages more efficient alternatives, like trains or telecommuting. It can touch pretty much every negative aspect of society without the complexity and subjectivity of deciding which products are bad enough to get banned. Companies that pollute will be forced to innovate or lose to greener competitors without all the complexity of juggling subsidies. I don't know why we haven't seriously presented a workable carbon tax. One side of politics chooses to ignore the problem, while the other side chases subsidies and regulation. I think taxing sources of carbon and other greenhouse gases makes a ton of sense.
- esotericn 7y ago
  A carbon tax is precisely what I'm talking about, it's just forced. Sure, we shouldn't ban anything. We probably actually can't.
- bryanlarsen 7y ago
  > I don't know why we haven't seriously presented a workable carbon tax. Two countries with highly visible carbon taxes are France and Canada. You've seen the video of the yellow vest protests in France. A carbon tax is highly regressive, affecting the poor more than the rich. In Canada they did it "properly", making it progressive through an offset. 80% of Canadians get more money from the carbon tax offset than they pay out into the carbon tax. The government is likely going to fall (or at best drop into minority status) in the election on Monday. The carbon tax is one of the key reasons for their fall. You're right, it doesn't make any sense.
  - 7y ago
antisthenes 7y ago
What's the budget then? I'd like to know where I stand right now, since I'm not particularly environmentally friendly: I drive a gas-powered vehicle (8-10k miles/year) I eat meat, including red meats I fly over the Atlantic at least once a year, sometimes twice, sometimes a local flight as well (under 3 hrs)
- esotericn 7y ago
  There are various sites that calculate this. Project Wren is one, I reckon they'd put you at about 10 tonnes per year or so, that's a very rough order of magnitude estimate by me though. Regarding budget; that's something that would have to be decided in a vague sense in order to enact a carbon tax. On a personal level you can just decide. Personally I donate and buy enough offset/capture that I go negative, because I can, and because my career means that I have enough money as long as I calibrate my lifestyle expectations appropriately.
  - antisthenes 7y ago
    Their calculator put me at 16.3 tons. The biggest impact they calculate is driving an electric vehicle; but I doubt they take into account the additional CO2 footprint of a new vehicle. My house is ineligible for solar panels, because it sits under trees. Reducing meat consumption by 30% would only cut emissions down by 0.3 tons. The good news is, I can offset 100% of that by paying for tree planting in Kenya, for only $208/year. Which frankly sounds too good to be true.

sorenjan 7y ago

Emission offset is just a way for rich people to absolve their sins. If you release CO2 in the atmosphere that was previously sequestered in the ground it's out. Sure you can plant some trees, and they'll bind the carbon as they grow, but what happens when they get old and die? Bacteria and fungi release the carbon back into the air.

baq 7y ago
burn and bury, i.e. put it back where it came from.
mc32 7y ago
That can be said about all forests though. As long as they produce new trees that replace them, it’d be okay.
AJ007 7y ago
It’s morally absurd, no one has suggested Jeffrey Epstein or Bill Cosby could donate money to sex abuse victims and then what they did would suddenly be acceptable. It’s one thing to be wealthy and claim global warming is the most serious threat to life on earth, and fly normal commercial planes with other people. It’s another to zoom around in a private jet to your personal vacation spot and board someone’s private yacht for a week. If you really wanted to be terrible, you could be like Sir Richard Branson and launch a cruise line.
adriand 7y ago
That doesn’t sound like a well-informed opinion to me. Have you looked at rigorously certified carbon offset and capture programs? It is not just treeplanting.
- sorenjan 7y ago
  I would be very interested in any programs that actually capture and sequester CO2 long term. Do you have any good links?
  - adriand 7y ago
    Here's a list of featured projects associated with the nonprofit I buy offsets from: https://www.less.ca/en-ca/projects.cfm https://www.less.ca/en-ca/projects.cfm
    - sorenjan 7y ago
      I don't see anything about removing CO2 from the atmosphere, only spending money to prevent CO2 and methane being emitted elsewhere. While those projects are obviously good, they don't negate any fossil CO2 anyone else emits.
esotericn 7y ago
When I state that people must capture their emissions - I mean precisely that, as a simple matter of mathematics, the matter released must be captured and sequestered. Offsetting is a different matter entirely and is more of a transitionary exercise, because we ultimately need to hit net zero, for which offsetting is not a solution. The mechanics of either of those are done are left as an exercise for the reader. On geological timescales all of this stuff is quite hard. For example, you could populate massive forests, fell the trees and just stack up massive piles of wood. Assuming all of that is net carbon negative - what if there's a massive fire in the next thousand years? Oops.
bryanlarsen 7y ago
> but what happens when they get old and die? Bacteria and fungi release the carbon back into the air. And at that point the forest is in steady state: growth of new trees offsets the decay of old ones. Planting trees is only a temporary solution; you only get to count the credits once. Eventually much of the world will be covered in forests and different solutions will be needed. But it's an extremely valuable temporary solution. More forests are a good thing, and hopefully by then electric airplanes will be a cheaper option than offsets.
adriand 7y ago
People keep referring to tree planting as the thing that these offsets are funding. Of the featured projects funded by the company I purchase offsets from (https://www.less.ca/en-ca/projects.cfm https://www.less.ca/en-ca/projects.cfm), none consist of tree planting. Here is the overview of one of the projects (you can read the verification report at https://www.netinform.de/blueregistry/showpdf2.aspx?ID=39 https://www.netinform.de/blueregistry/showpdf2.aspx?ID=39): ------------ The objective of the Fredericton Region Solid Waste Commission (FRSWC) Landfill Gas Capture and Flare project is to capture and flare the landfill gas produced at the landfill located in Fredericton, New Brunswick, Canada, to further avoid emissions of methane to the atmosphere. The Fredericton Region Solid Waste Commission (FRSWC) Landfill began operations in 1986, covers 120 hectares of area and has over 1 million tons of waste in place. The landfill is currently accepting 75,000 tonnes per year of municipal solid waste and has the capacity to accept waste for the next 45 years. The New Brunswick province where the project is located has no regulatory requirements mandating the capture or flaring of landfill gas. Hence, the business as usual practice prior to the implementation of the project activity was complete release of Landfill Gas (LFG) into the atmosphere. The project activity is defined as the construction of 26 vertical wells, installation of 2,100 meters of pipeline and a flare for the purpose of LFG capture and methane destruction. A blower was installed to create a slight vacuum to draw the LFG through the pipeline and capped wells to the flare. The flare is an enclosed drum flare with high destruction efficiency to combust LFG and prevents direct methane emissions into the atmosphere. The forecasted amount of GHG emission reductions from the project is estimated to be 241,585 tonnes of CO2 equivalents (tCO2e) during the period of 8th December 2006 to 31st December 2010. ------------ You may disagree that this is an effective project, but I am more likely to trust an independent auditor (that's who produces these reports) that outlines the scientific basis in terms I can understand, that make sense, and that clearly identify the environmental impact. To me the biggest question is, would this project have existed regardless of whether or not I purchased offsets? I choose not to take this attitude of helplessness. I choose to fund, with my own money, scientifically verified and audited projects like this as opposed to doing nothing. By doing so, I believe that I mitigate and possibly eliminate the negative environmental impact of the choices I make to travel. Then I can focus on the positive impacts: The trip I took benefited me personally and broadened my world view. It improved my relationship with my wife. We contributed a little bit to the economy of Greece. Etc.

helpPeople 7y ago

I'm not a fan of giving anyone free polution. I was born into a world where people can "litter" in the air without fine. Could we simply consider this littering? If you want to drive a car, you must pay for your own polution cleanup. (I find this works better with conservatives as I call the alternative socialized air)

adriand 7y ago

I offset all my flights now (I probably fly about three round trips per year). My wife and I recently went to Greece (from Toronto), which were two trips of 10+ hours and IIRC almost 7 tons of carbon emissions. I purchased $170 CAD of offsets from a Canadian nonprofit (https://www.less.ca/ https://www.less.ca/). Not a perfect solution, but it’s something. I’m also considering calculating our family’s total yearly carbon emissions and offsetting all of them. But here’s the thing: why aren’t offsets just baked into the price of all air travel? It would not be a huge increase in ticket prices. I would guess perhaps 10, maybe 15%. We need to change the idea that we have some god given right to externalize our environmental impacts.

baq 7y ago
how is the price of the offset calculated? that sounds rather cheap.
goodcanadian 7y ago
I've always been somewhat skeptical of the offsets. It isn't as though there is a company (or non-profit) that is sucking an equivalent amount of CO2 out of the air. Planting trees only goes so far. I guess that generating funds to pursue other reductions is worthwhile, but it doesn't really undo the damage from the CO2 that was emitted in the first place. The cynic in me thinks it is simply a mechanism for people to buy away their guilt without actually accomplishing anything. why aren’t offsets just baked into the price of all air travel? Sounds like a carbon tax to me, which I am completely in favour of. If the proceeds are used to develop renewable energy or subsidise electric car purchase or other such things, so much the better. Call it a carrot and stick approach.
- bryanlarsen 7y ago
  > undo the damage from the CO2 that was emitted in the first place. CO2 is fungible: one CO2 molecule is the same as another. And global warming is a global problem, not a local one so yes, removing one from location A at the same time as creating one at location B is very similar in effects to just not creating it in the first place. Air travel is one of the few exceptions: altitude has a large effect in the damage caused by a CO2 molecule. And of course it's not just CO2 that's being reduced when you limit CO2: most of the other pollutants emitted by combustion have very local effects. > > why aren’t offsets just baked into the price of all air travel? > Sounds like a carbon tax to me, which I am completely in favour of. If the carbon tax is below the cost of sequestration a carbon tax is not fully effective: it's still cheaper to pollute than to sequester or offset. A carbon tax above $100 per tonne or so will have the effect you desire: everybody will either reduce or will pay to offset/sequester rather than pay the tax. And if nobody pays, there are no proceeds.

samvher 7y ago

Unfortunately many of the offsetting strategies also require additional natural resources which puts more and more pressure on the whole system. It's also not really fair that access to resources then ends up determining how free you are (e.g. in terms of mobility) to a large extent.

vintermann 7y ago

There's one thing I disagree with: the notion that we should voluntarily stay "within our share" in order to not be forced to do it. I tried for years to avoid flying. I guess I stayed on the ground for about a decade It was a royal pain, because e.g. visiting the UK (where I have close relatives) from Norway is really, really painful by surface travel. It shouldn't be: it's close, after all, and there used to be ferries. But they all got closed down due to cheap flights (more recently than you'd think). "Voluntarily" reducing your carbon footprint will usually run into this obstacle. It means taking a lot of costs and inconvenience on yourself, which wouldn't have been there if we'd been forced (or rather, used our collective decision mechanisms to decide) to share these costs fairly. Concretely in my case, there might have been a ferry from Bergen again. That's why I welcome legislation. Even "oppressive" legislation that I wouldn't go for myself, like banning meat. I wouldn't go for it, but I'd respect it if it was passed, because I realize we have to make these decisions together, consciously, rather than individually and according to our personal guilt levels. This is what's missing. Thunberg and co are raging at the politicians, but politicians are probably more willing to accept big changes than the public is. They're as bold as the public allows them to. We need to get together and establish what our duties are. Maybe we'll let some get a bigger share of the carbon budget. Maybe we'll let the rich buy themselves a bigger share of those resources, just like they currently get to buy themselves a bigger share of everything else. But whatever we decide: the important thing is not your personal decisions, but that you accept that contra Bush the elder, your way of life IS up for negotiation.

esotericn 7y ago
Well, it's certainly the case that voluntarily performing these actions increases market demand. Consider for example the enormous proliferation of vegan food. I don't know about Norway, but Sweden has stuff everywhere, in rural village supermarkets for example. It certainly helps that a lot of activists skew towards the higher income end of the spectrum.
me_me_me 7y ago
The biggest impact on climate is industry. No eating meat, or not flying is a drop in the bucket. I think meat industry was estimated at 3%. Politicians are picked by big business and that's why there is a resistance to deal with the issue systematically. Also sad truth is that N America and Europe are reducing their footprint while China and India are happily growing on heaps of burning plastics. This is global problem and we don't have tools to deal with it globally. Give money to China to reduce the emissions, they will take it and put up a front of them doing something. The horrible truth is that we can barely do anything about the global warning. All we are really doing is watch this tragic play called "The tragedy of the commons" slowly playing out as we seep coke through paper straw from a plastic cup. I really hope I am wrong.

jokoon 7y ago

> you should voluntarily reduce yourself below it. I don't think you can reasonably expect people to do those things voluntarily The problem is that politically it's very difficult to reduce emissions because it often means it reduce their comfort, so legally it's complicated. Shaming people and making them feel guilty is a good alternative and a first step, because there are no legal means to make good progress, like a carbon tax.

beatgammit 7y ago

The problem is that there's no short term downside to using more than your share, and most people won't live to see the longer term effects of their decisions. People tend to maximize their own utility, and cutting back typically is the opposite. I don't think we should go the opposite direction, though, and legislate our way out by, for example, banning popular polluting products like meat and cars. Instead, I think we should just add in the long term costs so short term decisions are appropriately adjusted. I believe strongly that a carbon tax (or a more general pollution tax to cover things like methane) can significantly improve things generally without any bans. If you increase the price of jet fuel, airline ticket prices go up, which discourages use of airlines and encourages more efficient alternatives, like trains or telecommuting. It can touch pretty much every negative aspect of society without the complexity and subjectivity of deciding which products are bad enough to get banned. Companies that pollute will be forced to innovate or lose to greener competitors without all the complexity of juggling subsidies. I don't know why we haven't seriously presented a workable carbon tax. One side of politics chooses to ignore the problem, while the other side chases subsidies and regulation. I think taxing sources of carbon and other greenhouse gases makes a ton of sense.

esotericn 7y ago
A carbon tax is precisely what I'm talking about, it's just forced. Sure, we shouldn't ban anything. We probably actually can't.
bryanlarsen 7y ago
> I don't know why we haven't seriously presented a workable carbon tax. Two countries with highly visible carbon taxes are France and Canada. You've seen the video of the yellow vest protests in France. A carbon tax is highly regressive, affecting the poor more than the rich. In Canada they did it "properly", making it progressive through an offset. 80% of Canadians get more money from the carbon tax offset than they pay out into the carbon tax. The government is likely going to fall (or at best drop into minority status) in the election on Monday. The carbon tax is one of the key reasons for their fall. You're right, it doesn't make any sense.
- 7y ago

antisthenes 7y ago

What's the budget then? I'd like to know where I stand right now, since I'm not particularly environmentally friendly: I drive a gas-powered vehicle (8-10k miles/year) I eat meat, including red meats I fly over the Atlantic at least once a year, sometimes twice, sometimes a local flight as well (under 3 hrs)

esotericn 7y ago
There are various sites that calculate this. Project Wren is one, I reckon they'd put you at about 10 tonnes per year or so, that's a very rough order of magnitude estimate by me though. Regarding budget; that's something that would have to be decided in a vague sense in order to enact a carbon tax. On a personal level you can just decide. Personally I donate and buy enough offset/capture that I go negative, because I can, and because my career means that I have enough money as long as I calibrate my lifestyle expectations appropriately.
- antisthenes 7y ago
  Their calculator put me at 16.3 tons. The biggest impact they calculate is driving an electric vehicle; but I doubt they take into account the additional CO2 footprint of a new vehicle. My house is ineligible for solar panels, because it sits under trees. Reducing meat consumption by 30% would only cut emissions down by 0.3 tons. The good news is, I can offset 100% of that by paying for tree planting in Kenya, for only $208/year. Which frankly sounds too good to be true.