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With a carbon tax. It will automatically make fossil fuels more expensive, while this device produces a fuel not subject to the tax.

perfunctory 7y ago
Carbon tax is a good idea. But it's not happening! Writing proposals, calling representatives, signing petitions and voting isn't helping. I mean, how do we actually make it happen?
- dragontamer 7y ago
  > voting isn't helping Because the will of the people is in the other direction. At this point, its a matter of convincing the greater public of the evidence. People are stubborn and difficult to convince. And you need to convince roughly half of the voting population (maybe ~50-million people) before things happen in the USA. That's how democracy works. There's also a power-imbalance that gets somewhat political: how smaller states have 2 senators and therefore control the vote despite having a very small population. Convincing those people is more important, because their vote matters more than most people. 200,000 Wyoming residents have the voting power of 700,000 California residents, due to how Senators work.
  - Ericson2314 7y ago
    There is some bipartisan lobbying for a carbon tax. There is also bipartisan whinging, which is crazy. Just pair it with a dividend like Canada.
  - hanniabu 7y ago
    > And you need to convince roughly half of the voting population Not with gerrymandering, you'll effectively need much more. And then there's the fact that people are consistently voted in on a set of plans/promises that either are never followed through with or they do they opposite because they were just saying the things that get votes rather than what they actually intend to do. The system is broken, plain and simple, and it's not going to change because it benefits those with the ability to change it.
    - AnthonyMouse 7y ago
      Gerrymandering isn't really the issue. Even in a gerrymandered district, the representative is generally going to do what the majority of people in the district want. If you can convince the majority of the people in the majority of districts, you can get something done. The biggest "problem" is that neither party is predicted to control the House, Senate and Presidency all at once any time soon, so it almost inherently has to be bipartisan. But the prevailing spirit is not exactly cooperation and good faith, on either side.
- egdod 7y ago
  > Writing proposals, calling representatives, signing petitions and voting isn't helping. It’s almost as if the majority disagrees with you that it’s a good idea. Welcome to democracy.
  - Ericson2314 7y ago
    I doubt a majority of Americans are for or against, and support on most issues is very fluid when partisanship holds longer than policy. While there is legislative deadlock nothing will happen, and that won't change for at least a year.
- nothrabannosir 7y ago
  It's happened in the UK (£18/tonne of CO₂ equivalent) and Canada (varies per state), and probably others. UK total CO₂ emissions are below 1900 (!) levels, mostly due to many people switching to green energy, and substituting what coal remained with natural gas, which is most efficient power per tCO₂ among the fossil fuels. Don't give up hope :) keep bringing up carbon price whenever relevant. The tide of public opinion will turn. Late, as always, but it will turn. People didn't think a black man could ever be president but lo and behold you did it. You just need to keep telling people that there is a solution, and that it is carbon price. Keep beating the drum.
TheRealPomax 7y ago
The problem is that people focus on the word "carbon" and then ignore what the word "tax" means: tax is collected into a single account. Where it came from is irrelevant, and what's done with it is in no way tied to where it came from, so if you want a carbon tax, you better damn well also have some system in place that forces X% of a munipal/state/provice/federal/whatever budget to first be formally declared as reserved for spending on this particular issue. Otherwise that carbon tax goes to basically everything before it goes to "augmenting cars".
- nothrabannosir 7y ago
  A carbon tax is a pigovian tax which works by disincentivising the undesired behaviour. It makes burning fossil fuels more expensive, thereby making everything else cheaper; in that sense you could also call it a "green subsidy". What you do with that money is irrelevant. Turn it into a big paper boat and float it down the Hudson. The effect is in the levying of the tax, not in what is done with it. See for example Canada, who directly deposits the revenue back to its residents. The "augmenting cars" bit comes from people who don't want to pay the (now high) price of fossil fuels anymore, and instead want to avoid that tax by going green. That's how pigovian taxes work. See the UK who introduced a carbon tax, and promptly saw a huge shift in energy production to green energy and lower CO₂ emitting fuels.
  - whatshisface 7y ago
    You could also have a dollar-neutral carbon tax by lowering, say, income tax to exactly offset the revenue from the carbon tax. The population as a whole would not lose any money, but low-carbon behavior would be incentivised.
- smt1 7y ago
  The point is not to augment cars via the proceeds of the tax, it's to change consumer or business behavior from the consumption of things that create otherwise uncaptured negative externalities like pollution or global warming - a market failure. As a side effect, these taxes are thought to create the economies of scale and investment necessary to make substitutes work in the market with minimization of consumption or economic output if the tax is introduced is scaled up with time. This is why many well known economists are for a carbon tax: https://clcouncil.org/economists-statement/ https://clcouncil.org/economists-statement/
twblalock 7y ago
What will prevent a carbon tax from ending up like any other form of corporate tax, e.g. full of loopholes?

perfunctory 7y ago

Carbon tax is a good idea. But it's not happening! Writing proposals, calling representatives, signing petitions and voting isn't helping. I mean, how do we actually make it happen?

dragontamer 7y ago
> voting isn't helping Because the will of the people is in the other direction. At this point, its a matter of convincing the greater public of the evidence. People are stubborn and difficult to convince. And you need to convince roughly half of the voting population (maybe ~50-million people) before things happen in the USA. That's how democracy works. There's also a power-imbalance that gets somewhat political: how smaller states have 2 senators and therefore control the vote despite having a very small population. Convincing those people is more important, because their vote matters more than most people. 200,000 Wyoming residents have the voting power of 700,000 California residents, due to how Senators work.
- Ericson2314 7y ago
  There is some bipartisan lobbying for a carbon tax. There is also bipartisan whinging, which is crazy. Just pair it with a dividend like Canada.
- hanniabu 7y ago
  > And you need to convince roughly half of the voting population Not with gerrymandering, you'll effectively need much more. And then there's the fact that people are consistently voted in on a set of plans/promises that either are never followed through with or they do they opposite because they were just saying the things that get votes rather than what they actually intend to do. The system is broken, plain and simple, and it's not going to change because it benefits those with the ability to change it.
  - AnthonyMouse 7y ago
    Gerrymandering isn't really the issue. Even in a gerrymandered district, the representative is generally going to do what the majority of people in the district want. If you can convince the majority of the people in the majority of districts, you can get something done. The biggest "problem" is that neither party is predicted to control the House, Senate and Presidency all at once any time soon, so it almost inherently has to be bipartisan. But the prevailing spirit is not exactly cooperation and good faith, on either side.
egdod 7y ago
> Writing proposals, calling representatives, signing petitions and voting isn't helping. It’s almost as if the majority disagrees with you that it’s a good idea. Welcome to democracy.
- Ericson2314 7y ago
  I doubt a majority of Americans are for or against, and support on most issues is very fluid when partisanship holds longer than policy. While there is legislative deadlock nothing will happen, and that won't change for at least a year.
nothrabannosir 7y ago
It's happened in the UK (£18/tonne of CO₂ equivalent) and Canada (varies per state), and probably others. UK total CO₂ emissions are below 1900 (!) levels, mostly due to many people switching to green energy, and substituting what coal remained with natural gas, which is most efficient power per tCO₂ among the fossil fuels. Don't give up hope :) keep bringing up carbon price whenever relevant. The tide of public opinion will turn. Late, as always, but it will turn. People didn't think a black man could ever be president but lo and behold you did it. You just need to keep telling people that there is a solution, and that it is carbon price. Keep beating the drum.

TheRealPomax 7y ago

The problem is that people focus on the word "carbon" and then ignore what the word "tax" means: tax is collected into a single account. Where it came from is irrelevant, and what's done with it is in no way tied to where it came from, so if you want a carbon tax, you better damn well also have some system in place that forces X% of a munipal/state/provice/federal/whatever budget to first be formally declared as reserved for spending on this particular issue. Otherwise that carbon tax goes to basically everything before it goes to "augmenting cars".

nothrabannosir 7y ago
A carbon tax is a pigovian tax which works by disincentivising the undesired behaviour. It makes burning fossil fuels more expensive, thereby making everything else cheaper; in that sense you could also call it a "green subsidy". What you do with that money is irrelevant. Turn it into a big paper boat and float it down the Hudson. The effect is in the levying of the tax, not in what is done with it. See for example Canada, who directly deposits the revenue back to its residents. The "augmenting cars" bit comes from people who don't want to pay the (now high) price of fossil fuels anymore, and instead want to avoid that tax by going green. That's how pigovian taxes work. See the UK who introduced a carbon tax, and promptly saw a huge shift in energy production to green energy and lower CO₂ emitting fuels.
- whatshisface 7y ago
  You could also have a dollar-neutral carbon tax by lowering, say, income tax to exactly offset the revenue from the carbon tax. The population as a whole would not lose any money, but low-carbon behavior would be incentivised.
smt1 7y ago
The point is not to augment cars via the proceeds of the tax, it's to change consumer or business behavior from the consumption of things that create otherwise uncaptured negative externalities like pollution or global warming - a market failure. As a side effect, these taxes are thought to create the economies of scale and investment necessary to make substitutes work in the market with minimization of consumption or economic output if the tax is introduced is scaled up with time. This is why many well known economists are for a carbon tax: https://clcouncil.org/economists-statement/ https://clcouncil.org/economists-statement/

twblalock 7y ago

What will prevent a carbon tax from ending up like any other form of corporate tax, e.g. full of loopholes?