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Correctly pricing in the negative externalities of burning fossil fuels is what will help us shift away from fossil fuels. And if people are gonna be upset abo

Correctly pricing in the negative externalities of burning fossil fuels is what will help us shift away from fossil fuels. And if people are gonna be upset about a decrease in standard of living because they can't buy gas guzzling cars anymore or air travel is more expensive, they're really not going to like the drop in standard of living from climate change. Coastal flooding and storm surge is already destroying billions of dollars in real estate value. Houston has seen three 500-year floods in less than 5 years. We've seen the devastation from large scale wildfires in Australia and California. Subsistence fishermen in some parts of the world are already seeing their fisheries collapse. If we don't get climate change under control we're not going to be talking about temporary pain while we shift to cleaner technology. We'll be looking at large scale climate refugee crises, collapses of industries, collapses of governments, and wide scale human misery.

throwaway0a5e 6y ago
You are missing the point. The fact that we are headed toward refugee crisis and Miami being underwater doesn't change the incentives and game theory aspect of it. If emissions are expensive to remove and there is no way to globally ensure that nearly everybody pays for their emissions then nobody is going to pay for any of their emissions and will just invest in mitigating the problems locally even if that's not the globally optimal solution. Any country that tries to make its people pay the actual cost of their emissions without the rest of the world doing the same will quickly see regime change because people aren't gonna waste a bunch of resources pissing in the wind like that. If emission are cheap to remove then it's going to be easier to get everyone to pay and the fact that some "emissions havens" won't pay will be a non issue because picking up the slack will be cheap enough. In order to tax emissions at what it costs to dispose of them the cost of disposing of them needs to be cheaper. (Of course both of us are making the assumption that taxing emissions at the cost of disposing of them will solve the problem which isn't guaranteed because nations will be tempted to use that money on other things but I think we can continue using that assumption for the time being.)
- givinguflac 6y ago
  I disagree and feel that it is you who are missing the point. While I agree removal of CO2 needs to be less expensive, we simply don't have an option right now. We do have an option to make it more expensive to pollute until we figure that out. Why do you directly relate carbon taxes to a reduction in living standards??
  - cagenut 6y ago
    Because a certain type uses it as a code-phrase for "smaller cars, condos and fake cheeseburgers". They feel a deep sense of revolt at the affront of that personally, but are smart enough to realize they'll come off like the disgustingly amoral (imho evil) person they are if they complain about it personally. So they project it as a vague "standard of living" across poor/global-south people as a way of concern trolling libs into not taking their truck.
  - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
    >We do have an option to make it more expensive to pollute until we figure that out I'm saying that option only exists on paper because invoking it in any capacity that actually imposes enough cost to make people reduce polluting by a meaningful amount is going to met with too big a backlash to be sustainable. >Why do you directly relate carbon taxes to a reduction in living standards?? Because anything that raises cost across all goods and at every step of every supply chain reduces living standards because people will simply be able to afford less goods and services at their new prices. That people will have to do things like turn down the A/C and eat out less in order to make ends meet. Individually those aren't big deals but they have follow on effects, the HVAC guy and the restaurant get less business. Those apply through the entire economy compounding the problem. There are also a lot of people who are going to be pushed over standard of living "cliffs" so to speak. The increased cost will be the difference between living in an air conditioned apartment or not. You apply the former type of changes across the entire economy you'll piss everyone off. You sprinkle in the latter and you've got a regime change on your hands. The only way an across the board standard of living decrease like that is tolerated is when it is overwhelmingly consensual (see WW2 mobilization). I agree we need to do something but what? It's a real shit situation. Doing nothing is bad. Doing a token "something" doesn't help. Doing something that actually helps is not sustainable. Either climate change has to get worse or solving it has to get cheaper before we as a society can (uncontroversial) justify the level of resource allocation that will be required to make a meaningful difference.

throwaway0a5e 6y ago

You are missing the point. The fact that we are headed toward refugee crisis and Miami being underwater doesn't change the incentives and game theory aspect of it. If emissions are expensive to remove and there is no way to globally ensure that nearly everybody pays for their emissions then nobody is going to pay for any of their emissions and will just invest in mitigating the problems locally even if that's not the globally optimal solution. Any country that tries to make its people pay the actual cost of their emissions without the rest of the world doing the same will quickly see regime change because people aren't gonna waste a bunch of resources pissing in the wind like that. If emission are cheap to remove then it's going to be easier to get everyone to pay and the fact that some "emissions havens" won't pay will be a non issue because picking up the slack will be cheap enough. In order to tax emissions at what it costs to dispose of them the cost of disposing of them needs to be cheaper. (Of course both of us are making the assumption that taxing emissions at the cost of disposing of them will solve the problem which isn't guaranteed because nations will be tempted to use that money on other things but I think we can continue using that assumption for the time being.)

givinguflac 6y ago
I disagree and feel that it is you who are missing the point. While I agree removal of CO2 needs to be less expensive, we simply don't have an option right now. We do have an option to make it more expensive to pollute until we figure that out. Why do you directly relate carbon taxes to a reduction in living standards??
- cagenut 6y ago
  Because a certain type uses it as a code-phrase for "smaller cars, condos and fake cheeseburgers". They feel a deep sense of revolt at the affront of that personally, but are smart enough to realize they'll come off like the disgustingly amoral (imho evil) person they are if they complain about it personally. So they project it as a vague "standard of living" across poor/global-south people as a way of concern trolling libs into not taking their truck.
- throwaway0a5e 6y ago
  >We do have an option to make it more expensive to pollute until we figure that out I'm saying that option only exists on paper because invoking it in any capacity that actually imposes enough cost to make people reduce polluting by a meaningful amount is going to met with too big a backlash to be sustainable. >Why do you directly relate carbon taxes to a reduction in living standards?? Because anything that raises cost across all goods and at every step of every supply chain reduces living standards because people will simply be able to afford less goods and services at their new prices. That people will have to do things like turn down the A/C and eat out less in order to make ends meet. Individually those aren't big deals but they have follow on effects, the HVAC guy and the restaurant get less business. Those apply through the entire economy compounding the problem. There are also a lot of people who are going to be pushed over standard of living "cliffs" so to speak. The increased cost will be the difference between living in an air conditioned apartment or not. You apply the former type of changes across the entire economy you'll piss everyone off. You sprinkle in the latter and you've got a regime change on your hands. The only way an across the board standard of living decrease like that is tolerated is when it is overwhelmingly consensual (see WW2 mobilization). I agree we need to do something but what? It's a real shit situation. Doing nothing is bad. Doing a token "something" doesn't help. Doing something that actually helps is not sustainable. Either climate change has to get worse or solving it has to get cheaper before we as a society can (uncontroversial) justify the level of resource allocation that will be required to make a meaningful difference.