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I think it's too strong a claim that people don't want it. They don't particularly want to spend money on it, but they do want it to happen. It's one of the thi

I think it's too strong a claim that people don't want it. They don't particularly want to spend money on it, but they do want it to happen. It's one of the things I think is really useful about taxes: they allow us to justify (to ourselves) spending we wouldn't on a case-by-case basis. If someone asked me if I wanted to contribute to a new freeway in my city that I'm not going to use directly, no I don't, the marginal benefit to me is too slight. But I appreciate having sophisticated infrastructure, and when I see infrastructure spending on the budget, I'm more or less content with it. By the same token I don't for example pay for trees to be planted for every ton of CO2 I generate, but I'm happy for my taxes to go towards addressing the issue. If someone asked me if I'd like a tax break on the condition that it came out of that line-item, I wouldn't.

rschneid 6y ago
I wholeheartedly agree! I think this is a stumbling block that all too many folks encounter and then give up on seeing the idea as a solution to climate change altogether, but there's a rather clever fellow named Klaus Lackner who frames the solution in precisely these terms. Air Capture is a waste removal problem with financially viable solutions today... It's really just about getting the right diffusion of cost. I found out about him and his uplifting work through an appearance on the podcast Manifold [1]. But you can also learn about his research directly through ASU [2, 3]. Personally, it made me feel like the problem was far more tractable than I previously intuited. [1] https://manifoldlearning.com/episode-040/ https://manifoldlearning.com/episode-040/ [2] https://asunow.asu.edu/20190429-solutions-lackner-carbon-capture-technology-moves-commercialization https://asunow.asu.edu/20190429-solutions-lackner-carbon-cap... [3] https://cnce.engineering.asu.edu/ https://cnce.engineering.asu.edu/

rschneid 6y ago

I wholeheartedly agree! I think this is a stumbling block that all too many folks encounter and then give up on seeing the idea as a solution to climate change altogether, but there's a rather clever fellow named Klaus Lackner who frames the solution in precisely these terms. Air Capture is a waste removal problem with financially viable solutions today... It's really just about getting the right diffusion of cost. I found out about him and his uplifting work through an appearance on the podcast Manifold [1]. But you can also learn about his research directly through ASU [2, 3]. Personally, it made me feel like the problem was far more tractable than I previously intuited. [1] https://manifoldlearning.com/episode-040/ https://manifoldlearning.com/episode-040/ [2] https://asunow.asu.edu/20190429-solutions-lackner-carbon-capture-technology-moves-commercialization https://asunow.asu.edu/20190429-solutions-lackner-carbon-cap... [3] https://cnce.engineering.asu.edu/ https://cnce.engineering.asu.edu/