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Rich people may not eat more food, but they may eat food that is shipped in from all over the world. They don't drive dozens of cars at once, but they do have

Rich people may not eat more food, but they may eat food that is shipped in from all over the world. They don't drive dozens of cars at once, but they do have lots of things delivered, and tend not to take public transport as much. They also tend to fly a lot more (which is a big source of emissions), and live in big houses with lots of lights and area to heat and cool. I agree with your point that a carbon tax would not serve the purpose of a UBI. Now I'm gonna go off topic a bit and focus on carbon taxes. I volunteer with Citizens Climate Lobby. The bill we're trying to get through the House of Representatives, H.R. 763 aka the Energy Innovation Act, is a carbon tax, but it's not like you imagine, I think. It taxes fossil fuels at the point of production, and therefore allows normal market mechanisms to adjust the prices of everything. No change to individual tax bills. Some things would get more expensive, but we would all get a check in the mail to offset. If you pollute more than average, the check wouldn't make up for the increased prices, but if you pollute less, you'd benefit. The change in prices will shift consumption away from the emissions-intensive goods and services, toward those that are greener. The poor would disproportionately benefit from this. Not just financially -- carbon emissions and pollution that affects health are of course closely linked, and it's poor people who suffer the most from pollution, because they can't afford to move somewhere else to escape it. It's not just about individual behavior -- companies would feel the same shift in incentives. Another way to think of the tax, from an economist's point of view, is that it's just correctly pricing a market externality. The weird thing about a carbon tax like this is that a majority of Americans support it, but most of us don't think that it's a majority! It's already popular, we just have to convince Congress.

wahern 6y ago
> which is a big source of emissions Slight tangent: 2% globally[1], 3% domestically[2] is big? [1] https://www.iata.org/en/programs/environment/climate-change/ https://www.iata.org/en/programs/environment/climate-change/ [2] https://www.eesi.org/papers/view/fact-sheet-the-growth-in-greenhouse-gas-emissions-from-commercial-aviation https://www.eesi.org/papers/view/fact-sheet-the-growth-in-gr...
- qqqwerty 6y ago
  The nice thing about a carbon tax is we can stop nitpicking over what qualifies as a significant contribution to the problem.
  - Elzear 6y ago
    Unfortunately, airlines avoid taxes on aviation fuel because of the Chicago Convention. It could be difficult to enforce a carbon tax on fuel for international flights. Nitpicking: one transatlantic flight emits 2 tons of CO2 per passenger, a human emits 4 tons per year per capita on average.
    - iso1631 6y ago
      > Unfortunately, airlines avoid taxes on aviation fuel because of the Chicago Convention. It could be difficult to enforce a carbon tax on fuel for international flights. Why can't airports be taxed based on the CO2 generated by planes landing at them? The airport can recover this from the airlines however it wants, including incentivizing lower polluting planes by charging lower landing fees.
  - wahern 6y ago
    Sure, but I think the bone of contention is whether a carbon tax is a viable mechanism for funding UBI. The reason why a carbon tax works well to efficiently reduce carbon emissions is pretty much the same reason it can't work well to transfer wealth. EDIT: Another way to understand the relationship is that because consumption increases faster per additional income dollar as you move down the income scale[1], any actual wealth transfer is likely to result in greater carbon emissions. [1] This paper has some graphs: https://www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminstitute/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Working-Paper-285-Sager.pdf https://www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminstitute/wp-content/uploads/2...
    - qqqwerty 6y ago
      The wealth transfer mechanism can be designed to account for that. For example, a negative income tax would work. Another thing to consider, the tax is on the producers of the fossil fuels, not the consumers. And those producers are increasingly competing in markets with non-carbon alternatives. So it is unlikely that they can pass the full cost onto consumers, more likely the tax will be eating into their profits. And what does show up on the consumer side will likely show up as mild inflation. In an economy with an effective UBI, wages are more likely to track inflation as the labor market will have more negotiating power. FWIW, I have no idea if a carbon tax alone is enough to fund UBI (or negative income tax). But it is certainly one source of revenue that I would fully support tapping into.
sephamorr 6y ago
How does this deal with the border-adjustment problem? I used to be a strong supporter of carbon taxation, but ultimately concluded that a good policy (that doesn't have perverse incentive consequences for imports/exports) would be an extremely difficult policy to implement, and beyond the current scope of support for climate policies.
- NumberWangMan 6y ago
  H.R. 763, as I understand it, puts taxes on imports from countries that have not implemented similar carbon taxes, in an attempt to avoid disadvantaging domestic businesses. Goods exported to other countries will allow a tax refund as well. So if I understand what you're saying, you're worried that domestic producers will focus more on exports, rather than selling their goods domestically? I think it would tend to shift things in that direction to some degree. Do you feel that that would negate a lot of the benefit of the bill? I feel like there's more to what you're saying that I haven't grokked.
  - sephamorr 6y ago
    If the border tax is just for countries without a similar tax, let's consider one example, say steel. Foundries in countries that fall under the taxed regime then have an incentive to produce the cheapest (and dirtiest) steel, since they get no benefit vs the other foundries (you could rightly retort though that this is largely the way it is today). Maybe the tax then should try to evaluate the relative carbon intensity of each supplier, rather than just by region/country, but good luck avoiding cheaters around the world. I guess overall I have a hard time imagining that you could create a fair tax/duty for carbon intensive industries that accounted for all of these potentially perverse incentives unique to each industry (just take a look at the US tax code), given how hard it is to write and pass policy without succumbing to special interests.
    - mac01021 6y ago
      It sure wouldn't be perfect, but I don't think that's enough reason not to do it. Hopefully, if we import a lot of steal from a country, our border adjustment would be incentive enough for that country to adopt for themselves this very sensible fee & dividend system, after which each steel maker would actually be taxed the appropriate amount.
prostoalex 6y ago
> Rich people may not eat more food, but they may eat food that is shipped in from all over the world. Or they may eat farm-to-table and shop at local farmers' markets. On the other side, step into any Wal-Mart or dollar store, and almost everything there was manufactured and shipped from Asian continent. > It taxes fossil fuels at the point of production How does it work with fossil fuels refined in Middle East and delivered to China? > tend not to take public transport as much The first thing that happened after California approved driver licenses for undocumented aliens is that used car sales surged and public transport dropped (LAMTA and Metrolink specifically). For a lot of lower-income customers buying the car was aspirational and signified the rite of passage. In their price segment they're not typically shopping EVs either.
- NumberWangMan 6y ago
  > Or they may eat farm-to-table and shop at local farmers' markets. On the other side, step into any Wal-Mart or dollar store, and almost everything there was manufactured and shipped from Asian continent. Good point. Rich people who live environmentally sustainable lives are not the problem, in this context. I don't have a problem with them being rewarded. The way I look at it is, right now, even if you want to reduce your emissions, it's really hard to know how to get the biggest bang for your buck. Should I get a new fuel-efficient car, or drive this one until it dies so as to avoid the emissions of manufacturing a new car? Should I swap out my gas stove for an electric one? Etc. Adding a carbon tax is almost like magic, in how it piggybacks on all the normal price optimizations we do every day. The prices will change to reflect the environmental cost, so you don't even have to try to change your behavior, you'll just adjust naturally. > How does it work with fossil fuels refined in Middle East and delivered to China? I should clarify, it taxes fossil fuels produced in America or imported into America. It doesn't solve the problem for the whole world -- if only it were that easy. But it does solve one half of the problem where the US and China can point at each other and claim that the other one should make the first move while the problem gets worse and worse. The USA isn't the biggest polluter per capita, nor the biggest in absolute terms, but it's pretty high up on both, and we've been contributing to the problem for a LONG time. > The first thing that happened after California approved driver licenses for undocumented aliens is that used car sales surged and public transport dropped (LAMTA and Metrolink specifically). For a lot of lower-income customers buying the car was aspirational and signified the rite of passage. In their price segment they're not typically shopping EVs either. So... all I get out of that is that people who are not allowed to drive drive less than people who are allowed to. I don't think that is evidence that poor people take public transport less than rich people. Anyway, we can debate arbitrary points like this, but it's pretty clear from studies that emissions go up as income goes up. See: https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2020/07/14/1922205117 https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2020/07/14/1922205117 or https://www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminstitute/publication/income-inequality-and-carbon-consumption-evidence-from-environmental-engel-curves/ https://www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminstitute/publication/income-i... That's what matters -- since poor people tend to contribute less in terms of emissions, they will benefit from a carbon tax and dividend, overall.
austincheney 6y ago
> Rich people may not eat more food, but they may eat food that is shipped in from all over the world. Everybody, except for people in the poorest and most isolated of developing nations, eats food from all over the world. Most African nations aside from the land locked sub Saharan nations have access to the global food market. Almost all of the worlds cashews come from Vietnam and almost all of the worlds Almonds come from California. Much of the fruit consumed in the US is grown outside the US, especially in South America. Likewise South America imports most of its locally consumed fruit from the US. I am currently living in Kuwait where fresh fruit is available everyday. If not for a global food supply the only fresh fruit available here would be a single variety of date available during a single 6 week window. Even then those date trees are completely dependent on irrigation to survive. Growing up in Texas perhaps the only food dependent upon local growers were pecans and watermelons.
- noelherrick 6y ago
  But doesn’t that show that life is not sustainable in that area? Your arguments make it seem like it would be a good idea to leave Kuwait, not that we shouldn’t tax carbon. Obviously we need a transition time, but there’s a lot of environmentally unsound practices-including living in deserts.
  - austincheney 6y ago
    People were sustaining in Kuwait for more than 200 years before they had access to cheap international commercial food. My understanding is that Kuwait is only slightly less sustaining than Southern California which is also a desert and also contains Death Valley.
    - ido 6y ago
      Another point of reference: Israel is 80% desert & is mostly (aside from grains imports) food independent. Food is expensive in Israel (2-3x German prices, anecdotally) but availability and diversity are good. Modern agriculture makes local production possible almost everywhere, it's just not as cheap as importing.
deepnotderp 6y ago
Shipping food on the oceans takes very little energy
nostrebored 6y ago
Food that is shipped in 'from all over the world' is typically more fuel efficient than food that is delivered from 'local sources'. Cargo shipping is actually very efficient. Your suggestion is not grounded in reality.
ars 6y ago
How do you handle import/export? Every pollution tax I've seen always gets bogged down in details when they have to account for other countries who don't have it.
- jaakl 6y ago
  Tax it on the border?
  - ars 6y ago
    How much tax? What if they also have a pollution tax? What if they don't, are all exports going to be more expensive now in comparison with countries without this tax? What if they claim to have a pollution tax but are lying at the state level? It gets really complicated really fast. If pollution is taxed at the source how do you calculate how much of a refund to give when exporting? Probably no one can even calculate that for you. And not giving a refund would destroy exports which is an obvious problem.
jaifraic 6y ago
> Rich people may not eat more food, but they may eat food that is shipped in from all over the world. They don't drive dozens of cars at once, but they do have lots of things delivered, and tend not to take public transport as much. They also tend to fly a lot more (which is a big source of emissions), and live in big houses with lots of lights and area to heat and cool. I think it may be the other way round. Rich people are able to buy locally sourced, sustainable grown groceries, whilst poor people have to settle for cheaper, intensively farmed ones. A good example would be meat. Meat of local, free range animals is way more expensive than meat of intensive animal farming. Same with cloth; poor people aren't able to choose between cheap or ethical/biological fair trade cloth. They have to choose that, which they can afford.
lambdasquirrel 6y ago
I wonder if we might be underestimating just how much rich people can burn carbon though. A 1-hour speed boat run with 2 marine V8 engines chugging at it is probably one person's gas consumption for a month. Who knows how much all those private jets burn. All those rooms in the mansions, that need to be kept at some temperature level. You could probably sell it just by noting that Larry Ellison burns 50x as much carbon as one of the Mexican laborers who trims the lawn and rides back home on his bike. In any case, there's probably some math / clamping functions you could use to incentivize the general population into doing their part, and that we don't end up in a perverse situation where carbon-burning is incentivized through fuel subsidies. And direct funding into battery recycling. Top-to-bottom this strikes me as a bunch of technology and math problems, which we can do.
- iso1631 6y ago
  > Who knows how much all those private jets burn A B737 burns about 750 gallons an hour for 200 passengers. A Lear Jet 45 burns around 165 gallons an hour for upto 8 passengers. If both planes are full the Lear Jet uses about 6 times as much fuel per person. If the Lear Jet has 1 passenger and the 737 has 4, the Lear Jet is better. A Lear Jet gets about 3mpg, with 8 passengers that's 24mpg, a similar fuel efficency to a Ford F150 with a single passenger. > You could probably sell it just by noting that Larry Ellison burns 50x as much carbon as one of the Mexican laborers who trims the lawn and rides back home on his bike. A big issue with CO2 per capita is that imports of CO2 emissions often don't count. If China uses 10 tons of CO2 to produce a dohicky which is then sold to a German consumer, that goes down as a China emission rather than a U.S emission.
gjs278 6y ago
rich people can buy teslas and green energy. you’re wasting your time thinking this will help poor people. it won’t. it’ll reduce the rich’s consumption but everyone else will still use poor people tech and end up getting carbon taxed. maybe redirect your efforts to something useful.
niyikiza 6y ago
Do you have some sort of paper/article/book explaining the idea in detail? I don't think it would be fair to analyze it based on an HN comment.
- mac01021 6y ago
  High level summary & FAQ: https://energyinnovationact.org/how-it-works/?cn-reloaded=1 https://energyinnovationact.org/how-it-works/?cn-reloaded=1 Some pages about forecasted household/economic impact: https://citizensclimatelobby.org/household-impact-study/ https://citizensclimatelobby.org/household-impact-study/ The actual text of the bill: https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/763/text https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/763/... (It's pretty short. If you're a native speaker of english I guess I would allocate 20-40 minutes?) A signed letter by thousands of economists: https://clcouncil.org/economists-statement/ https://clcouncil.org/economists-statement/ (in case you like appeals to authority)
mac01021 6y ago
Hi! I regularly donate to CCL, but I haven't seen a way of volunteering that I felt would be an effective use of my time. (I'm not especially eloquent or charismatic in person) What do you do for them? And why can't HR 763 get any republican sponsors? I vaguely recall this policy seeing more republican support in previous session (though I could be misremembering).

wahern 6y ago

> which is a big source of emissions Slight tangent: 2% globally[1], 3% domestically[2] is big? [1] https://www.iata.org/en/programs/environment/climate-change/ https://www.iata.org/en/programs/environment/climate-change/ [2] https://www.eesi.org/papers/view/fact-sheet-the-growth-in-greenhouse-gas-emissions-from-commercial-aviation https://www.eesi.org/papers/view/fact-sheet-the-growth-in-gr...

qqqwerty 6y ago
The nice thing about a carbon tax is we can stop nitpicking over what qualifies as a significant contribution to the problem.
- Elzear 6y ago
  Unfortunately, airlines avoid taxes on aviation fuel because of the Chicago Convention. It could be difficult to enforce a carbon tax on fuel for international flights. Nitpicking: one transatlantic flight emits 2 tons of CO2 per passenger, a human emits 4 tons per year per capita on average.
  - iso1631 6y ago
    > Unfortunately, airlines avoid taxes on aviation fuel because of the Chicago Convention. It could be difficult to enforce a carbon tax on fuel for international flights. Why can't airports be taxed based on the CO2 generated by planes landing at them? The airport can recover this from the airlines however it wants, including incentivizing lower polluting planes by charging lower landing fees.
- wahern 6y ago
  Sure, but I think the bone of contention is whether a carbon tax is a viable mechanism for funding UBI. The reason why a carbon tax works well to efficiently reduce carbon emissions is pretty much the same reason it can't work well to transfer wealth. EDIT: Another way to understand the relationship is that because consumption increases faster per additional income dollar as you move down the income scale[1], any actual wealth transfer is likely to result in greater carbon emissions. [1] This paper has some graphs: https://www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminstitute/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/Working-Paper-285-Sager.pdf https://www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminstitute/wp-content/uploads/2...
  - qqqwerty 6y ago
    The wealth transfer mechanism can be designed to account for that. For example, a negative income tax would work. Another thing to consider, the tax is on the producers of the fossil fuels, not the consumers. And those producers are increasingly competing in markets with non-carbon alternatives. So it is unlikely that they can pass the full cost onto consumers, more likely the tax will be eating into their profits. And what does show up on the consumer side will likely show up as mild inflation. In an economy with an effective UBI, wages are more likely to track inflation as the labor market will have more negotiating power. FWIW, I have no idea if a carbon tax alone is enough to fund UBI (or negative income tax). But it is certainly one source of revenue that I would fully support tapping into.

sephamorr 6y ago

How does this deal with the border-adjustment problem? I used to be a strong supporter of carbon taxation, but ultimately concluded that a good policy (that doesn't have perverse incentive consequences for imports/exports) would be an extremely difficult policy to implement, and beyond the current scope of support for climate policies.

NumberWangMan 6y ago
H.R. 763, as I understand it, puts taxes on imports from countries that have not implemented similar carbon taxes, in an attempt to avoid disadvantaging domestic businesses. Goods exported to other countries will allow a tax refund as well. So if I understand what you're saying, you're worried that domestic producers will focus more on exports, rather than selling their goods domestically? I think it would tend to shift things in that direction to some degree. Do you feel that that would negate a lot of the benefit of the bill? I feel like there's more to what you're saying that I haven't grokked.
- sephamorr 6y ago
  If the border tax is just for countries without a similar tax, let's consider one example, say steel. Foundries in countries that fall under the taxed regime then have an incentive to produce the cheapest (and dirtiest) steel, since they get no benefit vs the other foundries (you could rightly retort though that this is largely the way it is today). Maybe the tax then should try to evaluate the relative carbon intensity of each supplier, rather than just by region/country, but good luck avoiding cheaters around the world. I guess overall I have a hard time imagining that you could create a fair tax/duty for carbon intensive industries that accounted for all of these potentially perverse incentives unique to each industry (just take a look at the US tax code), given how hard it is to write and pass policy without succumbing to special interests.
  - mac01021 6y ago
    It sure wouldn't be perfect, but I don't think that's enough reason not to do it. Hopefully, if we import a lot of steal from a country, our border adjustment would be incentive enough for that country to adopt for themselves this very sensible fee & dividend system, after which each steel maker would actually be taxed the appropriate amount.

prostoalex 6y ago

> Rich people may not eat more food, but they may eat food that is shipped in from all over the world. Or they may eat farm-to-table and shop at local farmers' markets. On the other side, step into any Wal-Mart or dollar store, and almost everything there was manufactured and shipped from Asian continent. > It taxes fossil fuels at the point of production How does it work with fossil fuels refined in Middle East and delivered to China? > tend not to take public transport as much The first thing that happened after California approved driver licenses for undocumented aliens is that used car sales surged and public transport dropped (LAMTA and Metrolink specifically). For a lot of lower-income customers buying the car was aspirational and signified the rite of passage. In their price segment they're not typically shopping EVs either.

NumberWangMan 6y ago
> Or they may eat farm-to-table and shop at local farmers' markets. On the other side, step into any Wal-Mart or dollar store, and almost everything there was manufactured and shipped from Asian continent. Good point. Rich people who live environmentally sustainable lives are not the problem, in this context. I don't have a problem with them being rewarded. The way I look at it is, right now, even if you want to reduce your emissions, it's really hard to know how to get the biggest bang for your buck. Should I get a new fuel-efficient car, or drive this one until it dies so as to avoid the emissions of manufacturing a new car? Should I swap out my gas stove for an electric one? Etc. Adding a carbon tax is almost like magic, in how it piggybacks on all the normal price optimizations we do every day. The prices will change to reflect the environmental cost, so you don't even have to try to change your behavior, you'll just adjust naturally. > How does it work with fossil fuels refined in Middle East and delivered to China? I should clarify, it taxes fossil fuels produced in America or imported into America. It doesn't solve the problem for the whole world -- if only it were that easy. But it does solve one half of the problem where the US and China can point at each other and claim that the other one should make the first move while the problem gets worse and worse. The USA isn't the biggest polluter per capita, nor the biggest in absolute terms, but it's pretty high up on both, and we've been contributing to the problem for a LONG time. > The first thing that happened after California approved driver licenses for undocumented aliens is that used car sales surged and public transport dropped (LAMTA and Metrolink specifically). For a lot of lower-income customers buying the car was aspirational and signified the rite of passage. In their price segment they're not typically shopping EVs either. So... all I get out of that is that people who are not allowed to drive drive less than people who are allowed to. I don't think that is evidence that poor people take public transport less than rich people. Anyway, we can debate arbitrary points like this, but it's pretty clear from studies that emissions go up as income goes up. See: https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2020/07/14/1922205117 https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2020/07/14/1922205117 or https://www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminstitute/publication/income-inequality-and-carbon-consumption-evidence-from-environmental-engel-curves/ https://www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminstitute/publication/income-i... That's what matters -- since poor people tend to contribute less in terms of emissions, they will benefit from a carbon tax and dividend, overall.

austincheney 6y ago

> Rich people may not eat more food, but they may eat food that is shipped in from all over the world. Everybody, except for people in the poorest and most isolated of developing nations, eats food from all over the world. Most African nations aside from the land locked sub Saharan nations have access to the global food market. Almost all of the worlds cashews come from Vietnam and almost all of the worlds Almonds come from California. Much of the fruit consumed in the US is grown outside the US, especially in South America. Likewise South America imports most of its locally consumed fruit from the US. I am currently living in Kuwait where fresh fruit is available everyday. If not for a global food supply the only fresh fruit available here would be a single variety of date available during a single 6 week window. Even then those date trees are completely dependent on irrigation to survive. Growing up in Texas perhaps the only food dependent upon local growers were pecans and watermelons.

noelherrick 6y ago
But doesn’t that show that life is not sustainable in that area? Your arguments make it seem like it would be a good idea to leave Kuwait, not that we shouldn’t tax carbon. Obviously we need a transition time, but there’s a lot of environmentally unsound practices-including living in deserts.
- austincheney 6y ago
  People were sustaining in Kuwait for more than 200 years before they had access to cheap international commercial food. My understanding is that Kuwait is only slightly less sustaining than Southern California which is also a desert and also contains Death Valley.
  - ido 6y ago
    Another point of reference: Israel is 80% desert & is mostly (aside from grains imports) food independent. Food is expensive in Israel (2-3x German prices, anecdotally) but availability and diversity are good. Modern agriculture makes local production possible almost everywhere, it's just not as cheap as importing.

deepnotderp 6y ago

Shipping food on the oceans takes very little energy

nostrebored 6y ago

Food that is shipped in 'from all over the world' is typically more fuel efficient than food that is delivered from 'local sources'. Cargo shipping is actually very efficient. Your suggestion is not grounded in reality.

ars 6y ago

How do you handle import/export? Every pollution tax I've seen always gets bogged down in details when they have to account for other countries who don't have it.

jaakl 6y ago
Tax it on the border?
- ars 6y ago
  How much tax? What if they also have a pollution tax? What if they don't, are all exports going to be more expensive now in comparison with countries without this tax? What if they claim to have a pollution tax but are lying at the state level? It gets really complicated really fast. If pollution is taxed at the source how do you calculate how much of a refund to give when exporting? Probably no one can even calculate that for you. And not giving a refund would destroy exports which is an obvious problem.

jaifraic 6y ago

> Rich people may not eat more food, but they may eat food that is shipped in from all over the world. They don't drive dozens of cars at once, but they do have lots of things delivered, and tend not to take public transport as much. They also tend to fly a lot more (which is a big source of emissions), and live in big houses with lots of lights and area to heat and cool. I think it may be the other way round. Rich people are able to buy locally sourced, sustainable grown groceries, whilst poor people have to settle for cheaper, intensively farmed ones. A good example would be meat. Meat of local, free range animals is way more expensive than meat of intensive animal farming. Same with cloth; poor people aren't able to choose between cheap or ethical/biological fair trade cloth. They have to choose that, which they can afford.

lambdasquirrel 6y ago

I wonder if we might be underestimating just how much rich people can burn carbon though. A 1-hour speed boat run with 2 marine V8 engines chugging at it is probably one person's gas consumption for a month. Who knows how much all those private jets burn. All those rooms in the mansions, that need to be kept at some temperature level. You could probably sell it just by noting that Larry Ellison burns 50x as much carbon as one of the Mexican laborers who trims the lawn and rides back home on his bike. In any case, there's probably some math / clamping functions you could use to incentivize the general population into doing their part, and that we don't end up in a perverse situation where carbon-burning is incentivized through fuel subsidies. And direct funding into battery recycling. Top-to-bottom this strikes me as a bunch of technology and math problems, which we can do.

iso1631 6y ago
> Who knows how much all those private jets burn A B737 burns about 750 gallons an hour for 200 passengers. A Lear Jet 45 burns around 165 gallons an hour for upto 8 passengers. If both planes are full the Lear Jet uses about 6 times as much fuel per person. If the Lear Jet has 1 passenger and the 737 has 4, the Lear Jet is better. A Lear Jet gets about 3mpg, with 8 passengers that's 24mpg, a similar fuel efficency to a Ford F150 with a single passenger. > You could probably sell it just by noting that Larry Ellison burns 50x as much carbon as one of the Mexican laborers who trims the lawn and rides back home on his bike. A big issue with CO2 per capita is that imports of CO2 emissions often don't count. If China uses 10 tons of CO2 to produce a dohicky which is then sold to a German consumer, that goes down as a China emission rather than a U.S emission.

gjs278 6y ago

rich people can buy teslas and green energy. you’re wasting your time thinking this will help poor people. it won’t. it’ll reduce the rich’s consumption but everyone else will still use poor people tech and end up getting carbon taxed. maybe redirect your efforts to something useful.

niyikiza 6y ago

Do you have some sort of paper/article/book explaining the idea in detail? I don't think it would be fair to analyze it based on an HN comment.

mac01021 6y ago
High level summary & FAQ: https://energyinnovationact.org/how-it-works/?cn-reloaded=1 https://energyinnovationact.org/how-it-works/?cn-reloaded=1 Some pages about forecasted household/economic impact: https://citizensclimatelobby.org/household-impact-study/ https://citizensclimatelobby.org/household-impact-study/ The actual text of the bill: https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/763/text https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/house-bill/763/... (It's pretty short. If you're a native speaker of english I guess I would allocate 20-40 minutes?) A signed letter by thousands of economists: https://clcouncil.org/economists-statement/ https://clcouncil.org/economists-statement/ (in case you like appeals to authority)

mac01021 6y ago

Hi! I regularly donate to CCL, but I haven't seen a way of volunteering that I felt would be an effective use of my time. (I'm not especially eloquent or charismatic in person) What do you do for them? And why can't HR 763 get any republican sponsors? I vaguely recall this policy seeing more republican support in previous session (though I could be misremembering).