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The gist of this is that everything gets more expensive. Our environment was basically tailored to us. Moving away from that, and losing stability to boot adds

by graeme 6y ago

The gist of this is that everything gets more expensive. Our environment was basically tailored to us. Moving away from that, and losing stability to boot adds costs. It’s another short run vs long run tradeoff. Fossil fuels brought and bring us immense short term benefits. But increasingly the benefits now will lead to larger costs in the future, both in adaptation and also in attempting to reverse the costs by taking co2 out of the air. The best solution would be to bring future costs into the present and charge for co2 emissions. That way the truly valuable uses could still happen and the more optional uses of co2 would be discouraged. This article is talking about building for the next few decades, but the non-stationarity problem will only grow if we keep emitting.

EcoMonkey 6y ago
> The best solution would be to bring future costs into the present and charge for co2 emissions. That way the truly valuable uses could still happen and the more optional uses of co2 would be discouraged. Yep. A price on carbon is actually the most powerful lever we have to bring down emissions. Very nice visualization when you move the carbon price slider here: https://en-roads.climateinteractive.org/scenario.html?v=2.7.35 https://en-roads.climateinteractive.org/scenario.html?v=2.7.... And you can make it both equitable and politically viable if you use the money from the carbon fee to provide direct payments to households, then combine with a border adjustment to maintain trade competitiveness. https://econstatement.org/ https://econstatement.org/ Ultimately we just need something in place that corrects this obvious market failure with as few side effects as possible, and carbon fee and dividend does that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_fee_and_dividend https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_fee_and_dividend
- cortesoft 6y ago
  Yep, carbon taxes that are split evenly amongst everyone is ideal. If you use less carbon than the average person, you will make money. It acts as both an incentive to use less carbon and an easy way to even out the wealth gap.
syshum 6y ago
In theory I agree with the idea of charging for Co2 emissions, the problem always comes down to the execution, which in general means some kind of "carbon tax" system The problem with the carbon tax systems I have seen most of them are setup in a way not to actually change climate or anything to do with climate change but instead set up to fund unrelated agenda's and often end up being counter productive to the actual goal of reducing carbon emissions / other population.
- meowkit 6y ago
  Please share said tax systems. Everything I’ve seen is an upstream tax on each ton of emissions. Its not about funding things, its about disincentivizing emissions by forcing the cost of externalities onto the production itself.
  - syshum 6y ago
    Well those systems that do not have alternative funding goals also end up being very regressive, if my Power or Nat. Gas bill increased by 30% well I will complain online, and be frustrated every-time I have to pay it, but I will not have to choose between paying the utility or buying food. Nor will it modify my consumption of it, it just means more expenses. I use the amount of energy I need today, no more, no less. Charging me more for it will not change my consumption. That can not be said for others. Carbon Tax's on power generation and home heating have the nasty impact of being very regressive impacting the poorest among us disproportionately We need to improve Alt. Energy to make it cost competitive with Fossil Fuels, and not by artificially raising the prices on Fossil fuels which harms the poor. Carbon Tax systems also end up not actually reducing carbon, but instead allow "trading" of carbon heavily producers with monopoly lock in can simply gouge their customers with higher prices to pay for "offsets", it is akin to wealth redistribution but rather with carbon
    - EcoMonkey 6y ago
      Carbon dividends offset the regressive nature of a carbon tax. In fact, even if you exclude the benefits of cleaner air and just look at how the carbon dividend offsets the carbon fee, folks at the lowest incomes tend to come out way ahead, at least under the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act: https://citizensclimatelobby.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/HIS2-Working-Paper-v1.1.pdf https://citizensclimatelobby.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/... > Carbon Tax systems also end up not actually reducing carbon, but instead allow "trading" of carbon heavily producers with monopoly lock in can simply gouge their customers with higher prices to pay for "offsets", it is akin to wealth redistribution but rather with carbon You're confusing carbon taxes with cap and trade and carbon credits. There are no pollution permits to trade under a typical carbon tax regime. Please check your facts before sharing inaccurate information.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

by graeme 6y ago

EcoMonkey 6y ago

> The best solution would be to bring future costs into the present and charge for co2 emissions. That way the truly valuable uses could still happen and the more optional uses of co2 would be discouraged. Yep. A price on carbon is actually the most powerful lever we have to bring down emissions. Very nice visualization when you move the carbon price slider here: https://en-roads.climateinteractive.org/scenario.html?v=2.7.35 https://en-roads.climateinteractive.org/scenario.html?v=2.7.... And you can make it both equitable and politically viable if you use the money from the carbon fee to provide direct payments to households, then combine with a border adjustment to maintain trade competitiveness. https://econstatement.org/ https://econstatement.org/ Ultimately we just need something in place that corrects this obvious market failure with as few side effects as possible, and carbon fee and dividend does that. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_fee_and_dividend https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_fee_and_dividend

cortesoft 6y ago
Yep, carbon taxes that are split evenly amongst everyone is ideal. If you use less carbon than the average person, you will make money. It acts as both an incentive to use less carbon and an easy way to even out the wealth gap.

syshum 6y ago

In theory I agree with the idea of charging for Co2 emissions, the problem always comes down to the execution, which in general means some kind of "carbon tax" system The problem with the carbon tax systems I have seen most of them are setup in a way not to actually change climate or anything to do with climate change but instead set up to fund unrelated agenda's and often end up being counter productive to the actual goal of reducing carbon emissions / other population.

meowkit 6y ago
Please share said tax systems. Everything I’ve seen is an upstream tax on each ton of emissions. Its not about funding things, its about disincentivizing emissions by forcing the cost of externalities onto the production itself.
- syshum 6y ago
  Well those systems that do not have alternative funding goals also end up being very regressive, if my Power or Nat. Gas bill increased by 30% well I will complain online, and be frustrated every-time I have to pay it, but I will not have to choose between paying the utility or buying food. Nor will it modify my consumption of it, it just means more expenses. I use the amount of energy I need today, no more, no less. Charging me more for it will not change my consumption. That can not be said for others. Carbon Tax's on power generation and home heating have the nasty impact of being very regressive impacting the poorest among us disproportionately We need to improve Alt. Energy to make it cost competitive with Fossil Fuels, and not by artificially raising the prices on Fossil fuels which harms the poor. Carbon Tax systems also end up not actually reducing carbon, but instead allow "trading" of carbon heavily producers with monopoly lock in can simply gouge their customers with higher prices to pay for "offsets", it is akin to wealth redistribution but rather with carbon
  - EcoMonkey 6y ago
    Carbon dividends offset the regressive nature of a carbon tax. In fact, even if you exclude the benefits of cleaner air and just look at how the carbon dividend offsets the carbon fee, folks at the lowest incomes tend to come out way ahead, at least under the Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act: https://citizensclimatelobby.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/HIS2-Working-Paper-v1.1.pdf https://citizensclimatelobby.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/... > Carbon Tax systems also end up not actually reducing carbon, but instead allow "trading" of carbon heavily producers with monopoly lock in can simply gouge their customers with higher prices to pay for "offsets", it is akin to wealth redistribution but rather with carbon You're confusing carbon taxes with cap and trade and carbon credits. There are no pollution permits to trade under a typical carbon tax regime. Please check your facts before sharing inaccurate information.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]