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Ending economic growth is the last thing we need to do, and even if we did, we would fail. This should be obvious on a forum for entrepeneurs, who work to achie

by marvin 5y ago

Ending economic growth is the last thing we need to do, and even if we did, we would fail. This should be obvious on a forum for entrepeneurs, who work to achieve only one thing - economic growth. What we need to do is to ruthlessly tax externalities that haven’t effectively been considered before, and use the proceeds to transition to an economy with net zero climate gas emissions. Then repay the damage with large-scale CO2 sequestering, multi-gigaton scale. If economic growth is considered everything we value getting cheaper and more abundant over time, anthropogenic climate gas emissions can be considered a horrendous debt that needs to be repaid. This is achievable! It’s expensive, but doesn’t require a 1950s lifestyle for everyone.

endymi0n 5y ago
This, a thousand percent. Most of the current and last generations leading the current discussion (aka the developed world) grew up in democratic, capitalistic societies. Captialism at its core is soulless and I hate it — BUT so far I've failed to see any alternatives I would trust to help on this matter. These days I just see romantic descriptions of communism and socialism (actual socialism, not the social democracy Americans often mistake for it) everywhere, from people who clearly haven't ever had to live in it. Just as a reminder, here in Germany we're _still_ cleaning up the economical and ecological disasters of the GDR to this day (Bitterfeld anyone?), and the USSR didn't exactly lead the green revolution either (Chernobyl, Mayak, ....) Whenever I see people advocating "Tackling climate change needs a system change", I'm like: Yeah... nope.
Analemma_ 5y ago
Carbon taxes are ludicrously unpopular with voters. Washington state, one of the most liberal in America, rejected one in a nearly 2-1 vote. When it was tried in France there were riots in the streets. Any commentary about “ruthlessly taxing externalities” which doesn’t take this into account is just fantasy.
- kapuasuite 5y ago
  A carbon tax could easily be coupled with a dividend...
  - timbit42 5y ago
    That's how Canada currently does it.
- bryanlarsen 5y ago
  In Canada we have a federal election in a week. All four main stream parties have a carbon tax of one sort or another on their platform. So it's not ridiculously unpopular here.
  - marvin 5y ago
    Most of Norway's political parties have in their plans to phase in a CO2 tax of $230 per metric ton by 2030. That's not quite up to the level of the current market price of the CO2 sequestering methods that seem to plausibly work for geological timescales, but it's within the range they would likely end up in if developed. Side note: If we acknowledge that a realistic CO2 tax is democratically unpopular - excellent! Now we're making progress, that's a real piece of data to work with. It needs to happen, there's absolutely no way around it. If it doesn't currently fly in a democracy, we need to sweeten the deal. Trying to force it through by revolutionary means is an act of desperation, let's hope we don't even have to consider it. There's a hundred ways to make it more palatable. Let's start in that end! Paying part of the CO2 tax back to individuals is one way of bribing the electorate to do what's necessary.
    - bryanlarsen 5y ago
      The Canadian plans range from $20 to $250. And the $20 party has neutered it further. But the remarkable thing is that the right wing party actually has a carbon tax in their platform at all. 2 years ago they were dead set against one.
- pseudalopex 5y ago
  When was the nearly 2-1 vote in Washington? I found 59% against in 2016 and 57% against in 2018.[1][2] The French government tried to spin a fuel tax as a carbon tax apparently. And protesters said it wasn't just about that tax.[3] [1] https://ballotpedia.org/Washington_Carbon_Emission_Tax_and_Sales_Tax_Reduction,_Initiative_732_(2016) https://ballotpedia.org/Washington_Carbon_Emission_Tax_and_S... [2] https://ballotpedia.org/Washington_Initiative_1631,_Carbon_Emissions_Fee_Measure_(2018) https://ballotpedia.org/Washington_Initiative_1631,_Carbon_E... [3] https://apnews.com/article/ap-top-news-riots-france-paris-international-news-535bcbbc3d2741d0aff14c634f1375fd https://apnews.com/article/ap-top-news-riots-france-paris-in...

by marvin 5y ago

endymi0n 5y ago

This, a thousand percent. Most of the current and last generations leading the current discussion (aka the developed world) grew up in democratic, capitalistic societies. Captialism at its core is soulless and I hate it — BUT so far I've failed to see any alternatives I would trust to help on this matter. These days I just see romantic descriptions of communism and socialism (actual socialism, not the social democracy Americans often mistake for it) everywhere, from people who clearly haven't ever had to live in it. Just as a reminder, here in Germany we're _still_ cleaning up the economical and ecological disasters of the GDR to this day (Bitterfeld anyone?), and the USSR didn't exactly lead the green revolution either (Chernobyl, Mayak, ....) Whenever I see people advocating "Tackling climate change needs a system change", I'm like: Yeah... nope.

Analemma_ 5y ago

Carbon taxes are ludicrously unpopular with voters. Washington state, one of the most liberal in America, rejected one in a nearly 2-1 vote. When it was tried in France there were riots in the streets. Any commentary about “ruthlessly taxing externalities” which doesn’t take this into account is just fantasy.

kapuasuite 5y ago
A carbon tax could easily be coupled with a dividend...
- timbit42 5y ago
  That's how Canada currently does it.
bryanlarsen 5y ago
In Canada we have a federal election in a week. All four main stream parties have a carbon tax of one sort or another on their platform. So it's not ridiculously unpopular here.
- marvin 5y ago
  Most of Norway's political parties have in their plans to phase in a CO2 tax of $230 per metric ton by 2030. That's not quite up to the level of the current market price of the CO2 sequestering methods that seem to plausibly work for geological timescales, but it's within the range they would likely end up in if developed. Side note: If we acknowledge that a realistic CO2 tax is democratically unpopular - excellent! Now we're making progress, that's a real piece of data to work with. It needs to happen, there's absolutely no way around it. If it doesn't currently fly in a democracy, we need to sweeten the deal. Trying to force it through by revolutionary means is an act of desperation, let's hope we don't even have to consider it. There's a hundred ways to make it more palatable. Let's start in that end! Paying part of the CO2 tax back to individuals is one way of bribing the electorate to do what's necessary.
  - bryanlarsen 5y ago
    The Canadian plans range from $20 to $250. And the $20 party has neutered it further. But the remarkable thing is that the right wing party actually has a carbon tax in their platform at all. 2 years ago they were dead set against one.
pseudalopex 5y ago
When was the nearly 2-1 vote in Washington? I found 59% against in 2016 and 57% against in 2018.[1][2] The French government tried to spin a fuel tax as a carbon tax apparently. And protesters said it wasn't just about that tax.[3] [1] https://ballotpedia.org/Washington_Carbon_Emission_Tax_and_Sales_Tax_Reduction,_Initiative_732_(2016) https://ballotpedia.org/Washington_Carbon_Emission_Tax_and_S... [2] https://ballotpedia.org/Washington_Initiative_1631,_Carbon_Emissions_Fee_Measure_(2018) https://ballotpedia.org/Washington_Initiative_1631,_Carbon_E... [3] https://apnews.com/article/ap-top-news-riots-france-paris-international-news-535bcbbc3d2741d0aff14c634f1375fd https://apnews.com/article/ap-top-news-riots-france-paris-in...