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> In some sense a clean environment and less dangerous future are "luxury goods" that societies and people want to buy if they can afford to, but should not be
by marvin 5y ago
> In some sense a clean environment and less dangerous future are "luxury goods" that societies and people want to buy if they can afford to, but should not be forced if they can't afford the expense.
While I sympathize with this view on a certain level, applying it to policy consistently and literally is a likely path towards chaos and immense death and suffering 70 years from now. That's a high cost to pay to consider climate policies an optional luxury good.
I'm increasingly convinced that bribing part of the voters with some sort of climate tax dividend is a sensible policy to keep society moving towards climate gas neutrality.
I certainly agree with the view that all climate policies are worthless if they don't take into account real-world considerations such as free will and what significant parts of society are able/willing to afford.
It's painful to watch this slow-motion tragedy play out. Certainly interested in hearing suggestions for improving it.
- ip26 5y agobribing part of the voters with some sort of climate tax dividend is a sensible policy It's not really a bribe. If running your leaf blower pollutes the air that others breathe, is a (tiny) payment from you to those people not simply compensation for (tiny) harm you've caused? A carbon tax dividend simply manifests this concept (though aimed at carbon instead of pm2.5) It's always seemed like a really promising policy that drives many of the right incentives, but getting it passed seems impossible.
- PeterisP 5y agoA big problem is the international aspect and the requirement for what effectively are wealth transfers. Countries often are willing to bribe part of the voters to make some universal policies tolerable, having internal transfer payments for the benefit of the country as a whole. The world is (IMHO clearly) very, very limited in its willingness to bribe part of foreign voters to make some global policies tolerable, having international transfer payments for the benefit of the world as a whole. There are some examples, but they're very limited in scale compared to intra-country wealth transfers. It's plausible to convince voters for some reallocation between themselves, even if many specific voters would not individually benefit - but it's a hard sell to convince voters to assign significant resources (as opposed to current international aid/charity) to primarily benefit people in another country, which IMHO seems to be necessary because there's so big country-to-country variation in the actions needed to reduce global warming, the ability to afford these actions, and the severity of local consequences of global warming.