> Impose a huge pollution tax on any oil/crude removed from the ground. 30$/barrel, increasing by 10$ per year until we get to 100$/barrel. Extracting the oil

> Impose a huge pollution tax on any oil/crude removed from the ground. 30$/barrel, increasing by 10$ per year until we get to 100$/barrel. Extracting the oil from the ground doesn't cause greenhouse gas emissions in and of itself - burning fuel does. We should tax carbon emissions. We should tax oil extraction too, but that wouldn't be a pollution tax. > Modern economics, be it the theory, the people practicing it, the political structures that influence policy, is a massive failure because of itss utter inability to not just consider 5 or 10 or 20 years into the future. Economists overwhelmingly support a carbon tax. It is politically difficult to get done in the US, but the climate scientists and economists are united on this front - pollution is an externality that laissez-faire libertarianism can't deal with, and we need a carbon tax to price it in. A carbon tax which is redistributed evenly wouldn't be regressive either, and Austria is even implementing such a system.