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Argument is the externalities of carbon emissions have (negative) value, so a tax would bring those two things in line and encourage that only people who really
by RC_ITR 5y ago
Argument is the externalities of carbon emissions have (negative) value, so a tax would bring those two things in line and encourage that only people who really need to fly do so.
- R0b0t1 5y agoAll other things equal you need to make a very strong case for externalities as the market is efficient. So far it's just people saying "planes are bad." It's entirely possible the externalities of having people (and goods) unproductive for longer periods of time is worse than simply getting them where they need to be.
- philips 5y agoWithout putting a price on the carbon externality the market can't figure it out though. Idle time of workers is a pretty well understood market problem so I don't think that is an externality. Am I misunderstanding your position?
- RC_ITR 5y agoI mean, have you ever heard of tragedy of the commons? 1) All people share one atmosphere 2) Well-reviewed science shows that individual decisions like taking a flight make the atmosphere less hospitable for all. That type of problem is literally the reason the term externality was coined.
- gautamcgoel 5y agoI'm a bit confused by what you mean by "strong case". Flying emits substantially more carbon dioxide (by more than a factor of 100, IIRC). The deleterious effects of increasing CO2 in the atmosphere are well-documented. Isn't that a strong enough case?
- School-Cotton 5y agoExternalities are basically by definition the things that can't be determined by a free market.
- evanwolf 5y agoPerhaps a jet fuel tax? If we bring the the lifetime cost of atmospheric carbon recovery and disaster response to flight, might we make air travel with using ICE engines less routine?
- LeifCarrotson 5y ago> you need to make a very strong case for externalities as the market is efficient Markets are not efficient at considering externalities at all.
- R0b0t1 5y agoBy definition yes, but you need to prove the externality is there and actually worse than your proposed tax.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- Ensorceled 5y agoI was worried that was your position. If you still need further proof of global warming and it's deleterious effects then providing proof is impossible.
- R0b0t1 5y agoNot proof of global warming, proof that this is the most efficacious tax to undertake and will not distort the market to be worse.
- teddyh 5y agoIt’s not practically possible to prove that something is the most efficient alternative – you’d have to exhaustively show that all possible alternatives are worse. It’s more reasonable for you to provide an even better alternative, since you seem to believe that one exists. Once two specific options are named, the two can be compared in earnest.
- hhaha88 5y agoWhat makes you believe gaps in productivity can’t be accounted for by caching, converting to making goods closer to the source as much as possible? Maybe we could train more experts to avoid them needing to fly all over; buy and serve local. A lot of efficiency options are left off the table sticking with the status quo.
- Ensorceled 5y agoThe fact that negative externalities can warp markets or cause them to fail entirely is Econ 101. Air travel is blamed for up to 3.5% of climate impacts; it's not an insignificant contributor...
- NoGravitas 5y agoThe Efficient Market Hypothesis has been effectively disproven; it was proven that it's equivalent to P=NP, and it's very unlikely that P=NP. In other words, if markets were efficient, we could just use simulated markets to solve NP-hard problems in polynomial time. Not surprisingly, that doesn't work.
- Dylan16807 5y ago> The Efficient Market Hypothesis has been effectively disproven No, the opposite of "effectively". That's like saying you can't plan an effective route because CSP, or you can't use SAT solvers to design things. Markets aren't perfect, and that's all that proof manages to show. They could still be 99.99% accurate based on that logic. It's a cute thought experiment, not something practical.
- foolfoolz 5y agoi love this philosophy. we can just tax and regulate away all the nice things in life
- CameronNemo 5y agoAh yes, it is so nice to breathe noxious chemicals exhausted from jet engines. And CO2 is good for plant growth, right?
- kaybe 5y agoCO2 being good for plant growth can mean it's bad for forest CO2 sequestration, since the wrong plants take over. https://e360.yale.edu/features/the-strange-case-of-the-liana-vine-and-its-role-in-global-warming https://e360.yale.edu/features/the-strange-case-of-the-liana...
- RC_ITR 5y agoI love your philosophy. Just embrace entropy, what could go wrong?
- Djrhfbfnsks 5y agoI'm as libertarian as they come, but if you're doing $x of damage to the environment, it seems totally fair to charge $x in taxes to cover that damage. That wouldn't stop you from enjoying an activity -- it's just making the price more accurately reflect the true costs.
- evilos 5y agoFlying has a hidden cost that wasn't being charged to the flyer. It was being charged to everyone that will suffer from climate change. Charging to offset the damage that flying does is basically just closing a loop hole. (Assuming that the extra money taken is used to actually offset the carbon impact and not just pocketed by industry/government.)
- erect_hacker0 5y agoAre you one of those “american nationalists” I hear so much about? I heard they frequent the hackers news, so was just wondering.
- Robotbeat 5y agoThen do electric aircraft. We can do 500-1000 mile electric air travel. Longer term, >3000 mile. Plus multiple hops. Still faster and cheaper than rail.
- sokoloff 5y ago> We can do 500-1000 mile electric air travel. We can? Present tense, certified, operational aircraft in service? Or do you mean that people are working on building them now and hope to have them in service at some point in the future?
- Robotbeat 5y agoThe latter. I think we can have them in service before we could complete a new HSR line starting from scratch, at least in the US. (I think Europe is better at this kind of HSR infrastructure, so maybe it wouldn't be as bad.)
- RC_ITR 5y agoWe 100% cannot do those things with current technology. I'm 'commenting too fast' to reply, but show me any of your examples in flight please.
- Robotbeat 5y agoWe absolutely can. https://twitter.com/GovInslee/status/1440442441920774146 https://twitter.com/GovInslee/status/1440442441920774146 500+ miles range. Building it right now. Plus Wright Electric, Bye Aerospace’s eflyer 800, etc. Why do people so easily and confidently claim something can’t be done?
- burkaman 5y agoThat carries 9 passengers, at ~half the speed of a standard airliner. It's exciting and I want to fly in one, but I don't think it will be faster and cheaper than trains in most cases, yet. But we're almost there.
- CameronNemo 5y agothen the (really poor quality, high pollution, not just co2 that jets exhaust) airplane fuel should be taxed, not the flights themselves. the price will get adjusted accordingly.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- adamlett 5y agoThat would be ideal. As I understand it, it has been tried, but without reaching an international consensus, and leads to airlines filling the tanks of their planes in countries that don't tax the fuel, and flying with more fuel than needed (and therefore having to burn more fuel) so they don't need to refuel in countries that do tax the fuel, thus defeating the purpose of the tax.
- Symbiote 5y agoI don't know if it was widely reported, but in the days before the COP meeting in Glasgow, Britain removed the tax they had on internal flights.
- Dylan16807 5y ago> Argument is the externalities of carbon emissions have (negative) value, so a tax would bring those two things in line and encourage that only people who really need to fly do so. If we charged $100-200 per ton of CO2, which is supposedly more than recapture would cost, that would only be about $1-2 per 50 miles. From the numbers being quoted here, it sounds like that would do very little to bring prices in line.
- ants_a 5y agoEU is already trading CO2 at 60€/t.
- Dylan16807 5y agoIn a limited way, sure. But with massive quotas that are free. That's the price of the very easiest CO2 to deal with, and the rest pollutes for free. Either charge for all the carbon, or start harshly dropping the quotas.