3 ms·

Time has value. Trains make a lot of sense for freight. I don't think taxing planes to make people not use them is the solution.

• jaywalk 5y ago
  More taxes seems to be the go-to solution for people of a certain mindset. I understand where they're coming from, to a point. But I certainly don't agree.
  • PaulDavisThe1st 5y ago
    The taxes are not to encourage people not to use them. They're to make sure that the full cost of the flight is paid by the people taking the flight, rather than them just freeloading because the externalities are unaccounted for. If that happens to discourage people from flying, well, that's just a side effect of having a properly functioning marketplace, where there are no externalities and the participants all have full information.
    • jaywalk 5y ago
      >The taxes are not to encourage people not to use them. The grandparent comment of the one I replied to specifically mentioned taxing planes to get people to take trains instead.
  • bettysdiagnose 5y ago
    The mindset is simply that the market fails to price in the negative externalities associated with CO2 emissions. So taxes in some form make up for that. I'm not sure what there is to disagree with there. All such people are advocating is that flights are priced at their true cost, not the "lol let the next generations/people in the third world pay the difference" cost.