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"carbon tax" is trouble to enact because you can't expect to rally support for something with the word tax in its name Then people complain about where will th

by __s 5y ago

"carbon tax" is trouble to enact because you can't expect to rally support for something with the word tax in its name Then people complain about where will that tax money go. It doesn't matter. The government could burn all the carbon tax money collected (& in fact, this would help against inflation). The purpose is to fix incentives, not find funding

throwaway894345 5y ago
Not only is the "tax" word problematic, but if you call it "carbon pricing" that irks the people who are reflexively anti-market. And no matter what you call it, the sanctimonious environmentalists will fight it because it minimizes the need for heroic personal sacrifice with respect to preserving the environment (frankly, these personal sacrifices probably aren't significant in the first place--the bulk of pollution is industry and transport, especially that which we outsource to China, etc).
- guelo 5y ago
  Environmentalists would absolutely not fight it. They've been begging for a carbon tax for 40 years.
  - throwaway894345 5y ago
    I was specifically referring to the subset of environmentalists who believe that salvation lies in converting everyone to veganism and cycling. But there are a lot of people who style themselves as environmentalists who oppose carbon taxes: * The "personal responsibility" environmentalists described above * The "anti-market" environmentalists who assume without evidence that markets necessarily make things worse * The Green New Deal environmentalists who largely want to use the threat of climate change as political cover for social spending ("climate justice"). The last bullet might be too broad--there might be some GND environmentalists who are sincere, but certainly the overwhelming majority of GND policy and rhetoric seem to be more concerned with social spending than decarbonizing the atmosphere. I think there's a lot of overlap between this group and the prior two groups as well.
- triceratops 5y ago
  > the sanctimonious environmentalists will fight it because it minimizes the need for heroic personal sacrifice with respect to preserving the environment Any evidence for this? IMO "Sanctimonious environmentalists" only care that consumption reduces. Whether that's voluntary or due to being priced out by carbon taxes is irrelevant. If anything doing it voluntarily, before it was ever needed to make your household budget work, would make them feel even holier.
  - throwaway894345 5y ago
    It's pretty much a tautology--I'm defining "sanctimonious environmentalist" as one who makes showy personal sacrifices for esteem. If emissions decrease because manufacturing processes become more efficient, then their sacrifices were for naught and the lifestyle they've been pushing on others becomes irrelevant (or decreases in relevance).
    - triceratops 5y ago
      > then their sacrifices were for naught and the lifestyle they've been pushing on others becomes irrelevant And I'm arguing the opposite. In the short-term at least, costs will rise and people will be forced to cut back.
      - throwaway894345 5y ago
        I agree that's the short-term effect (although a carbon tax will likely start out small and increase over time so as to minimize unpopular effects), but in my experience this analysis is too sophisticated for most of this "sanctimonious environmentalist" group. I.e., people who tend to believe that the environment hinges on converting people to vegan cyclists are not likely to understand economics well enough to understand a carbon tax. This is a big and unflattering generalization for expedience sake, so I'm trusting readers to understand the larger point and not get mired in "this is a generalization!" counterarguments.
  - lmm 5y ago
    > Any evidence for this? IMO "Sanctimonious environmentalists" only care that consumption reduces. Whether that's voluntary or due to being priced out by carbon taxes is irrelevant. The New York Times said that their article pointing out that (most) recycling has higher environmental costs than landfill attracted the most complaints of any article for at least 10 years. My old professor doesn't get invited to climate conferences anymore because he ran some serious research into whether geoengineering approaches were feasible. There is definitely a large constituency of hair-shirt environmentalism that cares more about how much you're suffering for the sacrifices you're making than about how big an actual effect you're having.
- danans 5y ago
  > it minimizes the need for heroic personal sacrifice with respect to preserving the environment The dirty secret is that plenty of technology exists that can actually increase your quality of life while lowering your energy consumption. I'm not just talking about EVs, but electric buses and trains, heat pumps, sealing up drafty houses. But these things require changing how we do things, not necessarily how much we consume of things.
guelo 5y ago
Giving the carbon tax revenue back to people as cash payments could help politically.
- dahfizz 5y ago
  Doesn't that ruin the incentive structure? Your cash payments are higher when carbon use is higher.
  - stormbrew 5y ago
    In this kind of scheme, you don't get what you paid back as cash, you get something more like a dividend of the revenues (possibly just as a non-refundable income tax rebate or something, or as a dividend check given to all adults, depending on the particulars of your region's tax aversions). So you're actually incentivized to consume less, because you get more out of it if your tax payments are less than your dividend. Obviously there might be some perverse incentives to like.. causing a global increase in emissions while keeping your own small somehow but those are probably hard to significantly profit from.
- hardtke 5y ago
  Canada promised to do that and the proposal was still wildly unpopular and abandoned. If you've build your life around no carbon tax (e.g. you live far from work and need to drive) you will personally suffer from such a change and will vocally lobby against the change. We end up with things like the Yellow Vest movement in France or the political instability that happens when any government tries to reduce fuel subsidies. It seems that voters are more sensitive to the price of gas than any other issue and any political party that causes the price of gas to go up gets voted out of office. Paul Krugman wrote a post recently showing that US consumers' inflation expectation exactly tracks the price of gas. I've concluded that any consumer impacting carbon tax cannot work in a democratic system. We need subsidies (both explicit and hidden) to reduce our carbon emissions.
  - stormbrew 5y ago
    > Canada promised to do that and the proposal was still wildly unpopular and abandoned. <...> I've concluded that any consumer impacting carbon tax cannot work in a democratic system. We have a carbon tax in Canada and it's probably not going away any time soon (it is, in fact, scheduled to continue going up), so I'm not sure what you mean here. The provinces can do a rebate/dividend if they want and/or run their own system designed that way but I'm not sure if any have. I'm not sure if your first statement is just saying we abandoned a rebate, but your last statement implies you think any consumer carbon pricing is impossible regardless of that, while your example says otherwise.

by __s 5y ago

throwaway894345 5y ago

Not only is the "tax" word problematic, but if you call it "carbon pricing" that irks the people who are reflexively anti-market. And no matter what you call it, the sanctimonious environmentalists will fight it because it minimizes the need for heroic personal sacrifice with respect to preserving the environment (frankly, these personal sacrifices probably aren't significant in the first place--the bulk of pollution is industry and transport, especially that which we outsource to China, etc).

guelo 5y ago
Environmentalists would absolutely not fight it. They've been begging for a carbon tax for 40 years.
- throwaway894345 5y ago
  I was specifically referring to the subset of environmentalists who believe that salvation lies in converting everyone to veganism and cycling. But there are a lot of people who style themselves as environmentalists who oppose carbon taxes: * The "personal responsibility" environmentalists described above * The "anti-market" environmentalists who assume without evidence that markets necessarily make things worse * The Green New Deal environmentalists who largely want to use the threat of climate change as political cover for social spending ("climate justice"). The last bullet might be too broad--there might be some GND environmentalists who are sincere, but certainly the overwhelming majority of GND policy and rhetoric seem to be more concerned with social spending than decarbonizing the atmosphere. I think there's a lot of overlap between this group and the prior two groups as well.
triceratops 5y ago
> the sanctimonious environmentalists will fight it because it minimizes the need for heroic personal sacrifice with respect to preserving the environment Any evidence for this? IMO "Sanctimonious environmentalists" only care that consumption reduces. Whether that's voluntary or due to being priced out by carbon taxes is irrelevant. If anything doing it voluntarily, before it was ever needed to make your household budget work, would make them feel even holier.
- throwaway894345 5y ago
  It's pretty much a tautology--I'm defining "sanctimonious environmentalist" as one who makes showy personal sacrifices for esteem. If emissions decrease because manufacturing processes become more efficient, then their sacrifices were for naught and the lifestyle they've been pushing on others becomes irrelevant (or decreases in relevance).
  - triceratops 5y ago
    > then their sacrifices were for naught and the lifestyle they've been pushing on others becomes irrelevant And I'm arguing the opposite. In the short-term at least, costs will rise and people will be forced to cut back.
    - throwaway894345 5y ago
      I agree that's the short-term effect (although a carbon tax will likely start out small and increase over time so as to minimize unpopular effects), but in my experience this analysis is too sophisticated for most of this "sanctimonious environmentalist" group. I.e., people who tend to believe that the environment hinges on converting people to vegan cyclists are not likely to understand economics well enough to understand a carbon tax. This is a big and unflattering generalization for expedience sake, so I'm trusting readers to understand the larger point and not get mired in "this is a generalization!" counterarguments.
- lmm 5y ago
  > Any evidence for this? IMO "Sanctimonious environmentalists" only care that consumption reduces. Whether that's voluntary or due to being priced out by carbon taxes is irrelevant. The New York Times said that their article pointing out that (most) recycling has higher environmental costs than landfill attracted the most complaints of any article for at least 10 years. My old professor doesn't get invited to climate conferences anymore because he ran some serious research into whether geoengineering approaches were feasible. There is definitely a large constituency of hair-shirt environmentalism that cares more about how much you're suffering for the sacrifices you're making than about how big an actual effect you're having.
danans 5y ago
> it minimizes the need for heroic personal sacrifice with respect to preserving the environment The dirty secret is that plenty of technology exists that can actually increase your quality of life while lowering your energy consumption. I'm not just talking about EVs, but electric buses and trains, heat pumps, sealing up drafty houses. But these things require changing how we do things, not necessarily how much we consume of things.

guelo 5y ago

Giving the carbon tax revenue back to people as cash payments could help politically.

dahfizz 5y ago
Doesn't that ruin the incentive structure? Your cash payments are higher when carbon use is higher.
- stormbrew 5y ago
  In this kind of scheme, you don't get what you paid back as cash, you get something more like a dividend of the revenues (possibly just as a non-refundable income tax rebate or something, or as a dividend check given to all adults, depending on the particulars of your region's tax aversions). So you're actually incentivized to consume less, because you get more out of it if your tax payments are less than your dividend. Obviously there might be some perverse incentives to like.. causing a global increase in emissions while keeping your own small somehow but those are probably hard to significantly profit from.
hardtke 5y ago
Canada promised to do that and the proposal was still wildly unpopular and abandoned. If you've build your life around no carbon tax (e.g. you live far from work and need to drive) you will personally suffer from such a change and will vocally lobby against the change. We end up with things like the Yellow Vest movement in France or the political instability that happens when any government tries to reduce fuel subsidies. It seems that voters are more sensitive to the price of gas than any other issue and any political party that causes the price of gas to go up gets voted out of office. Paul Krugman wrote a post recently showing that US consumers' inflation expectation exactly tracks the price of gas. I've concluded that any consumer impacting carbon tax cannot work in a democratic system. We need subsidies (both explicit and hidden) to reduce our carbon emissions.
- stormbrew 5y ago
  > Canada promised to do that and the proposal was still wildly unpopular and abandoned. <...> I've concluded that any consumer impacting carbon tax cannot work in a democratic system. We have a carbon tax in Canada and it's probably not going away any time soon (it is, in fact, scheduled to continue going up), so I'm not sure what you mean here. The provinces can do a rebate/dividend if they want and/or run their own system designed that way but I'm not sure if any have. I'm not sure if your first statement is just saying we abandoned a rebate, but your last statement implies you think any consumer carbon pricing is impossible regardless of that, while your example says otherwise.