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Ocean shipping is extremely carbon/energy efficient and would likely be advantaged with a carbon tax. It’s emissions are concentrated in sulfur from the low gra
by topkai22 5y ago
Ocean shipping is extremely carbon/energy efficient and would likely be advantaged with a carbon tax. It’s emissions are concentrated in sulfur from the low grade oil it burns, which is harmful to humans and the environment in other ways.
You could potentially argue that a carbon tax's impact on transportation generally would increase local manufacturing, but I kind of doubt it- it would advantage those manufacturers best concentration of raw materials and suppliers as those get transported multiple times in the production cycle, whereas the finished production only moves once.
- AtlasBarfed 5y agoYou might be correct, but what we have now is an effectively subsidized system. If it is properly regulated / priced to account for externalities (I would like some conservative regulation to make up for the unaccountable/unknown externalities, perhaps protectionism could function in that manner), then it would likely properly account for environmental concerns. My top comment of course didn't even deal with the "environmental arbitrage" that international shipping represents. You make stuff where there isn't as much regulation/price accounting for externalities, THEN you ship it 5000 miles. It used to be this amounted to simply getting to offload localized pollution on the third world, and the first world gets the benefits. You know like this: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20150402-the-worst-place-on-earth https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20150402-the-worst-place-... But carbon emitted in China impacts us here. And that is the existential threat. If you want a good, modern "Web3" example of this, hm, why is Mongolia a new bitcoin mining hub?