> But that's different from "I can think of a way the world is bad according to my politics, that must be it." It's not productive to dismiss someone's argumen

> But that's different from "I can think of a way the world is bad according to my politics, that must be it." It's not productive to dismiss someone's argument based on their politics, unless I guess you think I'm an extremist (I'm not). Politics is a core part of how we understand our world, our societies, our institutions, and our cultures. I'm open to having my politics changed and I love to discuss them, but I won't be dismissed because I believe climate change is a huge threat, or for my other economic political views. --- Continuing in good faith, raw kilowatt hours diminish what a potential pollution cost externality regime might do, and I wouldn't say that a system based on them succeeds in factoring in pollution externalities. CO2 is more brass tacks. The global CO2 budget is ~40 gigatons of CO2 a year [0]. There's ~8 billion people around, making the per-capita carbon budget 5 tons of carbon/year. You could tax this in different ways: - Software producers have their software measured for energy use, paying a tax per N users per Wh - Individuals are allotted 5 tons of carbon/year for free; can pay $2/lb from 5-6 tons, $4/lb from 6-7 tons, etc. - Industrial sector participants are allotted 50 tons of carbon/year for free, etc. etc. [0]: https://essd.copernicus.org/articles/14/1917/2022/ https://essd.copernicus.org/articles/14/1917/2022/