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So who gets to define "pollutant" and "cost"? That kind of exercise is far more likely to get kinetic than defining "truth" (or whatever) because it is more di

• lend000 4y ago
  Pollution is probably the most objectively measurable of externalities. Much more so than say economic externalities/deciding what the exact values should be for tax brackets. We could just start with the easiest case, which is a product/process that inherently releases pollutants (anything that releases gases) that may have some negative effects on others or the environment (the threshold should be low), then determine the market rate for capturing that pollution back from the environment and tax accordingly. This would also apply to medicines and lotions that don't get metabolized by the users and are inherently are going to end up in the ocean. It gets trickier when we consider things that directly harm some people nearby, like smoking, and at a certain level of harm, these things should just be banned outright (i.e. you can't really undo lung cancer or mercury poisoning). Or things that aren't inherently pollutants (plastic containers), but in practice end up causing a lot of pollution. Our government is too incompetent to approach the problem in a first-principles based way like this, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try. Banning individual things after they get out of control and doing complex mental gymnastics like cap and trade are much worse solutions.
• ericd 4y ago
  Well, the US has a government agency that's normally supposed to work on that question. You're right that not everyone is pleased that they do that.