4 ms·

A carbon tax by itself just passes the problem on to people who can't do anything about it. You need to include programs to help migrate people off their carbo

A carbon tax by itself just passes the problem on to people who can't do anything about it. You need to include programs to help migrate people off their carbon dependency. The people who would be most affected by a carbon tax are also the people who have the least amount of resources to do anything about it.

lelag 4y ago
On a personal level, it would be pretty easy to deal with such a tax: I can think of only 2 use-case for normal people to buy fossil fuels directly: to power ICE and to heat their home. Programs to help people migrate away from using ICE and oil boiler already exist in many places. By starting small and giving a timetable, you signal people that they have x years to act and that they really should migrate away from using those. A carbon tax on raw ressources would be most impactful where the real emission are happening: transportation, industry and electricity generation. For sure, pricing the externalities of the use of fossil fuel at the source would make some things that are currently cheap, expensive: air travel, cement production... But if those activities are destroying the environment, maybe it's not such a bad idea to make them more expensive. Then you would see real effort to find solution to lower the carbon footprint of those. When I'm talking about a gradual increase, I'm thinking about a slow gradual increase over a long period (eg: 20 years+) so the carbon taxation program starts pretty painless for most and leave enough time for the world to adapt and get rid of that carbon dependency.
bawolff 4y ago
That makes no sense. End consumers have the ultimate power to do something else. If the option isn't there, we now have economic incentives such that an entrepenur ca make a killing providing that service.

4 ms·

A carbon tax by itself just passes the problem on to people who can't do anything about it. You need to include programs to help migrate people off their carbo

by TheAceOfHearts 4y ago

lelag 4y ago
On a personal level, it would be pretty easy to deal with such a tax: I can think of only 2 use-case for normal people to buy fossil fuels directly: to power ICE and to heat their home. Programs to help people migrate away from using ICE and oil boiler already exist in many places. By starting small and giving a timetable, you signal people that they have x years to act and that they really should migrate away from using those. A carbon tax on raw ressources would be most impactful where the real emission are happening: transportation, industry and electricity generation. For sure, pricing the externalities of the use of fossil fuel at the source would make some things that are currently cheap, expensive: air travel, cement production... But if those activities are destroying the environment, maybe it's not such a bad idea to make them more expensive. Then you would see real effort to find solution to lower the carbon footprint of those. When I'm talking about a gradual increase, I'm thinking about a slow gradual increase over a long period (eg: 20 years+) so the carbon taxation program starts pretty painless for most and leave enough time for the world to adapt and get rid of that carbon dependency.
bawolff 4y ago
That makes no sense. End consumers have the ultimate power to do something else. If the option isn't there, we now have economic incentives such that an entrepenur ca make a killing providing that service.