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Someone else mentioned that prices in general would go up, this is correct but there is also another factor. Steel is the primary material used to build manufac

Someone else mentioned that prices in general would go up, this is correct but there is also another factor. Steel is the primary material used to build manufacturing equipment and there aren't any good replacements when you need something big, heavy and cheap enough to finance that can be used to mass produce other goods. This equipment has to be durable, have well known properties and you need to be able to make it using existing machine tools and processes. So if steel becomes much more expensive not only will everything become a lot more expensive, you will also negatively impact the creation of new businesses and innovation in manufacturing. This is one of the major second order effects that always springs to mind when people just float the idea of increasing the cost of some material that produces CO2 as a byproduct as if just pulling a lever or adding a tax will solve the problem. The economy is a giant Jenga tower where all of the lower blocks are fossil fuel based processes. We sit way up on top where we can't see the bottom of the tower and we think "wow look at all this new stuff we've made, we sure are great! We should get rid of all that old junk so we can build more new stuff up here!" and maybe you can knock out a few of the pieces on the bottom without causing a disaster but eventually if you take out enough of them the whole thing will come crashing down. If you want to build a carbon free economy then you need to start a new tower and you need to solve all of the fundamental problems in a new way with new technology that doesn't use fossil fuels and it needs to be as cheap or cheaper than what we can do now. That's a monumental task. And no, you can't knock over the first tower before starting the new one unless you want billions of people to die, most likely including you as well.

deleted 4y ago
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zopa 4y ago
> The economy is a giant Jenga tower […] A Jenga tower is in unstable equilibrium. Push it a little bit away from its resting configuration and it collapses. The economy is in stable equilibrium, mostly, more or less. Push it by increasing the price of some commodity, which happens all the time, and buyers look for alternatives and efficiencies, which dampens the effect of the push. In all likelihood things settle in a new equilibrium not far at all from the first. It’s a much more resilient system than you’re giving it credit for. Totally different dynamics than the party game.
vegetablepotpie 4y ago
Right, and that CO2 will also impose a cost that we’ll also have to pay for. Higher global temperatures means fewer glaciers. Nearly two billion people in the world depend on glacial run off for their water [1], which a lot of will be gone in a few decades. Rising global temperatures will also mean melting ice and rising sea levels. Low level agricultural areas, such as those in Southeast Asia will, will see the ocean encroach 30-40 kilometers onto productive rice paddies with just a few feet of sea level rise [2]. It might be fine if these people just move, but we’re talking about displacing hundreds of millions to billions. Migrations like those of Syrians moving into Europe will seem small by comparison. I’m not going to mention the retarding economic effects of more stable regions having many more hotter days, or the impacts of more erratic weather due to arctic amplification and a more erratic jet stream. We may have to move or build new equipment someplace else. All of this means that we will have to build a new tower anyways, but we’ll have to do it with less resources, less time, and on a table that’s shaking constantly. Perhaps putting a tax or price on carbon will retard economic advancement, but so will unchecked climate change. The benefit of taxing carbon is that we don’t have governments directing how to decarbonize. Businesses can still innovate to be competitive, we will be pricing in an externality that we’ll just pay for in other ways, at a higher price, later on. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/01/05/glaciers-melt-this-century-warming/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/01/0... [2] https://vlscop.vermontlaw.edu/2019/11/07/sea-level-rise-food-security/ https://vlscop.vermontlaw.edu/2019/11/07/sea-level-rise-food...
- marcosdumay 4y ago
  If you are concerned about the costs of raising CO2, I would suggest looking first at the places where it can be cut with the smallest investment and smallest economical impact that add to more than 80% of the CO2 emissions, like transportation and electricity generation. The places that require the highest investment, could completely ruin the life of most people, and add up to a single digit percentage of the problem (or less) are better left to research. Carbon taxes would indeed help. More because it will let people do the calculation above than for any other reason. But trying to hijack a discussion about carbon substitution in steel making into a "we must act because the sky is falling" is in very bad taste.

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

zopa 4y ago

> The economy is a giant Jenga tower […] A Jenga tower is in unstable equilibrium. Push it a little bit away from its resting configuration and it collapses. The economy is in stable equilibrium, mostly, more or less. Push it by increasing the price of some commodity, which happens all the time, and buyers look for alternatives and efficiencies, which dampens the effect of the push. In all likelihood things settle in a new equilibrium not far at all from the first. It’s a much more resilient system than you’re giving it credit for. Totally different dynamics than the party game.

vegetablepotpie 4y ago

Right, and that CO2 will also impose a cost that we’ll also have to pay for. Higher global temperatures means fewer glaciers. Nearly two billion people in the world depend on glacial run off for their water [1], which a lot of will be gone in a few decades. Rising global temperatures will also mean melting ice and rising sea levels. Low level agricultural areas, such as those in Southeast Asia will, will see the ocean encroach 30-40 kilometers onto productive rice paddies with just a few feet of sea level rise [2]. It might be fine if these people just move, but we’re talking about displacing hundreds of millions to billions. Migrations like those of Syrians moving into Europe will seem small by comparison. I’m not going to mention the retarding economic effects of more stable regions having many more hotter days, or the impacts of more erratic weather due to arctic amplification and a more erratic jet stream. We may have to move or build new equipment someplace else. All of this means that we will have to build a new tower anyways, but we’ll have to do it with less resources, less time, and on a table that’s shaking constantly. Perhaps putting a tax or price on carbon will retard economic advancement, but so will unchecked climate change. The benefit of taxing carbon is that we don’t have governments directing how to decarbonize. Businesses can still innovate to be competitive, we will be pricing in an externality that we’ll just pay for in other ways, at a higher price, later on. [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/01/05/glaciers-melt-this-century-warming/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2023/01/0... [2] https://vlscop.vermontlaw.edu/2019/11/07/sea-level-rise-food-security/ https://vlscop.vermontlaw.edu/2019/11/07/sea-level-rise-food...

marcosdumay 4y ago
If you are concerned about the costs of raising CO2, I would suggest looking first at the places where it can be cut with the smallest investment and smallest economical impact that add to more than 80% of the CO2 emissions, like transportation and electricity generation. The places that require the highest investment, could completely ruin the life of most people, and add up to a single digit percentage of the problem (or less) are better left to research. Carbon taxes would indeed help. More because it will let people do the calculation above than for any other reason. But trying to hijack a discussion about carbon substitution in steel making into a "we must act because the sky is falling" is in very bad taste.