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I have wondered if linear marginal pricing is one problem with this. Wealth is not distributed linearly, and growth does not occur linearly either. Wealth is a

I have wondered if linear marginal pricing is one problem with this. Wealth is not distributed linearly, and growth does not occur linearly either. Wealth is a hyperbola and growth is exponential, and yet marginal prices go linear. Thus, fuel prices have to be affordable enough for poor people, but a moderately wealthy person can tolerate to pay double that to drive the same distance. Those a little further up the hyperbola can drive four times as far. And after a few years of exponential growth, we all can. I've been wanting for taxes and other duties to be exponential shaped. Scale property tax exponential with the energy use of a house. Scale vehicle tax exponential to the car's fuel consumption. (You could require airlines to charge a sort of negative-percentage frequent flyer's discount as a tax, but that would be communism.) My guess is with the right parameters for base and exponent, this system could be very just, ensuring that everyone can fly across the country to visit family, but weekly business flights become prohibitively expensive. And my hunch is that this would be a more effective way to reduce total energy usage without creating disastrous living conditions for anybody.

benj111 3y ago
I suppose you could structure a carbon tax like an income tax. Flying, driving etc has a certain carbon cost. You get an annual personal allowance and anything over that is taxed. That way the poorest could live within their annual allowance, the rich could spend money to emit more. Although then there's the danger of essentially giving permission to people to emit more carbon.
- badtension 3y ago
  You could always make it progressive to effectively disallow spending more than X tonnes per year per person. Additional tax money could be spent in remedying the effects of GW or making the transition faster.
bryanlarsen 3y ago
In the countries that have one (like Canada), the carbon tax is coupled with a rebate. So if you use an average amount of gasoline, you pay $X in taxes and receive a $X rebate resulting in a 0% effective rate. It doesn't have the exponential factor of your proposal, but it does have a similar effect.

benj111 3y ago

I suppose you could structure a carbon tax like an income tax. Flying, driving etc has a certain carbon cost. You get an annual personal allowance and anything over that is taxed. That way the poorest could live within their annual allowance, the rich could spend money to emit more. Although then there's the danger of essentially giving permission to people to emit more carbon.

badtension 3y ago
You could always make it progressive to effectively disallow spending more than X tonnes per year per person. Additional tax money could be spent in remedying the effects of GW or making the transition faster.

bryanlarsen 3y ago

In the countries that have one (like Canada), the carbon tax is coupled with a rebate. So if you use an average amount of gasoline, you pay $X in taxes and receive a $X rebate resulting in a 0% effective rate. It doesn't have the exponential factor of your proposal, but it does have a similar effect.