4 ms·

Carbon tax is THE solution when you have a great job and disposable income. It's easy, doesn't require you to change, and most importantly it gives the governme

by iinnPP 3y ago

Carbon tax is THE solution when you have a great job and disposable income. It's easy, doesn't require you to change, and most importantly it gives the government more money to spend. I don't believe most people appreciate the changes we (99.999%[1]) need to be committing to, indefinitely, to actually do something to reverse our impact on the planet. Carbon tax isn't a solution. Feel free to come up to Canada and see how well it's working. Our iceberg lettuce is up to 7$/ea except for the 10% we get from California. The other ~90% is from predominantly Ontario green houses, all of which are being hammered by the Federal carbon taxes(Provincial are already carved out). [1] made up On the topic of vehicle weight based taxes, I strongly agree. Family size to passenger count(sum of all family owned vehicles of all kinds) being another good one to target.

HDMI_Cable 3y ago
Personally, that's why I think a Cap and Trade program is better than a Carbon tax. You're reducing the effect on lower-income people (who aren't directly exposed to increased prices caused by the tax), you incentivize innovation (so that companies don't have to buy carbon trades), and you can reduce emissions targets based on your stated goals (i.e., you can automatically reduce emissions by lowering the cap). > Our iceberg lettuce is up to 7$/ea except for the 10% we get from California. The other ~90% is from predominantly Ontario green houses, all of which are being hammered by the Federal carbon taxes(Provincial are already carved out). To be fair, this is the doing of the Ford government. Ontario had a cap-and-trade program under Kathleen Wynne (however bad she may be), which the Ford government scrapped for no apparent reason. By law, the federal government had to step in and implement a carbon tax, which Ford knew in advance. This increase is purely due to his government.
hammock 3y ago
Why do we talk about a "carbon tax" when it ought to be a fossil fuels tax? The carbon cycle was fine until we started digging oil and gas out of the ground and burning them
- ajmurmann 3y ago
  Maybe it's a worthwhile tradeoff to use fossil fuels in one place and make up for it by sequestering carbon elsewhere. There are also other things that create massive carbon emissions. Cement is the most prominent I know of by adding 8% of global carbon emissions (https://psci.princeton.edu/tips/2020/11/3/cement-and-concrete-the-environmental-impact https://psci.princeton.edu/tips/2020/11/3/cement-and-concret...)
  - hammock 3y ago
    Are you saying maybe fossil fuels are good (or less bad) and cows are bad (or less good)? And we ought to tax cattle farms so that we can burn more fossil fuels? That's what it sounds like when you really look at it.
    - ajmurmann 3y ago
      No, I am saying, tax carbon emissions regardless of source and let people make their own decision on what they want to spend on. The source of the emissions doesn't matter to how negative the externality is, so let's not put a value judgement where we don't need one.
      - hammock 3y ago
        > The source of the emissions doesn't matter to how negative the externality is It does, though. We seem to have lost sight of the sustainability dimension of our planet. Cows can fart all day long and the carbon/methane cycles will recapture it, sustainably. In contrast, we cannot pull oil out of the ground in any sustainable way, since it was all created 100 million years ago in a one-time geological event that is unlikely to ever occur again in the history of Earth
Aunche 3y ago
> most importantly it gives the government more money to spend. Most popular carbon tax proposals are revenue neutral. Whatever the government collects in carbon taxes would be redistributed to everyone as a check. You're correct that this will be painful though, especially for regular people. A lot of people believe that just because it's revenue neutral it won't be painful. Every tax causes a deadweight loss, regardless of how that money is spent. Climate change may, in fact, be a bigger deadweight loss, but the problem is that people don't perceive it as such because even if a carbon tax prevents a hurricane, nobody would ever know. Also, the benefits of the carbon tax would be distributed for everyone in the world, but the costs would be concentrated only on citizens of countries with a carbon tax.
- iinnPP 3y ago
  Canada has a "revenue neutral" model. It is in quotes because it simply doesn't work as advertised. There's cost increases everywhere. Our homeless population has exploded. Then there is interest. Money today is better than money tomorrow and certainly better than money in a year. This is especially true for the poor. Then there's what happens when you give an average poor person a check (This isn't an insult. It's perfectly understandable that a person being beat down by life would be interested in spending money on something or someone instead of food.) Our healthcare costs also need to be considered. The solution for people to handle inflation caused partially by the carbon tax is to eat less expensive food. This means cutting out fresh fruit and veggies, meats, fish, and other nutrient dense food. Carbon tax is solving nothing at an extraordinary cost. We still have people driving to the corner store, tossing out two full ass garbage bags every week with recycling bins mismatched and full of food crusted paper, unrecyclable materials, food itself, and much more. Other problems exist too. Think about the average IQ in North America. It's reported in some places as 93-95. Many people simply are not capable of doing this without significant help. Discussion of climate change on HN is quite the experience. Suggestions outside of the approved methods get downvote love. While having the view that a tax will solve anything is applauded. We will get precisely nowhere on climate change because every damn person thinks it will cost them nothing. Nobody(ish) will do anything before they are told to either. Anything unpopular will never be brought up as a rule. Put more simply: We're living in our mess and will do so until the mess falls over and we get stuck underneath without a soul to call for help. --edit-- I don't use garbage collection. I don't recycle, I reduce and reuse. I don't drive.

by iinnPP 3y ago

HDMI_Cable 3y ago

Personally, that's why I think a Cap and Trade program is better than a Carbon tax. You're reducing the effect on lower-income people (who aren't directly exposed to increased prices caused by the tax), you incentivize innovation (so that companies don't have to buy carbon trades), and you can reduce emissions targets based on your stated goals (i.e., you can automatically reduce emissions by lowering the cap). > Our iceberg lettuce is up to 7$/ea except for the 10% we get from California. The other ~90% is from predominantly Ontario green houses, all of which are being hammered by the Federal carbon taxes(Provincial are already carved out). To be fair, this is the doing of the Ford government. Ontario had a cap-and-trade program under Kathleen Wynne (however bad she may be), which the Ford government scrapped for no apparent reason. By law, the federal government had to step in and implement a carbon tax, which Ford knew in advance. This increase is purely due to his government.

hammock 3y ago

Why do we talk about a "carbon tax" when it ought to be a fossil fuels tax? The carbon cycle was fine until we started digging oil and gas out of the ground and burning them

ajmurmann 3y ago
Maybe it's a worthwhile tradeoff to use fossil fuels in one place and make up for it by sequestering carbon elsewhere. There are also other things that create massive carbon emissions. Cement is the most prominent I know of by adding 8% of global carbon emissions (https://psci.princeton.edu/tips/2020/11/3/cement-and-concrete-the-environmental-impact https://psci.princeton.edu/tips/2020/11/3/cement-and-concret...)
- hammock 3y ago
  Are you saying maybe fossil fuels are good (or less bad) and cows are bad (or less good)? And we ought to tax cattle farms so that we can burn more fossil fuels? That's what it sounds like when you really look at it.
  - ajmurmann 3y ago
    No, I am saying, tax carbon emissions regardless of source and let people make their own decision on what they want to spend on. The source of the emissions doesn't matter to how negative the externality is, so let's not put a value judgement where we don't need one.
    - hammock 3y ago
      > The source of the emissions doesn't matter to how negative the externality is It does, though. We seem to have lost sight of the sustainability dimension of our planet. Cows can fart all day long and the carbon/methane cycles will recapture it, sustainably. In contrast, we cannot pull oil out of the ground in any sustainable way, since it was all created 100 million years ago in a one-time geological event that is unlikely to ever occur again in the history of Earth

Aunche 3y ago

> most importantly it gives the government more money to spend. Most popular carbon tax proposals are revenue neutral. Whatever the government collects in carbon taxes would be redistributed to everyone as a check. You're correct that this will be painful though, especially for regular people. A lot of people believe that just because it's revenue neutral it won't be painful. Every tax causes a deadweight loss, regardless of how that money is spent. Climate change may, in fact, be a bigger deadweight loss, but the problem is that people don't perceive it as such because even if a carbon tax prevents a hurricane, nobody would ever know. Also, the benefits of the carbon tax would be distributed for everyone in the world, but the costs would be concentrated only on citizens of countries with a carbon tax.

iinnPP 3y ago
Canada has a "revenue neutral" model. It is in quotes because it simply doesn't work as advertised. There's cost increases everywhere. Our homeless population has exploded. Then there is interest. Money today is better than money tomorrow and certainly better than money in a year. This is especially true for the poor. Then there's what happens when you give an average poor person a check (This isn't an insult. It's perfectly understandable that a person being beat down by life would be interested in spending money on something or someone instead of food.) Our healthcare costs also need to be considered. The solution for people to handle inflation caused partially by the carbon tax is to eat less expensive food. This means cutting out fresh fruit and veggies, meats, fish, and other nutrient dense food. Carbon tax is solving nothing at an extraordinary cost. We still have people driving to the corner store, tossing out two full ass garbage bags every week with recycling bins mismatched and full of food crusted paper, unrecyclable materials, food itself, and much more. Other problems exist too. Think about the average IQ in North America. It's reported in some places as 93-95. Many people simply are not capable of doing this without significant help. Discussion of climate change on HN is quite the experience. Suggestions outside of the approved methods get downvote love. While having the view that a tax will solve anything is applauded. We will get precisely nowhere on climate change because every damn person thinks it will cost them nothing. Nobody(ish) will do anything before they are told to either. Anything unpopular will never be brought up as a rule. Put more simply: We're living in our mess and will do so until the mess falls over and we get stuck underneath without a soul to call for help. --edit-- I don't use garbage collection. I don't recycle, I reduce and reuse. I don't drive.