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There's tons of potential for "degrowth" that's neither destructive nor murderous. Our society is overwhelmed with low-quality, throw-away products that don't

by esarbe 3y ago

There's tons of potential for "degrowth" that's neither destructive nor murderous. Our society is overwhelmed with low-quality, throw-away products that don't do anything to improve health or well being. If we want to live sustainably on this planet we need stop producing goods to keep the engines of consumerism running and start cutting back these lunatic outgrowth that are only possible by allowing companies to externalize the long-term costs their products cause. That includes disposal and recycling.

permo-w 3y ago
I think the strongest argument for growth is that more growth means more redistribution of wealth, but if the degrowth means there's better distribution of wealth, then I'm all for it
- esarbe 3y ago
  You don't need growth for redistribution of wealth. Just distributing the already existing output more evenly would be enough.
concordDance 3y ago
> start cutting back these lunatic outgrowth that are only possible by allowing companies to externalize the long-term costs their products cause Note that while properly taxing those externalities is the theoretically perfect solution, in practice calculating the costs is so infeasible it would paralize our economy, particularly if we don't allow grandfathering in previous goods, practices, foods, etc. Merely assessing a particular food type for long term health costs is a 20 year £500 million study.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- Retric 3y ago
  Perfection isn’t necessary. When assessing a carbon tax for example you can try and come up with an exact figure or you can simple tax the amount of carbon extracted from the ground. That does account for methane leaks from natural gas pipelines, but it’s much better than nothing.
  - concordDance 3y ago
    And what should that be? I've heard estimates from $5/ton to $500/ton of CO2.
    - Retric 3y ago
      Start low and increase it every year until you hit net zero or large scale carbon sequestration actually becomes viable. My suggestion is 5$/ton and increase it by 10% per year above inflation, but you don’t need to use round numbers. Gasoline including manufacturing and transport would be ~2c/gallon right now and ~25c/gallon when cars manufactured todays cars get taken off the road. Which isn’t enough to crush ICE cars today but would rapidly scale demand as additional manufacturing comes online. Similarly aviation wouldn’t instantly be killed off but alternatives would see a significant boost where possible. Starting higher isn’t a bad idea, but politically I think starting slow and scaling exponentially is reasonably viable.
      - paulsutter 3y ago
        Ramping up is the only way to do a carbon tax. Also because it would encourage a - bigger increase in R&D and - bigger reduction in long term projects that emit carbon Decisions are made on a decades long timeframe. An immediate high tax would penalize old decisions, a gradual tax does more to shape new decisions

by esarbe 3y ago

permo-w 3y ago

I think the strongest argument for growth is that more growth means more redistribution of wealth, but if the degrowth means there's better distribution of wealth, then I'm all for it

esarbe 3y ago
You don't need growth for redistribution of wealth. Just distributing the already existing output more evenly would be enough.

concordDance 3y ago

> start cutting back these lunatic outgrowth that are only possible by allowing companies to externalize the long-term costs their products cause Note that while properly taxing those externalities is the theoretically perfect solution, in practice calculating the costs is so infeasible it would paralize our economy, particularly if we don't allow grandfathering in previous goods, practices, foods, etc. Merely assessing a particular food type for long term health costs is a 20 year £500 million study.

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
Retric 3y ago
Perfection isn’t necessary. When assessing a carbon tax for example you can try and come up with an exact figure or you can simple tax the amount of carbon extracted from the ground. That does account for methane leaks from natural gas pipelines, but it’s much better than nothing.
- concordDance 3y ago
  And what should that be? I've heard estimates from $5/ton to $500/ton of CO2.
  - Retric 3y ago
    Start low and increase it every year until you hit net zero or large scale carbon sequestration actually becomes viable. My suggestion is 5$/ton and increase it by 10% per year above inflation, but you don’t need to use round numbers. Gasoline including manufacturing and transport would be ~2c/gallon right now and ~25c/gallon when cars manufactured todays cars get taken off the road. Which isn’t enough to crush ICE cars today but would rapidly scale demand as additional manufacturing comes online. Similarly aviation wouldn’t instantly be killed off but alternatives would see a significant boost where possible. Starting higher isn’t a bad idea, but politically I think starting slow and scaling exponentially is reasonably viable.
    - paulsutter 3y ago
      Ramping up is the only way to do a carbon tax. Also because it would encourage a - bigger increase in R&D and - bigger reduction in long term projects that emit carbon Decisions are made on a decades long timeframe. An immediate high tax would penalize old decisions, a gradual tax does more to shape new decisions