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> start cutting back these lunatic outgrowth that are only possible by allowing companies to externalize the long-term costs their products cause Note that whi

> 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.

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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

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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