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> Asking people to have less, experience less, and do less isn’t an argument that can ever win. Asking people to eat less might never win... But when there i

> Asking people to have less, experience less, and do less isn’t an argument that can ever win. Asking people to eat less might never win... But when there is a famine, people have no choice but to eat less. It's not that there is no food available in a famine - it's just that prices go sky high. Tomorrow the government could shut down the oil wells and say "nobody may emit any CO2 unless they pay $1000/ton of CO2 emitted.". The population may revolt, like they do during famines. But with those oil wells blocked up, they probably wouldn't get what they were looking for.

spenczar5 3y ago
- which government? - did I emit a ton of CO2 when I cut down a tree? - what happens to the cost of medical plastics, etc? Did you just kill millions in poor countries because the cost of care went up so much? This stuff is hard. Pretending it is simple stops us from working on the hard parts.
- mrguyorama 3y ago
  >what happens to the cost of medical plastics, Plastic production is an insanely small part of oil and gas usage, 4%. Anyone bringing up plastic as a reason to not stop using oil isn't being intellectually honest. We could literally decimate the oil industry and still produce way more oil than the plastic industry needs. It's just not a concern.
  - spenczar5 3y ago
    The proposal was to crank up the price of oil directly. You couldnt price-curve your way past a $1,000 per CO2 ton tax. While plastic does not drive oil production, it is definitely the case that oil prices determine plastic production costs. Recycling can absorb much of that, but medical plastics cannot be made through recycling today.
    - londons_explore 3y ago
      $1000/ton is $1/kg. Most medical plastic items are tens of grams - so 1 cent. Considering the price of medical devices in the US, there is certainly room for a few extra cents.
      - spenczar5 3y ago
        You are taxing co2, not oil. A barrel of oil is about 400kg of carbon. That makes the price go up by at least $400 per barrel. It’s at about $80 right now. So the cost of materials for petroleum prodycts would go up by something like 6x. In the US, this cost will get absorbed. But if you are in subsaharan Africa, 6x more expensive IV tubes and syringes is extremely consequential.
nemo44x 3y ago
So a government that violently suppresses dissent and only wealthy people can emit CO2? Yeah, sounds great! I don’t think eco-fascism is going to get broad support…
- vixen99 3y ago
  Not sure about that. Announce a climate emergency with huge implications I don't need to detail and you might get away with anything irrespective of support.
  - nradov 3y ago
    A government foolish enough to abuse emergency powers that way would be voted out in the next election.
    - dragonwriter 3y ago
      Abuse emergency powers sufficiently, and there is no next election, at least not on terms where it is possible for you to lose.
flagrant_taco 3y ago
It doesn't necessarily have to be done through further government intervention. Simply removing government protections and subsidies for industry would go a long way. That's definitely not a complete solution (if one exists), but that could be implemented over night if we wanted to do it.
Roark66 3y ago
>Tomorrow the government could shut down the oil wells and say "nobody may emit any CO2 unless they pay $1000/ton of CO2 emitted.". And it would not change anything at planet scale, because on the other side of the world China is going to "pick up any slack" of CO2 generation we may not do. It shouldn't stop us from trying to increase efficiency, but panic and insane ideas of the sort of "no one can emit a ton of CO2 without paying $1k" are not the way to improve things. The biggest fight in the world today is not for "the climate", but for the freedom to live in a non-autocratic country. We would have to win the second to have the slightest shot at cooperating well enough to have a shot at mitigating the first for those of us in places that will be hit the worst. Do you think a communist-by-name party of China (or Russian mafia-state) gives a damn about the climate and how it affects people in places like subsaharan Africa, Bangladesh etc? Not in the slightest, but they'll gladly use every bit of it to promote panic and industry killing policies in places like the US, EU while pretending to "be green". If we win the fight not to be ruled by corrupt dictators we can have a shot of improving the lives of people who will suffer due to climate change.
- dragonwriter 3y ago
  > And it would not change anything at planet scale, because on the other side of the world China is going to "pick up any slack" of CO2 generation we may not do. Even if that was true in the short term (and reducing global supply by shutting down oil wells makes ir unlikely) the relative incentive for alternatives created here would lead to global improvements over the medium and longer term. (That said, the time to apply solutions with medium-to-longer term payoff was 50 years ago.)
- chimprich 3y ago
  > And it would not change anything at planet scale, because on the other side of the world China is going to "pick up any slack" of CO2 generation we may not do. We're still far better off decarbonising because (rest of the world CO2 + China CO2) > China CO2.
  - NoGravitas 3y ago
    China's per capita carbon emissions are half those of the US (8 metric tons vs 16 metric tons, 2018 figures). Mote, beam, etc.

spenczar5 3y ago

- which government? - did I emit a ton of CO2 when I cut down a tree? - what happens to the cost of medical plastics, etc? Did you just kill millions in poor countries because the cost of care went up so much? This stuff is hard. Pretending it is simple stops us from working on the hard parts.

mrguyorama 3y ago
>what happens to the cost of medical plastics, Plastic production is an insanely small part of oil and gas usage, 4%. Anyone bringing up plastic as a reason to not stop using oil isn't being intellectually honest. We could literally decimate the oil industry and still produce way more oil than the plastic industry needs. It's just not a concern.
- spenczar5 3y ago
  The proposal was to crank up the price of oil directly. You couldnt price-curve your way past a $1,000 per CO2 ton tax. While plastic does not drive oil production, it is definitely the case that oil prices determine plastic production costs. Recycling can absorb much of that, but medical plastics cannot be made through recycling today.
  - londons_explore 3y ago
    $1000/ton is $1/kg. Most medical plastic items are tens of grams - so 1 cent. Considering the price of medical devices in the US, there is certainly room for a few extra cents.
    - spenczar5 3y ago
      You are taxing co2, not oil. A barrel of oil is about 400kg of carbon. That makes the price go up by at least $400 per barrel. It’s at about $80 right now. So the cost of materials for petroleum prodycts would go up by something like 6x. In the US, this cost will get absorbed. But if you are in subsaharan Africa, 6x more expensive IV tubes and syringes is extremely consequential.

nemo44x 3y ago

So a government that violently suppresses dissent and only wealthy people can emit CO2? Yeah, sounds great! I don’t think eco-fascism is going to get broad support…

vixen99 3y ago
Not sure about that. Announce a climate emergency with huge implications I don't need to detail and you might get away with anything irrespective of support.
- nradov 3y ago
  A government foolish enough to abuse emergency powers that way would be voted out in the next election.
  - dragonwriter 3y ago
    Abuse emergency powers sufficiently, and there is no next election, at least not on terms where it is possible for you to lose.

flagrant_taco 3y ago

It doesn't necessarily have to be done through further government intervention. Simply removing government protections and subsidies for industry would go a long way. That's definitely not a complete solution (if one exists), but that could be implemented over night if we wanted to do it.

Roark66 3y ago

>Tomorrow the government could shut down the oil wells and say "nobody may emit any CO2 unless they pay $1000/ton of CO2 emitted.". And it would not change anything at planet scale, because on the other side of the world China is going to "pick up any slack" of CO2 generation we may not do. It shouldn't stop us from trying to increase efficiency, but panic and insane ideas of the sort of "no one can emit a ton of CO2 without paying $1k" are not the way to improve things. The biggest fight in the world today is not for "the climate", but for the freedom to live in a non-autocratic country. We would have to win the second to have the slightest shot at cooperating well enough to have a shot at mitigating the first for those of us in places that will be hit the worst. Do you think a communist-by-name party of China (or Russian mafia-state) gives a damn about the climate and how it affects people in places like subsaharan Africa, Bangladesh etc? Not in the slightest, but they'll gladly use every bit of it to promote panic and industry killing policies in places like the US, EU while pretending to "be green". If we win the fight not to be ruled by corrupt dictators we can have a shot of improving the lives of people who will suffer due to climate change.

dragonwriter 3y ago
> And it would not change anything at planet scale, because on the other side of the world China is going to "pick up any slack" of CO2 generation we may not do. Even if that was true in the short term (and reducing global supply by shutting down oil wells makes ir unlikely) the relative incentive for alternatives created here would lead to global improvements over the medium and longer term. (That said, the time to apply solutions with medium-to-longer term payoff was 50 years ago.)
chimprich 3y ago
> And it would not change anything at planet scale, because on the other side of the world China is going to "pick up any slack" of CO2 generation we may not do. We're still far better off decarbonising because (rest of the world CO2 + China CO2) > China CO2.
- NoGravitas 3y ago
  China's per capita carbon emissions are half those of the US (8 metric tons vs 16 metric tons, 2018 figures). Mote, beam, etc.