3 ms·

> I explicitly call the mandates misguided, because the Right Way is to tax what you don't like, eg carbon emissions, and let people figure out by themselves ho

by sofixa 2y ago

> I explicitly call the mandates misguided, because the Right Way is to tax what you don't like, eg carbon emissions, and let people figure out by themselves how they want to solve it. Electric cars might be one way. Or moving closer to work, so you only have to drive half as much might be another way to react; and is just as good in terms of emisions as getting a car that's twice as efficient. This is only if the thing "you don't like" doesn't have serious (like deadly) externalities. Just taxing leaded fuel more wouldn't have made the transition as quick; just taxing ICEs more won't force manufacturers to switch to electric and hybrid models quick enough. The threat of a ban will.

Thorrez 2y ago
You can adjust the tax to be as high as you want to speed up the transition to be as fast as you want.
- lupusreal 2y ago
  Sure, if you ignore the realities of politics.
  - eru 2y ago
    If it's too high to call it a 'tax', just relabel it as a 'fine'. Some high fines for breaking a 'ban' are very popular.
eru 2y ago
> Just taxing leaded fuel more wouldn't have made the transition as quick; [..] What makes you think so? You don't have to get rid of leaded fuel completely to get most of the benefits. If you get rid of 99.99% of leaded fuel, you reap approximately 99.99% of the benefits. And in fact, leaded fuels aren't banned for all applications. So whatever benefits we have gained, we have gained with some leaded fuels still being in use. Btw, we allow deadly externalities all the time. Driving your car, whether ICE or electric, at all is a stochastically deadly externality for pedestrians and cyclists and other drivers. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acid_Rain_Program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acid_Rain_Program for a successful program of trading in externalities. Why is lead or CO2 from cars special? We still allow lead from some other engines, and we allow lead in eg solder and other applications. Wouldn't it be more efficient to have a uniform tax on its emission into the environment, instead of a ad-hoc patchwork of bans? > [...] just taxing ICEs more won't force manufacturers to switch to electric and hybrid models quick enough. The threat of a ban will. How quick is quick enough? And why wouldn't a high enough tax do that? If you tax carbon emissions high enough that ICEs effectively cost an extra millions dollars to run, wouldn't that effectively have the same effects as a ban? (A handfull of billionaires might still run some ICEs for fun, even at those punitive taxes. But they are a rounding error.) In any case, my point was more aimed at making the life of polluters harder, instead of giving subsidies to electric cars. In my view, a tax on emissions is best, but a ban on ICEs is still better than a subsidy or an explicit mandate for electric cars. That way you don't distort the decisions between riding your pushbike vs moving close to work vs riding an electric car.
- consp 2y ago
  The problem with lead is not that it's poisonous, but that it affects the brain. Especially in children. No amount lead is good and the other uses should be banned as well but due to rich people (those who can afford to fly private planes) it's still allowed.
  - eru 2y ago
    That might be true, but has basically no bearing on the ban vs tax debate at all. I don't think anyone made an argument one way or another _how_ lead is bad: all the arguments so far works just as well whether lead is 'poisonous' or bad for the brain in some special way. You are right that private planes are mostly used by rich people. But that's not true of all products that contain lead, or processes that emit lead into the environment. (For example, there's lead in some batteries and there's lead in some solders. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead#Applications https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead#Applications for more.) The harm of lead is finite, and thus a finite tax would be a reasonable way to deal with it.
    - orwin 2y ago
      Would you be OK to tax killing people instead of banning it?
      - eru 2y ago
        In practice, we already tax/fine companies for killing people. So I'll bite the bullet, and say: yes, of course. Ideally, a large part of that tax would go towards (the estate of) the victims. That's more productive than locking people up: that's just a straight up loss for society. We also already tax stochastically-killing people; or in some cases, we don't even tax it and just allow dangerous activities. Eg we allow people to drive cars and we allow people to run coal-fired power plants. Going from a small percentage chance to a larger percentage chance (nothing is certain) is not a qualitative difference, only a quantitative one.
  - lupusreal 2y ago

by sofixa 2y ago

Thorrez 2y ago

You can adjust the tax to be as high as you want to speed up the transition to be as fast as you want.

lupusreal 2y ago
Sure, if you ignore the realities of politics.
- eru 2y ago
  If it's too high to call it a 'tax', just relabel it as a 'fine'. Some high fines for breaking a 'ban' are very popular.

eru 2y ago

> Just taxing leaded fuel more wouldn't have made the transition as quick; [..] What makes you think so? You don't have to get rid of leaded fuel completely to get most of the benefits. If you get rid of 99.99% of leaded fuel, you reap approximately 99.99% of the benefits. And in fact, leaded fuels aren't banned for all applications. So whatever benefits we have gained, we have gained with some leaded fuels still being in use. Btw, we allow deadly externalities all the time. Driving your car, whether ICE or electric, at all is a stochastically deadly externality for pedestrians and cyclists and other drivers. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acid_Rain_Program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acid_Rain_Program for a successful program of trading in externalities. Why is lead or CO2 from cars special? We still allow lead from some other engines, and we allow lead in eg solder and other applications. Wouldn't it be more efficient to have a uniform tax on its emission into the environment, instead of a ad-hoc patchwork of bans? > [...] just taxing ICEs more won't force manufacturers to switch to electric and hybrid models quick enough. The threat of a ban will. How quick is quick enough? And why wouldn't a high enough tax do that? If you tax carbon emissions high enough that ICEs effectively cost an extra millions dollars to run, wouldn't that effectively have the same effects as a ban? (A handfull of billionaires might still run some ICEs for fun, even at those punitive taxes. But they are a rounding error.) In any case, my point was more aimed at making the life of polluters harder, instead of giving subsidies to electric cars. In my view, a tax on emissions is best, but a ban on ICEs is still better than a subsidy or an explicit mandate for electric cars. That way you don't distort the decisions between riding your pushbike vs moving close to work vs riding an electric car.

consp 2y ago
The problem with lead is not that it's poisonous, but that it affects the brain. Especially in children. No amount lead is good and the other uses should be banned as well but due to rich people (those who can afford to fly private planes) it's still allowed.
- eru 2y ago
  That might be true, but has basically no bearing on the ban vs tax debate at all. I don't think anyone made an argument one way or another _how_ lead is bad: all the arguments so far works just as well whether lead is 'poisonous' or bad for the brain in some special way. You are right that private planes are mostly used by rich people. But that's not true of all products that contain lead, or processes that emit lead into the environment. (For example, there's lead in some batteries and there's lead in some solders. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead#Applications https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lead#Applications for more.) The harm of lead is finite, and thus a finite tax would be a reasonable way to deal with it.
  - orwin 2y ago
    Would you be OK to tax killing people instead of banning it?
    - eru 2y ago
      In practice, we already tax/fine companies for killing people. So I'll bite the bullet, and say: yes, of course. Ideally, a large part of that tax would go towards (the estate of) the victims. That's more productive than locking people up: that's just a straight up loss for society. We also already tax stochastically-killing people; or in some cases, we don't even tax it and just allow dangerous activities. Eg we allow people to drive cars and we allow people to run coal-fired power plants. Going from a small percentage chance to a larger percentage chance (nothing is certain) is not a qualitative difference, only a quantitative one.
- lupusreal 2y ago