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> Keep increasing fossil fuel taxes until the target amount of carbon emissions is achieved. The consumption that goes away is what was “destroying the world”.
by starspangled 2y ago
> Keep increasing fossil fuel taxes until the target amount of carbon emissions is achieved. The consumption that goes away is what was “destroying the world”.
You haven't arrived here by any reasoning, you're just working back from the outcome you want. I.e., you want to define "unnecessary emissions" or "least expensive to cut emissions" as what is destroying the world. But if carbon pollution is destroying the world, then any carbon pollution causes basically the same damage to the world as any other. That's the climate and environmental science. When you bring economics into it you're bringing in arbitrary wants, desires, what people inherited at birth, etc., that has nothing to do with the impact to the world of additional carbon in the atmosphere.
Here's a concrete counter-example. If you raise carbon price, virtuous billionaires and politicians will continue to fly their private jets to climate conferences while more people starve from increased food costs. That doesn't mean the meagre eating habits of those now deceased poor people was what was destroying the world rather than the exorbitant consumption by the ruling class that could have been a zoom meeting. In fact both were equally contributing (ton for ton) because the climate doesn't care where the CO2 came from, if it was ethical or economical or necessary or fair or anything else. Either the carbon is emitted into the atmosphere, or it isn't.
> And this is why efforts to curb emissions and other pollution is hopeless.
I think it's only hopeless so long as those pushing it are massive hypocrites. Nobody likes a hypocrite. Nobody likes injustice.
- lotsofpulp 2y ago> Here's a concrete counter-example. If you raise carbon price, virtuous billionaires and politicians will continue to fly their private jets to climate conferences while more people starve from increased food costs. That doesn't mean the meagre eating habits of those now deceased poor people was what was destroying the world rather than the exorbitant consumption by the ruling class that could have been a zoom meeting. You going to the beach with your dog in a big pickup truck, along with a couple hundred million other people, is the same level of non essential as people flying in private jets (of which there are very, very few). People in the developed nation’s middle/upper middle class like to think they not consuming multiple standard deviations above the mean, because they don’t fly on private jets, but they do. > But if carbon pollution is destroying the world, then any carbon pollution causes basically the same damage to the world as any other. That's the climate and environmental science. When you bring economics into it you're bringing in arbitrary wants, desires, what people inherited at birth, etc., that has nothing to do with the impact to the world of additional carbon in the atmosphere. Yes, obviously any fossil fuel tax that meaningfully reduces consumption has to create a floor for quality of life, such as a minimum level of nutrition, shelter, healthcare, education, etc. The amount of wealth redistribution necessary to get there very well might make it so many people cannot (regularly) drive to the beach in a pickup truck with their dog. The fact that increasing gas taxes in the US is a political nonstarter should indicate how much we (the broad voting populace) value our standards or dreams of consumption, which are multiple standard deviations above the mean.
- starspangled 2y ago> You going to the beach with your dog in a big pickup truck, along with a couple hundred million other people, is the same level of non essential as people flying in private jets (of which there are very, very few). Again, whatever level of nonessential you claim it might be and however you measure that, is irrelevant to what is destroying the environment. Did you not take anything from the previous comment I made? The fact that your idea of "non-essential" means that poor people starve to death while rich people fly around in private jets to parties and vacations. Do you acknowledge that was wrong, or at least proved that the economic measurement of "essential" that you invented is totally arbitrary? I don't see how you can just keep going on without acknowledging this and addressing it.
- triceratops 2y ago> If you raise carbon price, virtuous billionaires and politicians will continue to fly their private jets to climate conferences while more people starve from increased food costs You offset the carbon tax with a universal tax credit or refund or UBI or whatever you want to call it. Give people all of the money back that was generated from the carbon tax. Poor people don't fly on private jets or buy yachts so they'll come out ahead. Or at least, less behind than those who do spend money on those things.
- starspangled 2y agoYou can put a blindfold on and throw lots of darts at the board, sure. I was specifically addressing the idea that economics somehow determines which CO2 producing activity is destroying the world and which isn't. CO2 is CO2.
- triceratops 2y agoI don't know what your first sentence means. A carbon tax puts into focus which carbon emissions are truly essential, and which ones are optional, expressed by the spending choices consumers make. If you have it in place and most voters agree with the principle (because they make money) then you move the tax rate slider up or down to get carbon emissions to whatever level is enough.
- starspangled 2y agoMy first sentence means that UBI doesn't change anything to somehow make the offered definition of what kind of carbon pollution is destroying the world valid. "Essential" doesn't mean anything to the physics of climate change, it just means something like "what people choose to do".
- triceratops 2y agoAgain, no idea what you're saying. You're just repeating "essential" over and over, with a heavy dose of cynicism.