My goal is to reduce economic output. Of course that will make everyone poorer. Our climate can't support its entire population living at the level of wealth currently enjoyed by first world countries.
It can't even support the population of first world countries living at the level of wealth currently enjoyed by first world countries.
Electric sedans and solar panels are fine and all, but the vast majority of the crap we buy comes here on ship, and is hauled across the continent on gasoline trucks.
We can either make everyone poorer by taxing goods that require transportation (Which is nearly all of them), or by forcing everyone to do less work. There is no other solution.
Stopping deficit spending will slow down economic growth by single percentage points. It will also make everyone poorer - but by a much smaller margin. It also won't be enough.
We are currently in a situation where we can't just be happy with stopping the rate of emission growth - if we want to avoid catastrophic warming, we have to drastically reduce carbon emissions. Not fifty years from now, not thirty years from now, but within the next decade. [1]
We can reduce our GDP, or the climate can reduce it for us.
[1] http://www.wri.org/sites/default/files/WRI13-IPCCinfographic...