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Comment by TeMPOraL | Hacker News Reader

> But climate change has shifted from a technological problem to a policy problem.

There is no such thing as shifting from a "technological problem" to a "policy problem". Technology creates the landscape on which political choices are made. Where a problem cannot be solved due to political costs, technology can provide alternative solutions that are more politically tenable.

We may have a "cocktail of tech" ready for fighting climate change, but it's not of the right mix; it doesn't have the right political taste.

Getting Gates involved in politics? That's not without its own risks, and it may not be the best use of his time.

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IMO, policy has a huge impact on technology. For example, if carbon was priced to include its climate change externality, the market would respond with solutions.

I'm not disputing that - if emissions were priced in, we wouldn't be anywhere near the mess we're in. Note however, that pricing carbon correctly is not a politically viable solution today. There are many reasons for that, and some of those reasons are addressable by technology. For instance, electrification of transport is a possible way of reducing carbon pricing's potential impact on costs of necessities and transportation - making the necessary political adjustment this much less bitter for people, and by extension politicians.

Politics is an art of endless trade-offs; technology plays a vital role in shaping those trade-offs.

Policy shapes technology and technology shapes policy.

Choosing which directions to focus research on rather than relying on happenstance or the market is policy.

Therefore it all comes down to policy.

It's a feedback loop all right, but some parts of it are easier to nudge than others. Policy tends to be fixed, as it's based on fixed characteristics of human brain and fixed phenomena like those explored in game theory. More effort put into politicking will not yield better results (EDIT: it might do some good; see downthread). Technology is mutable, in the sense that more effort (and money) put into it yields meaningful change, that can also shift policy.

Note that your argument right now boils down to "we need to invest more in right technology"; while the decision is political, it's literally the opposite of what people mean when they say something is a "political problem" and not a "technological problem".

"More effort put into politicking will not yield better results."

I disagree strongly. It's my belief that this attitude is a big part of the reason why we're not actually doing anything.

Depending on the poll and the degree of action requested, a small majority of Americans or a large minority supports climate change action. Policy action is very possible.

I still feel that investing in more political activity will achieve little, as that activity will get drowned in the noise. I'll think more about it though - I just recalled a good argument for your position: the NRA. From what I hear, the NRA is a small minority, but their success comes from being the only ones bothering to organize and push for their point of view.

Thank you!

Agreed that political activity is really really hard and often fruitless. But when it's important enough we still have to try.

> But when it's important enough we still have to try.

That I absolutely agree with.

Thank you for bearing with me and letting me figure out updates to my position on politics.

> Note however, that pricing carbon correctly is not a politically viable solution today.

Then this should be what all of us are focused on because the future of humanity is dependent on getting everyone on board with this.

Agreed. My point is, however, that while carbon pricing may be ultimately a political decision, technology has plenty of opportunities to make this decision easier and more likely to happen.

A country deciding to correctly price in environmental impact today would tank its economy on the spot. But availability of alternatives with lower emissions to various economical activities (e.g. electric cars as an alternative to ICE cars) allows that country to incentivize their use and offers opportunities to start pricing in emissions piece by piece.

The reasons why good solutions aren't implemented aren't always and only "because politicians are corrupt"; sometimes it's because they're impossible to push through (e.g. you'd lose election to someone who doesn't want to do this), and/or because going full-steam ahead risks social unrest and civil war, none of which will help climate.

Don't excise taxes in Europe on gasoline kind of count as taxing carbon? They are doing okay. Not great, but okay.

Kind of. I know only a bit about Polish excise taxes, and I don't think the taxes on petrol and LPG were introduced due to climate concerns. Taxing other fuels used for electricity generation and heating dates back to XIX century, way before anyone thought about the impact on climate.

Here's a breakdown of Polish fuel prices as of 2016:

https://www.bankier.pl/wiadomosc/Co-sklada-sie-na-cene-paliw...

TL;DR: price breakdown for Pb 95 gasoline: 39% net refinery price, 37% excise tax, 3% road tax, 19% VAT, 2% seller's margin. A carbon tax could presumably take the place of excise tax, but given that it's a big part of country's tax income, I think it'll have to be added on top.

As for acceptance, I'm somewhat surprised we don't have our own "yellow vests" - ask any Polish driver about gasoline prices, and you'll hear an angry rant about how expensive it is; mention a carbon tax, and they'll scream at you that >50% of the price is already taxes.

I figured that the main point of a carbon tax is to make it more expensive, so people would use less of it. And I think those Polish drivers are right. People would not accept a carbon tax on top of excise taxes on gasoline. In Estonia the 44.1% of the final price of gasoline was excise taxes and another 20% of it was VAT. 64.37% of the final price was purely tax.[0]

The story is very similar in all the other European countries as well. Countries that have a GDP per capita 2 to 3 times lower than the US are paying more for gasoline.

[0] https://infogram.com/kutusehinnad-1h0r6r83kyxl4ek

>Then this should be what all of us are focused on because the future of humanity is dependent on getting everyone on board with this.

How about we make so much technological progress that removes our reliance on cheap carbon emissions that we can tax carbon emissions without affecting people very much therefore removing the need to get everyone on board.

Agreed.

If technology gets to the point where the cost of dealing with carbon is on the same order as municipal water and sewer it won't be a political problem.

The policy problem is that there is a large chunk of people who don't even think there is a problem. How is that going to be solved with a different "mix" of tech?

Sadly, the people you are referring to won’t change until they feel the pain. And possibly not even then.

The different mix of tech will make it cheap/easy enough to do the "right thing" from a carbon perspective that few will do anything else.

I could burn my trash but my taxes pay the city to pay a company to come around once a week and collect a barrel from my house so why bother.

I drive ICE cars because in terms of results per dollar they're an obviously better deal than anything with lithium batteries. When it's no longer the economically obvious choice to drive ICE cars I'll stop doing it but not before then.

> When it's no longer the economically obvious choice to drive ICE cars I'll stop doing it but not before then.

Note that this may happen with policy alone. Many countries and cities around the world are now heavily subsidizing electric cars, through things like tax breaks and waiving parking fees. This is only possible because electric cars are an available option.

How does people having the right opinion change anything? I live in an extremely liberal city, and I still see people driving almost everywhere. They’re not all driving Teslas or even Priuses either.

> but it's not of the right mix; it doesn't have the right political taste.

What's that have to do with the technology?

I described it above. Technology offers options for policy.

Our climate-solving cocktail of 20 years ago involved things like drastic reduction of car use in favour of mass transit, and mass deployment of nuclear power to replace fossil fuel plants. We would be in much better shape today if that was done, but that set of solutions was (and still is) politically untenable - so technologists had (and still have) to invent different solutions, that are easier for politicians to implement.

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