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Comment by myrmidon | Hacker News Reader

What a load of crap.

Sure, everyone reading and responding to this did profit from CO2 emissions for sure, but reducing emissions without going back to the stone-age is perfectly possible and this should be clear to anyone:

We could simply start taxing Co2 emissions, which would boost renewable energy buildout INSTANTLY:

One example: Right now, electricity (and concrete) are DIRT cheap-- my electricity bill is a complete joke compared to e.g. groceries (or mobile data, even).

Significant electricity costs (like 1$/kwh) would definitely help reduce emissions, and this could easily be done in a way that would not completely ruin the poorer half of the population by moving other taxes correspondingly.

This is just not done because people (and their governments) simply don't care enough (still!).

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I'm sorry to be this blunt but you're completely out of touch with reality.

In the whole of Europe electricity prices are currently through the roof, marking records on many countries... daily. [edit: mostly because CO2 emission taxes and because gas producing countries can charge whatever they want because the whole continent (but France) depends on them] Just because people (normal everyday working-class) people pay higher prices everyday for what they need to live, electricity doesn't come from cleaner sources suddenly; and it sure won't in the short/medium term. We are decarbonizing but in the meantime we have to use gas; the other alternatives (eg: nuclear, which is currently the only solution) are expensive as f* and take a looong time to be build. Renewables are not constant and there lies the problem, they also need a lot of ground allotted to be installed and account for a reasonable part of a country's usage.

We're stuck deep and there's no easy or quick way out. It also isn't "people just don't want to", people can't. Electric cars are very expensive to be adopted massively, and if they were comomn, the energy wouldn't be clean anyway, we have to change the infrastucture. Where do you suggest we get the energy from?

There are no easy and quick solutions.

It would already have a significant impact if people stopped (most likely against their own will) buying anything they don't really need. Brainless consumerism, buying material stuff simply because it makes you feel good for a while should be stopped through global government intervention.

The amount of clothes, electronics, food and such that gets wasted is just enormous on our societies. Only places in the world where people live somewhat ecologically are those where they simply can't afford such waste. So, IMO everything that isn't a basic necessity should be made much more expensive to force people rethink their consumption habits.

> In the whole of Europe electricity prices are currently through the roof

If by "through the roof" you mean like 30cents/kWh, then thats exactly what I'm talking about: if you don't have a farm of bitcoin miners at home your electricity bill is bound to be a complete joke compared to groceries, rent or even mobile data.

If we had actually expensive electricity (and car fuel and concrete etc.), which could easily be compensated by e.g. income or even sales tax modifications, then people would have ACTUAL financial incentive to buy efficient fridges or bike to work (without any additional burden).

Uhhhh, no. What about electricity that goes into mining and manufacturing? If you raise the price of that, all goods become more expensive, from the simple Mars bar up to construction. The poor will be decimated.

Companies will compete to find ways to produce things with less pollution if they can't cheat and pollute without paying.

And other companies will compete to find cheaper ways to remove pollution, lowering costs for those who pollute.

The poor are decimated when we allow them to be, not when prices rise by 50%.

OK, let’s jack up prices for everything from food to infrastructure but in a magical way that doesn’t harm low-income people. Great plan bro

Bruh here in Europe there's a thing called welfare state. The gov can pay poor people to compensate.

Another fantastic idea. Get free money from somewhere and simply give it to poor people, so they can stop being poor.

That way we can tax the crap out of all those productive people people and companies over there without worrying about any economic consequences.

> If you raise the price of that, all goods become more expensive, from the simple Mars bar up to construction.

You can just change e.g. income tax accordingly so expected tax load stays the same-- only now your citizens are financially incentivized to save electricity...

Also you have a convenient excuse (as nation state) for protectionist import tariffs hitting all countries that don't practise Co2 taxation themselves (which might be nice for local economy)

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