> A tax on fossil fuel would make everything more expensive with little recourse for alternatives.
that money doesn't dissapear, it could be used to reduce other taxes, say income tax or VAT.
it's purpose is to rebalance relative cost of things
that money doesn't dissapear, it could be used to reduce other taxes, say income tax or VAT.
it's purpose is to rebalance relative cost of things
if you care about stopping carbon emissions i think this is the most realistic and efficient way. otherwise we get caught up in discussions of how this changes redistribution and "economic/environmental justice" or whatever and it will never happen. but unfortunately there are many people who care more about adding more free stuff or using the funds for more dumb congress policies then actually passing a carbon policy.
>no its purpose is to fix an externality. it should be exactly equal to the cost of carbon offset for the amount emitted.
So it would only cost 8% of the cost of a flight to completely remove all the carbon emitted from that flight? That seems pretty reasonable. How is this done?
This seems like one of those things that sound right on a macro level, but doesn't take into account the inelastic demand of travel. For it to actually reduce emissions (the goal), the tax would probably need to be much, much higher to the point where you just don't go to grandma's funeral.
Honestly, for me, the TSA and the actual flight experience in the US as kept me from flying at all since about 2006. I can't stand any part of it. I don't care much for driving either and only put around 2000 miles a year on my vehicle. Most of this is because I can work at home. I guess I've got a pretty low footprint.
Nah, you just need enough pressure to move people onto electric cars.
A plane might be one of the last holdouts on fossil fuels, but even then renewable fuel shouldn't be that expensive in bulk.
If it's to fix an externality, then it specifically should be exactly equal to the cost of that externality - that is, sufficient to compensate for all damages (and repairs for said damages) resulting from that externality. This should be right around the same as a carbon offset, but it's worth remembering why a carbon tax is necessary: not for the mere sake of punishing some dirty activity, but for the specific sake of compensating the victims of reckless negligence.
Well yeah, but surely some compensation is better than the current status quo of nothing at all.
> What price would you put on human extinction?
Well, if we want to get hyper-capitalist about it: whatever the resulting opportunity cost is from those humans no longer being able to produce value. Of course, seeing as how humans can produce other humans who then produce value and yet more humans and so on in perpetuity, that opportunity cost rather quickly approaches infinity.