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Comment by paganel | Hacker News Reader

> He flies everything from helicopters to float planes to multi-engine jets to get from his home base in San Antonio to his work in south Texas. “I’m probably flying a helicopter three days a week and a plane five.”

Combating "climate change" by taxing the common people to the Moon and back (especially here in Europe) is a joke, has always been a joke. At least this yacht of this guy from the article is using "green" energy for transportation.

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We're not going to fix wealth inequality and climate change at the same time. Meanwhile, we're not going to fix climate change or wealth inequality by only taxing the emissions of the 1%.

Although having a carbon tax that's redistributed equally per capita (so you get a monthly check) is an interesting idea that ends up reducing emissions (because it disincentivises them) and is mostly progressive (because rich people consume and emit more).

Wouldn't a carbon tax that is noticeable to these guys be crippling for pretty much everyone else?

Yes, you get the money back eventually, but there's a time lag and no amortisation. Big purchases might become impractical.

You can always give the money back beforehand if necessary.

Oh, I doubt rich people will care. They're rich, they don't have to care about any monetary incentives for their personal behaviour, if they don't want to. But the tax will still have the effect of moving money from them to people who are less well off. At least for the forseeable future.

Like I said, it's a fool's errand to try and fix climate change and wealth inequality in one fell swoop. Sadly, trying that will just end up solving neither.

Rich people are rich, they can do more than poor people, now that means they can buy a fancy car and good healthcare while poor people can't, soon it might mean they can fly across the globe four times a year while poor people can't. We should fix wealth inequality, too.

Sure, but as you said in the end a carbon tax sounds more like a wealth redistribution scheme than something that helps with climate change.

If you give more money to the less well off, they'll just polute/consume more. Meanwhile the well offs will still consume as much and just pay a bit more for it.

Or you make it potent enough, but then it will only effectively affect the less well off. Unlikely to be popular.

Ultimately, it feels like you need a non-linear carbon tax, but it sounds unfeasible to implement.

The idea is to make it potent enough to affect the behaviour of those 95% of the population that's responsible for 75% of the emissions (I made up that number, happy to be corrected) and whose behavior you can affect with economical nudging. No, they won't like that part.

But hopefully the extra income will soften the blow. The idea being that with it, you can either afford some of the high-emission-behavior you were used to. Or you can afford more of the low-emission-behavior than you were used to. Comparatively a lot more, because it's both taxed lower and you have extra income.

From the specs at the bottom.

> Fuel capacity: 54,000 litres

That's a lot of fuel to be calling it "green"

Not for a Texan!

54,000 liters of wind?

That's what it can carry, not what it necessarily uses in a ridiculously short period of time though right?

It doesn't have a wind turbine for electricity. Article mentions a 45 days at sea trip, for which they presumably want lights & cooking & entertainment for several people including crew.

Less efficiently generated, sure, but it's electricity they'd otherwise be using somewhere else.

Like this?

https://www.bbc.com/news/63544995

The hypocrisy is stunning

You could tax this guy and redistribute that money to the common people.

In 21st century private supersonic jets will be cheered. While 3td class travel in sardine can will be banned as too wasteful!

Her generators alone release more carbon than any normal person.

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