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Comment by mavhc | Hacker News Reader

There aren't that many private jets, the article talks amount their investments causing 40% of their emissions, so not directly causing it.

I suspect house size is mostly to blame.

But the solution is simple, tax everything the amount it costs to clean up the pollution it causes, and then use that money to clean up the pollution. If importing from a country that does not to this, tax the imports.

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That would mean a carbon tax of $1000 per ton because direct air capture of CO2 and storing CO2 is on the same order of difficulty as storing nuclear waste. Possibly worse because CO2 is a gas that can leak out through tiny gaps so every storage site has to be inspected for leaks forever. Pumping CO2 underground is the equivalent of letting a tree capture CO2 with a random chance of the tree starting to rot and releasing all its CO2.

The only realistic storage option is solid carbon and that is why I put the price tag so high.

Or just change your business practises to not emit it in the first place, suddenly installing solar panels is insanely profitable

Cleaning pollution is hard, carbon capture is insanely expensive. We could take this take money and instead of storing that carbon (as other comments suggest) we could further the transformation of grid from fossil fuels to green energy, R&D and to make impact more meaningful provide "carbon tax" to developing countries to ditch fossil fuel as so on.

That would happen automatically, as no one would buy your products as they were too expensive, the companies would race each other to install more solar and wind, and to massively reduce their emissions.

> the article talks amount their investments causing 40% of their emissions, so not directly causing it.

I don't think it's investment in real estate, but more: a 0.05% stake in GM for instance. If the 40% is as a result of investments in companies that pollute, then I fail to see the point of the article. It makes little difference if those positions are held by the richest 10% or the poorest, the environmental impact is the same.

There is a question of whether climate change is a minor concern for the wealthiest individuals, compared to the middle class. Most evidence seems to show that the rich simply do not care or at least do not feel like they should make changes to their lifestyle.

Currently taxing seems like the only viable solution, but can we really tax a private jet enough that those who use them the most would scale back? I doubt it. What would a flight from San Jose to San Francisco need to cost to stop someone like Elon Musk from firing up the jet?

It doesn't matter if they stop, only that they pay enough to clean up the pollution, and then we use the money to clean up the pollution

Since there is no way currently of removing CO2, and we don't even know how that technology would work, there is no fair tax amount. Any amount you set will just be a robbery. Might as well make it a cent per ton, or a gorillion dollars per ton.

Well trees are a technology to capture co2, are they not?

I think there’s some stats about the amount of co2 captured by planting an absurd amount of trees is pretty negligible

There are other reasons to plant trees (well, plant plants in general), notably around rehabilitating land that is on the verge of desertification or the like.

Trees also cool their environments through evapotranspiration as well as literally converting sunlight into sugars. There's more benefit than just carbon capture per se.

Yes! I like trees a lot. I’m just commenting about how carbon captures scale is not aligned with trees capabilities on this front

To be fair, all other carbon capture technologies are still net-positive emissions-wise, after accounting for (what's typically dismissed as mere) externalities. The fact that trees, ie forests, are net-negative and also have other benefits (QoL for lots of organisms, increased biodiversity leading to resilience, etc.) puts them at the top of the list in this category for me.

Trees are a way to temporarily store CO2. If you just plant a massive forest and do nothing else, today's trees will eventually die, rot, and re-release all that CO2. That forest will regenerate itself if left alone and be a store of CO2, but any individual tree is lifecycle approximately zero.

I mean you're not wrong, but if we take that view the only permanent solution if to capture the CO2 and stuff it back into the ground, preferably as a relatively stable substance such as coal or oil.

Most of the worlds large forests are no more, many European countries are stripped of their old forests, so replanting those are required anyway, for other environmental concerns. They could on a permanent basis capture some percentage of the CO2. It is permanent if you view it as a forest and not individual tree.

> if we take that view the only permanent solution [is] to capture the CO2 and stuff it back into the ground

I think that's basically correct on the scale that's needed. I don't even think turning trees into building materials is enough.

Planting a lot of trees and letting forests grow has the advantage that it's obviously possible with current tech, while the forest is expanding in mass that CO2 is being scrubbed, and it's conspicuously visible to people (garnering feelings of goodwill and participation), but I don't believe the relatively small amount of incremental forest that we could reasonably create will make a meaningful change on a 100-year basis.

Presumably it would work similar to taxes on cigarettes, alcohol etc. by discouraging excessive consumption and making low CO2 alternatives much more attractive financially.

>it would work similar to taxes on cigarettes, alcohol etc

The money that these things cost to the public health service is easily quantified. I expect the taxes to reflect that.

>making low CO2 alternatives much more attractive

If there were "low CO2 alternatives" you wouldn't have to tax stuff, you could just force people to use them, and no one would really complain. Like it happened with CFCs. But taking a train instead of driving your car is not an alternative, it's rubbish.

Taking a train isn't an alternative because train tracks were literally torn from the ground. As were tram tracks.

Bikes aren't an alternative because instead of adding bike infrastructure that costs 10% of car infrastructure, the freaking 6 lane stroad needs a 7th lane, because that's going to solve traffic!

Walking isn't an alternative because US cities and suburbs are largely devoid of trees and any sort of protection from the sun or rain along their sidewalks, if they even have sidewalks to begin with. Oh, trees also make for a nice view and protect pedestrians from bad drivers, instead of lawns everywhere (!!!!). Plus trees and some bushes contain the crazy, deafening, ear damaging levels of noise cars make at speeds higher than about 70kmph.

Well paying 0 is "robbery" in the opposite direction.

Worse, it is common to actually subsidise fossil fuels.

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