Hacker News Reader

Comment by andix | Hacker News Reader

The ÖBB night trains can be awesome, but the quality doesn't seem to be consistent enough yet. There were reports of over 10% of all night trains getting cancelled this summer and replaced with regular trains (with seats, no beds).

Some statistics (German, use translate in browser): https://www.derstandard.at/story/3000000182197/sitzen-statt-...

View on HN

The trouble lies in the old rolling stock. They bought all that from Deutsche Bahn who suddenly stopped all sleeper train services a few years ago. Deutsche Bahn had neglected that segment for years and did not invest into more than the bare maintenance to keep the stock rolling.

Because it's unprofitable. We need to either accept that we need to subsidise these kind of services for climate protection or ban flights inside the European Union

Rather, the answer (as always) is carbon tax.

So, a big fat scam. No thanks.

Better than government banning flights all up.

>> carbon tax

> big fat scam

Care to elaborate?

If it's going to be anything like the carbon offsets, I see zero reason to elaborate since it will inevitably end up looking like arguing with religious people.

I am all for taxing pollution but focusing on carbon alone makes me extremely dubious of the actual intent behind such proposals.

These things appear to be weapons disguised as legitimate efforts to improve things.

So instead of taking the opportunity to educate somebody on a topic you're implying you know a lot about, you've decided it's not worth the bother because I'm probably religious about -- checks notes -- carbon taxes... and there's going to be no reasoning with me?

Why bother commenting on the internet at all?

So, instead of arguing your own thoughts on the matter, you choose to downvote when I share my own. Or, you could just do the usual citations spam to silence any dissenting opinions.

Why bother indeed.

I don't have 500 rep. I'm unable to downvote. I tried to engage in discourse by asking you to elaborate on your position -- the onus wasn't on me to explain anything. Good luck in life.

I did explain but apparently my reasoning wasn't good enough. It's hard to take someone seriously when they are in favour of scams like carbon tax, considering the premise of carbon offsets. It's akin to paying someone to take the punishment for a crime you did.

Take care.

Hey Siri, how do I deal with an economic externality?

Didn't work in Canada.

Canada's current carbon tax is at 65 CAD per ton of CO2, working out to roughly 15 cents per liter (typical gas price right now is 1.75ish per liter).

The degree of tax is just too small right now to realistically expect major impact on behavior.

We'll see what happens as tax continues to ramp.

The big issue I think with the tax is that its ultimately paid for by consumers and not capital, as a result behavior won't shift, people will just get poorer in need of more subsidy and wealth will be more concentrated. Rather than a carbon tax, we should tax wealth for carbon used to generate such wealth in the American economic system. We could do this by taxing the holdings directly, or having a progressive tax rate that is effectively zero for the sort of purchases a middle class individual will make in their life, and quite steep for the sort of purchases that are more common among the elite with substantially larger carbon footprints.

In theory a carbon tax incentivises low carbon solutions. In theory the market is frictionless and transparent.

Theory will only take you so far

Is jet fuel taxed? That would be against some international treaties, so I doubt they do that.

But the rate can't be flat. Some types of carbon emissions are more important than others. That has to be taken into account, otherwise carbon tax will never be feasible morally or politically.

Eh… that’s an invitation for lobbyists and politicians to buggar the whole thing up for every self-serving interest imaginable. The simpler the better.

Flat rate just won't work, ever, it's a doomed idea. We need political decision about what kind of emissions are acceptable and what kinds are not.

No way basic necessities, food, transportation should be taxed the same rate as luxury houses and yachts/private jets.

It's not realistic.

This is why the game is really screwed up. To make these decisions when coming up with carbon credits, or any other decisions regarding resources in a market, policy makers have to defer to industry because they simply don't understand industry and will never have the time to fully understand it like a domain expert would. Now, its not necessarily that the industry's own scientists and experts are corrupt, but that the business models naturally disincentivize hard truths if they come at a cost to profit. Shareholders don't want to hear that their investment is being taxed above others in this case. They will hire lawyers to fight fight fight their battle until its won. There is no opposition here to that, no balance to that sort of reaction, so it continues unimpeded towards this way just as easily and unstoppable as a gunpowder reaction to flame. As such, as soon as you think about putting a restriction on industry, it will serve to benefit investors of that industry first and foremost as it will be penned by that same industry you seek to regulate.

Why not? If it’s truly about the environment then everyone should pay based on their environmental impact. Sure, if carbon/methane/whatever can be shown to have a higher environmental impact when emitted at altitude or whatever, take that into account.

But placing the environment second to specifically target the “luxury” as some sort of way to “get” the rich is only harming your case.

No. It's about maximizing value per emission. The value of luxury goods is less than basic necessities (it's stuff we can live without by definition) so the rate should compensate for that.

I would accept a flat rate if each person got a fixed amount of emissions assigned to them and each person could decide to sell or keep their "emission right". Then everyone would have enough for basic needs.

In practice the results would be similar.

Better to simply charge emissions based on the cost required to scrub them.

Trying to inject value judgements into it turns the whole situation into an absurd government mandated ethics board. The precise task governments have shown themselves to royally screw up time and time again.

Afaik did ÖBB manage to reach net zero with night trains pre covid. That would be good enough for me

That's only because they are subsidized for the part inside Austria. Also you need some profits for investments in rolling Stock etc...

In France something like that has already happened:

"Under a government decree, any journeys that are possible in less than two-and-a-half hours by train cannot be taken as a flight. "

https://www.euronews.com/green/2022/12/02/is-france-banning-...

Or subsidies air travel less.

Or, shocking, let people take a flight if they want.

(I low-key hate flying btw and prefer trains for shorter distances)

Have you ever heard of climate change? Short trip flights are just a huge waste of the carbon dioxide emissions we can still burn safely

Reviews I've seen of these trains they took over have not been kind.

I have travelled with them multiple times some ten+ years ago when they were with DB, and they felt aged then already.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com