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Comment by bloudermilk | Hacker News Reader

Are you pricing in the externalities of GHGs?

No.

If it isn’t cheaper it isn’t on the board for the next decade or two outside niche routes. The hard part is in making it economically viable. We already know sailboats work.

That’s a decision we, as a civilization, need to make. I personally hope we manage to enact transnational policies that effectively price environmental and social externalities in my lifetime. Or else witness “free market” capitalism continue to degrade our planet and the lives of millions of less privileged people.

> That’s a decision we, as a civilization, need to make. I personally hope we manage to enact transnational policies that effectively price environmental and social externalities in my lifetime. Or else witness “free market” capitalism continue to degrade our planet and the lives of millions of less privileged people.

Name one decision that the entire human civilization has ever consciously made

Banning CFCs

There are very many. Sovereignty of nation-states, the international passport system, international standards for airplanes/airports/flight operations, Unicode, every other IT standard, every ISO standard, outlawing aggressive warfare, the international financial system, the UN, the Law of the Sea, compact discs, time keeping (60 seconds, 60 minutes, 24 hrs, 7 days, etc.), time zones, calendar, names of celestial objects, names of elements, international science research, Enlightenment scholarship, ........

EVs are sinking ships.

If you could build mass fleets of smaller ships that are sail and electric powered to move electric cars and containers of batteries.

That really big question for society is how to force GHG emissions externalities to the polluters. In the current political climate it doesn't appear possible...

> how to force GHG emissions externalities to the polluters

Not happening for decades. Not until America’s boomers, Xi and his wolf warriors and Putin and his circle are dead.

Solar is a success because it’s economically viable. We need more solutions like that. Not conference presentations wrapping a regressive carbon tax as a sailboat.

Solar wasn't economical until China made the strategic decision to invest into cutting solar costs and scaling production up. Putin isn't relevant, nobody really listens to him (the reason why he is so mad). It's really the American boomers who are happy the cook the planet to own the libs.

Taxing CO2 isn't regressive - poor people don't fly to vacations or commute in unnecessarily large single-occupancy trucks.

> Taxing CO2 isn't regressive

It certainly is. Everything poor people need is manufactured and delivered with fossil fuels. Rich people could afford extra costs for carbon without blinking.

All consumption taxes are regressive.

What about the positive externalities of sulfur dioxide emissions reducing temperatures?

We need more container ships polluting or the post 2020 global warming rate could double!

https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-024-01442-3

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