Hacker News Reader

Comment by siliconc0w | Hacker News Reader

If we actually taxed fossil fuel producers what it took to offset the negative externalities offloaded to the public, we'd be 100% on renewables long ago.

View on HN

Most of the externalities are created when you burn the fossil fuels, or someone does so on your behalf, not when Exxon obtains and sells it to you. Why shouldn’t you be the one to pay the tax?

It's easier to tax a single company (Exxon) than millions of people. Exxon will pass the cost on to consumers anyway so it amounts to the same thing.

Every developed country already has point of sale gas taxes and it works fine. Just raise the number.

Gas isn't the only petroleum product.

And perhaps with an economic collapse to rival the climate outcomes we're afraid of nevermind noncompliance by economies that couldn't begin to survive with such an expensive early switch followed by... what recourse? War?

Wouldn't everything be great if everyone did the super hard thing in the past so all of our problems would be solved and we'd live in peace and perfect harmony! /s

> if everyone did the super hard thing in the past

I'd settle for the present - or the near future - or at all, ever, really, in place of the "let's just drive this bus off the cliff at full speed and hope our children learn to fly in midair" policy we've been implicitly choosing.

Solar is the cheapest source of electricity now and we've got grid scale batteries that are economical. The solution is here.

Climate change is too. It's time to stop worrying and hoping drastic prevention plans are going to work because it's already happened. The world is going to change and people are going to have to change with it (and move, mostly).

I am well aware. I'm not worried about it anymore; I'm heartbroken, and I'm furious.

Does that help anyone?

I'm not sure we should just ignore that the way we are handing this is to put all the costs onto the poor and powerless, while letting the rich and powerful become ever richer and more powerful. Turning that upside down would absolutely help a lot of people. More people should be furious about this.

Therefore we should do nothing! Why should I do anything if the folks before and around me didn't already do everything? Moreover, why work on a climate catastrophe for everyone if there's even a chance of negative economic impact for the investor class?

You don't have to do anything. You're losing money if you don't move to solar. You don't have to do anything out of any kind of altruistic future world saving hopes and dreams.

You can just do it because you're cheap and greedy.

If you want to stand by and pollute the world with fossil carbon emissions... well you're paying extra for the privilege, and why?

> nevermind noncompliance by economies that couldn't begin to survive with such an expensive early switch followed by... what recourse?

Tariffs.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com