Until we get a Carbon Tax, we haven't even started - Page 2 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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Pollution, global warming, urbanisation etc.
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#15043959
late wrote:
Administrative nightmare..
Maybe,
I think it would certainly shake up the energy market. Certainly there would need protections to prevent energy companies dumping those who don't offer a profit and probably lead to the need for a nationalised energy company to pick up those people that energy companies refuse to accept after inception.

I'm ok with that, a government run energy company would have access to huge levels of investment funding and could stipulate every household joining has solar and other energy generation/saving measures installed where possible to cover the cost of offering an energy allowance. All supported by the tax revenue of those the energy companies are profiting from.

I'm a firm believer in universal basic services where capitalism only kicks in once everyone's basic needs have been met. Means testing has two failure points, first it creates an atmosphere of scrounging/ laziness (why do I have to pay for others) whilst a universal allowance does not carry that tag and still benefits the poor and incentivises the wealthy. Secondly there is an administrative overhead to means testing that increases the burden on those not recieving the benefit.
Last edited by BeesKnee5 on 21 Oct 2019 22:08, edited 3 times in total.
#15043975
late wrote:Actually, it's the only real way to start the transition.


The transition to perpetual energy poverty and artificial resource scarcity?

"If you want to change behavior, change the price."


nobody doubts that you can use taxes to markedly degrade people's standard of living but taxation is hardly “the single most powerful and efficient tool” for addressing climate change. :knife:

direct public investment in technological innovation is “the single most powerful and efficient tool”, carbon prices are just indirect weak incentives to spur private sector investment in green tech.

Your anger comes from your awareness that it would be effective, and you don't want that.


My anger comes from idiots trying to degrade people's standard of living with oppressive taxes for no good fucking reason.

I am not aware of anything more efficient, but I could use the laugh, tell us what's more efficient.


You're not aware because you don't understand the issue or know anything about it, you're just regurgitating the bullshit you heard a bunch of neoliberal technocrats spouting. :knife:
#15043981
@Ter I lived in British Columbia for many years where they have had a Carbon Tax(implemented in 2008). There were tax breaks for people who drove more fuel efficient cars, so these Carbon Taxes did not really hurt the lower and middle classes. In fact, if you had a fuel efficient small car, you might actually benefit from the tax.

Carbon Taxes work.

British Columbia’s economy did not collapse. In fact, the provincial economy grew faster than its neighbors’ even as its greenhouse gas emissions declined.

“It performed better on all fronts than I think any of us expected,” said Mary Polak, the province’s environment minister. “To the extent that the people who modeled it predicted this, I’m not sure that those of us on the policy end of it really believed it.”

As it turns out, a carbon tax is the most efficient, market-friendly instrument available in the quiver against climate change.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/02/busi ... umbia.html
#15043984
Sivad wrote:



My anger comes from idiots trying to degrade people's standard of living with oppressive taxes for no good fucking reason.





Lala Land...

While you can fake it, you don't get to rewrite sciences just because you're having a temper tantrum.
#15043985
Godstud wrote:
@Ter I lived in British Columbia for many years where they have had a Carbon Tax(implemented in 2008). There were tax breaks for people who drove more fuel efficient cars, so these Carbon Taxes did not really hurt the lower and middle classes. In fact, if you had a fuel efficient small car, you might actually benefit from the tax.

Carbon Taxes work.

British Columbia’s economy did not collapse. In fact, the provincial economy grew faster than its neighbors’ even as its greenhouse gas emissions declined.

“It performed better on all fronts than I think any of us expected,” said Mary Polak, the province’s environment minister. “To the extent that the people who modeled it predicted this, I’m not sure that those of us on the policy end of it really believed it.”

As it turns out, a carbon tax is the most efficient, market-friendly instrument available in the quiver against climate change.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/02/busi ... umbia.html




Carbon taxes do work, that's not the only place that has used them. Most of the alternatives have failure built right in. Although there was one proposal that would have been 5 times as expensive. So that would have worked, sort of.

CAFE standards make things worse. Last time we used them, they increased emissions.
#15043994
Godstud wrote:@Ter I lived in British Columbia for many years where they have had a Carbon Tax(implemented in 2008). There were tax breaks for people who drove more fuel efficient cars, so these Carbon Taxes did not really hurt the lower and middle classes. In fact, if you had a fuel efficient small car, you might actually benefit from the tax.

Indirect taxes are always unfair towards the lower and lower middle classes.
You can try to explain to a marginal guy that it is OK to pay more for gas for his car, he can get some refund next year after he will have paid his income tax.
I am not buying it. I am happy to see massive demonstrations against tax hikes in many countries of the world. The greens are going against the spirit of the times by thinking that tax increases are the proper thing to do. They won't know what hit them.
#15043999
late wrote:"The IMF reiterates what economists have long understood: Enacting a carbon tax is “the single most powerful and efficient tool”

The IMF reiterates what its political masters tell it to reiterate.

late wrote:"The plan would help low-income households and place a higher burden on the upper-income bracket. There could also be money for essential research and development to aid the energy transition."

Yeah. That worked great in France. People can't work where they live (there's no work), and they can't live where they work (can't afford it). Macron et. al. missed that one and ended up giving Marine Le Pen a huge boost.

late wrote:"The science does not change because politicians deny that humans are warming the planet. Likewise the economics do not change because politicians find them ideologically or politically inconvenient."

Stop trading with China. That would do more to help the environment than just about anything.

late wrote:Europeans like to say that Americans are children. They are not wrong.

Europeans like insulting Americans, because they don't run the world anymore and can't defend their own borders.

Finfinder wrote:Nothing can be done about climate change until the biggest offenders like China are bought into a program.

They were brought into a program: the World Trade Organization. Kick them out. Stop trading with them.

late wrote:2) What we need is an incrementing Carbon Tax, at least 10 cents a year (on a gallon of gas). Most proposals call for revenue neutrality, which means your overall change would be zero...

However, a Carbon Tax is one of the few taxes you don't have to pay. There are alternative sources, you can reduce by using something like a Prius. You can even ride a bike. Before I retired, I went to work on a bicycle occasionally.

Yep. I don't think anyone on PoFo has more solar panels than I do (30). I've thought about extending it and adding some battery storage in view of PG&E shutting off power, because of fire risk. However, I wasn't affected so I don't care that much. I work from home, so I don't pay much gas tax. I have solar panels, so I don't pay graduated electricity rates and the associated carbon taxes with electricity. I do have natgas for heating though. I've also invested $150k in a battery company, but more because I believe solving the weight issue is critical for transportation, high performance vehicles, and military applications. Although, once again I will note that I'm probably more "green" in that sense than anyone here, and yet also the most skeptical of global warming theories. If an idiot like Al Gore can get rich on it, so can I. Keep at it suckers. One way or another, I'll figure out how to make money off of you.

BeesKnee5 wrote:There is a middle road. Everyone gets an energy allowance and the price of energy over that allowance is increased to pay for it and the transition.

That hits families with children. Kids are notorious for leaving the lights on, the door open, and the water running.

Sivad wrote: If the globalist oligarchs really believed they had a problem and they were really as desperate as they claim they are to solve it there is no way they'd be dicking around with carbon taxes.

They obviously don't believe it. They just have lackeys that lap up their propaganda and don't care that the oligarchs, bureaucrats and politicians lamenting climate change are the ones most likely to fly around in private jets, spewing out more CO2 in one leg of a trip than a family of four in a year.

Sivad wrote:If this world that they own and the rest of us are just living in was really facing the kind of existential threat they claim climate change poses they'd have trillion dollar energy r&d projects going that would dwarf the moonshot and the Manhattan Project combined. The fact that they don't tells me that the globalist oligarchs really don't believe any of this shit and that it's all just a great big fucking scam.

Right. It's mostly bullshit. I think they are trying to gain a hold of the commanding heights of the global economy by putting a stranglehold on energy.

Bill Gates actually believes this bullshit and funds a lot of projects. The one that impresses me most is liquid metal nuclear reactors.

A Bill Gates-backed energy company is developing what could be a game-changing nuclear reactor

Time to get serious about nuclear again.
#15044001
blackjack21 wrote:Right. It's mostly bullshit. I think they are trying to gain a hold of the commanding heights of the global economy by putting a stranglehold on energy.


It's not just energy, if you read the agreements they're talking about everything from agriculture and land use to urban development. They want total control of every facet of the global economy.


Bill Gates actually believes this bullshit and funds a lot of projects. The one that impresses me most is liquid metal nuclear reactors.


It's great that Gates is investing in those kinds of projects but let's not pretend the few billion he's got into them is serious money. If the globalist oligarchs of the party of Davos were really concerned, the governments of the world that they own would have trillions invested in fusion research alone. The whole thing is just one great big retarded fucking farce.
#15044013
If the worst thing that can be said about my proposal is that kids leave lights on then I'm not going to get that upset. Although I'm not convinced any method other than pressure from parents and going round switching lights off after them is a genuine solution to that.

Waiting 10-20 years for the next big thing isn't going to solve today's problems. Better to incentivise the switch to suppliers that purchase green energy from the market and boost existing renewable, storage and connectivity.
#15044014
BeesKnee5 wrote:Better to incentivise the switch to suppliers that purchase green energy from the market and boost existing renewable, storage and connectivity.

The fastest way to accomplish that is to stop trading with China. Then, you get emissions regulations, fair trade, fair labor standards, support for democracies and many other virtuous externalities as well.
#15044025
blackjack21 wrote:
1) The IMF reiterates what its political masters tell it to reiterate.


2) Yeah. That worked great in France. People can't work where they live (there's no work), and they can't live where they work (can't afford it). Macron et. al. missed that one and ended up giving Marine Le Pen a huge boost.


3) Stop trading with China. That would do more to help the environment than just about anything.


4) Europeans like insulting Americans, because they don't run the world anymore and can't defend their own borders.

5) Although, once again I will note that I'm probably more "green" in that sense than anyone here, and yet also the most skeptical of global warming theories.

6) Time to get serious about nuclear again.



1) Brain dead dodge, that comes from economists.

2) Europe has had high energy taxes for a couple generations. Studies show they are helpful in a variety of ways. You are trying another lame dodge. France has "structural impediments to employment" that has nothing to do with the topic under discussion.

3) You are faking it again. We need to reduce our emissions.

4) You are projecting there. Americans get led around by the nose by Big Oil, whining about taxes all the way. The observation is depressingly accurate.

5) The science is real, your comments are not. Which is also to say personal efforts are no replacement for a national policy that reduces emissions.

6) I agree with that. But we need new reactor designs, and science based waste disposal methods. We will prob need to make that part of a Smart Grid initiative so we can do the usual Fed carrot and stick.
#15044027
blackjack21 wrote:The fastest way to accomplish that is to stop trading with China. Then, you get emissions regulations, fair trade, fair labor standards, support for democracies and many other virtuous externalities as well.


More than half the global investment in renewables is in China. It's nice to point to them as the bad guys but their CO2 emissions per capita is far lower than the US and they are on target to meet their Paris commitment of peak CO2 emissions in 2022 which is 8 years early.
#15044038
BigSteve wrote:
Too many people believe that this is an American problem. Until these people escape their ignorance, the problem can never be solved...



You need better excuses.

Everyone knows this is global, you are just doing your usual lunge to evade responsibility.
#15044045
late wrote:You need better excuses.

Everyone knows this is global, you are just doing your usual lunge to evade responsibility.


I'm not making excuses. I'm simply refusing to blame the United States for what is a global issue, which seems to be pretty common. Those who keep belching up the retort of "everyone knows this is global" are usually the first ones to blame the United States...
#15044054
The US, like Canada, is a richer country which pollutes more per capita than most other countries in the world. Expecting US, Canada, UK, etc. to take a leadership role is NOT too much to ask.
#15044058
Godstud wrote:The US, like Canada, is a richer country which pollutes more per capita than most other countries in the world. Expecting US, Canada, UK, etc. to take a leadership role is NOT too much to ask.


Taking a leadership role is one thing. Accepting the responsibility for the problem is another.

Yet that's what a lot of complete idiots expect us to do...
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