Re:Climate Target Update Tracker
by notatoad on Tuesday January 28, 2020 @12:28PM
(#22171583)
>The catch is that it's your own citizens who bear most of the burden of these tariffs.
that's not a catch, that's the whole point. It's not just a punishment for the countries that are polluting, it's also a punishment for people who externalize their pollution by buying from countries that are polluting. Putting all the responsibility on third-world countries doing the manufacturing and none on the consumers who buy whithout concern for where their products come from is the whole problem. the consumer nations should bear the burden of sustainable production just as much if not more than the producer nations.
Trump's tariffs are dumb because they ignore the impact on the consumer, but that doesn't mean tariffs are bad. A tariff on pollution means we stop externalizing that cost. If we pay the cost of pollution, it makes non-polluting alternatives economically viable.
that's not a catch, that's the whole point. It's not just a punishment for the countries that are polluting, it's also a punishment for people who externalize their pollution by buying from countries that are polluting. Putting all the responsibility on third-world countries doing the manufacturing and none on the consumers who buy whithout concern for where their products come from is the whole problem. the consumer nations should bear the burden of sustainable production just as much if not more than the producer nations.
Trump's tariffs are dumb because they ignore the impact on the consumer, but that doesn't mean tariffs are bad. A tariff on pollution means we stop externalizing that cost. If we pay the cost of pollution, it makes non-polluting alternatives economically viable.