Invest the earnings from a carbon tax in carbon-negative projects (such as renewable energy), and you've got a win-win situation.

It wouldn't result in a silicon wafer fab near your house so you can have a locally-sourced smartphone. Even crops would come by sea for a large number of people.

Sure, a different tax or cost structure will shift the equilibrium. But the concept that stuff from 5000 miles away "should" be more expensive, and that we should make policy based on that assumption, is just ridiculous.

EDIT: if oil was more expensive, it would probably shift to more sea transport and fewer people living inland. If anything, land transport is the thing which has been given an unfair market advantage by externalizing costs.

Great! Nuclear and wind are both carbon-neutral. I would be very satisfied with that.

> But the concept that stuff from 5000 miles away "should" be more expensive, and that we should make policy based on that assumption, is just ridiculous.

No, that's not the argument I'm making. The argument I'm making is that stuff that has caused more carbon emissions 'should' be more expensive, and conversely, stuff that caused less carbon emissions 'should' be (relatively) less expensive.

How many miles that stuff happened to travel is only material to the discussion insofar as transport tends to cause carbon emissions.

It's not clear that such policies would reduce shipping stuff from 5000 miles away -- except by reducing the total amount of stuff made -- so I don't see a direct connection to the topic of this thread.