Re:Ocean shipping rates have plunged 60% this year
by speakfreely on Wednesday September 07, 2022 @07:32AM
(#32749234)
The problem with taxing polluters is that it doesn't happen in a vacuum. Those costs get passed down to consumers. So you're really asking for shared sacrifice from society in general, which has been a complete non-starter on this issue since the 1970s.
Re:Ocean shipping rates have plunged 60% this year
by oblio on Wednesday September 07, 2022 @11:01AM
(#32751547)
If we don’t spread the pain, people don't start voting for the right actions, and we will have highly concentrated pain instead. At first. Then just high levels of universal pain, anyway.
As an approach I don't agree - I think it's only keeping carbon in the ground that matters. Burning it 50 years later isn't a meaningful improvement.
If it's going to be kept in the ground, that's the place to start - the markets will do the rest.
Efficiency first/alone (as policy) is flawed.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox
>That’s how we got here, ever so slightly increasing, and that’s how we must fix it
We got here by non-renewable fuel extraction being profitable, not by variations in demand - that only affects the timescale of extraction. We didn't tax the polluters enough to break the economics driving climate change. We still don't.