1500 Private Jets Fly to Davos for Climate Talks • Hacker News Board

Re: 1500 Private Jets Fly to Davos for Climate Talks

#81

Post by evandijk70 » Tue, Jan 22, 2019, 9:11 PM UTC

jakewins wrote: post #66

bryanlarsen wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a pretty simple, viable solution. Carbon taxes. Yes, it's hard to get 195 countries to agree to implement a carbon tax, but you could have said the same thing about the ozone layer / CFC problem.

The problem with carbon taxes is that they are regressive. Carbon taxation plays out as a consumption tax on goods people consume in roughly the same quantities independent of income. Take fuel as an example. The average american adult consumes about 550 gallons of gas a year for driving. It doesn't matter substantially how wealthy you are - there are only so many hours in the day to drive. A $20/Metric Ton CO2eq car…

This is an important argument to consider, but I think it is not so obvious that this is true.

A hidden assumption in your calculation is that poor people emit the same amount of CO2 as rich people. Poor people may not have a car, and may not take a plane to go on vacation. They are also likely to live in a smaller apartment, reducing the heating/AC costs. This is probably more true if you view this on a global level.

Even if CO2 taxes are regressive, you could think of a way to compensate for this by altering tax rates/brackets

Re: 1500 Private Jets Fly to Davos for Climate Talks

#82

Post by lawnchair_larry » Tue, Jan 22, 2019, 9:13 PM UTC

rthomas6 wrote: post #74

jakewins wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with carbon taxes is that they are regressive. Carbon taxation plays out as a consumption tax on goods people consume in roughly the same quantities independent of income. Take fuel as an example. The average american adult consumes about 550 gallons of gas a year for driving. It doesn't matter substantially how wealthy you are - there are only so many hours in the day to drive. A $20/Metric Ton CO2eq car…

The end result of this is that driving a lot and excessive heating and cooling of spaces are more of an expensive luxury. The problem is people see owning and driving a personal vehicle as something like a right instead of the extravagant over-the-top luxury it really is. And once someone gets used to something, they get really angry when something threatens to take it away, pretty much no matter what it is. That's o…

Owning an economy car is not “extravagant over-the-top” in the least. Another problem is hardliners taking such extreme positions against reasonable everyday people.

Re: 1500 Private Jets Fly to Davos for Climate Talks

#83

Post by jakewins » Tue, Jan 22, 2019, 9:13 PM UTC

rthomas6 wrote: post #74

jakewins wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with carbon taxes is that they are regressive. Carbon taxation plays out as a consumption tax on goods people consume in roughly the same quantities independent of income. Take fuel as an example. The average american adult consumes about 550 gallons of gas a year for driving. It doesn't matter substantially how wealthy you are - there are only so many hours in the day to drive. A $20/Metric Ton CO2eq car…

The end result of this is that driving a lot and excessive heating and cooling of spaces are more of an expensive luxury. The problem is people see owning and driving a personal vehicle as something like a right instead of the extravagant over-the-top luxury it really is. And once someone gets used to something, they get really angry when something threatens to take it away, pretty much no matter what it is. That's o…

Yes, but this is irrelevant.

France just threw away a political year on a gas tax they had to roll back. The political fallout, in the form of the yellow vest conservative movement, may well delay further progressive climate reform by another election cycle at least. The fact that a gas tax makes logical sense does not matter, what matters is if it has real world efficacy.

If the climate reform you are passing is causing backlashes that nullify it, we just wasted precious time for no reason. It does not matter how much you think the voting public should just get over themselves.

As an example: There is broad public support for substantially increased rates in top marginal taxation and in capital gains. Raise the money there and use it to subsidize low-carbon or negative-carbon alternatives.

This also highlights that what works is contextual. To my knowledge there is very little opposition to the ongoing rollout of cap-n-trade in the EU. And of course, if you can pass carbon taxation schemes, they are fantastic since they simply pull the external costs into the price and let the market sort it out.

Re: 1500 Private Jets Fly to Davos for Climate Talks

#84

Post by normal_man » Tue, Jan 22, 2019, 9:13 PM UTC

rthomas6 wrote: post #80

normal_man wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True but your average joe has far less control over that infrastructure than the corporations profiting from it. When you have to drive to get to work because oil companies leverage their power to make public rail impossible, are you really making a choice to consume that product? I resent the idea that average people just getting by are expected to upend their life, while to expect a corporation to moderate their be…

I do think it's absurd to expect them to moderate their behavior without regulation. If it made their products more expensive to do so (which it would), they'll just lose market share to some other less scrupulous corporation selling the same thing for cheaper. A corporation's literal only job is to seek profits above all else. In the US, that's a legal requirement (Edit: I was very wrong about this). That doesn't ma…

> more like an algorithm that finds solutions optimized for one variable.

Right, exactly, which is why I took issue with capitalism in my original post. Companies are acting completely rationally under our current economic system, and it's literally destroying the ground from under our feet.

Re: 1500 Private Jets Fly to Davos for Climate Talks

#85

Post by FireBeyond » Tue, Jan 22, 2019, 9:15 PM UTC

jellicle wrote: post #27

I guess we're going to do this every year now. Like last year: if the politicians gathered at this conference agree and do anything - literally anything at all - to combat climate change that they wouldn't have done otherwise, the effect of their plane flights will be dwarfed by whatever thing, no matter how tiny, they agreed to do. "Leaders working on world hunger problem ate lunch, exacerbating problem" "Leaders wo…

> agree and do anything - literally anything at all - to combat climate change

In many cases, they really don't. Or they agree to worse things in "exchange" for positive things.

That's the irony.

Re: 1500 Private Jets Fly to Davos for Climate Talks

#86

Post by dpark » Tue, Jan 22, 2019, 9:15 PM UTC

rthomas6 wrote: post #80

normal_man wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True but your average joe has far less control over that infrastructure than the corporations profiting from it. When you have to drive to get to work because oil companies leverage their power to make public rail impossible, are you really making a choice to consume that product? I resent the idea that average people just getting by are expected to upend their life, while to expect a corporation to moderate their be…

I do think it's absurd to expect them to moderate their behavior without regulation. If it made their products more expensive to do so (which it would), they'll just lose market share to some other less scrupulous corporation selling the same thing for cheaper. A corporation's literal only job is to seek profits above all else. In the US, that's a legal requirement (Edit: I was very wrong about this). That doesn't ma…

> In the US, that's a legal requirement... people face fines or worse if they don't.

Please don’t spread misinformation. That’s not what fiduciary duty actually means. There are plenty of corporations that fund charity efforts without their execs landing in jail. “Profit above all else” is not enshrined in law.

Re: 1500 Private Jets Fly to Davos for Climate Talks

#87

Post by dragonwriter » Tue, Jan 22, 2019, 9:18 PM UTC

rthomas6 wrote: post #80

normal_man wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True but your average joe has far less control over that infrastructure than the corporations profiting from it. When you have to drive to get to work because oil companies leverage their power to make public rail impossible, are you really making a choice to consume that product? I resent the idea that average people just getting by are expected to upend their life, while to expect a corporation to moderate their be…

I do think it's absurd to expect them to moderate their behavior without regulation. If it made their products more expensive to do so (which it would), they'll just lose market share to some other less scrupulous corporation selling the same thing for cheaper. A corporation's literal only job is to seek profits above all else. In the US, that's a legal requirement (Edit: I was very wrong about this). That doesn't ma…

> A corporation's literal only job is to seek profits above all else.

That isn't even approximately true as a blanket statement (labor unions and political parties in the US are, in fact, usually corporations), and, a perusal of actual corporate charters will show that it's not literally true even in specific cases.

> In the US, that's a legal requirement... people face fines or worse if they don't.

No, it's not, though that's a popular myth around the fiduciary dutied of corporate officers. [0]

[0] https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/fiduciary-responsibi...

Re: 1500 Private Jets Fly to Davos for Climate Talks

#88

Post by pseudonom- » Tue, Jan 22, 2019, 9:21 PM UTC

jakewins wrote: post #66

bryanlarsen wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a pretty simple, viable solution. Carbon taxes. Yes, it's hard to get 195 countries to agree to implement a carbon tax, but you could have said the same thing about the ozone layer / CFC problem.

The problem with carbon taxes is that they are regressive. Carbon taxation plays out as a consumption tax on goods people consume in roughly the same quantities independent of income. Take fuel as an example. The average american adult consumes about 550 gallons of gas a year for driving. It doesn't matter substantially how wealthy you are - there are only so many hours in the day to drive. A $20/Metric Ton CO2eq car…

"Carbon taxes are regressive" is too simple, and I'd argue wrong, for a variety of reasons:

- Some experts just flatly deny it: "low-expenditure households devote a smaller share of their budget to gasoline than do their counterparts in the middle of the expenditure distribution" --- https://dspace.mit.edu/bitstream/handle/1721.1/63747/isgasol...

- Carbon taxes are often less regressive than alternative sources of revenue e.g. sales taxes

- Depends on how the revenue is spent. If, for example, it's used to expand the Earned Income Tax Credit in the US, the overall tax and spend pattern would be progressive.

- The impacts of excess carbon are also "regressive" in that global warming affects poor people more severely. This means that the net effect of a regressive tax which reduces a problem with an even more regressive incidence could be progressive.

Re: 1500 Private Jets Fly to Davos for Climate Talks

#89

Post by rcMgD2BwE72F » Tue, Jan 22, 2019, 9:21 PM UTC

Diederich wrote: post #71

rcMgD2BwE72F wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>No one wants to give up their own personal comfort or lifestyle for the sake of "the planet." Seriously? Who are you to say that of others?! I'm French (Parisian, actually) and I keep demonstrating with yellow vests to try and force political action so we can save the biosphere. I've been giving up on my personal comfort for years to reduce my environment footprint and help others do the same: I don't go skiing anym…

> No one I understand your anger here, but I'm 99% sure that the person you're replying to didn't mean that literally. 'No one' is often used to mean 'almost no one'. I'm sure you'll agree that your behaviour is well into 1% territory, as an overall percentage of people. You are to be applauded of course.

Do you realize that your comment contributes to a self-fulfilling prophecy that climate change deniers (among others) have been pushing for? Denying the possibility of political solutions makes it harder to fight for such solutions. Reducing one's environmental footprint is quite difficult already, but fighting the fossil fuel industry (and many other lobbies who do NOT want a transition) is even harder.

When you realize that many banks and financial institutions have huuuge fossil-related assets on their books, you'll realize that an enormous % of the economy is resisting the switch to renewables. Not just the energy and auto industries. And many politicians are corrupt and will make sure not to fight for a quick transition (even if it means slowing down some technological developments, juuust a little). Innovations are made in the real world, where political institutions have real control and where human beings have real limits and real emotions. Of course we will have to switch to renewables (that's obvious: non renewable are not renewable so they can't last infinitely) but by denying the important of political action/solution, we'll certainly end up rushing into violent events (possibly wars). So please, be very careful not to forget that things always end up being political because we always have to make decisions (is it okay to pollute how much, should we finance some research / education, etc). And please don't be indifferent to the millions activists (many of whom are scientists/engineers) who work their asses off to not devastate the biosphere.

Re: 1500 Private Jets Fly to Davos for Climate Talks

#90

Post by rcMgD2BwE72F » Tue, Jan 22, 2019, 9:24 PM UTC

Diederich wrote: post #71

rcMgD2BwE72F wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>No one wants to give up their own personal comfort or lifestyle for the sake of "the planet." Seriously? Who are you to say that of others?! I'm French (Parisian, actually) and I keep demonstrating with yellow vests to try and force political action so we can save the biosphere. I've been giving up on my personal comfort for years to reduce my environment footprint and help others do the same: I don't go skiing anym…

> No one I understand your anger here, but I'm 99% sure that the person you're replying to didn't mean that literally. 'No one' is often used to mean 'almost no one'. I'm sure you'll agree that your behaviour is well into 1% territory, as an overall percentage of people. You are to be applauded of course.

>I'm sure you'll agree that your behaviour is well into 1% territory, as an overall percentage of people.

I was in the 99% territory before being in the 1%, then. And your comment could have convinced me not to change and give up.

That's what I'm trying to say in my bad English, and with vivid emotions, so my apologies if I'm rude or not clear enough.