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1500 Private Jets Fly to Davos for Climate Talks

theguardian.com

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Re: 1500 Private Jets Fly to Davos for Climate Talks

#111

Post by mikeash »

nimish wrote: post #4
mikeash wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not just hard, it’s also pointless unless we all do it together. If these people had refrained from making the trip, it would have no real impact on climate change. It’s a collective action problem.

That's defeatist. Small changes are not the only things that matter but saying "everything or nothing" is not helpful. The collective change that's needed to effect change begins with individual steps, like not taking a private plane when commercial will do.

I’m not saying “everything or nothing.” I’m saying that we need to work together to make large changes. Getting governments to phase out coal faster is useful even though it’s far from the “everything” of getting rid of all fossil fuel use. Getting a few rich people to fly less is, on the other hand, not useful.

Re: 1500 Private Jets Fly to Davos for Climate Talks

#112

Post by jakewins »

mac01021 wrote: post #105
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…

They need not be regressive. For starters, high income people tend to have much greater carbon footprints. I, in the top decile, probably quintuple my carbon footprint by engaging in a little bit of unnecessary air travel (living in New England, in 2018 I went once to Shanghai, once to Puerto Rico, and once to Montana). The average private jet owner probably has a carbon footprint 10x - 100x of mine. Then, you have a…

Very well said. I think this is a convincing argument that I'm wrong.

> The best policy (IMO) is a carbon fee-and-dividend, where all of the proceeds of the tax are redistributed evenly amongst all residents of the nation.

This seems ideal; get the benefits of moving carbon externalities into the price of consumption and use that revenue to both make the tax palatable and reduce wealth inequality.

Re: 1500 Private Jets Fly to Davos for Climate Talks

#113

Post by rcMgD2BwE72F »

sonofaragorn wrote: post #78
jakewins wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

.. but I thought the yellow vest protests directly lead to rolling back legislation meant to increase prices of CO2-polluting fuel, so that renewable fuels would be able to compete? https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/12/fr...

Yep, that was my understanding as well https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-46439469

A comment further down this thread has the correct answer to this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18972868

It's a about the email exchange between by the author of the fuel tax and the guy who introduced the law (if I recall correctly) in which they admit the tax is only a way to recover the tax revenue lost after the government decided to keep lowering employer taxes (aka C.I.C.E). The fuel tax was required after the Paris Summit (which took place before Macron became president) and the current government took it as an opportunity to switch the tax burden from the biggest companies (the ones that benefits from the CICE) to people who can't afford clean vehicles.

Re: 1500 Private Jets Fly to Davos for Climate Talks

#114

Post by JetSpiegel »

asdfadsfgfdda wrote: post #95
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 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. The wealthiest 10% of Americans by income spend ~$3,000/year on gas, while the poorest 10% spend only $870/year. So looking at only gas purchases, the wealthy do consume much more gas. This could be caused by differences in vehicles…

The top 10% doesn't have 3 times the wealth of the bottom 10%, it's more like millions or more. If the tax is on gas, why should the group without money shoulder 30% of the cost? Just charge all the money to the top 10% and all can benefit, it's almost a rounding error for them.

Re: 1500 Private Jets Fly to Davos for Climate Talks

#115

Post by JetSpiegel »

fulafel wrote: post #56
jakobegger wrote: post #23

I don't feel that articles like that contribute to the discussion in a meaningful way. Sure it's fun to point out that politicians are all hypocrits, but it doesn't help anybody at all. There are two possibilities: a) Private Jets are an important source of pollution. Then we should complain about private jets all the time, not just when we want to smear the people who use them to travel to climate talks. b) Or priva…

This sounds like a variation of the "individual actions are too insignificant to matter" excuse for personal irresponsibility. All the small categories of climate sins can be trivialized when considered one by one, but they make up the whole.

Sometimes they might make up an insignificant part of the whole. Which means you will inconvenience millions for small gains, when pressuring a single farmer to save x% of the water might produce the same net effect. Numbers matter.

Re: 1500 Private Jets Fly to Davos for Climate Talks

#116

Post by JetSpiegel »

chrisco255 wrote: post #39
Synaesthesia wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We need systemic change because there’s demand for what these companies are producing. For example there can be subsidies, or at least an end to oil subsidies!

Are there oil subsidies? I thought there was a Federal tax on gas...the opposite of subsidies?

I would consider the trillions spent on the Iraq Wars a substantial oil subsidy.

Re: 1500 Private Jets Fly to Davos for Climate Talks

#117

Post by bamboozled »

rcMgD2BwE72F wrote: post #65
eric_b wrote: post #47

Unpopular Opinion: There is no viable solution to climate change through policy or political action. No one wants to give up their own personal comfort or lifestyle for the sake of "the planet." Even people I know who are self-described ardent environmentalists still fly in planes frequently to all manner of touristy destinations so they can keep "collecting experiences." Shit, look at Paris. They champion this clima…

>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…

Curious as to why you quit Skiing, why do you think that’s contributing to climate change?

To me it seems like a really low emission activity, particaurly ski touring ?

Re: 1500 Private Jets Fly to Davos for Climate Talks

#118

Post by drankula3 »

rcMgD2BwE72F wrote: post #104
dpark wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I really want to scream a big FCK you to your face for saying that "No one wants to give up their own personal comfort or lifestyle for the sake of "the planet."". Can you understand that? You seem to have given up any hope in political change, but please, don't speak for other. You expect a political solution but your immediate reaction to someone expressing a differing opinion is overt hostility. I don’t know how…

That isn't my intention at all. English is not my first language so it might not help but please bear with me. I intentionally said "I really want to scream" and not "Let me say" because I certainly do not want to be hostile. I shared the point of view of the person I responded to, so no, I really did not express hostility but an invitation to understand that some people actually are giving up "their own personal com…

There's a saying that comes to mind when I read this post.. You judge yourself based on intent. You judge others based on action.

Re: 1500 Private Jets Fly to Davos for Climate Talks

#119

Post by tcarver »

Only posting because it seems some people have not spotted why this story resonated so much: it epitomises a certain view of Davos - the rich and famous, meeting to discuss problems they imagine themselves disproportionately able to address, seemingly oblivious to their own disproportionate role in causing the problems in the first place (surely it's beyond debate that anyone flying a private jet has a disproportionately large carbon footprint?).

Re: 1500 Private Jets Fly to Davos for Climate Talks

#120

Post by tcarver »

bamboozled wrote: post #117
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…

Curious as to why you quit Skiing, why do you think that’s contributing to climate change? To me it seems like a really low emission activity, particaurly ski touring ?

this may be a location thing - most people do not have skiable mountains close by so for most people going skiing requires travelling by plane
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