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France to tax flights from its airports, airline shares fall

reuters.com

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Re: France to tax flights from its airports, airline shares fall

#331

Post by radicalbyte »

eat_veggies wrote: post #239
slg wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible" ~ Stanisław Jerzy Lec Sure, you won't be able to make a measurable impact by yourself. However your mindset quickly leads to a tragedy of the commons type response that leaves us all in trouble. We should all take a more proactive approach to this in both our private life and in our professional work.

tragedy of the commons is solved by regulation, not by hoping that individuals or corporations will discipline themselves

That's clearly true. Otherwise, why would the fossil fuel and related industries be spending so much money fighting any attempts to put a price on carbon or otherwise regulate it?

Re: France to tax flights from its airports, airline shares fall

#332

Post by bryanlarsen »

SilasX wrote: post #304
bryanlarsen wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Pigouvian tax is a synonym if you want to avoid the connotations of sin.

I think there’s a subtle difference in intent, as elucidated by laken above[1]. Basically, if you’re doing it with the intent to reduce the behavior, it’s (best called a) sin tax. If you don’t care how much people continue to do it, as long as they’re paying, it’s (best called a) Pigovian tax. [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20394548

OK, I'll go disagree on the linked comment then. :)

Re: France to tax flights from its airports, airline shares fall

#333

Post by avip »

perfunctory wrote: post #291
marnett wrote: post #211

> Want to do something about climate change? Start with yourself I really dislike this line of thinking. I don’t manufacture millions of tons of concrete or millions of single-use plastic shampoo bottles. Our current path is irreversible if drastic shifts in disposable consumerism don’t occur soon.

> if drastic shifts in disposable consumerism don’t occur soon. Now the question is how to achieve the drastic shift. The popular opinion is that we need to vote in the right politicians and the change should come from the top. I used to think this way for a long time. I've changed my opinion recently. Think about any significant societal change in the last century or so. Women suffrage, civil rights movement, anti-w…

Another point I find relevant is all your examples involved a non-trivial (possibly overwhelming for this crowd) use of violence (which I think you somewhat understated as civil disobedience).

So... do we have the stamina to ramp up our "protest" into something mildly violent?

Re: France to tax flights from its airports, airline shares fall

#334

Post by icebraining »

ravedave5 wrote: post #140
keiferski wrote: post #48

I am actually surprised that short-distance flights aren't taxed more in Western Europe. The train infrastructure in France is world class and can get you from Paris (North-Central part of the country) to Marseille (Southeast), a distance of about 500 miles, in 3 hours. For Americans, this would be roughly equivalent to go from Boston to Washington D.C. (a trip that takes 7-10+ hours)

Because of said train infrastructure I'm flying into paris, touring Europe (on trains) then flying out from berlin. Unless they can get the whole EU to agree to it it's probably going to have that affect.

We're talking about less than 20€, and only 3€ if you're flying economy. There's no way it's worth changing travel plans over that, unless for cases where it really makes no difference.

Re: France to tax flights from its airports, airline shares fall

#335

Post by TheSoftwareGuy »

spookware wrote: post #285
gns24 wrote: post #192

The UK already taxes flights in a similar way. Whilst this does feel like progress, it would be much better to tax the fuel instead of the passengers. Virtually all other fuel is taxed, so it's strange that jet fuel is exempt. The problem with taxing passengers instead of fuel include: - it doesn't encourage improving the efficiency of planes - airlines can't fill their planes with really cheap seats, and empty seats…

Good points. Just another tax that will be passed straight down to the consumer. Wonder why no wage growth for 10+ years? Will do nothing for the enviroment. "Better not go on that holiday because of the enviroment "

That's still a fine outcome. If it gets passed on to the consumer then people will take less flights, and hence, less jet fuel will be burned.

Re: France to tax flights from its airports, airline shares fall

#336

Post by zjaffee »

OisinMoran wrote: post #271
WhompingWindows wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's a constant war of words here: are individuals responsible for cleaning up their footprint, or are corporations responsible for their dirty practices, or are governments responsible for putting policies to guide the economy? The answer is: we need all three. We will not tackle climate change without strong change on the personal, corporate, and governmental levels.

If you could only pick two out of those three, which would you choose?

Governments and Corporations will never do anything without strong demand from individuals. Individuals however are completely unable to solve climate change through daily personal decisions, it has to come from large institutions.

All in all, the only way to address the issue of climate change is collective mass action, including strikes, boycotts, divestments, ect from all large polluting entities, while simultaneously leaving governments no other options but to address these issues head on.

Re: France to tax flights from its airports, airline shares fall

#337

Post by anoncake »

komali2 wrote: post #219
nine_k wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We don't have nuclear trains, do we? We just replaced coal-fired electric generation with nuclear (in some places at least). Same with planes. Use energy produced by nuclear / solar / wind plants to synthesize jet fuel, operate the planes as normal.

Nuclear trains sounds badass but no I'm not aware of them existing. The two nuclear powered vehicles in the USA are carriers and submarines. Owned by the US military. All other nuclear generators are static and surrounded by metric fucktons of concrete.

Nuclear trains sound pointless. Unlike ships, you can power trains with catenaries.

Re: France to tax flights from its airports, airline shares fall

#338

Post by dsfyu404ed »

donarb wrote: post #268
benj111 wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Surely for the joke to work you'd have to suggest that sea levels were much lower, not higher. Eg: 'When I sold my Manhattan mountain lodge.'

The beachfront Arizona joke is usually not about rising sea levels but rather about earthquakes in California causing that state to break off from the continent.

It's a line from an old country song and it's a joke about the fact that AZ has no coastline.

Usually it's used to imply something is obviously false and impossible. While there is no song about a train from NYC to Paris the similarity should be obvious.

Re: France to tax flights from its airports, airline shares fall

#339

Post by rat9988 »

pathseeker wrote: post #295
OisinMoran wrote: post #271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you could only pick two out of those three, which would you choose?

individuals and government. Corporations don't exist in a vacuum.

Individuals and corporations. Government doesn't exist in a vaccum.

government and corporations. Individuals don't exist in a vaccum.

It doesn't prove much.

Re: France to tax flights from its airports, airline shares fall

#340

Post by eanzenberg »

earthtolazlo wrote: post #222
cloakandswagger wrote: post #195

We could virtually eliminate carbon emissions altogether if humans went back to living in caves and dying at the age of 30. Resources were placed on this earth for the advancement of humankind. If someone wants to take it upon themselves to reduce their carbon footprint by not eating meat, living in a tent or staying in one place their entire lives then be my guest, just don't regress the whole of humanity by mandati…

What do you think happens if we don’t dramatically reduce our carbon emissions in a very short period of time? I’ll give you a hint: it doesn’t resemble anything like the “advancement of humankind.”

Not much? A few degrees warmer here or there, and a few feet increase in sea level? And that's in ~100 years.
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