Americans aren't willing to pay to stop climate change • Hacker News Board

Re: Americans aren't willing to pay to stop climate change

#41

Post by ItsMonkk » Thu, Jul 01, 2021, 8:04 PM UTC

iguanayou wrote: post #17

tdfx wrote: post #10

This poll doesn't say much about whether Americans are willing to pay to stop climate change, it just says a lot about whether Americans trust their government with a blank check to fight climate change. I wouldn't support "giving them money and letting them figure out the best way to use it", either. Let's hear a specific policy proposal.

1. Carbon tax 2. Cap and trade The problem is NOT that there have been no good proposed policy solutions. The problem is that voters don't want them. This is why I'm pessimistic on the environment.

You can trivially set up a carbon tax that a majority of voters would vote for, simply give the money that you taxed back out equally among the population as a form of UBI.

We don't see these proposals because they are not proposals that the wealthy and powerful would benefit from.

Re: Americans aren't willing to pay to stop climate change

#42

Post by asdfasgasdgasdg » Thu, Jul 01, 2021, 8:04 PM UTC

ineiti wrote: post #13

In Switzerland there was a vote 2 weeks ago about whether we want to support a law to reduce CO2 output by our population. The law was very clear how the money would be spent: improve heating, direct pay to poor citizens, and many others. Cost: - 50 cents per gallon of gas (our gas is about 6$ per gallon) - 20$ to 100$ for a plane ticket The law was refused by 51% of Swiss citizen. What really killed me was that the…

What does direct pay to poor citizens have to do with climate change? I've always been told that the best way to do a pigovian tax is to make it revenue neutral. You collect the sin tax, but then your redistribute it based on the average level of tax collected. So someone who uses exactly the average amount of carbon sees no change in buying power. Someone who uses less than average actually sees an increase in buying power. And anyone who uses more than average sees a decrease.

The idea here is to allow the cost of decisions to be felt in the wallet, but not hurt the spending power of those who are making climate-conscious purchasing choices.

Re: Americans aren't willing to pay to stop climate change

#43

Post by loonster » Thu, Jul 01, 2021, 8:05 PM UTC

dukoid wrote: post #14

ineiti wrote: post #13

In Switzerland there was a vote 2 weeks ago about whether we want to support a law to reduce CO2 output by our population. The law was very clear how the money would be spent: improve heating, direct pay to poor citizens, and many others. Cost: - 50 cents per gallon of gas (our gas is about 6$ per gallon) - 20$ to 100$ for a plane ticket The law was refused by 51% of Swiss citizen. What really killed me was that the…

I wish there had been three polls instead: One for gas, one for heating and one for flights... O:)

I would expect all 3 would have passed then. Each of the proposals likely has slightly different demographics of people that are opposed to it. 1 % margin isnt much to overcome.

Re: Americans aren't willing to pay to stop climate change

#44

Post by tixocloud » Thu, Jul 01, 2021, 8:06 PM UTC

davesque wrote: post #15

I think "people" aren't given enough credit. They're actually pretty smart. They know that, when they're questioned by a surveyor, they can feel better about themselves by claiming that they'd be willing pay to address climate change. They know they can get that psychological benefit completely for free without having to do anything other than just answering the question in a certain way. So that makes surveys about…

I agree that large organizations and governments have more incentives and more resources to tackle a large issue like this.

Re: Americans aren't willing to pay to stop climate change

#45

Post by steveBK123 » Thu, Jul 01, 2021, 8:07 PM UTC

This is pretty obvious. My most outspoken Green New Deal supporting friends & family who were reposting social media of Greta & AOC are also 0-1 child households with SUVs.

It's hashtag activism. No one wants to make sacrifices.

The only solutions are going to be finding ways to grow our way out of it and incentivize good things (fuel economy, EVs, rail, solar, wind, nuclear, geothermal heat pumps, etc).

Neither Degrowth nor expecting people to vote their conscience with their wallet are going to work.

Even today - look at how tax incentivized solar is, and how fast the break-even is.. and yet how few people take advantage of it?

Re: Americans aren't willing to pay to stop climate change

#46

Post by iguanayou » Thu, Jul 01, 2021, 8:07 PM UTC

ItsMonkk wrote: post #41

iguanayou wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1. Carbon tax 2. Cap and trade The problem is NOT that there have been no good proposed policy solutions. The problem is that voters don't want them. This is why I'm pessimistic on the environment.

You can trivially set up a carbon tax that a majority of voters would vote for, simply give the money that you taxed back out equally among the population as a form of UBI. We don't see these proposals because they are not proposals that the wealthy and powerful would benefit from.

Exactly. Making the whole "I don't trust the government to do something smart with my money" argument moot. It has been proposed, voters have seen the proposal, and it has been voted down.

Re: Americans aren't willing to pay to stop climate change

#47

Post by bko » Thu, Jul 01, 2021, 8:08 PM UTC

jdgoesmarching wrote: post #36

bko wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In February 2019, the center-right American Action Forum, estimated that the plan could cost between $51–$93 trillion over the next decade [0] Take the low estimate of $51 trillion over a decade so $5 trillion per year. > The top 1% of Americans have a combined net worth of $34.2 trillion, according to Federal Reserve data last updated Oct. 19, 2020 So if you seize all the wealth of the top 1% you'll pay for ~7 yea…

The American Action Forum is nowhere close to “center-right”, only they call themselves that. It is a conservative think tank that almost exclusively works for Republicans. Their figures aren’t even in “let’s debate” realm. They cite $36 trillion just for universal healthcare when even the CBO admits that Medicare for All would save $300-600 billion per year. This is nowhere close to good faith accounting, it’s inten…

This was the google snippet for green new deal cost. Please provide a better source of the actual cost.

Re: Americans aren't willing to pay to stop climate change

#48

Post by aksss » Thu, Jul 01, 2021, 8:08 PM UTC

fallingknife wrote: post #4

Hard to control for how many of the "no" responses are due to lack of trust that the government will actually spend the money fighting global warming vs people just not willing to part with money.

The 'government' at all level has enormous unfunded liabilities and a consistent record of siphoning revenue raised through special taxes into completely unrelated expenditures.

Re: Americans aren't willing to pay to stop climate change

#49

Post by qqqwerty » Thu, Jul 01, 2021, 8:09 PM UTC

bko wrote: post #7

Lammy wrote: post #2

What a shitty post. I guess I don't believe in climate change after all unless I also believe in public losses for privatized gains. Corporations raked in billions while wrecking the environment and I'm sure they all love framing this as an individual responsibility that we're all "failing" to do.

> In February 2019, the center-right American Action Forum, estimated that the plan could cost between $51–$93 trillion over the next decade [0] Take the low estimate of $51 trillion over a decade so $5 trillion per year. > The top 1% of Americans have a combined net worth of $34.2 trillion, according to Federal Reserve data last updated Oct. 19, 2020 So if you seize all the wealth of the top 1% you'll pay for ~7 yea…

The GND included universal healthcare and jobs programs, both of which are the biggest line items in the AAF estimates. They estimated the cost of dealing with carbon emissions at around $7 trillion. And that money is largely for capital expenditures, which anyone who has half a brain would finance over 20-30 year period. And a large chunk of that $7 trillion can be passed off to utility rate payers over that time period with barely a noticeable increase in rates based on how cheap renewables are getting.

Also, AAF can hardly be trusted to fairly evaluate the cost/benefits. A slight increase in utility bills pales in comparison to having to abandon your house due to increased flooding due to climate change. It is funny how when they are doing analysis of tax cuts, they turn over every stone looking to squeeze out questionable "economic productivity" increases to add to their models, and yet when it comes to climate change, they just throw out a bunch of big numbers and call it a day.

Re: Americans aren't willing to pay to stop climate change

#50

Post by neltnerb » Thu, Jul 01, 2021, 8:09 PM UTC

I clicked through to the actual poll, and just for some context the actual poll is from 2018.

Not that I think attitudes are likely to have changed substantially, but after the power grid collapses in both Texas and California it is possible that there has been movement towards recognizing that there are costs we will pay one way or another and that paying them while also having reasonable climate is much more comfortable in the long term.

It's a good point though, asking whether someone believes climate change is real is a very low bar. It's like literacy rates, the rate depends on what grade level you define as literate. Once literacy gets high enough for a given definition you have to make the criteria more stringent to see differences. So step 1 is "is this real" and step 2 is "what would you sacrifice to stop it". We're still barely past step 1...