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Americans aren't willing to pay to stop climate change

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

#91

Post by _rpd »

tylerhou wrote: post #69
asdfasgasdgasdg wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Distributing the revenue is not about compensating for harms. It's about ensuring that you don't have a net impact on people who are using the typical amount of energy. The idea is that the tax captures the externalized costs of economic actions, like emitting carbon. Once the cost of the actions is fully priced in, it is reasoned, consumption will decrease to the optimal level given the harm done by consumption. The…

You're right that you don't need to compensate for harms with such a tax (so my first sentence was imprecise). But I also don't see what's wrong with attempting to distribute (some of) the revenue in such a way to compensate for harms.

> But I also don't see what's wrong with attempting to distribute (some of) the revenue in such a way to compensate for harms.

It becomes a big political fight over how much of the revenue should be directed to social programs, so the tax policy changes every 4 years. A straight rebate gets wide support and taking it away becomes more and more unpopular as people get used to receiving it.

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

#92

Post by handrous »

bko wrote: post #47
jdgoesmarching wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I quick search yields that the best answer is "no-one knows because the proposal remains too vague and too much in-flux to provide an answer".

The CBO has not yet weighed in. That's usually a good starting point for any legislation that's getting seriously close to consideration.

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

#93

Post by LorenPechtel »

jmann99999 wrote: post #8

The problem with this post is that it cites a survey of how much Americans are willing to pay to "stop climate change." According to the article 57% are willing to pay $1 a month to "stop climate change" and 23% would pay $40 a month. As an American, in a well paying IT job, I'd pay $100 IF IT WOULD STOP CLIMATE CHANGE. However, I don't believe the $1, or $40, or $100 is going to do anything. It's far more complex th…

Exactly my thought. I would assume any such fee would either go to money that would already be spent but now funded by the new fee (For example, the tax rebates on solar installations) or else go to porkish things that pretend to be about climate.

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

#94

Post by handrous »

lastofthemojito wrote: post #67

> The things we admire in men, kindness and generosity, openness, honesty, understanding and feeling, are the concomitants of failure in our system. And those traits we detest, sharpness, greed, acquisitiveness, meanness, egotism and self-interest, are the traits of success. And while men admire the quality of the first they love the produce of the second. --John Steinbeck in Cannery Row (published 1945)

It's worth noting that there's a lot more being said when that is placed in context, and in the mouth and circumstances of the character speaking those words, than when it's presented, bare, as an aphorism due the author.

(it's on archive.org, for the curious)

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

#95

Post by Glench »

zepto wrote: post #18

Utterly incompetent article, basing all its conclusions on this poll question: “Suppose a proposal was on the ballot next year to add a monthly fee to consumers’ monthly electricity bill to combat climate change. If this proposal passes, it would cost your household $10 every month.” It then assumes that voting against the proposal indicates an unwillingness to pay for climate change. This completely misses the obvio…

Actually if we electrified our homes, most households in the US would save money: https://www.rewiringamerica.org/bringing-infrastructure-home & https://www.rewiringamerica.org/household-savings-report

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

#96

Post by LorenPechtel »

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…

The $36T figure isn't unreasonable, just cherry-picked. It's counting up the costs without counting the money that is no longer spent elsewhere.

It's like saying that if I decide to patronize the Chevron station it's going to cost $800/year to buy gas, without considering that I'm currently spending $800/year at the Shell station.

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

#97

Post by elipsey »

Climate change is a collective action problem; the fact that people don't want to solve it with voluntary donations doesn't imply that they think the problem is unimportant.

It would be equally reasonable to propose that roads or police or militaries should be funded solely with voluntary donations, and then use support for that proposal as a measure of public sentiment towards the necessity of those functions. Of course, these functions are used as canonical justifications for the existence of the state in the first place.

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

#98

Post by avmich »

xyzzyz wrote: post #59
hairofadog wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you wholeheartedly. I'm very worried about climate change, and I would be willing to make any number of sacrifices to _effectively_ combat climate change. However, the question is this: > _Suppose a proposal was on the ballot next year to add a monthly fee to consumers’ monthly electricity bill to combat climate change. If this proposal passes, it would cost your household $10 every month. Would you vote…

> Would I vote for legislation that would redirect subsidies from fossil fuels to clean energy sources? FWIW, there are actually fewer "subsidies" to fossil fuels that could actually be redirected than most people here think. When you read HN articles and comments on the "fossil fuel subsidies", in my experience the bulk of these is "fossil fuel has this and that externality, and users of fossil fuels don't have to p…

But in terms of monetary subsidies - don't fossil companies still get more, in percentage points to their revenue, than green companies? This is something which can be easily redirected.

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

#99

Post by okareaman »

frankfrankfrank wrote: post #73
okareaman wrote: post #3

Of course if you frame it like that they don't want to pay. Americans want billionaires to pay for climate programs since many made a fortune not caring about climate, kept getting richer during a global pandemic, and show no interest in addressing the grotesque wealth inequality in America.

I'll start paying when the people start paying who believe the very same charlatans who fly around in private planes, have several cars and houses, and yachts while traveling to places they could have just as easily teleconferenced to, while also supporting the movement of people from low to high climate change impact countries. What we need is a voluntary tax to pay for climate change. You want it, sign up for the 1…

The idea the Greta Thunberg has to travel to New York by sailboat is ludicrous, but because of people with your attitude, she did it. You have to work from inside the system to change it.

Paying for climate change is not a luxury elective item. Sometimes a society has to collectively act to protect itself, even over the protestations of people who believe as you do.

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

#100

Post by grapherEtt »

jmann99999 wrote: post #8

The problem with this post is that it cites a survey of how much Americans are willing to pay to "stop climate change." According to the article 57% are willing to pay $1 a month to "stop climate change" and 23% would pay $40 a month. As an American, in a well paying IT job, I'd pay $100 IF IT WOULD STOP CLIMATE CHANGE. However, I don't believe the $1, or $40, or $100 is going to do anything. It's far more complex th…

I have faith we would absolutely do more things like have more of the giant diesel burning trucks that drive around to pick up degradable cardboard on garbage day at a net energy loss in the name of saving the climate.

We just are not good at anything in the US at this point that requires more complexity than a 280 character slogan.

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