A carbon tax is essentially going to hit the average person hard. Moreover, the average person has a lot of driving they have to do, tax or not. And plenty of rich people could ignore the tax and keep driving. And the political impact would be angry people ready to listen climate deniers. What's needed is a plan to eventually give everyone an electric car or some choice, any choice, that lets them do their daily busi…
The average person is also getting hit hard by high energy prices for fossil fuels regardless of tax rate.
The "polluters" are you and I. We buy the cars, we buy the other things, we use electricity and gas and oil in our homes and cars. We, the consumers, will ultimately pay any carbon taxes. Which may be appropriate, but let's not be unrealistic about who will be paying.
> We buy the cars Speak for yourself. I haven't owned a car in my life and don't plan to change that.
I'd be willing to bet many of your daily activities (eating, using the internet, etc.) involve burning hydrocarbons. It's pervasive.
I’m actually interested in using this for terraforming Venus. We’ve got plenty of energy from sunlight and very concentrated co2. To keep them at the right temperature We could build floating blimps with these machines on board.
This would be amazing. Venus having nearly the same gravity as earth gives it a big plus in terms of future colonies. The other issue I believe is it’s spin - meaning a normal day on Venus is something like 5k hours compared to earths 24… that means you cook for a lot longer on one side instead of a nice even toasting like we have here on earth… still I like your idea because gravity is probably one of the bigger factors of creating a future nice home…
Probably this, yet. When the problem is real, people will find real solutions. Or not, but it's not happening now anyway. Are you driving less? Have you stopped eating beef?
When the problem is "real", it will be too late for solutions. We need to do something right now. Besides, I'd argue the problem is starting to be "real" right now. California, Australia, Siberia and Greece were on fire this year, Germany had historic floods and the East Coast keeps getting devastated by hurricanes. I also disagree with the tactic of shifting responsibility to the individual to avoid doing anything w…
You're not wrong, but I'm being realistic about human nature. People are not going support heavy regulations that make their lives more difficult and expensive, if they are working 5 or 6 days a week to pay bills and support a family. Some theoretical problem 20 years from now is not high on their list of concerns.
The "polluters" are you and I. We buy the cars, we buy the other things, we use electricity and gas and oil in our homes and cars. We, the consumers, will ultimately pay any carbon taxes. Which may be appropriate, but let's not be unrealistic about who will be paying.
That is economic today for people who rent out the credits that arise by purchasing land then not harvesting the trees. That is economic today for people who claim carbon credits for purchasing new equipment, where the old was at EOL anyway. And so on. The existence of brokers for carbon credit sales should tell you something. For real economic viability that isn't scam-based, something based in reality is needed.
You're talking about carbon credits, not a carbon tax.
I've noticed a trend of people trying to suggest we already have a carbon tax via carbon credits.
I'm not sure if they're just confused, or trying to sow misinformation.
A carbon tax is essentially going to hit the average person hard. Moreover, the average person has a lot of driving they have to do, tax or not. And plenty of rich people could ignore the tax and keep driving. And the political impact would be angry people ready to listen climate deniers. What's needed is a plan to eventually give everyone an electric car or some choice, any choice, that lets them do their daily busi…
The average person is also getting hit hard by high energy prices for fossil fuels regardless of tax rate.
Yes, average person gets hit by rising energy prices. Some portion of average people (especially small business owners) support demagogue who artificially lowers these at heavy costs. Rinse and repeat.
Gallium cannot be produced at scale because it does not form concentrated ores in nature. It cannot be usefully mined directly. The only reason it is relatively inexpensive is that there is limited demand for the minuscule quantities that are currently produced. Gallium is currently supplied by reprocessing the waste from other convenient metal ores to extract the traces of gallium. Even if we maximized gallium extra…
Yeah, basically there's only one solution to the CO2 problem that's also the solution with the least political will to push it through: deindustrialization. Everything else relies on miracles and/or unobtainium.
The implication of that is that we should accept climate change, is that what you're saying? Deindustrialization would probably be worse than climate change so it's likely not an option. In case you want deindustrialization, can you estimate it consequences in terms of deaths caused or some other important metric so we can compare it to climate change?
A carbon tax is essentially going to hit the average person hard. Moreover, the average person has a lot of driving they have to do, tax or not. And plenty of rich people could ignore the tax and keep driving. And the political impact would be angry people ready to listen climate deniers. What's needed is a plan to eventually give everyone an electric car or some choice, any choice, that lets them do their daily busi…
> A carbon tax is essentially going to hit the average person hard. I think that is just an excuse to not make changes that are necessary. Saying that something will hit the poor/average person/working family is an argument about wealth/cost distribution, which is separate from the actual problem. When we, as humanity, have the natural resources, the technology and the labor required to do something that is objective…
Furthermore, it’s not one dimensional. Society would respond to a carbon tax. Maybe if your manager or director really really needs a team/department on site, the company would foot the bill to have you as a carbon consuming commuter. We would all adjust behavior in response to the tax. Things that obviously are bad for the environment are now obviously bad for your wallet and need to be justified. At least there aren't that many wealthy people so if they want to pay the tax and fly around in jets, so be it.
Gallium cannot be produced at scale because it does not form concentrated ores in nature. It cannot be usefully mined directly. The only reason it is relatively inexpensive is that there is limited demand for the minuscule quantities that are currently produced. Gallium is currently supplied by reprocessing the waste from other convenient metal ores to extract the traces of gallium. Even if we maximized gallium extra…
Yeah, basically there's only one solution to the CO2 problem that's also the solution with the least political will to push it through: deindustrialization. Everything else relies on miracles and/or unobtainium.
Surely that’s what they were saying about world hunger and how depopulation is the only solution before the invention of the Haber process?