[ZeroGravitas]

A call for a carbon tax is the free market solution.

Resistance to it just redirects efforts into exactly the kind of thing you are railing against.

Most carbon tax proposals a) have stopped using the word tax as people have a visceral, but non-logical reaction to it, b) are designed to be revenue neutral, since raising money is not the point, but changing behaviour, and so cut other taxes so that it balances out.

[dmix]

More taxes is not free market in any form. Considering the alternatives are not yet inexpensive enough for general consumption combined with the fact any tax on oil/coal/carbon etc would likely get pushed down to the consumer, it's largely just punishing consumers who are acting rationally and within their means.

By reducing taxes for green tech companies the focus is on acellerating the time when it can become widely available for consumers and consumers can purchase it without large economic trade-off. As a result the coal industry, which is already in steady decline, with continue to go in that direction. Oil will get squeezed.

Only at that point would it make sense to punish consumption of the harmful energy. But doing so now is just wishful thinking and harming the already strugglign middle class.

[epistasis]

Free market is an inexact term, but I would think that nearly everyone would agree that one goal of having a free market is having it be efficient. Which, of course, is what a tax on negative externalities does:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pigovian_tax