[eru]

Pricing the exernalities of oil and coal into them might be quite a good idea---especially since it encourages boring things like just using less heating or driving less. Those boring options are seldom encouraged in `politician picks the winner in a beauty contest' subsidies.

But yes, we won't see that..

I wonder why noone has ever tried selling eg a carbon tax (or any kind of broad and useful tax) in combination with basic income? If you earmark the windfall from a carbon tax to be equally shared by all residents, you get quite a few natural allies and take the wind out of the sail of arguments along the lines of "think of all the poor people".