[coeneedell]

I've noticed that a lot of the discussion around environmentalism is focused as if the bad decision-making is happening at the consumer level. The pervasive belief that A: electric cars directly reduce your personal carbon footprint (they do, but the substantiality of that depends on where you live) and B: travel is a major drain on the environment are very suspicious to me. These are pervasive beliefs among environmentalists. Meanwhile very little attention is paid to corporate and nation level changes. The best thing you can do for the environment is vote. This feels counterproductive but it's entirely true.

In addition, it seems to me that the discussion around nation level changes has become focused on a developed nations vs developing nations issue, when in reality it's all of our issues.

[politelemon]

I do agree, and take it a bit further: I feel that one of the greatest modern tricks that have been played on us is to shift attention away from the actual culprits and make us believe that it is us, at the lowest levels, who need to make the changes and fix the environment. Things like flight shaming and straws stand out as prominent examples and this could very well be due to the tangibility of the actions. When they avoid a flight and take public transport, or use a metal straw, they can feel like they are doing something. But the impact is miniscule compared to what they could be doing which is enacting a policy change at higher levels, changes which will have an impact for years to come.

This 'attention shift', it's similar to the way the plastic/oil industry successfully instilled recycling as a way to get us thinking we're doing something useful, while the larger goal was to keep plastic bans at bay [1]

This trick plays itself out in other spheres; recently in the UK we would have people "clapping for the NHS". They would stand outside their doors and clap or bang pots/pans together. Very few of us wrote to our MPs asking for better working conditions and better pay. Anyway, just last week, our government voted against protecting the NHS from a post-Brexit trade deal.

1: https://www.npr.org/2020/03/31/822597631/plastic-wars-three-...

[WalterBright]

The most efficient solution is ridiculously simple - put a tax on the emission of pollution. Couple it with a corresponding tax reduction on productive behavior.

This is based on the blindingly obvious maxim that if you want more of something, subsidize it. If you want less, tax it.

And by taxing pollution instead of regulating it, you generate revenue for the government.

[PaulHoule]

In the us people riot if police kill an unarmed black.

People in the us accept that the price of fuel goes up and down but they are the only ones. In other countries people riot when the cost of fuel goes up.

Many people have a lot of fear that tradable emission permits are an Enron-style scam that will suck money out of our pockets into somebody's pocket who will recycle 1% of profits back to politicians to maintain their privilege.

What we need to is either ban certain uses of fossil fuels or introduce an energy source that is so superior that people don't want to use fossil fuels. The latter is hard but doesn't violate the laws of physics, but any other kind of Collective action on climate violates the laws of social physics which are absolute for N > 10^9.

[lcam84]

return the money from these tariffs to everyone through a unconditional income

[PaulHoule]

Definitely if you did a carbon tax it could be made revenue neutral by either paying it back to people and cut other taxes.

[lcam84]

The protests happen in part because the demonstrators do not trust the government to spend the money well. They are afraid that they will distribute it to the "usual few" or "subsidize the lazy ones". Distributing the tariffs equitably among the population would take that stigma away. This would encourage those tariffs that are so necessary for us to comply with the Paris agreement.

[imtringued]

People don't like paying taxes and they also don't like their taxes being wasted. If the tax is revenue neutral (refund total co2 tax revenue divided by number of tax payers) there is no problem in theory but people still hate taxes.

[Gibbon1]

I go a step further and say for consumer stuff, put a stiff excise tax on things that emit pollution at the point of sale. Don't apply a $60/ton carbon tax on gasoline. Put a $100/ton excise tax on new cars. Use the cash flow to buy back older cars.

When it comes to industrial stuff, that's what you just work with industry to generate mandates that everyone has to follow. Manufacturing managers I talk to say they don't mind mandates. They just don't want to the be the sucker. As in Gallant installs $5 worth of emissions controls. Gooffus ships the factory to Indonesia and bribes government officials to look the other way.

[guerby]

Nothing fishy or secret, in the EU for example transport is about 30% of CO2 emissions:

https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/en/headlines/society/201...

Only source of CO2 that has relatively grown for the past two decades.

> they do, but the substantiality of that depends on where you live

This is true but misleading: yes if your electricity is produced by coal plants electric cars are just slightly better CO2-wise (but cleaner on NOx and other sources of pollution), but the idea is to move away from coal so that running your EV become cleaner over time. (1)

A striking example is the UK, this chart tells the story of coal to renewables:

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/jun/09/great-brita...

(1) and as a consumer in most countries you can vote with your money by choosing to buy electricity coming from renewables.

[ehnto]

General consumption drives the need for heavy industries that contribute the most to pollution, so it's indirect but still the consumer at the helm.

However, I totally agree that the focus should be on those heavy polluting industries. I don't believe it's evil for humans to want to live the lives they do, with the technology we've created, and I also don't think we can change enough people to ever make a dent in those consumption requirements. Better to fix the issue more efficiently, at the source of the pollution, by switching heavily polluting industry out for greener alternatives, as the input into the consumption machine.

[Gibbon1]

At least I think we agree the whole solve the problem by nudging consumers personal choices but otherise slap them silly when they make or worse previously made what or now bad decisions is kinda terrible. See imposing a stiff carbon tax on someone filling up their 15 year old car.

The size of needed changes and consumers limited agency makes anything but coordinated society wide action a worthless endeavor.

[melling]

There are about 2,500 coal power plants in the world and hundreds of millions of cars.

Perhaps you could come to some sort of conclusion about why we should start the switch to EV’s now?