[xkjkls]

Taxing it is still pretty hard to do. It's often hard to know exact emissions or what to test. I agree its probably an easier solution, but the accounting of "who is actually producing the carbon" is incredibly complicated, and will become more incredibly complicated as soon as literally billions of dollars are at stake.

[CountSessine]

It doesn’t actually seem that complicated at all. Tax crude oil and coal. That’s seems pretty simple. Maybe there’s something I haven’t thought of.

[xkjkls]

Thousands of other things also have carbon emissions: beef production for instance. Or deforestation -- while it doesn't have a positive CO2 benefit, it removes a CO2 sink. The fishing industry has massive CO2 costs that aren't from fossil fuels.

[CountSessine]

That's 1 thing (the meat industry) whose carbon emissions are both direct (not supply-chain based) and wouldn't be captured by a petroleum+coal producers tax. Not thousands.

Meat production is about 15% of our global carbon emissions, so certainly it can't be ignored - but when the other 85% is coming from activity fueled by petroleum+coal, it doesn't make a lot of sense to throw up your hands to reject a carbon tax because there's "thousands" of emissions source (which ones?) which collectively amount to less than a percentage point of our carbon footprint.

We mustn't let the best be the enemy of the very, very good. A straight-forward carbon tax on fossil fuels is both enforceable, linear, and not that complicated. Can we ignore ranching and meat production? Of course not. So let's tax both.