[bseidensticker]

We must be thinking of different things because imo carbon taxes are the most direct way to internalize the externality. Crude oil, coal, and natural gas now cost more, proportional to their GHG potential, and the free market figures out how to minimize the cost.

It gets tricky when importing finished goods and with non-fuel sources of GHG, but it's way less complicated and more effective than any of the other proposals.

[clairity]

no, because the amount of carbon in each energy input doesn't directly correlate with the amount of pollution and harm, and it's a courser measure than taxing the polluting components relative to their externalized impact on health and wellbeing. we need to directly tax each of the things we don't want proportional to harm, rather than trying to simplify the problem and thereby creating unintended distortions and consequences.

[WalterBright]

Uh, the carbon content of fuels winds up as CO2 emissions, which are blamed for climate change. Taxing the carbon content of fuels is a very targeted, direct tax. It's simple, too, orders of magnitude simpler than any other proposed method.

[spoonjim]

I think the person you're replying to has an embedded assumption of "climate change is fake news"

[clairity]

the very point is that climate change and CO₂ are mediopolitical distractions, and your 'simpler' isn't better but rather materially worse. pollution is a consensus problem. we should directly tackle that problem, not the indirect, mediopolitically manufactured one.

* note that consensus isn't how media or political careers are made.