Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by klipt 1067 days ago
The solution is a carbon tax, which is unpopular with big oil companies but probably also unpopular with many citizens who vote based on gas prices.

We may just have to use solar radiation management instead.

3 comments

Many European countries already have something like that: excise taxes on gasoline. Gasoline in Europe is almost twice the price of gas in the US, even in countries where people earn half of what Americans do. It's not particularly new either - they've been around for decades now.

This teaches us a valuable lesson though - money from carbon taxes must not go into the government budget. It should instead be distributed to something automatically (eg equal payments to everyone or the poorest). If it becomes part of the budget then governments might try to maximize revenue rather than deal with the problem.

> solar radiation management

Hahahaha. I can see it now: "Exxon Stratospheric Sulfur Shield - using dirty fuels in long-haul flights to create a particulate-based solar shield [0]. Partnering with governments around the globe [1] to protect the earth and boost tourism. Because we care."

[0] https://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/stratospheric-aer...

[1] https://e360.yale.edu/digest/fossil-fuels-received-5-9-trill...

That's not a solution.