[bckygldstn]

A business that creates $1 of value by imposing $2 of costs on other parties is wasteful: the economy would be better off if such business models didn't exist.

For carbon these costs look like increased healthcare due to pollution, decreased agricultural efficiency due to weather changes, government paying for environmental remediation or carbon capture, loss of tourism when the USA and Europe is covered in smoke for large parts of the summer, ski fields closing due to lack of snow.

Why can't we let the free market sort this out? More than most externalities, carbon pollution is expensive to reverse: CO2 that costs $10 to suck out of the air might only cost a company $1 to not emit in the first place.

There's also a time component: if there were no taxes or fees for dumping waste we'd have a really efficient decade in the stock market then all be dead by the end of the century.