[itsanaccount]

Ideally? Mobilize like WW2 to decarbonize the economy. Quadruple the cost of fossil fuel via taxes and then use those funds to help the lower 60% or so survive by giving money direct to consumers for food, heating, etc. The markets will rapidly adapt as most tech is there, we just misallocate the hand of government spending.

Realistically since what I proposed above is non-viable? Increase the cost of producing fossil fuels through more direct means, of which discussion is banned on most of the public internet.

[grej]

"Quadruple the cost of fossil fuel via taxes" - It's not what people want to hear, but this type of taxation will have no practical impact on the fossil fuel use of the world. Any fossil fuels produced and not consumed by the west where those tax regimes exist, will be consumed by the developing world. The overall world use of fossil fuels will continue to increase.

Nuclear does have a hope in changing this dynamic. But even then, fossil fuels have powerful advantages that won't be easily overcome any time in the next 10-15 years, at least.

[itsanaccount]

I'm not gonna pretend I expect anything short of war, be it internal or external, to change things.

By the time it actually happens though it will be too late for a lotta people.

But the parent asked what we _should_ do.

[kQq9oHeAz6wLLS]

> I'm not gonna pretend I expect anything short of war,

Ya know, it's never the people calling for a war that end up putting it all on the line to actually fight said war.

[itsanaccount]

Wars of oppression sure. This one may be a bit different. As I like to say, arm your friends. What else are you doing with that tech salary.

[mrtesthah]

A war for the preservation of nature and intelligent life is more than worth fighting. Just show me where to sign up.

[defrost]

Taxation to reflect the true cost of fossil fuels can (rather should) be redirected towards mega scale (ie matching the scale of oil extraction industry) actual atmospheric carbon capture, both industrial plant based (to create fuels used to reduce deep extraction fuels) and organic plant based (as plants are pretty damn good at pulling down C02) for sequestration.

The goal is to reduce the amount of CO2 going into the atmosphere by whatever means work.

[jahewson]

Does not work in a globalised world as the emissions just move to wherever they are not taxed. Now, you could then tax imports but that’s your own populous paying that tax - and you no longer have free trade. Your exports will be uncompetitive due to the tax you levied on their production and any still-polluting trading partners you slapped tariffs on will respond in kind. End result is wholesale destruction of large segments of the economy (reducing your tax receipts which were supposed to support people) and famine in the developing world.

[dee-bee]

I've seen the fuel or carbon tax pitched with a program where wealthy states directly subsidize the growth of non-carbon-emitting processes (or a low amortized rate, for instance for the concrete and mining and processing of nuclear fuel)—the non-wealthy states can continue to grow at a similar pace while not sacrificing leverage over the wealthy ones. There are many reasons this likely won't happen, but there certainly are solutions for those searching for them.

[teaearlgraycold]

Tax the hell out of meat and other animal products as well. Force the world to go vegetarian.

[Pxtl]

You don't have to do that explicitly. Tax all products by carbon emissions. Tariff all nations that do not participate in such a program.

You don't have to tax beef explicitly when you tax carbon because beef is carbon intensive and so the tax is implicit.

The problem is that carbon pricing is a political 3rd rail and also has no moat, so it's trivially easy for the a conservative government to pander and throw it out.