In the minds of people opposed to controlling CO2 emissions, your comment here justifies all of their worst fears of CO2 emission regulation as a means of social control.
I feel somewhat strange writing that as someone who buys into the systems philosophy of "fix whats broken immediately, enhance it later". While that's true in computer systems, it doesn't seem uncommon in the realm of politics that periods of disasters are taken as opportunities to experiment with different ideas.
That’s not how politics works. You can’t abuse a crisis to ram something unrelated down the opposing party’s throat. You end up alienating everyone including the moderates.
This never works with even something as simple as a government shutdown over budget considerations.
This is exactly how it works in practice in the US because the government is in terminal gridlock.
> You end up alienating everyone including the moderates.
The largest political party in the US is the non-voting party. Again, how it works in practice is that almost half of the population is already alienated.
Hell, it was written by the oppositions party current presidential front runner.
Is the ability to travel, including all the business, leisure, and cultural exchange benefits worth less than 2% of our carbon footprint?
When costs are not priced in the benefits are weighed against nothing.
Efforts should be made to reduce all sources of emissions.
Wow - no, totally not.
The value derived from some kinds of emissions and resulting costs for changing them is infinitely differentiable from others.
For example, changing our electricity grid over to a more renewable resource, piece by piece, will maybe be a little bit more expensive, but it won't be disruptive.
'Stopping all flights' because airplanes emit CO2 could be devastating to the world economy, in addition to a massive reduction in the quality of life of people everywhere.
The factory that produces medical drugs needs some kind of Co2 emissions - probably worth it.
The one producing plastic bouncy balls for pets - probably not.
'The Market' has a lot of asymmetries, but it also contains a lot of intelligence, which is why it's always reasonable to be skeptical of arbitrary, system-wide controls.
Using this crisis for a 'massive experiment in what to turn online next as the basis for CO2' is excessively totalitarian, because we wouldn't really know why, how, what we are doing, and the resulting social pain would be great.
If there were a rational, clean path forward and 'good timing' for the introduction of specific measures, then yes, use the opportunity. But I don't see any of that.
General messaures of wellbeing and life satisfaction in the West haven't shifted over the last forty years despite a massive increase in air travel.
If a government doesn't keep that in mind it may bite them back somehow (see the beginning - as opposed to the follow-up - of the "gilets jaunes" movement in France).
The 'large policy changes' will have completely varying consequences across the economic spectrum, for good and bad, which is the general problem with centralized planning.
So if the government 'shut down all co2 emitting factories' it might have small consequences here, and terrible consequences over there.
But if the government institutes a 'carbon tax' that makes your 'pet toys' and 'medicine' 10% more expensive, then given the inelasticity in demand and surpluses derived from medicine, people will continue to buy it at the same rate, and possibly buy fewer 'pet toys'. If travel rose by 20%, then maybe we'd see less leisure, fewer business trips, but the 'important trips' would still happen.
That we are 'happier because we can travel, but sadder because we have Facebook' is another can of worms entirely.
But this 'no improvement in wellbeing' argument is mostly undermined by the fact that given the choice, almost 0 people chose to 'live like 50 years ago'. Everyone today can do that easily. They can go back to not having dishwashers, not wearing seatbelts, smoking a pack a day, black and white TV if they want to, but for some reason, they mostly chose modern convenience.
But the real issue is the fact that economic activity is diverse, and heavy-handed centralized attempts to intervene will have crazy consequences.
If there are 'obvious' ways to use a crises for 'obvious good' then sure, but I don't see any such thing.
When you consider that it makes it much harder to convince the average person to lower their emissions when they can see their boss jetting off to Bali on a whim.
Also that 2% figure is wrong in so many ways.
So, the real picture is that this 2.5% of global CO2 emissions are caused by as few as 6% of the population, who also are incidentally the richest and bear a high personal carbon footprint in other domains than transportation.
Also please remember that the aviation sector is growing, and therefore its global contribution to GHG emissions will grow as well in the future. Discounting the carbon footprint of the aviation sector based on today's numbers is a mistake.
If you do not want to impede on your ability to travel, you shouldn't object to it for the 94% of the population that want the same thing as you, and when it becomes available to them the aviation sector's emissions will increase 15-fold.
"Social contract arguments typically posit that individuals have consented, either explicitly or tacitly, to surrender some of their freedoms and submit to the authority (of the ruler, or to the decision of a majority) in exchange for protection of their remaining rights or maintenance of the social order"
And of those who refuse to consent, explicitly or tacitly and disagree with others definitions of "social order"? Do people expect them to just roll over without fighting?
Trying to take away/cut things people have come to expect and offer nothing of equivalent in return? Good luck with that.