Hacker News Reader

Comment by jacobolus | Hacker News Reader

No, people are not unhappy that energy is cheap, but rather that externalities are not priced in. The result is that activities and goods that seem trivially cheap (so people consume them far in excess of their needs without worrying about the expense) turn out to have disastrous large-scale consequences.

Our economic system has no affordances for making choices based on true costs – only sticker prices. When these are systematically distorted, it causes a huge collective problem.

View on HN

Can we price in the carbon cost of raising a child to the age of 18?

If we’re going after all the fun stuff I don’t want the parents to get away scott free.

Future people will likely be carbon negative.

Shall I give you my Venmo?

Since you didn't go into detail, I'm going to guess that you are referring to atmospheric CCS being widely deployed in the future. Unfortunately CCS is not and will not be practical. [1] [2]

I can explain my critiques in more detail if you clarify exactly what your argument is.

[1] https://manuelgarciajr.com/2020/08/09/the-improbability-of-c... [2] Comical, but fact-based take: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MSZgoFyuHC8

If items had the externalities priced in, the cost of having a child would go up, but only in that outgoings would increase. I suppose you could bill them based on their CO2 and methane output.

We should price in the externality where it is caused. I don't think raising a child emits any CO2 by itself.

If we price in the emissions where they happen it will be priced in for all consumers of the products that cause them.

I want a small discount for sequestering carbon in my child's body mass for several decades!

The average adult human contains what, like 30 pounds of carbon? That's very little money according to the carbon offset prices I have seen.

You have to account for:

- all the meat and diary your child is going to consume in those 18 years

- all diapers that are going to be produced and disposed.

- all methane and CO2 you child produced on an a daily basis for those 18 years (exhaling, digesting/pooping/farting)

- concrete used for building this extra room for your child

...

just to name a few.

Not if the externality is priced in for each of those products.

You can do that but it's not the parents that emit the CO2.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com