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Comment by WalterBright | Hacker News Reader

Because the government uses ban hammers instead of simply taxing the amount of pollution emitted.

And if they tax it, people will complain about cost-shifting, saying the consumer should pay, and accuse the taxes for driving inflation etc. I am in favor of making polluters account for negative externalities, it's been a long-theme of my comments here), but I've noticed that people are adept at inventing new bases of objection.

Perhaps you could suggest a place where the pollution taxation approach has worked and the enforcement has teeth, which you would be happy to see implemented here even though it might come with short-term costs.

Cost incentives work. It's why people buy cars that get more mpg. Why wouldn't they prefer to buy a car that engenders a lower pollution tax?

If by “people” you mean “Americans”, they buy F-150s to go to the grocery store, and they vote out governments that threaten their ability to do so.

Taxing pollution, particularly consumer-facing taxes, has a long history of political failure, whereas subsidising clean technology has a long history of political and technical success.

*F-250

Saw an F-450 the other day... granted, it was at the gun range, but I was there in my compact hatchback and it had not a spec of dust on it.

It doesn't simply "have a long history of political failure"; it has a history of political failure in certain areas of the United States. In much of the rest of the developed world, e.g. nearly all of Western-Europe, it has a history of success and taxing cars based on fuel consumption and emissions has indeed caused buyers to gravitate towards more fuel-efficient cars.

Do they tax the rate of emissions, or the amount emitted? It's important to tax the latter.

Both. The former directly through taxes on the cars themselves and the latter indirectly through fuel taxes, which while imperfect works well as a proxy.

Fuel taxes work well for CO2 emissions, but not for other emissions, where the design of the ICE can reduce them dramatically.

Fair point, but the EU ETS took many, many years to have any serious effect as I understand it.

If we can have a sales tax, we can have pollution taxes.

In the United States, you can't, at least at a federal level, nor across most of the red states.

I was hoping for examples of incentives for this specific problem you considered successful and would express support for if implemented here.

And if they tax it, people will complain about cost-shifting, saying the consumer should pay

The consumer should pay, because that will reduce demand.

It’s funny to see a government encourage a carbon tax to reduce fossil fuel use (high gas prices drive consumers to look for alternatives), then turn around this year and either cut gas tax or send out checks to consumers to offset higher gas prices.

Not sure any politician has the Will to follow through with it.

Taxes have a bigger effect on the poor, while pollution is caused overwhelmingly by the rich.

> pollution is caused overwhelmingly by the rich

Then they'll be the ones overwhelmingly paying the pollution taxes.

Because the poor have no resources to tax -- it makes no sense to tax them.

And it doesn't mean the rich will be paying a fair share, just that they will be paying more than the poor.

If the taxes on pollution are flat, they are by definition paying their fair share.

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