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Comment by helen___keller | Hacker News Reader

> If the goal is to offset climate change, there are cheaper, higher-value targets. Two good places to start: Tax the electricity usage of data centers and artificial intelligence.

No, the best goal for this is to tax carbon.

Obviously a crypto tax is as much about politics as it is about climate change. Most people loathe crypto after the last 2 bubbles and your average news-savvy person can roughly describe why bitcoin and NFTs are a waste of electricity, meanwhile the crypto industry itself isn’t doing great and likely won’t be politically influential, making it a great target. (Unlike say 2021 when a bunch of people were investing in it).

Great optics and little to no actual damage to the constituency, I.e good politics

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It's a great buzzword, but what does that actually mean? Carbon is an element that's all around us, we're made of carbon too. So what exactly are you going to tax and for what purpose? Try to use as precise language as possible. Basically you could just tax all consumption (including especially imports from places like China) and be done with it if the goal is to reduce emissions.

We all know that's unlikely to happen in reality, the people would be up in arms. What would actually happen if "carbon" were taxed would be a slight of hand, a redistribution from some pockets into others. I've been part of early carbon offset experiments many years ago and seen enough carbon scams in my time.

> Carbon is an element that's all around us, we're made of carbon too. So what exactly are you going to tax and for what purpose?

To be specific, taxing [use of and/or extraction of] fossil fuels. The reasoning is that extracting and using fossil fuels adds carbon to our environment that was previously sequestered within the earth. The goal is to economically encourage the development, production, and use of non-carbon-extraction-reliant technologies that compete with carbon-extraction-reliant technologies.

Yes, it is hard to implement and would be wildly unpopular hence why it won’t happen

> What would actually happen

There’s no point discussing hypothetical issues with hypothetical legislation. What kind of loopholes or corruption can exist is entirely dependent on the legislation itself.

So does clearing land. So does producing cement. There is a reason I asked to be specific. Are you proposing to put a tax on basically all consumption and construction, thus causing massive inflation?

Stop trying to pick a fight. I gave reasonably specific information of what I mean by carbon tax in my previous post:

> To be specific, taxing [use of and/or extraction of] fossil fuels.

And I asked what about other emission sources, you're now evading the question. Concrete as an example for something that's not a "fuel" and yet its production is responsible for a significant portion of C02 emissions. Why would you just ignore this, the carbon debate in the general public is clearly not based on rationality and understanding, such a "carbon tax" would be a complete misnomer.

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-46455844

Your original reply to my post asked for specifics of what a carbon tax is. I replied: a tax on either the sourcing or consumption of fossil fuels.

I can see now that you were actually looking for me to justify a carbon tax from a policy perspective, not define it. I am not interesting in doing so, hence “evading the question”

Why do you call it a "carbon tax" when what you actually mean is a fossil fuel tax which specifically excludes other emission sources?

You've not explained that part at all. It's like saying "I want a wealth tax" and then when someone asks how it actually works you tell them you tax expensive cars. That's not a wealth tax but a luxury vehicle tax.

* CO2, not C02. (Oh, not zero.)

I think you're being bit disingenuous, but I understand why you might be skeptical about carbon taxes. Unlike those scams, this is one of the more simple and straightforward policy recommendations.

A carbon tax essentially charges a fee on greenhouse gas emissions, aiming to account for their environmental impact—an externality not usually priced into the cost of fossil fuels.

The concept of a carbon tax has been considered for well over a decade.[0] While it might be a suitcase term on its own – different people interpret the phrase differently – the overall concept has been studied, has a lot support and popularity from economists.[1][0]

Several strategies exist to implement a carbon tax, but a widely favored method is a market-based, "revenue-neutral" approach. Here, the funds raised from the tax are redistributed (through various means, not necessarily something like UBI) to offset any financial burden on consumers or businesses.[2]

As far as my understanding goes, a carbon tax is simpler to put into practice—and explain—compared to other alternatives like specific environmental regulations or cap-and-trade carbon pricing schemes.[3]

[0] https://www.kentclarkcenter.org/surveys/carbon-taxes-ii/ [1] https://www.econstatement.org/ [2] https://www.americanactionforum.org/research/comparing-effec... [3] https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/20/8680/pdf

>A carbon tax essentially charges a fee on greenhouse gas emissions, aiming to account for their environmental impact

Your own link disagrees with that, it describes it as a tax that, depending on the country:

- "applied to fuel, coal, and natural gas"

- "mainly covers the use of fuels"

- "covered natural gas, petroleum, and other mineral fuels, except biofuel"

- "a tax on fossil fuels, petroleum products, natural gas, and coal"

The user who proposed this as a solution above has the same misunderstanding. What they described when I asked about the details sounds like simply another tax on fuel, on top of the already existing tax. It's not a "carbon" tax at all, it's a fuel tax.

Yes, of course concrete, cow burps, and imports should be included in a carbon tax. Yes, this indirectly taxes all consumption but in a way that encourages efficiency. You can redistribute the proceeds in various ways to make it less regressive.

In this thread you're attacking people because they left out a few details. This isn't a good discussion style.

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