If you're buying a Mac Mini to run Windows, you're doing it wrong. There are $250 Dells and whatnot for that! The only reason to get the Mac Mini is if you specifically want Mac OS and don't want to deal with the complications (legal and otherwise) of turning that aforementioned $250 machine into a hackintosh.
I'm guessing mere storage causes contamination, since switching to BPA-free water bottles was a big deal and people don't typically go around heating their water bottles.
...sometimes the free market fails to provide an alternative. I was trying to find beef stock the other day... Of the ~8-10 different varieties of beef stock on the shelf at my local supermarket, all but one of them had MSG (and in large quantities) and a majority (forget the exact number) featured corn syrup (and yes, the only one without MSG had corn syrup).
There is still an alternative there, which is making the beef stock from scratch yourself.
You realize that the US had driven the Japanese all the way back to their home islands before dropping the Bomb, right? They were doomed to lose by then regardless.
By taxing pet food, of course! (I'd be willing to bet that the number of pets fed exclusively or substantially by table scraps or their own hunting is negligible in our society.)
[Revenue going towards adaptation] not in any of the proposed legislation I've seen in the US. Do you have a cite?
There's a couple of different things people are talking about in this thread: a "carbon tax" and "cap and trade." In the latter, at least, the "trade" part means that inefficient companies can buy carbon offsets to compensate for their pollution. But for that to happen, somebody has to be selling them, and the companies selling them are the ones working on the new ideas.
Your "cost" of fossil fuels is imaginary...made up. And unless the feds are giving money to the oil companies, gasoline is not subsidized.
Smog (and the associated health problems, such as asthma) is imaginary? That big oil slick in the Gulf is imaginary? The Iraq war is imaginary?
Those are all costs, and ones which are not borne by the oil companies!
If you can make a solar panel that will save me money in electric after taking into account the cost of purchase, I'll buy one.
Solar panels do that, and have done so for years now. The return on investment isn't instantaneous, but only an unreasonable troll would think it should be. Also, solar-thermal panels, used for heating water, have a shorter ROI than photovoltaics.
Until then, I'll stick with my window AC and my 12 year old, paid for, 21 mpg car.
There's nothing wrong with a window AC, as long as it's Energy Star-rated and you only need to cool the one room it's in. Otherwise, you'd save money (with quite a short ROI) by upgrading to a more efficient window unit or a split system (or central AC if you have the ductwork already).
By the way, my car is 12 years old and paid for too... but it gets 50 mpg and is nearly carbon-neutral (it's a 1998 VW TDI, running on biodiesel). Being responsible doesn't have to be expensive!
Heck, if the census-takers had all been DNA screened against the criminal database, I'd worry a bit less about the possibility of my family letting them into the house.
As a census worker, I did have to submit a full set of fingerprints (all 10 fingers) to be kept on file.
In fact, I almost walked away from the job instead -- even those who work for the government ought to be protected from it!
The solution is more restrictions and regulations on Wall Street to stop people from being able to make money who don't actually produce anything of value. It shouldn't be possible to get rich skimming off the top and siphoning away wealth from the working class that actually moves the economy.
Interestingly, usury is a sin in Abrahamic religions, and charging >0% interest is illegal under Islamic law. Because of that, most Middle Eastern countries already have the restrictions and regulations you want.
They ALREADY have a great incentive to be efficient, PROFIT!
Yeah, but some companies currently get extra profit without having to bother being efficient because society pays for the costs instead of them. Carbon taxes fix that, and level the playing field.
[T]here's some evidence that total CO2 output will go up, due mostly to third-world switch-over to biomass.
Who cares? The carbon sink of growing new biomass to replace it cancels it out! The only problem is if they're burning rainforests and replanting with monocrops, or something stupid like that.
Meanwhile, economic surplus that might otherwise fund adaptation is squandered.
The tax itself funds adaptation; that's where the revenue goes.
Costs will be spread out more evenly...
Why would this be?
Because there wouldn't be as many loopholes and exceptions as there are with sales taxes. You're arguing not about "evenness" but rather about transparency, which is a completely different thing.
How about you tax that companies that make non-green shit, not the people who can't afford to buy the green stuff?
That's exactly what the carbon tax does! If you tax the carbon used to make the shit, then the stuff that needs less carbon becomes relatively cheaper to make!
No, it's a tax on things that emit more carbon, with the proceeds subsidizing things that emit less carbon.
Food prices will rise.
The price of food grown with huge quantities of petroleum-based fertilizers and pesticides will rise; the price of organic food will fall (or at least, rise less).
The price of everything ordered on Amazon will rise.
The price of things produced and sold locally will fall.
The price of everyhtng transported by road or rail will rise.
Rail transportation is more efficient than road transportation, so more things will be transported by rail.
The price of running your heater or AC will rise, a lot.
Not if you have an efficient (e.g. solar, geothermal, etc.) heater or AC.
And it's a regressive tax, like all consumption taxes.
Yep. That could be solved by more energy-efficiency subsidies for poor people, though.
You're missing the point. The revenue from the tax has to go somewhere, and in this case it's supposed to go towards reducing the negative externalities of energy production. In other words, inefficient industries lose because their prices suddenly have to reflect just how inefficient they actually are. And conversely, efficient industries win. If implemented correctly (without lots of loopholes and bureaucracy), it is a net economic benefit.
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If you're buying a Mac Mini to run Windows, you're doing it wrong. There are $250 Dells and whatnot for that! The only reason to get the Mac Mini is if you specifically want Mac OS and don't want to deal with the complications (legal and otherwise) of turning that aforementioned $250 machine into a hackintosh.
I'm guessing mere storage causes contamination, since switching to BPA-free water bottles was a big deal and people don't typically go around heating their water bottles.
There is still an alternative there, which is making the beef stock from scratch yourself.
Or there's no dichotomy at all.
Who is your present provider? And are you on some special grandfathered-in plan, or is the same deal available for new users?
Crowdsourcing your research? That's not a bad idea...
No kidding; Exxon still hasn't paid damages for the Exxon Valdez disaster yet. You'd have to be a fucking moron to think BP intends to do any better!
You realize that the US had driven the Japanese all the way back to their home islands before dropping the Bomb, right? They were doomed to lose by then regardless.
Believe it or not, that sentence has all the punctuation it needs.
By taxing pet food, of course! (I'd be willing to bet that the number of pets fed exclusively or substantially by table scraps or their own hunting is negligible in our society.)
There's a couple of different things people are talking about in this thread: a "carbon tax" and "cap and trade." In the latter, at least, the "trade" part means that inefficient companies can buy carbon offsets to compensate for their pollution. But for that to happen, somebody has to be selling them, and the companies selling them are the ones working on the new ideas.
Smog (and the associated health problems, such as asthma) is imaginary? That big oil slick in the Gulf is imaginary? The Iraq war is imaginary?
Those are all costs, and ones which are not borne by the oil companies!
Solar panels do that, and have done so for years now. The return on investment isn't instantaneous, but only an unreasonable troll would think it should be. Also, solar-thermal panels, used for heating water, have a shorter ROI than photovoltaics.
There's nothing wrong with a window AC, as long as it's Energy Star-rated and you only need to cool the one room it's in. Otherwise, you'd save money (with quite a short ROI) by upgrading to a more efficient window unit or a split system (or central AC if you have the ductwork already).
By the way, my car is 12 years old and paid for too... but it gets 50 mpg and is nearly carbon-neutral (it's a 1998 VW TDI, running on biodiesel). Being responsible doesn't have to be expensive!
As a census worker, I did have to submit a full set of fingerprints (all 10 fingers) to be kept on file.
In fact, I almost walked away from the job instead -- even those who work for the government ought to be protected from it!
No, they're still NIMBYs... for sufficiently large values of "backyard."
The alternatives are more efficient! Fossil fuels only seem more efficient because their costs are externalized.
In a sense, fossil fuels are currently subsidized by society and the environment, and carbon taxes seek to remove that subsidy.
Yes, but by opposing nuclear it's coal, not "clean renewables" (at any price), that you end up with!
Indeed, because that's how aristocracies get started.
Interestingly, usury is a sin in Abrahamic religions, and charging >0% interest is illegal under Islamic law. Because of that, most Middle Eastern countries already have the restrictions and regulations you want.
Yeah, but some companies currently get extra profit without having to bother being efficient because society pays for the costs instead of them. Carbon taxes fix that, and level the playing field.
Who cares? The carbon sink of growing new biomass to replace it cancels it out! The only problem is if they're burning rainforests and replanting with monocrops, or something stupid like that.
The tax itself funds adaptation; that's where the revenue goes.
Because there wouldn't be as many loopholes and exceptions as there are with sales taxes. You're arguing not about "evenness" but rather about transparency, which is a completely different thing.
That's exactly what the carbon tax does! If you tax the carbon used to make the shit, then the stuff that needs less carbon becomes relatively cheaper to make!
No, it's a tax on things that emit more carbon, with the proceeds subsidizing things that emit less carbon.
The price of food grown with huge quantities of petroleum-based fertilizers and pesticides will rise; the price of organic food will fall (or at least, rise less).
The price of things produced and sold locally will fall.
Rail transportation is more efficient than road transportation, so more things will be transported by rail.
Not if you have an efficient (e.g. solar, geothermal, etc.) heater or AC.
Yep. That could be solved by more energy-efficiency subsidies for poor people, though.
Subsidize the shots, and then tax all pet owners to pay for the subsidy.
You're missing the point. The revenue from the tax has to go somewhere, and in this case it's supposed to go towards reducing the negative externalities of energy production. In other words, inefficient industries lose because their prices suddenly have to reflect just how inefficient they actually are. And conversely, efficient industries win. If implemented correctly (without lots of loopholes and bureaucracy), it is a net economic benefit.
So? That doesn't make encouraging efficiency stop being a good idea.