Responding to Slacks from the Ukraine thread.
A couple things:
1. I interpret your statement here is that CO2 pollution is the currently the most economic approach in our economy. In order for that to change, we need to figure out how change or system so being green is the more economic approach. Fair enough. The problem with pollution and the "free" market is that currently the system does not recognize the communal harm caused by the pollution. [I fully admit to learning this perspective on Shaggy/Surly...Bozo maybe...don't remember.] Polluters are not paying for the harm they are causing. The general public pays for it, and usually disproportionately those with lower means. Globally, the poor fucks from Bangladesh can't just buy a new condo on higher ground. They are just fucked. Their lives are ruined. They are paying the costs for the actions of the wealthy. The free market is clearly not working here.
So how do you change that.
The carbon tax is one approach. You assign a price for the damage carbon pollution is producing. If the costs are impacting the decisions makers (from corporate CEOs to middle age suburbanites buying massive trucks to little old ladies trying to heat their homes), then the free market will actually work to produce more economically efficient decisions, like it's suppose to. In the most talked-about version, the dividend from the tax is then distributed back to everyone evenly. If you consume less than your average schmuck, you get paid. If you consume more than your average schmuck, you do the paying.
As with all things, there is the concern about unintended consequences. How do you handle imports and not fuck up current trade agreements? And it always seems like anytime something like this is enacted, corporations figure out ways to extract value without helping the planet, either through unintended loopholes or through intended ones that lobbyists get paid for. But, obstacles can be overcome and likely problems do not negate the overall advantages. Canada has implemented this. What's politically viable there can be here, although it may take us longer.
2. We never really had this criteria for stopping pollution before. When the rivers were fucking burning, people didn't say "well, gee, that's terrible, but we won't change it unless we can make sure the current polluters are compensated." Smog. DDT. Acid rain. We have a full history of just saying enough of this shit and stopping it at the source. Without compensation. I don't accept that the new criteria is that we have to compensate current polluters.
3. Can you imagine what the current price of gas would be without federally mandated efficiency requirements, without alternative fuel research on federal dollars, without credits for electric cars, etc.? The environmental movement saves people money. It just does a shit job of taking credit for it because it's not really the main goal.