Quote:
Originally Posted by milomilo
Well the first thing to decide is what problem you are trying to solve, and the most important problem, the problem that actually threatens our existence, is climate change. And the easiest solution to that is just to put a price on carbon rather than arbitrary, ineffective government diktats banning things. If throw away items actually are having a large effect on climate change, then they will become disproportionately more expensive. And if they are not actually having much impact, who cares? No harm, no foul.
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I don't think it works that simply or can be considered in such simplistic terms, such as 'just throw a carbon tax on everything based on its carbon footprint'. If anything the carbon tax is just as arbitrary as an all out ban on 'everything' that falls under a particular category.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't believe a carbon tax will look that deeply into each situation and be decided by some complex formula that reflects the actual carbon footprint of an item. I don't believe that the government has the resources, or the will, to implement the tax more intricately than broad categories, like usage of petroleum products (actually, it appears to be mostly aimed at petroleum products).
But, if you want to look at the example you cited based on carbon, then you don't have to think very hard to understand the carbon footprint of manufacturing a device, like a printer for example, overseas in a plant that probably gets its power from an older coal-fired plant, then shipping it overseas by container ship to Canada, where it's shipped to a depot, then sorted and shipped to a store, used for a couple of years (maybe) before it breaks or becomes outdated, and then has to be recycled (which also requires energy) and the cycle starts again when you have to buy a replacement. Is the government going to calculate the carbon footprint of each such device? Even if they did, how would they determine the lifespan of such a device, as lifespan has a heavy influence on its carbon footprint, by requiring a new device to be manufactured and shipped to replace the failed one. It's not simple, but it's a real situation.
I agree that we need to be pragmatic and look at the situation from a problem-solution standpoint, but I'm afraid that's not being done, nor will it be.
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