...but it wouldn't be a "massive" tax. Do the math, 15,000 miles / 25 mpg = 600 gallons of fuel, which is $2.75/gallon. But much of the carbon produced by a typical westerner is from fuel used for heating, electricity, or manufacturing goods, so the actual figure necessary to balance out would be even less when spread over more than just transportation.
To be honest, I think that the "subsidy" is a made up number that would be unaffected by a different price of fuel, but if you take the idea and rhetoric of externalities seriously, then simple arithmetic diminishes the cost of global warming to insignificance. Not based on deniers' arguments or facts, but taking the figures of those who are concerned at face value. I remember getting much the same result from the National Resources Defense Council's estimate of climate change costs in a few decades.
Better to say the "externalities" are "infinite" than let slip that they are only a couple bucks a gallon. Prices of fuel vary by several dollars a gallon from country to country, so if the cost was in that range, some countries might well be paying it already...if not now, back when the price of oil was especially high...if anyone was serious about their arguments and numbers.
...and if you try to argue with me what the size is of the externalities, you're missing the point. I don't know, I only wish people would mean something when they talk about the topic.
To be honest, I think that the "subsidy" is a made up number that would be unaffected by a different price of fuel, but if you take the idea and rhetoric of externalities seriously, then simple arithmetic diminishes the cost of global warming to insignificance. Not based on deniers' arguments or facts, but taking the figures of those who are concerned at face value. I remember getting much the same result from the National Resources Defense Council's estimate of climate change costs in a few decades.
Better to say the "externalities" are "infinite" than let slip that they are only a couple bucks a gallon. Prices of fuel vary by several dollars a gallon from country to country, so if the cost was in that range, some countries might well be paying it already...if not now, back when the price of oil was especially high...if anyone was serious about their arguments and numbers.
...and if you try to argue with me what the size is of the externalities, you're missing the point. I don't know, I only wish people would mean something when they talk about the topic.