Re: realistic aliens and the necessities of storytelling

In article <1hx8y7e.15g179c3e3apwN%spam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
spam@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx says...
Gerry Quinn <gerryq@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

In article <bq3333hn9k11u4bbckna7tjm3itqv97va2@xxxxxxx>,
jamesd@xxxxxxxxxxx says...

Suppose we have global trading in carbon emissions.
Then it becomes profitable to manufacture large
quantities of carbon credits through accounting
cleverness rather than actual reductions in CO2
emissions, and indeed this is already under way on a
large scale, attracting much ridicule. To remedy this
problem, we need a single world authority issuing carbon
credits, and for similar reasons, a single world
authority collecting a global carbon tax.

If you actually had a carbon tax, it would look quite unlike current
ideas. The end-user of coal, oil, wood, or food would be taxed the
same based on carbon content of each. There would be no subsidy for
using renewables, because after all you are still generating carbon
dioxide. Producers of wood, food or other fuel in which the production
absorbs carbon would get a subsidy, as would anyone sequestering carbon
(landfills, perhaps?). There would be no tax or subsidy for coal or
oil producers.

That makes more sense to me than trading in carbon emissions, but it's
not simple.

E.g. what about plastics? It would be possible to recycle many of them
into fuel (e.g. by cracking polythene or polypropylene). Polystrene and
perspex would be ok too, but not vinyl, or other chlorinated plastics.

So there are decisions to be made: does manufacturing plastic from oil
qualify for a subsidy?

No, it's quite simple with a pure CO2 tax. You're not making CO2 so
you get neither a tax nor a subsidy. Oil or plastic, it's not
currently making greenhouse gases.

Or does the subsidy occur when the plastic is
converted to fuel?

No, you only pay tax when you burn fuel containing carbon.

Or do you treat it like a fuel even though it is
one way of burying carbon? (In principle you could make plastics out
of biofuels. It's even possible to use dead trees as building material,
or to make furniture.)

Indeed, chopping down forests on your kand to make furniture would
yield a subsidy. People would pay a carbon tax if they burned the
furniture.

- Gerry Quinn
.

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