Cooling a house by one degree takes less energy than heating it by one degree with conventional heat sources. Las Vegas and Phoenix are not actually great examples of urban environmental harm, Syracuse is. This also is an argument for taxing carbon, because people's
My old housemate works on state-level climate change policy, and he says the oil lobbyists all push for a carbon tax precisely because of how politically toxic it is. Given big oil has skin in the game, I'd think they'd be right about the politics.
I think wonks try to persuade other wonks about the merits of policies without accounting for the political merits of policies. And the politics affects the policy: enough backlash, and your policy gets rolled back or hands power to an opposing party that's hostile to your policy's aims.
A lot of academics write white papers with this blindspot. I guess their assumption is that the policy would be good if everyone agreed the policy is good. But that's not our world and it's not even a feasible world given polarization, given how few voters are engaged on policy details, etc.
Whatd be really cool would be some framework for doing cost benefit analyses for a policy that includes the political benefits and political costs. I think nowadays the policy wonks and the politics gurus operate in separate silos mostly - or at least there's no formal framework for unifying the two categories of costs and benefits. But politicians make decisions regarding both but mostly go off of their gut, not anything rigorous about statistical expectations
Oh yea, no doubt the carbon tax is not attractive to voters. The most likely way I see towards it passing is if we ever get into a situation where we ever get into a situation where we *need* to raise taxes to pay for existing programs. At that point it might be more attractive than other tax options.
But definitely not a good thing to pursue in the current political environment.
My old housemate works on state-level climate change policy, and he says the oil lobbyists all push for a carbon tax precisely because of how politically toxic it is. Given big oil has skin in the game, I'd think they'd be right about the politics.
I think wonks try to persuade other wonks about the merits of policies without accounting for the political merits of policies. And the politics affects the policy: enough backlash, and your policy gets rolled back or hands power to an opposing party that's hostile to your policy's aims.
A lot of academics write white papers with this blindspot. I guess their assumption is that the policy would be good if everyone agreed the policy is good. But that's not our world and it's not even a feasible world given polarization, given how few voters are engaged on policy details, etc.
Whatd be really cool would be some framework for doing cost benefit analyses for a policy that includes the political benefits and political costs. I think nowadays the policy wonks and the politics gurus operate in separate silos mostly - or at least there's no formal framework for unifying the two categories of costs and benefits. But politicians make decisions regarding both but mostly go off of their gut, not anything rigorous about statistical expectations
Oh yea, no doubt the carbon tax is not attractive to voters. The most likely way I see towards it passing is if we ever get into a situation where we ever get into a situation where we *need* to raise taxes to pay for existing programs. At that point it might be more attractive than other tax options.
But definitely not a good thing to pursue in the current political environment.