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Notes -
This thing drives me crazy. LEDs are better than the other alternatives in every way except price.
So why don’t they tax them instead of ban them? Just seems idiotic to not let people who want the worse thing to pay for it. And the whole point is to avoid the tragedy-of-the-commons inherent in climate change, so figure out what the diff is in switching, then set the tax at that rate. Bam, now you’ve properly incentivized everyone to do the right thing.
I just don’t get why the govt refuses to make use of the economic engine we have at our disposal.
If the politics were good I think there would be a move towards carbon taxation as a primary tool to fight emissions among left and centre-left (perhaps also centre-right) legislators but unfortunately they are bad so we're reduced to this kind of ad hoc policy.
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Carlyle called economics "the dismal science" out of disappointment that it wasn't providing a defense of slavery, but instead was "reducing the duty of human governors to that of letting men alone". Modern government would never go so far as to defend slavery, of course, but the repugnance felt at "letting men alone" doesn't seem to have decreased. It's easy to understand the feeling, even if you know the feeling is wrong, isn't it? The idea of being one of the ones who calculate whether a Pigouvian tax on coal power should be 5 cents per kwh or 6 next year is almost emasculating compared to the idea of being one of the ones who dictate "The Time Of Wasteful Light Ends Now. I Have Spoken."
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