War is for Winning

Populist Solution to the Climate Crisis?

 This solution to climate change is right wing and populist. 

“We can't save the world by playing by the rules, because the rules have to be changed. Everything needs to change - and it has to start today.” - Greta Thunberg, TEDx Stockholm, December 2018

There is a scientific consensus that climate change is accelerating and poses an imminent threat to life on earth.  The climate change emergency must be tackled by radically altering our economies.

The current global climate responses will not correct our imbalance and mostly increase the rate of climate change through ineptness.  The UN is trying to impose a global climate cost and enact carbon cap production controls.  Carbon credits derived from arbitrary point spot reductions are being traded as an investment vehicle, even when the point reduction creates an overall global increase.  All of the current supposed solutions require increased government debt.
 

New thought needs to engage, because the only workable climate change solution is in truth small localised government. States stop socialising costs across the globe and instead expose capital to climate risk on a timescale that works.  Economies to be made responsive to climate change factors, by energising consumer responsibility at every expenditure.  Free individuals taking personal responsibility for the climate footprint of all their consumption will produce quick climate change action.  The climate change emergency requires total reform to free people, reducing government and letting people choose a better future.

How to make Individual Responsibility the Solution

The solution to climate change is to have individuals responsible for each carbon footprint through a carbon consumption tax. A carbon consumption tax allows individual consumers to make purchases where saving the planet and saving money align.  Carbon consumption tax differs from a supposed global carbon cost, by being progressively priced on the basis of individual markets or individual consumers.  A carbon consumption tax can align the cost with each consumer markets.

If we want to solve climate change we need to engage all consumers and especially the wealthy.  In a wealthy state the tax rate for carbon consumption to be set higher than the global carbon price, but in a poor state it might be only half the price.

Under a carbon consumption tax manufacturers shall be free to make anything, but if it is by a polluting process then the product will be highly taxed at point of consumption and unprofitable.  Imports get taxed on the basis of their production process and how they are imported. Exports shall not be carbon taxed.  Inward flights get taxed, outward flights do not.

One indirect benefit of carbon consumption tax is the imposition of higher taxation on multinational corporations.  Currently a critical multinational aspect is selling a product unprofitably in areas with high tax and profiting mostly in a low tax part of the corporation.  Under the carbon consumption tax the profit or loss of the sales will be irrelevant to the level of taxation and the existence of the tax mitigation structure will increase the carbon footprint of the production.  Multinational products will be taxed higher the more they offshore their profits. 

Carbon consumption tax is an information based tax, something that can be achieved only in our modern age.  We can now advance solutions where the consumer is informed completely, without the need for elaborate regulation by the state.  This is a good thing, because in this climate change crisis we need to have a smaller state. 

Emission Trading is Not Good

A carbon consumption tax is not the same as the currently proposed UN run global carbon cost to be imposed on emissions.  Global emission pricing is too exploitable in ways that increase pollution.  A global carbon price is an inequitable flat tax that impacts most on the poorest and is ineffective on the richest.  

The emission trading by carbon credits is exploitable in ways that can make increasing pollution profitable for some.  Carbon credits increase in value subject to their demand and as the degree of pollution increases they become more valuable.  The idea is that this will lead to people being innovative and creating new carbon credits.  However the holders of existing credits will profit if they can prevent other people from finding innovative solutions.  Large holders of existing carbon credits include mostly our too-big-to-fail financial institutions, which have proven very capable of putting profit first no matter the consequences.

A global carbon price is regressive and will hurt the poorest more than the wealthy.  This is grossly unfair and moreover ineffective as it is only the rich who are over consuming,  The global cost of carbon will by definition be set too high on the poor and too low on the rich. 

Eternal Sovereign Debt is Polluting

Government deficit spending is antithetic to the climate.  The climate maintains stability by inputs and outputs balancing across the planet.  A living climate acts in a system where life fails or prospers in response to the conditions.  When government debt is created by borrowing vast amounts of capital from the far future and spending it now, the climate is stressed beyond the balance.  Our forever deferred government debt creates perverse incentives to both over consume and prolong failing institutions.

Earth needs to end the socialism that supports failed institutions, as this socialism is killing the planet.  Instead of the state accruing debt and forever deferring the payment, we need to incorporate a Darwin-like approach into our economy.  We must place economics at the service of the planet, by keeping our debts in balance and allowing failing institutions to fail. 

To save the planet we need to realign our prevailing debt structures to shorter individualistic time frames, because living individuals reside within the time-frame of climate change.  Societies evolve much too slowly, with societal debts seemingly never to be paid off.  Individuals, not societies, need to be the central pillar of climate change response.  We need to make our financial systems mimic the living world and be naturally selective.  

Traditional Taxation is Problematic to the Climate

Income tax, company tax, value added tax to be reduced - when the carbon consumption tax is introduced.  This will allow more of the economy to be in the hands of consumers, with less interference from state institutions. Long lived state institutions are unresponsive to climate change pressures, consumers are much more responsive to price fluctuations.  In this time of crisis we need to enable individuals to make quick decision.

For example the Department of Education should create school vouchers for all students and lease out or sell schools so they all compete.  This will allow schools with a lower carbon footprint to out compete those with a higher carbon burden. Parents and children will be able to actively seek out places best for their education and the planet.

Taken a step further the voucher system could be applied universally, using a Universal Basic Carbon Credit set at 70% of current average carbon usage. This would afford people the finances to be more carbon aware, reward low carbon usage and punish the high consumption choices.

Time for Action

This is a climate crisis.  Old rules and old institutions must be allowed to fail.  To solve the climate problem we need everyone to have the individual power and responsibility to make change. 

To save the planet we must reduce government spending by at least 30% and free up consumer power to choose.

posted by unaha-closp @ 9:40 PM