[ahelwer]

If you're still committed to technocratic market-driven solutions to climate change there's the interesting idea of Carbon Quantitative Easing, essentially directly paying people to not emit carbon (read: pay oil companies to not pump out the oil they're going to pump out) or to sequester carbon with various methods. It's thought of as a carrot along with the stick of carbon taxes adding a cost to emissions.

First learned about this in the excellent sci-fi novel The Ministry for the Future.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_quantitative_easing

[ahepp]

I read up until about this point in the book, but frankly I stopped because I lost confidence that KSR had any idea what he was talking about when it came to central banks, and more broadly finance in general.

Maybe someone here can help me understand, what exactly is the point of "carbon quantitative easing" over a straightforward carbon exchange? Maybe the government buying and selling carbon allowances (out of thin air) on the exchange makes this "quantitative easing", but I would avoid implying it's monetary policy when it seems like it's clearly fiscal policy.

Even more confusing to me was how KSR's "carbon coin" plays into all this. It seems like dollars would work fine. Euros if you want. Introducing some new world currency just seems like it's throwing a huge wrench into an already controversial issue.

I think market-driven solutions to climate change are an exciting possibility, but I just didn't understand what he was going for here.

[ahelwer]

It's an actual published paper you can read, not something KSR made up.

[sokoloff]

That’s never sat right with me. I don’t pump any oil out the ground personally now, but I’m thinking about starting. What area of the country would be best for me to decide to not pump oil and cash in on this program? Should I not pump oil from both Alaska and the Gulf, in order to diversify my non-operations? Or maybe start smaller and just not pump in the Gulf to get started, and only later expand to also not pumping in Alaska?

It seems far better to pay carbon dividends to people (only humans, not fictional people) and then charge for carbon emissions (not the extraction of fossil fuels; you’re welcome to pull it out and put it in a tank paying only the emissions of your extraction equipment, but when someone buys it to consume, they pay the carbon cost.)

Tweak the dividends and carbon costs as needed to achieve the balance of policy goals.

[masfuerte]

His specialty was alfalfa, and he made a good thing out of not growing any. The government paid him well for every bushel of alfalfa he did not grow. The more alfalfa he did not grow, the more money the government gave him, and he spent every penny he didn't earn on new land to increase the amount of alfalfa he did not produce. Major Major's father worked without rest at not growing alfalfa. On long winter evenings he remained indoors and did not mend harness, and he sprang out of bed at the crack of noon every day just to make certain that the chores would not be done. He invested in land wisely and soon was not growing more alfalfa than any other man in the county. Neighbours sought him out for advice on all subjects, for he had made much money and was therefore wise. “As ye sow, so shall ye reap,” he counselled one and all, and everyone said “Amen.”

-- Joseph Heller, Catch-22

[ahepp]

Well, presumably you'd only get paid to not-drill if you otherwise had the drilling rights? So if you bought the rights to extract from an oil field in Alaska or the Gulf, you could get paid not to use them. That seems reasonably coherent to me, although maybe I'm missing something big.

That said, I think I also prefer the idea of achieving these goals by tweaking the price of carbon. But again, maybe I'm missing something.

I read an article that suggested the government buy oil companies in order to manage their decline. Obviously nationalizing an industry is a huge deal and a pretty drastic step, but the argument seemed reasonable and if more lightheaded attempts to solve the climate crisis continue to fail I don't think that should be off the table.

[ahelwer]

Go ahead and buy the land & oil rights to a large oil reservoir if you want to cash in on this hypothetical program.

Paying off the oil companies in this way means the end of the oil companies. They get a one-time cash infusion but that's it, no recurring revenue. Then no more oil companies to lobby against climate change. It's the only non-revolutionary route left, probably. Oil companies aren't just going to stop pumping oil and stop throwing the government around.

[Ryoung27]

I'll never not upvote The Ministry for the Future. It was such an interesting book once I could get my mind in the space of what it was doing.