this post was submitted on 20 Oct 2023
23 points (87.1% liked)

Climate@stad

47 readers
1 users here now

Climate News / Opinion

Both news and articles of interest. "Solarpunk" as well as dystopian articles welcome, but they should be rooted in talking about projections, technology, society or ideas relating to climate change and our future not be pure fiction.

founded 1 year ago
 

Unsurprising. And I suspect the results wouldn't be very different elsewhere.

And that's why we're fucked.

all 11 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 10 points 1 year ago (3 children)

And the average person in any country shouldn't have to pay more tax

Just tax the rich more and we'd be able to fix most of the problems our governments face.

As it is, we're going to destroy the environment and usher in the extinction of our species just to save the portfolios and profits of a few hundred people.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

The worst part of all of this is the rich are generally able to lobby for lower taxes for themselves so it's such an uphill battle.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Not going to be anywhere near enough, because there aren't enough rich people.

E.g. in the UK the top 1% excluding the top 0.1%, earn an average of something like 200k pounds, but there is only about 700k of them. Every 10 percentage point increase in their taxes would add only roughly 2% to average tax receipts.

The top 0.1% earn above 500k, but there are less than 70k of them.

By all means do that too, and increase capital gains, and add wealth taxes, but ultimately we are in a position where it will hit everyone in the wallet and the later we leave it the more we'll end up paying to try to fix things.

[–] Aussiemandeus 3 points 1 year ago

So much of the pollution is done by large corporations, not by the individual anyway

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

TAX THE RICH.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

The most expensive part is finding new ways to support the same old activities. Cheaper to do less, use less, build less, invest less, concentrate on what people need to live and help each other, so people might be right to be suspicious of expensive plans. But, I think reduction is actually easier for individuals than companies. You can complain about billionaires and corporations, and I dont mean to stop you, but keeping people employed in the region they live in is the big expensive part of most solutions, I think

[–] chemical_cutthroat 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Not a Canadian, but I imagine most of the US feels the same. We don't want to spend more in taxes to fund the actions it takes to correct the mistakes made with our previous misused taxes. If the government is working in the people's best interest, the government will redistribute the taxes already being collected to funds that will bring about the change we desire.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Hence the "we're fucked" part, because really the main takeaway is that people don't trust their money will be well spent and don't think there is a chance of getting people they can trust with it in charge.