i just want to make a basic request to everybody.

i've studied enough economics to understand that economic modelling is indiscernible from charlatanism. to begin with, the economy is too volatile to make any kind of prediction at all over any extended period of time. but, the forces that they use are broadly too poorly defined to really make any sense of, in a modelling context. supply and demand just simply doesn't work like gravitation, or magnetism. these forces are abstractions of thought, rather than physical constants - they don't actually exist in the real world.

so, you're going to see arguments about this carbon tax that are created by modelling, and essentially none of them are going to mean anything. the models that the government is going to present are essentially just going to be propaganda, and the models that the opposition uses to counter aren't going to be any better. but, up until recently, it was all we had - because a carbon tax was just an idea, and there wasn't any meaningful data to use.

at this point, we should no longer be talking about externalities and incentive systems, or sin taxes, as these broad abstractions. we now have some actual data to use. so, instead of citing some market-based theory about pigovian taxes reducing bad behaviour as this philosophical idea, we should be able to cite actual data about the ability of carbon taxation to reduce emissions. and, what does the data say?

well, this is one study, and it does appear to be a review, but maybe you have something else a bit newer. the point is that i want you to look at data. let's change our epistemology here - we don't have to look at this philosophically any more, we can be scientific about it.

these numbers aren't much outside of the margins, to be honest. it's hard to separate the numbers from the noise. and, i'm left remaining rather skeptical about the efficacy.

again: i'm not going to oppose this, as i stand to make some money from it, and i support the idea underlying it. but, if we're serious about this, i think we're going to need to step away from these market schemes and focus more on directly funding a transition. it doesn't have to be either/or. but, i think that even the most optimistic reading of the empirical data suggests that a carbon tax is not going to be enough to make a serious impact, and this can at best be viewed as "step one".

https://aceee.org/files/proceedings/2016/data/papers/9_49.pdf