Because society hasn’t chosen to put in place a tax, I see the commitment as not just to self-tax, but rather to offset the harm being done. As I argued above, I don’t think that internalizing externalities is an altruistic act. Conversely, I don’t think that you can offset one class of harm to others with a generalized monetary penance, unless there is a social decision to tax to optimize the level of an activity. As an optimal taxation argument, spending the self-tax money on global poverty does internalize the externality, but it does not compensate for the specific harm.
I certainly agree that donations above the amount of harm done would be an altrustic act, and then the question is whether it’s the most effective use of your altruism budget—and like you, I put that money elsewhere.
Would you still offset if society enacted a carbon fee-and-dividend, e.g. with the price equal to the social cost of carbon? Such a policy would also internalize the externality without compensating for the specific harm.
In part this may come down to whether you see climate change as a threat separate from other societal problems. I see it as a mechanism that takes its toll on broadly-comparable outcomes like DALYs and economic growth. From that perspective, the harms (and therefore the offsets) are comparable to the harms of, e.g., not providing bednets.
No, because given a socially optimal level of carbon, there’s no net harm to offset—any carbon emissions are net socially neutral, or positive. (That doesn’t imply there are no distributional concerns, but I’d buy the argument that purchasing DALYs generally is better in that case.)
I’m not a strict utilitarian, and so the issue I have with offsetting harm A with benefit B is that harms affect different individuals. There was no agreement by those harmed by A that they are OK with being harmed as long as those who benefit from B are happier. This is similar to the argument against buying reductions in meat consumption, or reducing harm to animals in other cost effective ways, to offset eating meat yourself—the animals being killed didn’t agree, even if there is a net benefit to animals overall.
Because society hasn’t chosen to put in place a tax, I see the commitment as not just to self-tax, but rather to offset the harm being done. As I argued above, I don’t think that internalizing externalities is an altruistic act. Conversely, I don’t think that you can offset one class of harm to others with a generalized monetary penance, unless there is a social decision to tax to optimize the level of an activity. As an optimal taxation argument, spending the self-tax money on global poverty does internalize the externality, but it does not compensate for the specific harm.
I certainly agree that donations above the amount of harm done would be an altrustic act, and then the question is whether it’s the most effective use of your altruism budget—and like you, I put that money elsewhere.
Would you still offset if society enacted a carbon fee-and-dividend, e.g. with the price equal to the social cost of carbon? Such a policy would also internalize the externality without compensating for the specific harm.
In part this may come down to whether you see climate change as a threat separate from other societal problems. I see it as a mechanism that takes its toll on broadly-comparable outcomes like DALYs and economic growth. From that perspective, the harms (and therefore the offsets) are comparable to the harms of, e.g., not providing bednets.
No, because given a socially optimal level of carbon, there’s no net harm to offset—any carbon emissions are net socially neutral, or positive. (That doesn’t imply there are no distributional concerns, but I’d buy the argument that purchasing DALYs generally is better in that case.)
I’m not a strict utilitarian, and so the issue I have with offsetting harm A with benefit B is that harms affect different individuals. There was no agreement by those harmed by A that they are OK with being harmed as long as those who benefit from B are happier. This is similar to the argument against buying reductions in meat consumption, or reducing harm to animals in other cost effective ways, to offset eating meat yourself—the animals being killed didn’t agree, even if there is a net benefit to animals overall.