I mean its actually specific to the topic post! (i.e. from “Automatic Driveway Gates, Fishing Organisation and Jeans .. lol)

I’m not suggesting that individuals should have license to be irresponsible. I do a lot in my daily life to reduce my own energy consumption, but on the whole it is very difficult to get people to make lifestyle changes and there are many people who don’t even believe that climate change exists. They actually believe that it is a total myth. Looking to households and individuals for help with this global problem is a major uphill battle.

Of course you can introduce the cost at different parts of the production chain, and it’ll eventually come out of households’ pocket – and I wasn’t suggesting that the price signal come directly out of households.

But I don’t think it’s true that, for any product, introducing the cost at any point will have the same effect. When we talk about whether households should be shielded from the cost of climate change, we’re talking about products that’re most energy intensive (i.e. Direct energy consumption), because petrol/electricity prices are more transparent and easily quantifiable than, say, the carbon price that goes into making a block of cheese.

Transparency might not matter to omniscient rational economic agents, but for the rest of us, it makes price changes more salient, leads to loss aversion behaviour, sets off “this is a vice” cues, and so forth.

Considering the current state of the economy, this may not be the wisest thing to do at this time.