Agreed. Though I'm personally more in favour of adding the cost at the other end. I think companies should be taxed for the cost of restoring the damage their products cause to the environment, as this would encourage competition towards more sustainable practices
I think it's still hard to say which policies would be effective. I think CO2-equivalent emission taxes are a good starting point
It might also be possible to put a recycling fee on each produced device based on the retail price and the amount of damage it would cause to the environment if the device was dumped in the environment
When a device is then handed in for recycling the company is refunded the fee minus the cost of to handle it at the recycling facility
On the downside that could also encourage companies to create products that are replaced before they are no longer usable, though honestly we already have that problem. It could maybe be prevented by lowering the fee based on how long the company commit to supporting the model with software and replacement parts
If we can measure the near infinitesimal gravitational waves from black holes colliding across the universe, surely we can at least get close to measuring this.
Nobody loses money when you measure infinitesimal gravitational waves from black holes colliding across the universe. If it affected climate change, it would be a different story - the conspiracy of astrophysicists who also traffic baby goats, Einstein was a hoax, black holes aren't settled science, why don't we measure gravity waves in America/UK rather than foreign gravity waves, etc.
