there are two sides of this argument.

only way we are able to eat affordable food is because some diesel truck is transporting it.

so maybe we must subsidize diesel fuel, to decrease grocery prices?

impossiblefork an hour ago | parent | next [-]

Yes, but if you don't tax it correctly you will misallocate resources.

Diesel will get used excessively and you will get more road wear, as the user proposed. If you tax it, you will pay more directly for goods, but as costs rise people will be incentivized to find more efficient transport solutions.

It might still be worth it if road wear is cheap or the predictable misuse is predictable and that saves money somehow, but in all likelihood little harm would come from a fair treatment of diesel vs. gasoline etc. taking into account road wear of each vehicle class. It would be more natural to tax vehicle weight, hours driven etc. directly based on a sound model of societal cost though.

	▲	andrew_lettuce an hour ago \| parent [-]
		You are not wrong in theory, but this reads like an econ 100 short answer. It ignores all the political and social aspects of a very complex system.

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merpkz 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> only way we are able to eat affordable food is because some diesel truck is transporting it.

I would also add to that affordable food is being first produced by agricultural machinery running on diesel, which is then transported by trucks running on diesel on roads build by machinery running on diesel. There is a good youtube video about this from channel driving 4 answers.

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lotsofpulp 2 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Why should food being transported further be subsidized more than locally sourced food?

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bryanlarsen an hour ago | parent [-]

Local food often has higher transportation costs than food from further away. Long distance food transportation is done by highly efficient ship & rail. The last mile transportation costs typically dominate. And semi-trailer from warehouse to grocery store is far more efficient than half-ton truck from farmer to farmer's market.

And then both are dominated by the drive from the grocery store to your house. If you care about food carbon emissions, walk/bike to your grocery store. That'll have far more impact than food choice.

	▲	ZeroGravitas an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Type of food still has sizeable impact even if the food miles issue has been misleading. Cutting red meat and dairy likely beats cycling for errands for example. The switch from an ICE car to an EV (and assuming a standard US amount of driving) probably beats possible diet changes. You can of course do all of these things.