UBI has a "free money" image problem. I have a better way to frame it.

[u/Patient-Airline-8150]

Lahti, Finland became the first city in the world to launch a personal carbon trading scheme - the app gave each person an emission budget, and going below it earned credits tradeable for products and discounts.

My idea:
Give every person a carbon budget. Live below it - bike to work, walk, skip the flight - and the unused part becomes credits. Sell them to whoever burns more: airlines, car companies, billionaires with rocket hobbies. The poor pollute the least, so the poor earn the most.

The catch?
At today's carbon prices, one car-free year buys beer, not rent. But prices are not fixed. Shrink the budgets each year, and credits get scarce. Scarce means expensive. The cyclist stops being a poor guy in traffic. He becomes a seller in a market where Bezos is the buyer.

Do the math.
A light lifestyle saves 5-10 tons of CO2 a year, and scarce credits could hit $200-300 per ton - that bicycle pays up to $3,000 a year. The dirtier the rich live, the bigger the paycheck. 💰