system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
CMV: Current taxes on jet fuel are too low



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Two of the assumptions this CMV post makes are:

- Aviation causes a large chunk of human-cause global warming
- The global economy takes a systematically lenient view of jet fuel, with exemptions allowed by way of various international agreements

I claim that flying, relative to other modes of transport which are blamed for climate change, is much too cheap. Concerns that carbon taxes disproportionately effect the poor (which seem valid) appear to demand a switch in focus to curtailing air travel, which is less necessary for essential economic activity. The relatively large element of frivolous consumption in international travel makes flying a justifiable target in my view. Jet fuel tax is fundamentally of the progressive taxation inventory. 

The tax is potentially a more politically viable proposal than increased levies on domestic fuel. For the globalist/left wing types a development in addressing climate change; for the nationalist/right wing types it should be seen as an opportunity to strengthen national self-sufficiency, discouraging whim-based emigration of younger, skilled workers, as well as an extra obstacle against mass immigration.

I am aware of the potentially huge global economic costs of making international travel and trade more expensive. The prototypical argument for this tax involves a directing of this revenue towards global development programmes as proposed on the basis of cost-benefit analyses conducted by think tanks such as the Copenhagen Consensus Centre (which identifies low-cost, high return  investments such as in mass production of basic child nutritional supplements, anti-malaria provisions, etc).

This is intended to start a conversation with a focus more theoretical than empirical. Although the introduction of pertinent facts is welcome, I want to know if my thinking is wrong conceptually as opposed to its failure to pass some esoteric economic analysis.
gpt
You're only looking at it from an environmental standpoint. There's also an economic standpoint - most airlines already struggle to make money and have razor-thin margins on their flights, yet provide an absolutely necessary function to the economy. We don't want to make it even harder for airlines to stay in business.