Someone else explained how a carbon tax is different than carbon offsets, but I'll go a step further and say we should be using a cap & trade system. It would go something like this (at least in my egalitarian version):
- Require "carbon credits" to be spent to legally generate carbon and other greenhouse gasses (GHGs).
- Have a GHG treaty where signatories collectively decide on a GHG budget, i.e. an acceptable total level of GHG emissions.
- Issue an equal amount of credits to each individual such that the total amount issued equals the total GHG budget.
- Let people buy and sell carbon credits in a market system.
Gotta nitpick you there. According the Moore's law (really more of a rule of thumb), the price of the silicon used to serve those videos should be 1/16 of what it is today. I'm not aware of any corresponding law that describes trends in energy consumption. It's getting better for sure, but I'd be shocked if there was a 20x improvement in 6 years.