Proposed Solutions to Climate Change

Thus far, the international community has come up with one solution to global climate change. That solution is like a salary cap in professional sports. However, unlike in professional sports, those teams who will exceed the salary cap (say the New York Yankees), can buy extra salary cap from those teams who will not exceed the salary cap (say the Florida Marlins). This system works great for both teams; the Yankees can spend to their heart's content and just pay a little extra whereas the Marlins can scrounge on payroll and receive payments from teams who are looking to spend.

In practice, however, this does not help. The Marlins will continue to field non-competitive teams and the only thing that will happen is that the Yankees will subsidize their owners who are now monetarily incentivized not to compete.

As in baseball, agreements like the Kyoto protocol or carbon trading will not hinder the developed world's consumption of carbon (yes it will get more expensive), but it will not likely reduce their consumption much, and the developing economies will recieve payments to not consume carbon. In other words, the leaders of countries will receive money to not develop their nations and stay poor. Of course, the leaders of those countries will not stay poor. Developed Europe will be paying them to keep their countries poor. That makes sense?

As is widely reported (and plainly evident why from above), schemes like carbon trading are not likely to make much difference at all in global climate (at most 1/2 degree centigrade in 50 years).

This is why if you believe that we must cut carbon consumption, more drastic measures must be taken. A carbon tax is probably the most sensible and congruent with American values of freedom (as opposed to European values of equality). In reality, if we are looking to dramatically cut carbon emissions, enough to make a significant change in global climate 50 years hence, some very draconian measures must be taken.

The Washington Post details some of these changes this morning (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/14/AR2007071401246_2.html). They include:

• Automobiles will need to double their miles per gallon (this will likely preclude the production of trucks, including SUV's, for personal use)
• Homes will likely need to produced at much smaller sizes (perhaps less than 2000 square feet)
• Electricity bills will probably need to be taxed significantly to pay for retooling America's power plant. This would probably need to be progressive, i.e. if you consume more than 1500 kWh per month, your cost per kWh will rise dramatically
• Land will likely need to be re-forrested, capping development and driving up the price of real-estate

I appreciate people's desire to reduce their carbon emissions. I am doing so myself (although I have my own sinister reasons), but I find that people are unwilling to do anything about it themselves. Further, they don't comprehend the kind of changes they will necessarily be subject to. Imagine this scenario:

It is the Summer and 100 degrees outside. You are running your air conditioning, which consumes energy. Because you have consumed more than the uncapped amount, the cost of your energy triples for every kWh over the stated maximum. So whereas a kWh costs $0.08 up to 1500, during the hot spell, your energy consumption is 2500 kWh, and your bill goes from $200 to $360 with taxes included. This is enough to take your breath away. Imagine that argument in Congress, especially regarding poor people.

Or imagine this, your property taxes on a 2,000 square foot home are $3,000 per year (or $1.50 per square foot). Your neighbor has a 3,000 square foot home. Taxes above 2,000 square feet are $4.50 per square foot, so his property tax bill is $7,500.

These are the kinds of measure that would be required for actually putting a dent in US carbon emissions. So when the President says this will put a dent in our economy, he is not kidding. Think about this next time you are pushing for the government to enact some kinds of legislation to curb carbon emissions. Frankly, I am all for it, but the fiscal consequences could be significant and would almost certainly impact our economy.