Wednesday, October 03, 2007

Everything you know about carbon markets and taxes is wrong.

Here's a thesis that's getting some attention:  the growing focus on de-carbon-izing the atmosphere is distracting the world from its only hope of averting climate change disaster.  That hope, according to Alan Carlin, a Senior Economist at USEPA, is solar radiation management, or SRM.  Essentially a form of global climate engineering, SRM involves the introduction of particulate matter into the stratosphere to block incoming radiation and, thereby, turn down the planet's thermostat.  As proof of the approach's efficacy, Mr. Carlin cites evidence that volcanic eruptions have caused measureable, sustained reductions in average world temperature.

Mr. Carlin's article, which appeared in the September/October 2007 issue of The Enviromental Forum (a publication of the Environmental Law Institute), can be found here:  http://carlineconomics.googlepages.com/CarlinEnvForum.pdf.

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