Admittedly, the whole debate carbon credits and looking at electic production / carbon output as an economic commodity is hand-waving. The discussion around carbon credits and looking at carbon production as an economic commodity really comes out of the Kyoto Accords of 1997. Economists were quite divided over the rationalization of carbon credits, and the debate still cotinues... So, yes, you do have certain macro-level examples of policy that don't necessarily withdstand rigorous scrutiny.
Instead of worrying about policy so much, let's focus on matters of global warming that we can control: our own contributions. Have you, JQBlonde, substituted your incadescent lighting (as much as you can), for compact flourescent bulbs? On average, you can use 1/3 the energy of an incandescent bulb and have a life time that is 10x the duration of an incandescent bulb. ( See FAQs from
General Electric ). Would you have problems changing your bulbs if you haven't done so already?
A California state senator is proposing banning incandescent bulbs that would amount to carbon savings of the output of ~ 10 coal-genereated power plants per year. The minor inconvenience of the substition would cause a spike in light sales in the short term and would save a lot of electricity in the longterm? Is that so terrible?
What about advocating the use of more solar panel arrays so that we are possibly putting energy back on the power grid w/o pollution? Are solar panels so controversial that we can't implement them where it makes financial sense (i.e. the return on your investment in savings can compensate for the cost within a few years).
I don't think solar panels are controversial, they just don't work very well. They are quite an eyesore too. Solar heating of a household's water is purely a charitable donation. Its about $15000 to do. I did it. It will take decades to recoup my *investment*.
Let's take it up a level: cars. I believe/speculate (but cannot factually support) that Detriot can produce cars with gas efficiency at the same level as the Toyota ~ 50 mpg instead of the ~25 coming out of Detroit's big 3 automakers. Would it be unreasonable for the US government to mandate that cars manufactured after 2012 (??) have a minimum fuel efficiency of 35 or 40 mpg. One would think that Detroit would have worked towards higher fuel efficiency standars 5 to 10 years ago as they were manufacturing SUVs, but they just didn't get it. Financial greed prevailed over good engineering. Now that Detroit's sales have been hurt over sales favored with more fuel efficient foreign cars, Detroit is finally getting the picture. If Detroit had viewed both good engineering with fuel efficiency and profits as being aligned instead of in opposition, American cars would be far more in demand than they are currently. Good environmental decisions and profit can be in alignment...
The US should try to duplicate or better Europe in Fuel efficiency. The US manufacturers do *get it*, auto engineering has never been better. Foreign and domestic cars are amazing in their performance. However, given a choice between a gas guzzling SUV and an inexpensive fuel efficient sedan, the SUV will outsell the sedan by thousands. For reasons related to the environment and personal issues, I have been on a crusade to rid the world of SUVs. Interestingly enough, its a feminist issue, to a large degree. There have been some psychological studies of why people buy SUVs, they make no sense in any practical way and you do not see them in Europe, and its quite interesting as to why people buy them. SUVs are bought to a great extent by mothers with children replacing the station wagon and mini van as transportation. Detroit KNOWS SUVs make no sense, auto engineers have commissioned research studies as to why anyone would buy one and the answer is fashion. I am sure many would like to dispute the next point but the facts are clear: Todays mom does not want to lose her *hotness* factor by driving a practical station wagon or mini van. SUVs are unsafe, they are far more expensive to drive and maintain, and they don't transport stuff mearly as well as a minivan or station wagon. They just look cool. Thats it. I have 500 or more downloaded pages on SUVs and the curse they represent. I used to do a count every morning at my gym and in the parking lot you would see about a 25:1 ratio of SUVs to mini vans and the only station wagons were Subarus, which i drive. Most in the gyn at 9 am were the *hot moms*. Detroit gets it, the consumer does not.
Read rollover studies on SUVs and you would never drive one. ANY of them. There is not one safe SUV on the market, relative to any other vehicle.
BTW gasoline is dirt cheap in America. Its the greatest bargain ever. Bottled WATER is costlier than refined, shipped, drilled pipelined gasoline. Crazy.
So, here are a few examples, JQBlonde, to get you started about what you personally and we collectively can do to mitigate globabl warming. We can bring our actions, corporate profit, and individual action in alignment with science. .... Just to get you started....