Vernon Smith on Free Market Environmentalism

Talking with a guy I work with we've been discussing how a carbon market might work. Particularly, how new carbon credits would enter the market besides through government fiat. One idea we came up with was giving carbon credit value to trees. Basically, one tree would earn so many credits per year (which, presumably, could be derived scientifically). Thus, if you planted more trees you would earn more carbon credits which you could sell on the carbon market.

Carbon producers would have to buy the credits to pay for the carbon they produced.

Consumers, when purchasing gasoline would also have to purchase sufficient carbon credits to pay for burning the gas.

This demand for carbon credits would attract suppliers who would plant trees to generate carbon credits to meet demand. Heck, operators of coal-fired power plants might buy (and protect) an entire forest to pay for their own carbon.

Of course, we can probably come up with other things besides just trees that would generate carbon credits. In fact, Al Gore's $25 million reward for the first practical atmosphere scrubber would probably be made moot.

Don,

Last night the UK's Channel 4 broadcast a documentary by Martin Durkan entitled 'The Great Global Warming Swindle'.

It provided a fascinating insight into how an unlikely (and unholy) alliance of hard left ideologically dispossessed by Soviet Communism's collapse and hard right intent on smashing union power created what it is, to all intents and purposes, the myth of man-made climate change resulting from CO2 emissions.

It featured credentialled scientists such as the professors of meteorology and oceanography at MIT; the professor of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia; the professor of climatology at the University of Winnipeg; the professor of Earth sciences at the University of Ottawa; the professor of biogeography at the University of London; a professor at the Pasteur Institute; a professor of atmospheric science at the University of Alabama; a weather satellite team leader at NASA; an astrophysicist at the University of Jerusalem; a co-founder of Greenpeace; a British meteorologist who has consistently beat official weather forecasters by studying sunspot activity; and a professor at the Danish Space Centre who has verified his research on the connection between solar activity and climate change over a period of 400 years.

The raw data that was produced was compelling – climate change appears to be a consequence of solar, not human, activity.

It also trashed Al Gore's contention that increased CO2 causes climate change. The data provided indicated that increased CO2 is a consequence of, not a cause of, climate change.

I would recommend that you and other 'Cafe Hayek' readers try to get their hands on a copy of the documentary, or write to PBS asking them to broadcast it.

Thanks for linking to this interesting article. I believe, apart from these "new markets" created by additional "rules" such as the carbon market, one should not forget that quite often it would be sufficient for governments to stop providing flawed incentives in the first place: For example, I suspect that a full privatization of roads and the abolition of all subsidies for energy would go a long way in reducing the pollution caused by car traffic. I'd be delighted to hear in how far there are scientific studies which would support this idea.

"Do not forget that the 2004 Tsunami earthquake tilted the earth 1/2 of 1 degree on its axis. …Hence the melting of only ONE side of the Arctic."

Provide a credible reference to that bit of science and I'll eat my hat. Please, for the sake of the credibility of the resistance to environmentalism, don't post this stuff. It is embarrassing.

Here's a critique of the channel 4 programme:

http://www.jri.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=137&Itemid=83

We don't need a phony carbon market; we need more industrial CO2 production. Why? Because, along with debunking the supposed scientific "consensus" regarding global warming, many thousands of reputable scientists are not only agreeing that whatever warming is taking place is a prefectly natural phenomenon; they are also agreeing that human-caused increases in atmospheric CO2 are beneficial.

An excerpt from this piece — http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig8/robinson1.html

The Earth is warmed by the radioactivity in its elements and by the sun. The sun's warmth is amplified by greenhouse gases within the atmosphere, principally water vapor, that capture solar energy that would otherwise be radiated into space. This greenhouse effect is robust and stable. There is not a shred of scientific experimental evidence that this stability has been affected by increased atmospheric carbon dioxide or that it will be so affected in the future.

Atmospheric carbon dioxide is markedly changing our environment. Since carbon dioxide is the key atmospheric fertilizer for plants, its increase is markedly increasing the extent and diversity of the Earth's plant life. Since animals use plants for food, there is also a concomitant increase in the number and diversity of animals.

Human activity is moving carbon above ground and into the atmosphere, where it is being turned into more plants and animals. This ongoing enrichment of the biosphere is a wonderful and unexpected gift from the Industrial Revolution.