WHY GLOBAL WARMING IS DIFFERENT AND HARDER THAN

PREVIOUS ENVIRONMENTAL PROBLEMS

http://maxwelgordon.hyves.nl/blog/58149955/Why_Globa

l_Warming_Is_Different_and_Harder_Than_Previous_Envi

ronmental_Problems/Dbom/?pageid=638A0JYZ1XC0WOS

W8#

There’s a consensus among leading scientists that global warming

is caused by human activity. What–if anything–should we do about

it?

 

JEFFREY BALL: Global warming is fundamentally harder than

past environmental problems. Unlike smog or litter or dirty rivers,

it’s global, long term and largely invisible. The upshot: Solving

global warming is the top priority of essentially no one (save a

relative handful of scientists and environmental activists).

That suggests two basic principles for fighting global warming. First, the steps

that will be most politically feasible are those that happen to curb greenhouse-

gas emissions in the process of doing something that more people care more

about: cleaning the air, or producing jobs or making money. Second, in

contrast to the approach taken thus far, the steps that make the most sense

are the ones that are most economically efficient.

A third basic principle is equally important: Technological breakthroughs are

hard to predict. So it’s unwise to ground any strategy to curb global warming

on the expectation that a particular technology will get big enough and cheap

enough to be a main fix.

Those three basic principles are pretty general. They point to two more-

specific approaches:

 

Focus on the biggest sources of greenhouse-gas emissions. That includes

a handful of gases produced in industrial processes that, pound for

pound, pack a far heavier global-warming punch than does carbon

dioxide. As for carbon dioxide, it means focusing on China, the world’s

biggest emitter and a place that has an incentive to clean up its energy

system that most people see as far more compelling than global

warming: dirty air.

And when governments around the world spend

money to promote cleaner energy, it’s worth

structuring those subsidies to reward not specific

predetermined technologies, but whichever

technologies over time end up able to produce the

most environmental gain at the lowest cost.

Read more:

http://www.goodreads.com/group/show/81324-cr

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