Understand that the market hasn’t failed. The marketplace will in time find a peaceful solution if one exists. Saying that the market fails is the equivalent of saying the market fails because you’re sitting in a dark living room 2 days before the light bulb was invented…
But when one must take reponsibility for the consequences of ones emissions, then forrest ownership would become more attractive.
It will not be difficult to prove the case against BIG emittors. When fossile fuel isn’t burned for electricity generation, without covering reabsorbation costs, then the next easiest target would be airliners, trucking companies, big farmers. When they’ve taken care of their part, emissions will be so low that they will hardly be damaging any more.
I don’t see how property rights cannot take care of this problem. It’s premature to surrender that principle. Of course there are limits to be defined of the kind “can a kiss a rape?” But that doesn’t make antropogenic global warming special in the history of property law.
As a political position, rather than a principled standpoint, I wouldn’t much mind a policy saying that the amount of emissions per year somehow deemed non-damaging by scientists in a court hearing, is equally divided between all citizens. Then the market would take care of how they are distributed (you sell it, use it or let it expire unused to “save the planet”). The point of that would be that political interest in the issue would cease completely. There’s nothing more to regulate or negotiate. Al Gore would look for something else to do. The circus would stop, regardless of the science of it.
You can’t! That’s my entire point, property rights don’t work here. The social cost of global warming is clear, but the private costs are murky, or too small compared to the social costs. That’s the nature of a public bad.
all you are saying is that there is no just market solution, or non-market solution. so you best put up with it.
i dont believe that
if global warming is a problem because peoples contributions to co2 a****re meaningfu****l, than the market is the only system that can economically and morally defend the property rights of those who are under threat of climate change.
As a whole, their contribution to CO2 is meaningful. But at the individual level, it’s too difficult to discern. Again, if the village in Bangladesh is wiped out, how shall we assess the liability of a factory in China?
ok, im going to pause from going in circles and promoting my free market beliefs , perhaps you could state what your solution might be? so i cant at least check what you have said so far for consistency…
scientists presenting evidence under the guidance of lawyers, before judges, in a court.
See, I don’t think it’s a scientific question. Sure, in court they can show that the emissions from the factory contributed to the greenhouse gas effect. But the next step is showing how much they are liable for… and this has to be done with virtually every factory or automobile owner in the world.
In short, it’s easy to judge the aggregate effects, and therefore an aggregate solution. On the individual level though, it’s hard to see how this would work.
time and again you demonstrate that your opposition against a possible market solution is simply your lack of credulity/imagination, and not based on any particular facts, or relevant argument.
What’s the market solution here? The nature of an externality like this one is that there is no market solution.
ok, lets assume that no individual, in his capacity as a consumer can have significant effect vis climate change, and so cant influence climate change related problems faced by property owners in high risk areas.
is it possible that some definite set of so-many-factory-owners, airline companies, etc. might consitute a provably significant cause of global warming, such that those that suffer provable climate related damage could have grounds to sue?
(note: im challenging your assertion that only summing up the full 100% of emissions will constitute a significant propoerty damage effect, and not some smaller percentage, like say, 0.01%)
For what it’s worth, here’s how I’m looking to approach the discussion.
Tort law will never handle this joke on its own unless legislated.
Why don’t you guys believe in global warming? I’m not saying that all the hype is true, but I don’t see what being an anarchist, libertarian, and/or Austrian has to do with rejecting global warming? One could accept global warming and still reject many of the policies that are proposed to deal with the problem.
Except that GW is not real ?
Because it’s a lie ?
Except that it’s a religious belief promoted by the establishment because it appeals to the luddite/socialist side of human nature ?
Once you accept that deranged, biblical nonsense about the end of the world, all rational discussion ends.
Case in point
No market solution. You see. Freedom is not the solution and we’re not as clever as we think we are.
So I take it that you have read both the mainstream scientific literature and that advanced by the skeptical scientists and evaluated it all against your own understanding of how the climate system operates, right? Because otherwise it would seem foolish to act so certain about your positions…
So I take it that you just parrot what the establishment says ? I think we discussed this at length and your ‘argument’ was just an appeal to authority which in my opinion shows you don’t understand, at all, the limitations of so called ‘climatology’.
Also, it seems as if you don’t realize (or want to admit) that a main element of physics is controlled experiment. Too bad climatology is history, not physics.