BTW, you should add a “Share This” button to your posts/pages — it would make it easier to Tweet them, post them to Facebook etc. (I’m going to tweet this post, BTW).

–christof

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/03/19/despite-popular-opinion-and-calls-to-action-the-maldives-is-not-being-overrun-by-sea-level-rise/

In the comments Andy Revkin said it was an issue that he would revisit but I don’t know if he did.

Tariffs are not an answer because a lot of rich world industry depends on importing components/raw materials from elsewhere. A fairly assessed tariff on their inputs would be yet another incentive to move to a juristiction with no such tariffs.

I think peak/expensive oil will ultimately bring the necessary shift to rewenables where government regulation fails because everybody pays the same price for oil. People praying for a ‘pearl harbor’ to galvanize public opinion should be asking for peak oil.

Lastly, energy is like food. It is prerequisite for all other types of economic activity. If energy or food costs go up and consume a larger percentage of GDP then the standard of living/prosperity will go down. This is unavoidable law of economics as far as I am concerned. Better efficiency can only offset higher energy prices if it can reduce energy bills back to what they were before the price increase. For that reason the only path to “prosperity and jobs” with renewable energy is a path that finds renewables that can compete in *free* market with the *global* cost of fossil fuel energy. That is technically impossible with current fossil fuel prices and renewable technology.

We already know that a carbon tax would be honest and straightforward, and it would not be subject to the kind of gaming of the system that we might well see with cap-and-trade. Of course it’s supposed to be politically impossible. And if we keep listening exclusively to inside-the-Beltway political reporters, that’s all we’ll ever hear. But what if reporters with a different perspective were to get to work on the issue? What if they spoke with experts as well as ordinary citizens outside of Washington?

How might a carbon tax that was instituted gradually and sold as a spur to innovation be received? How would Americans respond to a policy that could theoretically help our country lead the ET revolution that we know is coming whether we decide to participate or not?

If it were framed this way and structured correctly ( the revenues used for R&D and for rebates to incentivize efficiency), why would it automatically be political suicide? Aside from coal companies, who is really fond of coal — and the air pollution, water pollution, arsenic and mercury contamination, mountaintop removal, etc. that it brings? Who is not in favor of efficiency, innovation, and creating a whole new economic sector that can lead the way toward job growth and prosperity?

But I know, I’m naive and therefore fail to realize that arguing for such a thing is political suicide.

Let’s face it, we’ve outsourced pollution for decades. We’ve over-regulated ourselves into an uncompetitive oblivion, while not reducing the actual pollutant footprint per dollar of goods bought and sold in the US. What we’ve also done is outsource our sovereignty, where now China sets the ecologic policy for *us*.

The only optimistic possibility is that China will eventually face their own issues that the US faced at the end of the ’70′s (dead great lakes, rivers on fire, etc.) and will be forced to reassess it’s choices.

The only question is, will we even be relevant? We won’t if we continue to hobble ourselves.