Tuesday, October 25, 2011

The Big Short


In the absence of any comprehensive federal action on limiting our carbon emissions, individual states have started to act.  One of the most significant is California's cap and trade program that was just adopted.  Read about it in this LA Times story.  Cap and trade programs are a great example of attempts to "internalize" the economic benefits of ecosystem services (and the costs of degrading those ecosystem services).  We did not discuss this in class, but there is actually a good deal of debate about what the best ways of internalizing those costs and benefits are.  For instance, there has been a vigorous policy debate about whether cap and trade systems or simple taxes on carbon emissions would produce the best results.  Check out this debate on the subject.   Other folks have questioned the value of the whole market approach altogether.  See this opinion piece by Larry Lohmann published originally in the New Scientist and this Film by Annie Leonard called the Story of Cap and trade

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