I only just realized today that there is a special moderated thread where all discussion relating to the Greenhouse emission problem is supposed to go!
I tend to think of this as a POLITICAL AND ECONOMIC problem to be addressed by policies (or recklessly not addressed) at the level of national governments or international treaty.
So I posted in one of the two Politics forums. I see I am coming to this very late. This thread has a lot of comment by people more conversant than myself about the current situation.
Anyway I'll toss in my two cents-worth
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There is a recent study by Hansen et al which in its conclusions at the end recommends a new book by Shi-Ling Hsu detailing the arguments for a carbon tax.
==quote
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1110.1365 page 22, conclusions at the end==
Analysis of the economics and assessment of arguments for or against a rising carbon tax are provided in
The Case for a Carbon Tax (Hsu, 2011). An across-the-board price on all fossil fuel CO2 emissions emerges as the simplest, easiest, fastest and most effective way to phase down carbon emissions, and this approach presents fewer obstacles to international agreement.
The chief obstacles to a carbon price are often said to be the political difficulty, given the enormous resources that interest groups opposing it can bring to bear, and the difficulty of getting the public to understand arcane economic issues. On the other hand, a simple, transparent, gradually rising fee on carbon emissions collected from fossil fuel companies with the
proceeds distributed to the public is described succinctly by DiPeso (2010), Policy Director of Republicans for Environmental Protection.
==endquote==
I think the present situation qualifies as an emergency (national and worldwide) and that it makes sense to proceed in a timely manner and put a carbon tax in place without waiting for decision on a comprehensive energy policy.
In fact I do not think Government is able to rationally formulate and effectively carry out a detailed energy policy. There are many forces at play, many commercial interests which would immediately lobby for control of whatever regulations/subsidies are considered. Because of steep inequalities of wealth and power the system of democratic capitalism has somewhat broken down, so I think the best one can hope for is to put in place a clear rising disincentive tax on carbon and then see what evolves from market forces and competing interests.
The important thing is to realize that we are in an emergency and cannot wait to elaborate a complete energy policy that is acceptable to all the competing interests. It is urgent to come to grips and take action.
To illustrate the urgency I'll quote a sample bit from Hansen et al
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1110.1365
==excerpt from page 20==
...
...
Infectious disease spread.
The spread of infectious diseases is influenced by climate change in two ways: warming expands the geographic and temporal conditions conducive to transmission of vector-borne diseases (VBDs), while floods can leave “clusters” of mosquito-, water – and rodent-borne diseases (and spread toxins). With the ocean the repository for global warming and the atmosphere holding more water vapor, rain is increasing in intensity -- 7% overall in the U.S. since 1970, 2”/day rains 14%, 4”/day rains 20%, and 6”/day rains 27% since 1970 (Groisman et al., 2005), with multiple implications for health, crops and nutrition.
Tick-borne Lyme disease (LD) is the most important VBD in the U.S. LD case reports rose 8-fold in New Hampshire in the past decade and 10-fold in Maine (affecting all of its 16 counties). Warmer winters and disproportionate warming toward the poles mean that the changes in range are occurring faster than models based on changes in average temperatures project. Biological responses of vectors (and plants) to warming have generally been underestimated, and may be leading indicators of warming due to the disproportionate increase of winter minimum and high latitude temperatures.
Pests and disease spread across taxa: forests, crops and marine life.
Pests and diseases of forests, crops and marine life are favored in a warming world. Bark beetles are overwintering (absent sustained killing frosts) and expanding their range, and getting in more generations, while droughts in the West dry the resin that drowns the beetles as they try to drive through the bark. (Warming emboldens the pests while extremes weaken the hosts.) Forest health is also threatened in the Northeast U.S. (Asian Long-horned beetle and wooly adelgid of hemlock trees), setting the stage for increased wildfires with injury, death and air pollution, loss of carbon stores, and damage to oxygen and water supplies. In sum, forest pests threaten basic life support systems that underlie human health.
Crop pests and diseases are also encouraged by warming and extremes. Warming increases their potential range, while floods foster fungal growth and droughts favor whiteflies, aphid and locust. Higher CO2 also stimulates growth of agricultural weeds. More pesticides, herbicides and fungicides (where available) pose other threats to human health. Crop pests take up to 40% of yield annually, totaling ~$300 billion in losses (Pimentel)
Marine diseases (e.g., coral, sea urchin die-offs, and others), harmful algal blooms (from excess nutrients, loss of filtering wetlands, warmer seas and extreme weather events that trigger HABs by flushing nutrients into estuaries and coastal waters), plus the over 350 “dead zones” globally affect fisheries, thus nutrition and health.
Winter weather anomalies.
Increasing winter weather anomalies is a trend to be monitored. More winter precipitation is falling as rain rather than snow in the Northern Hemisphere, increasing the chances for ice storms, while greater atmospheric moisture increases the chances of heavy snowfalls. Both affect ambulatory health (orthopedics), motor vehicle accidents, cardiac disease and power outages with accompanying health effects.
Drought.
Droughts are increasing in frequency, intensity, duration, and geographic extent. Drought and water stress are major killers in developing nations, bringing disease outbreaks including water-borne cholera and mosquito-borne dengue fever (mosquitoes breed in stored water containers). Drought and higher CO2 increase the cyanide content of cassava, a staple food in Africa, leading to neurological disabilities and death.
Food insecurity.
Food insecurity is a major problem worldwide. Demand for meat, fuel prices, displacement of food crops with those grown for biofuels all contribute. But extreme weather events today are the acute driver. Russia’s extensive 2010 summer heat-wave (over six standard deviations from the norm, killing over 50,000) reduced wheat production ~40%; Pakistan and Australian floods in 2010 also affected wheat and other grains; and drought in China and the U.S. Southwest are boosting grain prices and causing shortages in many nations. Food riots are occurring in Uganda and Burkino Faso, and the food and fuel hikes may be contributing to the uprisings in North Africa and the Middle East. Food shortages and price hikes contribute to malnutrition that underlies much of poor health and vulnerability to infectious diseases. Food insecurity also leads to political instability, conflict and war.
==endquote==
Since I think the Hansen et al paper does a good job in giving an up to date overview, and since they recommend the carbon tax book by Shi-Ling Hsu, I will get a link to the SLH book and post it here. The amazon link allows one to read the TOC and most of the first 50 pages, so one can get a free online look and readily see what it is about.
