Spot on. (And, if I may add, it's exactly congruent with my thoughts in my last comment in the 'You're Totally Wrong' thread.)

Doesn't it seem more likely that, instead of being a stalking horse for statists, that the debate about global climate change is really a debate about the tragedy of the commons?

Isn't this not a debate about what you take in but what you put out? Is that not because generally costs are well internalized to inputs -- you pay right at the pump for gasoline in direct proportion to what you take -- but not to outputs -- there's no meter on your tailpipe assessing you for waste disposal costs.

I don't see how that wouldn't be a fundamentally appealing proposition, namely adequately internalizing disposal costs, for any free-market advocate. Even the libertarians.

Greg, allow me to introduce you to the Pigou Club.

Besides, pushing for the internalization of costs limits the scope of possible solutions to climate change. Libertarians and other Cornucopians remain open to whatever innovations human ingenuity might come up with. See, for example, my post on climate engineering.

Great post, and my apologies for missing your related posts when I constructed a "Related ITA entries" in my prior post.

Well then, we're agreed. Algore's carbon tax coupled with his proposition to use carbon taxes to offset other taxes, shifting but not increasing the total burden of taxation. This must be an ITA first. What's next, will dogs lie down with cats?

Returning to seriousness, I personally look forward to what I think will be immense economic benefit to highly-increased waste (including, but not limited to, carbon) disposal costs. There's a lot of historic evidence that shows a marked uptick in return every time we get a little more serious about assessing the polluters for the consequence of their pollution.

Some people see addressing the sources of global warming as lost and sunk opportunity costs. I think they are much more likely to be viewed, in hindsight, as one of the best investments ever made.

So that's what this was all about -- accept the evidence, accept the activists policy prescriptions! Zach's hypothesis has a ring of truth to it, and would appear to explain why those policy prescriptions may appear skewed to the gov't regulation side (the free marketeers weren't in the prescriptions debate!).

I'll be interested to hear reactions to Gore's proposals. It would seem that a fair amount of gov't intervention may be needed at the very beginning of our effort to confront global warming, at least to cap emissions, to regulate carbon emittors, and (as was the case with the internet) to craft the kind of initiatives that will encourage the private development of new energy technology.

Put your money where your mouth is. Invest in "Green Companies" stock. Just don't plan to hold it long term if you don't want to take a bath on it.

In my experience, there isn't linakge between "green stock" portfolios and global warming. "Green" companies are companies that use "green" technologies, such as alternative energy, energy conservation, pollution control, etc.

But the structure of our markets doesn't reward such use, at least not significantly, due to the fact that energy consumption is subsidized and waste disposal is unmetered (the two are, of course, related).

In summary, you don't invest in "green" portfolios because they offer higher financial returns than dirty portfolios (they don't, they can't, see above).

You invest in them because it's the right thing to do.

I meant the companies who will be springing up to save us from our overproduction of CO2. By the way, anyone want to hazzard a guess at how much of the problem is caused by fewer trees worldwide?

I'll hazard a guess that the problem is caused by too many humans, worldwide. Because that's what the overwhelming scientific consensus is, and absent a compelling anti-scientific alternative, it's what I have.

It sounds like you reject the premise outright (that the planet is warming, or that the warming is caused by an excess of human-generated greenhouse gases). Is that accurate?

A lot of anthropogenic warming believers are unwilling to accept one specific policy prescription that would reduce human CO2 output: shift toward nuclear energy. Waste is a problem, but part of it can be recycled; research should go into reducing the hazards of the remainder in one way or another.

There are always going to be opponents to nuclear energy but we shouldn't let that fact distract us from the issue of global warming.

Nor the fact that the largest opponent to nuclear energy, so far, has been the market. Due to the fact that costs are not sufficiently internalized, particularly the costs of waste disposal (by which I mean the stuff that goes out a smokestack) , a coal-burning plant yields a higher return on capital than does a nuke plant.

That may change if, as a result of addressing the issue of human-caused global warming, we internalize the waste costs of fossil-fuel burning electrical plants. That may bring the costs of nuclear power into play vs. the costs of fossil-fuel burning plants.

But we're talking about a scenario that, if it were to come to pass, would still be decades in the future. Not only would market resistance have to be overcome, but also would public opposition (as Alan points out), and, perhaps most significant, would be solving the problem of where we would get new nuclear plants.

The United States no longer possesses the domestic manufacturing capability to make the necessary parts of a nuclear generating plant. There are no domestic facilities capable of creating the forgings and castings needed for pressure vessels, circulating pumps, or any of the complicated, sophisticated, and often very large assemblies found in a nuclear generating plant.

Which means that we will have to purchase those components from countries which do have such manufacturing capability, almost certainly in Asia and more than likely China.

Which also means we will have to adopt new rules and procedures for verifying the quality of those components, which means reinstating another vanished profession in this country, namely the inspection and certification of nuclear powerplant components. That will require the re-creation of technical and university engineering curriculums, the re-creation of government certification bureaus, etc.

By the time it's all done and ready at the point that we can start actually pouring concrete, all of us here In The Agora will be dead and buried.

Gregory
It sounds like you reject the premise outright (that the planet is warming, or that the warming is caused by an excess of human-generated greenhouse gases). Is that accurate?
We are in a warming cycle after a cooling cycle that ended fairly recently. Human generated greenhouse gasses have some effect. Beyond that everyone is just guessing. I suspect that human generated greenhouse gasses as the primary cause and lessening them as the cure are both dubious.

Sixty-plus years to develop practical nuclear energy?

Pebble-bed reactors may be competitive sooner:

"Liu Wei, vice-president of Beijing Institute of Nuclear Engineering, yesterday said that now is not the right time to use the pebble-bed technology commercially in building reactors, because the cost is still much higher than other technologies and it can be only used in small reactors...However, as the research evolves, the new technology could be competitive in 2020 or 2030, said Liu."

Without fossil fuels, nuclear is the only known practical alternative (where hydroelectric isn't possible), unless someone makes massive breakthroughs in geothermal.