John Williams wrote: > "[EMAIL PROTECTED]" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > >> It is clear that climate change is not something >> the market can handle in any effective manner. Only government action has >> any >> possibility of tackling this problem. >> > > I do not have blind faith in government to solve difficult problems. The only > way > that I have seen that consistently solves difficult problems is trial and > error. But > government does not do trial and error efficiently. Typically, there are very > few > ideas, sometimes only one, and the failures are not abandoned, but > instead suck down resources indefinitely. Far better to let prices and market > forces evolve efficient solutions. If "climate change" is a high-priority > problem > that is not adequately touched by market forces, then perhaps there is a > small role > that government can play, but never in specific policy. The government role > should be limited to addressing market failures, such as when carbon-emitters > do not pay for costs to the environment that everyone experiences. For > example, > a carbon-tax. > If the problem were not urgent, if we had the luxury of reducing CO2 emissions by 30% over the next hundred years, I would probably agree with you. Tweaking market incentives would probably be a very good way to address that sort of problem. But when you are confronted with an urgent life-or-death problem, the primary problem is not one of efficiency. For example, when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor, we did not worry about the most efficient, market-based way of letting the private sector respond.
Regards, -- Kevin B. O'Brien TANSTAAFL [EMAIL PROTECTED] Linux User #333216 "The average Ph.D. thesis is nothing but a transference of bones from one graveyard to another." -- J. Frank Dobie _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
