I'm impressed that the general sentiment towards global climate change has come along this quickly. When you think about it, it wasn't long ago when a thread like this would be overrun by skepticism and accusations of tree-hugging, liberal propaganda. Although I wish steps were being taken a lot more quickly towards promoting a green movement, it's good to see a fairly enlightened sense of agreement that we have a dire problem here. We've identified the 'what,' now it's time for the 'how.'
The two prominent programs concerning greenhouse gas emissions are a carbon tax and a cap+trade system. Both have advantages and disadvantages and both represent very difficult political dilemmas. First, a carbon tax allows the government to increase its revenue and penalize the biggest polluters. However, there are certain ethical issues in the sense that corporations would still be able to simple pay their way to continue polluting. Not to mention taxes almost always increase inefficiencies within markets. On the other hand, a cap+and trade system would allow the government to know how much greenhouse gases are reduced, as they begin to scale back the number of permits issued each year. However, the price at which these reductions come is the new unknown variable, as the trading system would be done in a free market setting among corporations. In both cases, some serious technology would have to be employed at the ground level to monitor emissions by individual corporations.
Either way, global climate change is just that, global. This means that solutions must be addressed with international support and cooperation. As we all know, that can be very very difficult politically, even for small international gatherings such as the G8 summits. I don't know if the world is ready to cooperate, so the US and other superpowers MUST take the lead and set an example. Sure, the positive impacts may be decades down the road, but I firmly believe in intergenerational equity and the chance for my future grandkids to experience some blower glade runs.
