Tragedy of the Commons: The Sequel
Friday, May 2nd, 2008 By Mike MaurerOkay, now I’m afraid.
While Marc Dann was copping a feel, er, plea, the real news was a few blocks north at the Arena Grand movie theater, where about 400 people in pretty expensive suits were discussing Managing a Changing Climate: Challenges and Opportunities for the Buckeye State.
The entire political, industrial, legal and accounting world is planning on moving forward with laws that could readily rewrite the world, including plans for a Carbon Market Efficiency Board.
If we’re lucky, the board would act like the Federal Reserve and would do relatively few things; basically, establish a gross amount of carbon pollution, if pollution it be, and thereby enable trading in the right to emit the stuff. Of course, the sense of that depends upon whether it is sensible to consider carbon a pollutant. Apparently the real tragedy of the commons is that everything is capturable now.
But we won’t be so lucky as to have such a board merely establishing property rights. Instead we’re going to get politicians playing Lilliput, tying us down until we can’t emit.
And meanwhile, they’ll be jetting around the world collecting awards for it.
