OECD: start focusing on the environment!

The intellectual property issue is going to be a very big one...how do you tell someone they have a brilliant idea, but it is going to be given away to companies/corproations and governments for free to save the planet.

I have a friend of mine right now that is in the process of getting patents on some revolutionary creations in the solar arena...he has invested everything he has, risked his home on his ideas...would hate to see someone like him end up not being justly rewarded for his efforts, his ideas and his risk.

Good point Sherwood, there should be incentives for people to invest in and work on new inventions. What should be avoided, though, is that large companies start buying up patents with the very purpose of preventing the respective technology to come onto the market.

One often-quoted example is that of oil companies buying up patents relating to car batteries, in an effort to stop the development of electric cars. Read more about this example at this Wikipedia page which quotes the book Plug-in Hybrids: The Cars That Will Recharge America by Sherry Boschert.

I just discussed the patent issue in a comment under my article on light, where I add that, in my view, we need legislation (perhaps as part of anti-trust and cartel legislation) to avoid such practices. Government needs to facilitate rapid development of such technologies, for the sake of reducing emissions, rather than to protect those who seek to hold back such developments.

It may be cost effective for whole economies and for the world but that doesn't mean that individuals and companies can't make money by polution. Until that changes there will be no serious attempts to resolve the problem. The nature of our money will result in polution until it kills us. If we don't change the nature of our money there is no hope to stop polution in time.

Please read the POM Education group articles (http://pomeducation.gather.com/) in order to understand how and why money does these things to us. Then read "Invisible Hand". my novel published here on Gather, to see how money should be modified to prevent these problems and correct what's wrong. It isn't bad people, it's a bad money. Change the money and the people will act better.

"Invisible Hand" is also freely available at:

http://www.unc.edu/~mason/hand.html

with no ads.

Sam, if I can dig it up, will repost an article here that I had published in Electrifying Times earlier this year on technology suppression as relates to the EV industry...very informative piece, and sheds a bit of light on how both MIT and the DOE are sitting on technology right now that would allow us to have a 350 mile per charge car battery that would unharness the electric car.

The problem that I see with oganizational responses to climate change is that the "uh oh emergency" part of the brain fails to catch up with the "business as usual" part of the brain. For example: we are in danger of failing to meet our electricity needs so let's build a new coal fired power plant NOW, and deal with climate change LATER. Problem with that is that climate change is not going to go away, and if you want to deal with it you are going to have to shut down that brand new power plant you just built along with the 40 year old power plants. It would actually be cheaper to throw some money at renewable energy now, and NOT build the coal plant, than it would be to build the coal plant now, shut it down later, and then build solar plants.

I am not sufficiently knowledgeable about the OECD to accuse them of counterproductive activity. The World Bank, back in the day, all you had to do was say the word "development", and they would build a road into the middle of a rain forest that would be raped and burned within a couple years.

I guess what I am saying here is that I am grateful for a bit of logical analysis stating that dealing with climate change is more cost effective than pretending that it is not there. But when we undertake specific economic efforts, we have to make sure that hard-won realization does not fly out the window.

When did "carbon dioxide" become a pollutant? Better yet, is there proof that carbon dioxide is a green house gas? Last I heard it was just a theory.

Good point, Jeff. I suppose that the carbon in CO2 is the problem but in the automotive field we were taught that CO2 was the desired thing to come out of tailpipes as it was harmless.

Jeff- I am willing to discuss the financial challenges of dealing with climate change. i am no longer willing to discuss the notion that the international scientific community is incapable of understanding the relationship between the observed rising planetary temperature averages and the billions of tons of CO2 generated by human burning of fossil fuels. Climate change is being driven by fossil fuel combustion. It's not a theory, it's a fact.

James, yes we used to be taught that it was only the NO2 and the CO from gasoline combustion that could hurt you. But then we got the science of climatology, and we learned the error of our previous thinking. Just as we used to think that malaria was caused by evil vapors, that slavery was actually better for African Americans than freedom, and that the Sun revolved around the Earth, we once throught that CO2 was harmless. You can breath it without discomfort, yes. But put enough of it into the sky, say, doubling the original amount, and you have a serious problem.

I was perusing Gather's homepage today and noticed that this article is featured under 'Money' - great job!

Chris,

Thanks. I do understand that things are learned. However, are all the forests and crops and lawns out there still sucking in CO2 and converting it to O2? That is also what I learned in school. What is the percentage of CO2 in the atmosphere? And at what level does it cause human suffering? Does anyone know? Or is it just that they think that CO2 adds to the carbon component in the atmosphere? I believe these to be reasonable questions as I don't have the answers.

Thanks Faith! Great to be featured! James and Jeff, I agree with Chris that there's no need for us to try and repeat the scientific work by the IPCC here. Nor do we need to repeat here all the legal arguments about carbon dioxide being a pollutant. The fact that carbon dioxide is indeed a pollutant was legally confirmed by the US Supreme Court ruling back in April 2nd, 2007.

This OECD report looks into the economic aspects of global warming. Of course, you cannot put a price on catastrophic destruction of the environment. It's academic to calculate the cost of averting catastrophic climate collapse like desertification at planetary scale, loss of species that are vital to humanity's survival or a runaway greenhouse effect. It's imperative that we do avoid catastrophic destruction of the environment. It is within this context that we must read the conclusions of the report that we can reduce key air pollutants by about a third at almost insignificant costs if we act soon. Importantly, the longer we wait, the more expensive such action will become.

The report follows earlier studies such as the Stern Review, October 30, 2006. Stern estimated the global cost at an annual $450 billion, or 1% of a Gross World Product (GWP) of about $45 trillion. Note that these cost estimates were calculated on the basis that we started with immediate implementation of proposed measures and would continue to reduce emissions until greenhouse gas concentrations would be at a level that was deemed to be acceptable (550 ppm CO2 equivalent). Costs estimates included decarbonizing 60% the power sector, and the important conclusion was that cost would amount to a lot more the longer action was delayed.

There have been further studies, some actually pointing at a gain in average GDP as a result of action to combat global warming, e.g. see the studies mentioned by the World Resources Institute and this IPCC presentation.

In conclusion, we have no choice but to act against global warming and we must take action sooner rather than later. We now need to decide what measures can reduce emissions most effectively and as soon as possible. In my view, that is a FeeBate policy.

We need a reallocation of government resources, rather than extra expenditure. Right now, the cost of securing oil is horrific (Iraq!). Had we incorporated just a part of that cost in the price of oil, we would have had electric cars on the road everywhere years ago. Had coal-fired power plants been asked to incorporate the price of the harm they caused, renewables would have powered society years ago. Similarly, government spends huge amounts of money to subsidize biofuel, livestock and feed for livestock, while all this causes huge amounts of emissions, uses up massive amounts of water and other precious resources and comes at the expense of forests, food and of the better alternatives that we need instead.

Back in January 2007, on the eve of the State of the Union address, CEOs of 10 major U.S. companies urged President Bush to support mandatory industrial greenhouse gas emission cuts. Back in November 2007, the Bali communique was signed by more than 150 companies around the world, jointly worth nearly $4 trillion in market capitalization, including Shell UK, GE International, Coca-Cola Co., Dupont Co., United Technologies Corp., Rolls Royce, Nestle SA, Unilever, British Airways and Volkswagen AG.

James- Sam has the answer- it's the IPCC's job to describe the current state of climate science & the scale of threat posed by climate change.

As to trees and lawns, they do indeed absorb CO2 and release O2 for our waiting lungs. The bad thing is that a great deal of forest land around our planet is being converted either to grassland which performs much less carbon removal, or concrete and buildings, which perform zero carbon removal. And when the forest is cut and burned, vast quantities of carbon are actually released, especially in Brazil and Indonesia.

Sam- yes, you make the important point that climate change policy does not boil down to a few crazy tree huggers versus the industrial establishment and the world economy. There are large segments of the world economy, including enormous corporations like GE, now buying into the idea that we are doing far too little to slow climate change. The really adamantly pro-denial group is basically now limited to Exxon, Massey Energy and a few such corporations who do not see how to make reduced carbon emissions work for them, because their product is basically carbon.

Jeff - the ozone was largely cleaned up. We pay good money for our climatologists to experiment and study the phenomenon. Give it a rest, Jeff.

""""Jeff- I am willing to discuss the financial challenges of dealing with climate change. i am no longer willing to discuss the notion that the international scientific community is incapable of understanding the relationship between the observed rising planetary temperature averages and the billions of tons of CO2 generated by human burning of fossil fuels. Climate change is being driven by fossil fuel combustion. It's not a theory, it's a fact.""""""

Carbon Dioxide as a 'greenhouse gas' was always and still a theory. It was adopted by the "scientific community" when the scientific community's ozone layer theory was proven wrong. But we are always going to be doomed. The scientific community depends on public funding so doom is the way to go. Just ask religions....

Chris you wouldn't have questioned the scientific community during the Ozone layer crisis so why would I expect you to question them now?

Joe then why did the scientific community admit that the Ozone layer expands and retracts? They admitted that the doom was perpetuated by the ignorance of the phenomenon. Now we are doomed because we are 1 degree higher than average from 100 years ago? My state was underneath a glacier 20000 years ago so duh.....we have been warming. Good one scientific community.......

More chlorine agents are omitted into the atmosphere today than when the ozone layer was the new scare. If science won, Why didn't the media triumph their crusade's success?? They ignored it because science proved the scientists you worship wrong. They don't want that debate. They want to move on to global warming.....

Jeff, I would appreciate if you started posting more relevant comments here. As I said, I see no need to repeat the entire work of the IPCC here. Many websites have quite adequately covered various myths about what caused global warming and I see no need to repeat that here either. If you like, have a look at:
http://environment.newscientist.com/climatemyths
This is an article about the economic cost of acting on global warming, as opposed to sabotaging such action.

Sam solutions need to be based on reality. That's where you and I differ. You have faith in the new scare. I don't.

Yes I know that the myth of the sun's activity having an effect on temperature can be quite irritating to your cause. Noah built the arc and carbon dioxide traps heat. Styrofoam used to deplete the ozone layer and the Easter bunny used to deliver eggs to children.

I am opposed to America being beholden to crude oil and I am even more sickened by your types who have only increased it. You are opposed to the excessive use to crude oil as am I. But your reasons are based on a faith not a fact. We could end a lot of things but your belief unfortunately prolongs it.

Jeff: "..solutions need to be based on reality..."

We need solutions that are clean and safe, such as solar and wind energy, which can also produce electricity cheaper than fossil fuel or nuclear plants, while electricity can also power our fleet of cars much cheaper than oil. We could have ended the use of fossil fuel years ago.