Category: Environment

Related to environmental issues.

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Cap and Trade


Cap and Trade

© Richard Grossman MD, 2009

Economics is one of my weak points, so I write about this subject with trepidation. Since “cap and trade” has become an important concept to limit emissions that lead to global climate change, I need to try to understand it.

Not all people agree that greenhouse gases (mainly emitted from our use of fossil fuels) are responsible for climate change. Nor do all people even agree that the climate is warming. However, most scientists have reached agreement that human activities are causing major alterations in the world’s climate. Furthermore, many governments have recognized the hazards of global climate change, and are taking steps to control it. Until we know with certainty what is causing climate change, it is certainly prudent to take precautions to slow the onset of this disaster.

C&T is one of the proposed methods using the free market system to make it unprofitable to emit large quantities of greenhouse gases. The concept was first tested on an international basis with a different type of harmful emissions—those that destroy the ozone layer. The successful Montreal Protocol, signed 20 years ago, gradually forced industry to decrease its production of chloroflurocarbons. Remember, these CFCs were used in aerosol cans and refrigerators, but they have now been replaced by less harmful substitutes.

On a smaller scale, C&T has controlled acid rain in the USA. In this case, the system has been very successful in limiting release of sulfur dioxide, the precursor of acid rain. Since most sulfur dioxide comes from electrical generation with coal, power plants have been forced to install scrubbers that remove this hazardous gas or take other measures such as burning low sulfur coal. As a result, lakes and streams are healthier, fewer trees die—and house paint lasts longer!

To control greenhouse gas emissions using C&T, the first step is to establish current levels of emissions of these gases. Carbon dioxide (CO2) is the most important greenhouse gas since it is emitted in such massive amounts. Estimating CO2 output can be done by inference. For instance, combustion of a ton of coal produces almost three tons of CO2, and one gallon of gasoline generates almost twenty pounds of this greenhouse gas. A well-run company keeps close track of its use of fuel, so its CO2 output is easy to compute.

Many of the top corporations are already inventorying their emissions because they foresee that C&T will become law soon. The current level of CO2 will then become the cap—the maximum that the company can emit. If it exceeds that level, it will have to pay a fine.

The next step is to trade the authority to emit greenhouse gases. If one company can somehow reduce its CO2 emissions by, say, 100 tons below its cap, then it can sell the right to emit that amount to another company.

To lower emissions, this cap is reduced over time at a predetermined rate. For instance, the Montreal Protocol was successful because it cut the use of CFCs in 1994 to just one quarter of the baseline production of these harmful chemicals.

Already there is a market for buying and selling CO2 emissions. The largest market is the European Climate Exchange, where a metric tonne of CO2 emissions is currently worth about 12.5 Euros. The value will increase as time goes on and the cap is lowered.

How can a power company lower its CO2 output? Green power is one of the best ways. Electricity from the sun, hydroelectric or wind emits no CO2!

Would C&T work for limiting human population growth? Many years ago the great anthropologist Margaret Mead suggested that people should be required to meet certain requirements before they could start a family; presumably this would include education about raising children. She proposed that governments issue licenses for childbearing.

Instead of licensing people to be parents, another way to limit fertility would be to cap and trade. So far this method has not been adopted by any government—nor would I recommend it. Making voluntary family planning available has proven to be more effective than coercive programs, without the risk of backlash.

Cap and trade consists simply of placing a limit on harmful emissions, gradually lowering that cap, and having the ability to buy and sell the right to emit pollution. This system has been proven to be an effective way to decrease pollution. Hopefully C&T will work for greenhouse gases, but will never be used for the right to bear children.

This article above may be copied or published but must remain intact, with attribution to the author. I also request that the words “First published in the Durango Herald” accompany any publication. For more information, please write the author at: richard@population-matters.org.

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Action Durango Herald Environment Hope Media Population

Speak Out on Population

Speak Out on Population

© Richard Grossman MD, 2009

“I do not understand why there is very little discussion, or even acknowledgement, that unless the human population on this planet can be limited to a sustainable number, there will be wars and death over food and water.”

I agree with Rick, a fellow Bayfield resident, who wrote the above sentence several months ago in response to one of my articles. Rick started:

“I read your article in the Herald this past weekend and was encouraged to find some recognition that human population growth is the root cause of this planet’s problems. I find it nauseating to read countless articles written by supposed experts proposing band-aid fixes to the increasing numbers of problems we humans face, when in fact, that will only delay the inevitable”.

I feel rewarded to know that there are others who feel the same way as I do. Thank you, Rick, and all of the others who have written or spoken to me in response to Population Matters! articles. I even appreciate hearing from people who do not agree with me. I count as a friend a man I haven’t met, but we communicate respectfully about abortion—a subject about which we have radically different ideas.

I am amazed that people do not make the connection between environmental issues and the human effect on Earth. After all, it is our profligate consumption and our ever-increasing numbers that are causing pollution, loss of species and global climate change—amongst other crises. Fortunately there are people, like Rick, who do “get it”; they understand the relationship, and are willing to do something about it.

Concern about human population became popular after Paul Ehrlich’s Population Bomb was published in 1968. Shortly afterwards, Zero Population Growth (which espoused reaching a steady state of population) was founded. Interest came to a halt in 1994 when the International Conference on Population and Development shifted the focus from population to “reproductive health.” The assumption was that providing reproductive health care would allow people to have as few children as they wanted.

The other part of that assumption is that economies were improving, and that fertility would decline as peoples’ wellbeing improved. Unfortunately, economic development implies increased consumption, so development is not an unmitigated blessing. Education (especially of girls) is all-around good, since education doesn’t need to increase consumption—but definitely is associated with smaller family size.

There were several reasons that people at ICPD turned away from population and toward RH. This huge conference of the United Nations needed to reach a consensus of the 179 nations attending (including the Holy See or Vatican) and RH was an easier concept for some countries to tolerate than population stabilization. A major reason that limiting population growth went out of favor is the abuses that were perpetrated in its name. In some countries people were coerced to use contraception or to have sterilization operations. China’s one child family policy is famous for being coercive, and there is evidence that some women were even forced to have abortions. We now recognize that the most successful family planning programs are totally voluntary.

So ICPD was a turning point away from concern about population. But how successful has the focus on RH been? In the fifteen years since ICPD the world’s population has increased by more than one billion people and atmospheric carbon dioxide has increased from 358 to 386 parts per million. Furthermore, we are now using the resources of about 1.3 planet earths, whereas in 1994 we only used about 10% more than was sustainable. We have not done well! I feel that attention has been distracted from the real issue.

How could this be? Why do people not pay more attention to population? I recommend a short video by a Harvard professor of psychology. Although it focuses on the related issue of global climate change, much of what it says also pertains to population: www.desmogblog.com/dan-gilbert-on-the-psychology-of-global-warming-video.

An additional reason that population is even more taboo than climate may be more important. Population involves the issues of sexuality and contraception that many people—and religions—feel strongly about.

John Feeney, a Colorado journalist, has created the Global Speak Out on Population at http://gpso.wordpress.com/. The goal of GSOP is to bring the issue of human population back into the public’s consciousness. I suggest that you check out the website, and then sign the pledge of support.

Rick, you are correct; human population growth is the root cause of many of this planet’s problems. Thank you for recognizing this!

Published in the Durango Herald 2-09

The article above may be copied or published but must remain intact, with attribution to the author. I also request that the words “First published in the Durango Herald” accompany any publication. For more information, please write the author at: richard@population-matters.org.