Climate Change...The REAL Tradegy of the Commons

The root cause of any tragedy of the commons is that when individuals use a public good, they do not bear the entire social cost of their actions. If each seeks to maximize individual benefit, he or she will place the burden of an external cost onto others. In common with many other environmental problems, human-induced climate change is at its most basic level a negative externality. Those who produce greenhouse-gas emissions are bringing about climate change, thereby imposing costs on the world and future generations, but they do not face directly, neither through markets nor in other ways, the full consequences of the costs of their actions. It differs from other externalities in that it is global in its causes and consequences and its impacts are long term and persistent. The impacts of climate change are very broad ranging and interact with economic dynamics, giving rise to many complex policy problems.

Although the cause of climate change is debated, most people would agree that it exists. In today's struggling economy, how big of an issue will climate change policy be in the upcoming presidential election? By then, could we be facing doubled or tripled electric bills with gas prices at $5 a gallon? Just how unpleasant are people willing to be to prevent climate change?

A recent study of a wide variety of policy options by Yale economist William Nordhaus showed that nearly the highest benefit-to-cost ratio is achieved for a policy that allows 50 more years of economic growth unimpeded by greenhouse gas controls. This would be especially beneficial to the less-developed parts of the world that would like to share some of the same advantages of material well-being, health and life expectancy that the fully developed parts of the world enjoy today. Should we just let China's and India's "Industrial Revolution" continue with uncontrollable carbon emissions? What is their alternatives? I've seen no evidence that the Chinese or Indians plan to do much of anything to reduce their emissions in the near future. For economic reasons, I don't blame them - I'd be less than enthusiastic about a bunch of rich countries telling me that I wasn't allowed to get rich too, because that would be bad for the planet.

Since climate change is tied to economics, our best hope is that policy will lead to innovations which make alternatives to carbon super cheap. This would beneficial to everyone, and the transition from an oil based economy to a carbon alternative economy would not be as economically unpleasant. Climate change is global in its causes and consequences; therefore, should be global in its policy and solutions. No doubt that complex policy challenges will be involved in managing the transition to a low carbon economy and to ensure that societies can adapt to the consequences of climate change.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204301404577171531838421366.html

http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&lr=&id=U-VmIrGGZgAC&oi=fnd&pg=PA1&dq=deny+climate+change&ots=9cpU6wmtsa&sig=7oJODHHWKo04CG5iS8pQ9l0fb2Y#v=onepage&q=deny%20climate%20change&f=false