Hi Joe,

Most of the people I have seen who are knowledgeable about Climate Change are still not doing anything meaningful about it. Certainly, corporations are not, and I am absolutely fed up with the propoganda distributed through the oil industry going so far as to make light of the problem. I have met with some organizations I am associated with and tried to make them more aware of the actual threat to both our lives and our livelihood, but they do not want to hear it, or if they do, they will still not change. You'd think they were President or something.

I am convinced that the best we can do is to look out for us and our own while we are trying to change our local communities so our neighbors don't think they can beg, borrow or steal what we have done to prepare for a slow decline in our standard of living, hoping that it will not be a dramatic cliff-like scenario instead. The real value to me of having some acreage is that there is wildlife and wild plants available for food and a shallow water table for usable fresh water. I have unmarketable well-head gas in a small quantity available as well, but that will probably be the first thing folks will want to share.

In the meantime, I think whatever taxing of carbon, carbon credits trading scheme, or whatever other control mechanism will have inequities. I know it will be an attempt at fairness, but subject to the same lobbying, graft and corruption as the current income tax structure, and that has become less equitable with each revision of the tax code. In addition, many folks will simply ignore it to the greatest extent possible, just like tax fraud and cheating which goes on now, despite severe penalties - the Swiss banking changes are sending ripples of new understanding of tax laws through the clients of many brokers at the current time, and the Feds are letting many of the offenders of the hook to a great extent.

As you point out, we are already well beyond McKibbon's limit of 350 PPM, and we will never see 350 again. The Earth might, after the Anthropocene Era, but that will be for another civilization to discover.

For instance if I live in an area that forces me to drive for even the most routine errand like grocery shopping and as a result my carbon footprint (externality) is out of proportion am I at fault? Or is it GM and the political hacks whose conspiracy closed up the trolley system and got the US govt to build massive freeways that define our lives today? If I buy coffee from Starbucks that isn’t Fair Trade or Nike running shoes made in sweat shops in SE Asia or I turn on a light powered by coal powered utilities am I complicit in the crime in the court of moral outrage?

Of course we are complicit when we do these things, but it's impossible for us all to stop doing participating. That's what it's all about - we cannot support all of us without the system we have, and we cannot continue with the system we have without killing the planet. If I had understood these things from the time I was young and starting out, I could have made different choices. As it is, I understand many things I could to to make a big reduction in my impact on the planet, but I cannot afford to do them now. The system has got me, and I am in debt too far. Beyond that, the things I would do if I could afford to would not be scalable to everyone else. The system cannot be fixed from within by means of gradual change - a dislocation must occur.

Joe,

I first was educated about the term 'externalities' in Econ 101 in college. I have not issue with the term...what I have issue with is how we don't make enough efforts to successfully account for pollution, etc. so that they cease to be 'externalities'.

The only way to enforce the proper accounting of externalities is f governments to mandate such accounting and compliance with necessary regulations, including punishments such as fines and shutting down non-compliant operations and pulling products off the market...and ideally preventing them from coming to market to begin with.

Few business people want to hear this reasoning, since it adds complexity and cost to their operations, and it impacts schedules.

However, if such accounting were uniformly applied to all firms, then the playing field would be level.

We should not hold our breath...the Regan acolytes still insist that unfeterred capitalism and 'free markets' will adjudicate all these problems successfully.

I agree that they do indeed...in favor of the shareholders and profit margins, and to the detriment of people everywhere (Mercury, Dioxins,and on and on).

“If corporations are persons what kind of people are they?"

And how do you jail a Corporation found guilty of 1st Degree Murder?