Trusting Nature as the Climate Referee

The above link to the Science page of the NY Times was supplied by Roz Troupin. It contains a proposal to base a carbon tax on any increase in the Earth's troposphere temperature near the Equator. The rational is that, if the skeptics are correct and the earth is not warming, then no one will have to pay any special carbon taxes (or cap-and-trade costs). But if the earth continues to warm, then the tax will be increased to cover costs of developing low carbon energy sources, and costs of dealing with climate change effects.

At the end of the article is a link to comments about this proposal. I feel most pertinent of these is that the proposed temperature change index has too much lag and variability built into it, and any revenue generated, if the earth continues to warm, will be generated too late to avert any disasters of continued warming. On the plus side, letting Nature make the decisions (she does not go up for re-election) certainly beats letting the politicians and Climate-Gate scientists make the decisions. Perhaps using the new Climate Change Index would make more sense, because it responds much more rapidly than just air temperature, and it incorporates 4 factors as opposed to just one.

Overall, a very interesting concept. Thanks Roz.