[tt] John Stossel: Free Market Solutions to Global Warming

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Another global warming skeptic has dared speak up. Meteorologist
John Coleman, founder of the Weather Channel, calls global warming
"the greatest scam in history."

John Stossel: Free Market Solutions to Global Warming
http://www.theatlasphere.com/columns/printer_071128-stossel-market-solutions.php
7.11.28

Another global warming skeptic has dared speak up. Meteorologist
John Coleman, founder of the Weather Channel, calls global warming
"the greatest scam in history."

"Environmental extremists," he writes, "notable politicians among
them ... create this wild `scientific' scenario of the civilization
threatening environmental consequences from Global Warming unless
we adhere to their radical agenda. ...

"I have read dozens of scientific papers. I have talked with
numerous scientists. ...There is no runaway climate change. The
impact of humans on climate is not catastrophic. Our planet is not
in peril. ... In time, a decade or two, the outrageous scam will be
obvious."
[weather-channel-founder-john-coleman.jpg]
Meteorologist and Weather Channel founder John Coleman

I suspect he's right.

But what if he's wrong?

I've argued that even if global warming is something to worry
about, it's dangerous to look to government to fix the climate.

Government is a blunt instrument, riddled with self-serving
politics and special-interest pandering.

To expect it to do something as complicated as calibrate
regulations and taxes to fine-tune the climate -- without making
many people poorer and a few cronies richer -- is naive.

But that doesn't mean we can do nothing. We have a powerful
generator of solutions if we let it work: the free market.

The market has solved environmental problems many times in the
past. Before the automobile, America's cities suffered from a
terrible pollutant. It bred disease and emitted noxious odors.

It was horse manure.

As economist Nobel laureate Robert Fogel said, "There were 200,000
horses in New York City at the beginning of the 20th century
defecating everywhere. ... When you walked around ... you were
breathing pulverized horse manure." From such air and water
pollution, people contracted cholera, typhoid and other deadly
diseases.

When the internal-combustion engine came along, the air and ground
became much cleaner. Environmentalists romanticize the days before
the car, but who wants to go back to that filth and disease?

How might the free market -- which relies on consent, not coercion
-- be better than government at addressing global warming? Policy
analyst Gene Callahan points out that government is a big part of
the problem because it encourages overuse of fossil fuels.

For example, use of highways is not subject to market pricing, so
it appears to be free. The resulting traffic jams are bad for the
environment.

We'd use less coal if the government didn't create regulatory
obstructions to nuclear power.

The creative market process -- if unburdened by state subsidies and
regulations -- would discover alternative fuels that bureaucrats
can't even dream of.

Today, an energy maverick is likely to be punished by the
government, as Bob Teixeira learned when he had the audacity to run
his Mercedes on soybean oil. If climate danger is real, the profit
motive will drive entrepreneurs to find technologies to reduce CO2.

Markets outshine governments in innovation and flexibility. Those
virtues would come into play if global warming does become a
problem. "For example, the financial industry, by creating new
securities and derivative markets, could crystallize the `dispersed
knowledge' that many different experts held in order to coordinate
and mobilize mankind's total response to global warming," writes
Callahan.

"Weather futures can serve to spread the risk of bad weather beyond
the local area affected. Perhaps there could arise a market betting
on the areas most likely to be permanently flooded. That may seem
ghoulish, but by betting on their own area, inhabitants could
offset the cost of relocating should the flooding occur."
[aaron-wildavsky.jpg]
American political scientist Aaron Wildavsky (1930-1993)

A less-regulated insurance industry would have a strong profit
motive to anticipate problems from any warming and set prices for
property coverage appropriately.

Insurance companies would rely on the best scientific information
because, unlike government, if they make a mistake, they face
bankruptcy.

The most important thing we can do is not to impede production of
wealth.

As the late Aaron Wildavsky said in his wonderful book Searching
for Safety, "Wealthier is healthier." A rich society is resilient
and able to respond to unforeseen threats.

People in the developing world desperately need prosperity.

Blocking their development on the flimsy promise of climate "fixes"
will only make hard lives harder. Their primitive environments are
killing them.

John Stossel is co-anchor of ABC News' "20/20" and the author of
Give Me a Break: How I Exposed Hucksters, Cheats, and Scam Artists
and Became the Scourge of the Liberal Media (January 2005) as well
as Myth, Lies, and Downright Stupidity: Get Out the Shovel -- Why
Everything You Know Is Wrong (May 2007), which is now available in
paperback.