Global Warming Needs Capping

By GERALD KARNAS and MARK MAKSIMOWICZ

Published: Oct 10, 2007

Commuters may have noticed a bright yellow 17-foot by 10-foot banner off the Howard Frankland Bridge on the way to work. It's pretty hard to miss. The Green Armada and Environmental Defense have launched the campaign to help get the word out on a hot-button issue - the choices Americans, especially Floridians, need to make on global warming.

The leaders of Green Armada decided two years ago to preserve the health and beauty of our waterways. The choice was to either ignore the litter and pollution lining our shores or to build a barge, put on gloves and get out on the water and make a difference.

The United States faces a similar choice with atmospheric pollution and our energy future. Does America want to be more energy independent, create new incentives for entrepreneurs, encourage new opportunities for farmers and protect its environment? Or do we want to wait and hope that global warming might just go away regardless of how much pollution we pump into the atmosphere?

Are Floridians willing to gamble with the state's 1,200 miles of coastline, given that climate change is expected to trigger calamitous rising sea levels and more severe storms?

A panel of retired U.S. generals and admirals recently observed climate change as a "threat multiplier" for every major national security threat America faces today.

The good news is there are solutions. America needs policies that give incentives to minimize releases of carbon dioxide and other global-warming pollutants.

Once this becomes common practice, the positive impacts from fighting climate change will create a ripple effect and begin providing solutions to other problems.

What's needed is a policy that sets a cap, or explicit limit, on the quantity of global-warming pollution that can be emitted into the atmosphere. Such pollution, primarily carbon dioxide (CO2), comes mainly from burning oil and other fossil fuels.

Power plants and other sources that emit large quantities of global warming pollutants would only be allowed to release a specific amount. Because global warming is caused by the total releases of global warming pollution emitted worldwide, a company that reduces its emissions below its allowed level could sell the remaining allowances to other companies - resulting in a cost-effective solution.

This approach has a track record of success. In the early 1990s the first President Bush, with bipartisan support in Congress, created a cap-and-trade program to stop acid rain. The program reduced emissions of acid rain pollutants far faster than originally projected - and at only a quarter of the expected cost.

One result of this new cap on carbon pollution is that businesses will find ways to be more efficient in how they use oil and other fossil fuels. This will spur new investments in energy-efficient technology.

As the bright yellow banner says, the choice is stark: We can stick our heads in the sand, or we can fight global warming.

Sand belongs on Florida's beaches, not in Congress's ears.

Gerald Karnas is Florida climate project director for the Environmental Defense and Mark Maksimowicz is cofounder of the Green Armada Coastal Cleanup.