The reason that Dr. Hanson said this about Copenhagen is because he doesn’t think carbon trading will work. The only reason the skys of the US and Europe are cleaner is because #1 better technology #2 less manufacturing (moved overseas). Although it sounds like a good idea on paper it just doesn’t work. If it does pass it may turn out to be a lucrative investment. But, are we ready to pay for fluctuating market rates as the value of carbon fluxes, smiling when the prices go up and crying when it collapses. Same story different commodity. For that matter do we trust the same people that manage Wall Street to manage our carbon? (note: There really are some very intelligent and ethical people working on Wall Street that are doing a lot of good, but no trusto).
As far as our support as landscape architects what can we do?
1)Support and Protect Personal and Public Property Rights. This includes Air and Water. For our own sake and those that contract our services. Recently the EPA announced that Greenhouse gases are a danger to human health, which may give more regulatory power to the government to control emissions (whether or not they decide to use it) which if the do will cause increases in the prices of energy. (http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/0/08D11A451131BCA585257685…)
We can guess that this will be the center of future litigation but eventually the NRDC will sue the pants off the EPA to enforce it.
2)Advocate for Energy Conservation. This is one of the best measures to reduce energy needs in any form.
3)Make Economics part of our great debate and why its so important to Sustainability (the 3 Circles with Sustainability in the center) when the prices go up, and they will for everything from mulch to concrete, help our clients invest wisely in landscape / urban development and renewal. Something we need to keep the pipeline open for, cause this isn’t going to be easy.
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