Sometimes I do not even know where to start. I fueled up on coffee and busted into a global warming discussion and tried to say something reasonable.  I always end up feeling like an idiot knocking around in an empty room.  Mostly I am disappointed that the attention I pay to bad news is not enough to find respect among experts who make a real difference and get paid.

I wanted to present my ideas about global warming policy here so that people I respect can refer to this and as always I welcome discussion and comment from real people. What follows is some excerpts from a linkedin group discussion among “energy experts.” I have added clarification, elaboration and corrections. If you only follow one link follow this one – http://bit.ly/t2Yn2k Cap and trade won’t work.

Quoting from the discussion –

http://www.linkedin.com/groups/Climate-Change-Challenge-Both-sides-62696.S.84860557

Climate Change Challenge: Both sides’ comments welcome

Imagine you are a senior political adviser, any country, what strategy would you give to your Boss regarding his/her stance on climate change:

For example: stop oil and gas industry subsidies or promote climate change as a myth, jobs are more important!. I am trying to be neutral here. What I would like to see are ideas that politicians would actually get on board with! That means your ideas must be subtle, even sneaky, in their approach! Good Luck!!

Also, lets be respectful of your fellow members, everyone is entitled to their opinion.

Current subsidies for energy production, especially hydrocarbon, need to be redirected to Open Research/Science like – PDF – http://bit.ly/thUXYc . Global/Federal resources need to focus on all stake-holder credible economic study of the impact of adopting renewable sources.  Any and all wise, moderate and advisable market interference/manipulation should be comprised of taxes on corporations as advised by this http://bit.ly/t2Yn2k . A Global/Federal infrastructure bank http://bit.ly/tOdUlo should be used to capitalize ESCO http://bit.ly/cFw39P type investments that meet credible economic study recommendations.

Any real sustainable solution to a global problem will be incorrectly compared to a totalitarian central planning solution. Removing subsidies and making them taxes instead has research to back up the claims of effectiveness especially in opposition to other schemes of control. Innovation depending on corporation funded research in the current un-free market is not the optimal use of resources that it once claimed to be. Bear in mind the so called free markets also gave us the problem we are addressing.

When I think of corporate free market capitalism with all of its potential and downfall I think of the story of the Stellar’s Sea cow http://bit.ly/uPZRwg . Now this is weird but stay with me. San Diego California has this really interesting marine ecosystem that is/was more than the sum of its parts.  Kelp beds grow from the cold currents at the bottom of the ocean to the warm top.  The kelp cycles nutrients from the cold rich water out into the warm waters off the coast of San Diego beaches.  When I think of the richness of this system I think of a photo like this from http://www.freedive.net/bottom_scratchers.

In any case this ecosystem was/is exceedingly rare, special and most importantly productive.  This relates to corporations because about two hundred years ago the Stellar’s Sea cow in the waters of San Diego was extinct because of the action of whalers.  Now let’s put that into perspective – Thomas Jefferson 1776 generally about the same time as the last Sea Cow in San Diego is butchered.  Lewis and Clark have not even happened!  As the first official explorers to see the pacific and as a nation and a government we have no idea that an entire ecosystem is about to begin a long slide into unproductive un-diverse and un-resilient collapse.  The kelp begins to die without Sea Cows to graze and fertilize it.  The predators that would eat the urchins are the new food for the sharks.  The urchins at the bottom eat the kelp.  The nutrients stop cycling to the beaches and instead leave the area in dark cold currents.

You can focus on the idea that corporations had already explored the coast of San Diego.  I mean that is huge.  Imagine a corporation going to an asteroid and mining it for gold and you can begin to understand what level of endeavor that people have accomplished long before our officially sanctioned heroes Lewis and Clark make their expedition.

You could focus on the biologists who come to the San Diego coast later and at great cost and effort try to understand an ecosystem already out of balance.

You could focus on the lost Sea Cows, and loss of a Kelp Forest, a terrible cost that was passed on from the corporation/whalers.  That might translate to fewer fish for the tourists or less fertile land or more El Nino effect.  You might take your pick but in the interest of brevity we should understand that the world is a system with cause and effect and we as in all aspects are better off if we understand and consciously make decisions about our role in it.

You might not care about a kelp forest, this is just what I think of. You might care about BP Gulf oil disaster. You might care about clean water or cheap energy. We should understand that we share a need to more fully understand and control the outcome of our efforts at an individual level, a governmental level and at the corporate/collective level.

“Why do you believe that free markets are to blame? As I recall, centrally planned economies gave us far worse pollution problems (REAL pollution, not CO2) than any market economy. “

I don’t blame status-quo “free markets” but instead realize they are now limited and sub-optimal. The world is changed by what we know you might know better but in any case history and common sense dictate that doing the same thing and expecting a different outcome will not help you as an individual, a government or indeed a corporation. In my estimate you have all the freedom you need to continue doing the things you do. However the smart crowd will go in the right direction and cooperate. Suffice to say that it is always possible for good people to do good things together and have a bad outcome. Here is a great article about all of that – PDF – http://bit.ly/uDQ1Ub .  Markets work well where there is no clear answer and unlimited resources and it is an advantage to crowd-source solutions. We now need to use science and connect the process with sovereignty and economic reality. After markets are saturated with incumbent participation and we know about limited resources there is a moral problem with continued participation, we will efficiently produce more problems despite being “good” people doing “good” things. Please bear in mind that participation of individuals is voluntary in my view and all taxes/coercion should be directed to corporate/governmental entities and eventually transition to a Land Value Tax – http://bit.ly/EFILj .  If history is any indicator this is almost a hopeless task because the reality that we can grasp may have already been limited by systems beyond our conscious control.

“Good comments Carl but corporations are people too. Some corporations are large, some small, but all sharing the common trait of organizing to provide a service for profit to the people employed or invested.”

You might get by with “governments are people too” but corporations have special legal fictions attached that make them more than people and less than citizens.  You are incorrect and I disagree in the strongest possible terms both in the claims to person-hood and the additional claim of “organizing.”

Don’t get me wrong though corporations/collectives are a wonderful thing. We need the potency of capitalized and specialized effort but we must be aware of the total long term costs of our shared actions. My ideas are a sharp double edge that limits corporations by a limited and imperfect understanding of the long term but also uses corporations/collectives to move forward in a direction we may not all agree with. I suspect that the result will be less government and corporations more focused on partnership and the long term out of self interest.

“Recent Supreme Court decisions are not in agreement with your position. I am not clear on their rationale but I think it follows that without people you cannot have a corporation. Just as a person can have different roles (public, private, work, , , ) a corporation can have different legal aspects. It is an entity but it is also a group of people organized for a specific purpose. My point is that a corporation is not something divorced from the people that comprise the organization. If you want to force a corporation to take a specific action you are in fact forcing the people to take that action.”

You have the burden of proof when you claim anything other than that people are people. Corporations derive their legal identity from the forbearance of the government and as such they can have that identity revoked by the authority of government and/or real people.  I argue that the government can’t revoke person-hood for real people therefore corporations and people are for the purposes of government two different things.  Argue about Supreme Court decisions all you want, please!  Do you want to roll back the constitution and the ideas of self determination and inalienable rights though?  I understand freedom expression issues however the argument that corporations are people would seem more in line with the bugaboo of polluting and wasteful totalitarian regimes if not in anti-egalitarian motivation at least in the outcome.

To be continued -