Climate Action Exihibit - at Santa Cruz Public Library

For the month of November,  the Santa Cruz Public Library will have a collection of books and information about Climate Change and how you can be involved, such as with the City's Climate Action Teams.

I just finished "Climate Solutions - What Works, What Doesn't and Why" by Peter Barnes, one of the books to be on display.  It's a small book, quite clearly written and can be read in couple of hours.  It is really about options in Carbon Caps and Trade, since Barnes dismisses a carbon tax, carbon rationing and zeroes in reasons for Carbon cap, which he does explain very clearly.

In summary, he explains the reason for a Carbon cap with all of the following, and why:

• cap it and issue permits, the number which decreases annually
• permits must be auctioned (not given away) to 'legacy' polluters
  
• cap it "upstream", i.e. when it is first sold, not at each smokestack
• no offsets or safety valves, or leaks, when we 'cheat' and then try to atone by purchasing something good from an unregulated market
• cap all the carbon, including carbon emissions represented by imports
• distribute revenue back to households to mitigate cost of increased price of carbon 

He goes a step further to talk about the idea of 'commons.'   Carbon permits can be extended worldwide, with revenue flowing back to the projects for the 'commons' or distributed to countries.  A basis must be included for the total of amount of carbon a country has put into the atmosphere, about 28% of it from the US.

Given the author's ability to communicate the issues concisely, I recommend reading the book whether you agree or not with his solutions.