'airline ticket global warming tax' proposed

Excess CO² causes global warming. Knowing this, years ago someone (Lester Thurow?) suggested a fund could be set up, paying Brazil for their rainforest (because plants convert the gas back to oxygen + water). Under the proposal, each acre that Brazil allowed to disappear would mean less money for them.
[this was suggested as a way of applying the rules of the marketplace to the problem].

People were willing, at least to some degree. In 1999, a professor from Minnesota noted:

“Environmental economists recently conducted a survey of Americans to determine how much (in a one-time payment) they would be willing to pay to permanently protect 10% of the world's tropical forests (Kramer and Mercer 1997). They found that Americans are willing to pay about $21 to $31 per household, about $3 billion total, or $110 to $230 per hectare of rainforest.”

But basically nothing was done.

In the interim the concept has reappeared, now being called 'carbon balancing'.
[People are using the phrase 'carbon footprint'
and now jet travel is finally being added to the topic.

For instance, from a SF Chronicle article:

An explosion in commercial air traffic may be triggering formation of high-altitude clouds that trap heat and could worsen global warming.

And the problem is expected to get much worse: Global aircraft emissions should increase sixfold by the time today's college students are ready for retirement, experts say.

The menace comes in a beautiful form: cirrus clouds that resemble silver, windblown beards and float at 20,000- to 50,000-feet high.

Not as mainstream is a overview from George Monbiot:

“It's not just that aviation represents the world's fastest growing source of carbon dioxide emissions. The burning of aircraft fuel has a "radiative forcing ratio" of around 2.7. What this means is that the total warming effect of aircraft emissions is 2.7 times as great as the effect of the carbon dioxide alone.”

For these reasons, I propose the world agree by treaty to a 'airline ticket global warning tax', much as there is now a 'airline ticket terrorism security' tax.

By formula, the money collected should be paid to whichever nations do the most re-conversion of carbon-dioxide back to oxygen. Whether their carbon-balancing is via a rainforest or whatever.


[see also Dean Baker in Harper's: 'Insurance by the Mile']

famous equations as famous women (short)

1 + 1 = 2     Mandy Moore
F = ma     Jennifer Love Hewitt
a² + b² = c²     Alexis Bledel
E = mc²     Charlize Theron
e^ip + 1 = 0     Isabella Rossellini

[I have no idea what the last equation means, but in 2004 mathemeticians voted it their favaorite.]

the blog's temporary disappearance

The blog was unavailable for maybe a month, but I never did find out why.

Water under the bridge.

Probably I will add another long post in a week or two.