Enviro: Carbon: American govt tries to quantify, regulate, legislate use of carbon and its emissions into our atmosphere?

Christian Science Monitor in a difficult article by Mark Clayton
"Key climate question: What's the cost of carbon? Current offset prices vary from 50 cents to $30 a ton. But the US Congress will have to find the optimum rate." (Apr12,2k7). Disregard the 'climate' rhetoric, and any 'warming' verbiage, and just concentrate on pollution for a moment. Along that line, years back, economist Bob Goudzwaard wrote his doctoral dissertation in Dutch on Unpriced Scarcity. Now in North America, our leadership is trying to determine how to price an unpriced super-surplus of carbon emissions (carbon dioxide, CO2) coming into our North American atmosphere from many sources (in San Fransisco, for instance, some of it comes on the wind across the Pacific from China's over-heated industrialization).

Now, the economics of it all is apparently going to be determined in dollars and nonsense by the politics of it all. Various schemes are being devised, but what price is / will be fair? It seems to me that before we try to price CO2 and determine who's got to pay for it? How quotas can be set, the exceeding of which means a company (for instance) has to buy a credit from a non-emitter (like a farmer who's not plowing his acres and thus not releasing emission from the soil), that are fair to all and actually do make a difference for the better, is the technical pricing question for the economic aspect of our society/ies

North America > Economics/Enviro

But before that question is addressed, it's important to focus on the pre-monetary economics where an endangering exchange goes on massively between sources and our common air, water, and dynamics of the entire atmosphere (it isn't raining rain, you know, it's raining sulphuric acid). You've got the idea. So from Clayton's article I've selected just one item for quotation, the pre-price pre-monetary optimatics of carbon and CO2 exchange as such and in the raw. I do so hoping you'll click-up and read his entire article:

Who's the emitter? Producers of oil, gas, and coal are considered upstream sources of carbon emissions. Downstream sources include buildings [including your workplace, your place of worship, your home-E], automobiles [including your car, but don't forget your lawnmower, motorboat, skidoo, etc-E], electric utilities, and refineries to name a few. Choosing whom to regulate is a critical question that could mean billions of dollars in costs to the industries [car-owners, and home-owners] affected. Power companies are the focal point of some legislation, while most economists argue the focus should be on the entire economy to spread the cost around.

The prospect of political fury arising from all quarters at once seems very much on the agenda as the apparently-necessary process of pricing takes place. It doesn't put politicans, companies, home-owners, or car-owners in an enviable position, to be sure.