illuminating science

In a pretty cool move, the State leaders of Australia have agreed to set up a sort of “carbon economy”. Basically, what it means is that the states will impose limits on the amount of carbon dioxide industry can produce (carbon dioxide is a major contributer to global warming). Then, businesses (mainly industrial ones, like energy production) will be able to trade their carbon allowances with each other - so you can either be efficient and sell of your excess carbon allowance, or you can be a polluter and pay for it. Of course, it’s not that simple - being efficient usually means being more expensive, at least in the short term. But hopefully it will encourage long term reductions in our emissions.

What’s really cool is that the states have “rebelled” against the federal government. Australia, like the U.S. refused to ratify the Kyoto protocol. I’m not certain how I feel about this - originally, I was very disappointed, but recently I’ve been talking to other people who think the Kyoto protocol was flawed. But it would have at least been a step in the right direction. For the States to take a stand like this means that there’s hope even when the government won’t play ball. This follows calls by NSW to cut emissions by 60% in the next 50 years. Of course, all the details are still to be worked out, but hopefully things won’t falter - it sounds pretty set.