After dinner one recent night, family an friends were discussing their views on global warming. With clarity and wisdom beyond her 15 years, my daughter said, "Dad, I'm scared and angry. Your generation created this problem. What are you going to do to fix it?"
California's legislators rolled up their sleeves last week and got started on an answer, passing the most important legislation of the year, possibly of the decade: the California Global Warming Solutions Act. With any luck, its cooling effects will be felt for the rest of the century--and beyond.
Though confronted with a growing climate crisis, the nation has struggled to find scalable, society-wide solutions--and the political will to enact them. When seven Northeastern states capped emissions of greenhouse gases by utilities last month, we took a giant step forward. But until last week, no American state had been bold enough to approve legislation that caps emissions across all the meaningful economic sectors. California--where 1 of 8 Americans lives--will now require major industrial producers of such gases to reduce emissions 25% by 2020. That means cutting the annual release of carbon dioxide in the state by 174 million metric tons. It takes a forest twice the size of New Jersey to process that much of the heat-trapping gas.
How will we achieve that? By letting free markets discover the best solutions and invest in them. Create a market for carbon removal, and set limits on companies' allowance for carbon emissions. Companies that pollute less get credits and can then sell those credits to other companies, who buy them to offset their excess carbon. A similar market system for sulfur dioxide is already in place to cut sulfur pollution in half by 2010, dramatically reducing acid rain (...)
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