1. Property rights and air pollution
2. Pirate headlines (humor)
3. 2666, the perfect book review (now that I’ve read the book)
4. Update on the quest for the Netflix prize, interesting throughout
5. Triumph of the small countries; Israel just displaced Armenia for top position in the Chess Olympiad; Russia and the United States lag behind. The standings and major contestants are here.
looking at the netflix standings, there has not been widespread improvement for the past year or so.
On air pollution & property rights: Honestly, Silas, I just can’t follow the anti-cap ‘n trade thing. Cap ‘n trade has been proven to work with NOX and SOX. I mean, when was the last time you even heard the phrase “acid rain?” When people tell me cap ‘n trade won’t work, I really don’t know what to say. NOX and SOX isn’t a dream.
If you believe carbon is issue #1, cap ‘n trade is urgent. To mitigate climate change we need to finance artificial volcanoes and ghost ships and peridotite and iron seeding and e-coli oil and algae farming and wind power and new transit options. . .we need to do it all. Obama’s green tech plan is plenty groovy, but as a government program its limitations are obvious.
And it can’t do enough with only US$150 bil. Carbon financing, which could offer as much as E2 trillion will be necessary to provide entrepreneurs with the capital to develop these and other likewise freaky mitigation technologies quickly.
If you believe the carbon is only a mid-level threat – albeit one that will leave Bangladesh afloat, and India and Pakistan in a nuclear war over water (we can invent artificial oil, but there doesn’t seem to be a tech alternative for plain old water) – then carbon financing becomes even more critical, as you don’t want divert scarce government resources for the issue, and you need the market to do it alone.
Robin Hanson has said just lay back and enjoy it. Do futarchy. And I’m waaaay down with that, but we just have to fix a couple of little things first, even with that plan. While it’s true we may have to now live with 500ppm no matter what, we still should act to avoid 1000ppm.
And it would help if we built a lot of levees, many desalinization plants, and genetically engineered wheat to ensure it will grow well at warmer temperatures. Again, this requires financing & entrepreneurship. Thus again, cap ‘n trade financing.
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