Since I am disagreeing with James on another thread let me take the
opportunity to agree here. The biggest factor in the CFC's was
DuPont's turnaround and consequent patent monopoly.
My redneck auto mechanic friend ended up thinking the whole thing was
a conspiracy by DuPont to push competitors out of the coolant market,
incidentally making life difficult for small-time auto mechanics. He
didn't believe a word of it, probably still doesn't.
Regarding acid rain, this is handled on a continental scale, which in
North America just involves two similar countries, so it's much more
tractable. I believe that this problem has *not* been solved on a
global scale.
It's the coal, not the oil interests here, that are crucial. In
practice we will likely have to settle for coal fired plants with deep
sequestration even if renewables plus hydrogen or hydraulics for
energy storage would be cheaper and cleaner.
mt
On 5/15/07, James Annan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> Andrew Dessler ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) wrote:
>
> > My view of why climate change is different is that it's a harder, more
> > expensive problem. Thus, there's a lot more incentive for people to
> > come up with reasons to do nothing.
>
> The story I've heard is this: the real difference is that DuPont (who
> were playing the role that the oil and coal industry does nowadays over
> climate change, and that the tobacco industry did over smoking)
> developed an effective alternative to CFCs. Suddenly, far from being an
> imposition with economic downside, restrictions gave them a new
> worldwide market to exploit (maybe even a monopoly protected by patents,
> though that is a guess). The US administration changed its attitude
> overnight.
>
> It's only 3rd hand at best though and I don't think I've seen it written
> down, so perhaps the tale has grown a bit in the re-telling...
>
> The moral of the story would presumably be that we need to give the oil
> industry a monopoly on solar panels, or something like that.
>
> James
>
> >
>
--~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
Global Change ("globalchange") newsgroup. Global Change is a public, moderated
venue for discussion of science, technology, economics and policy dimensions of
global environmental change.
Posts will be admitted to the list if and only if any moderator finds the
submission to be constructive and/or interesting, on topic, and not
gratuitously rude.
To post to this group, send email to [email protected]
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/globalchange
-~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
