How should we solve global climate change? No small task, it is true, and hence calls for innovative thinking. In addition to my world parachute for geo-engineering idea, here are a few ideas I thought of today:
Idea #1: Have Girl Guides sell emissions trading products, such as allowances (or credits) from the mandatory sector (of greenhouse gas reductions) and offsets from the voluntary sector.
Rationale: Climate change makes us all feel bad, and to mitigate it we have to pay more money or change our lifestyles immensely. But, could you really say “no” if one of these cute girls came to your house to sell emissions reductions? In addition, this could help them recover from their trans-fats image, and give a new revenue stream to fundraise for the organization. It would be even more cute if they got to run an auction for allowances, rather than just selling offsets, or trading allowances for companies.
Idea #2: Change zoning by-laws to make all garages, and garage doors too small to fit SUVs.
This could be a very uncontroversial way to pass an unconventional law which would significantly reduce the number of SUVs on the road, since owners will find it increasingly difficult to park them. While these zoning by-laws will only affect new garages (of which there will be plenty), how would you affect the already existing ones? I suggest putting standards and codes to limit the size of garage doors, so that if you had to replace your garage door, it would be too small to cover the hole, therefore, garage owners would have to cover those spots with more walls, thereby reducing the ability to fit an SUV through it.
Rationale: The biggest contributor to growth of greenhouse gas emissions in the personal transportation sector is from the rapid market takeover of SUV’s. SUV’s consume considerably more gasoline than a regular car (such as a sedan type), and their market share has gone from a very small percentage in the early 1990s, to a third or 50% of all personal vehicles.
Idea #3: The environmental icon air travel challenge. Who travels more, Al Gore or David Suzuki? Wouldn’t you like to know? If we knew how much they travel by air to educate us on the realities of climate change, do you think they would travel less?
Rationale: Traveling by air plane produces significantly more greenhouse gas emissions than most other forms of travel. One long air flight for one person (12 hours +) produces more greenhouse gas emissions than all other greenhouse gas emitting activities for that person combined (on an annual basis). Check zerofootprint.net’s carbon calculator for the proof.
May 7, 2008 at 2:46 am |
i particularly heart your al gore v. david suzuki