Assignment:
Articles:
1. Countdown to Oblivion: The Real Reason We Can't Stop Global Warming By Saskia Sassen, Salon
2. The Point of No Return: Climate Change Nightmares Are Already Here By Eric Holthaus, Rolling Stone
3. Cap-and-Trade Systems
4. FOREIGN EXCHANGE 'Carbon tax' is sensible, and perhaps inevitable, advocate says by By Henry Chu
5. Exxon, Stephen Hawking, greens, and Reagan’s advisors agree on a carbon tax
The issue of global warming remains the most important problem facing the biosphere eclipsing all others and requiring a broad range of responses by humans that challenge the very way we define economics and progress. Environmental scientists generally agree on the scale, pace and intensity of the problem but not on the solutions. Policy makers must devise an international system that will reduce the most prevalent greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide in a short period of time. The suggestions made so far do not follow a "command and control" model but offer instead market-friendly solutions.
Two of these are
a) the "cap and trade" system whereby carbon emissions can be traded in a free market and gradually reduce the production of the gas, and
b) a carbon tax that would use the market to accelerate carbon gas reductions in an environment where the costs of emissions would be graduated upward to affect the largest producers.
In the articles provided here the two perspectives are given an examination that advocate for one or the other or even both. Four of the articles are general global waming pieces. Six of the articles are on the impacts of global warming. Five are on the two approaches. Pick at least two from the first batch, and at least three from the second batch for you bibliography. Then pick three from the third batch. Download all the articles and read them. Make up your own mind which system you think is better.
Write a short paper (less than six pages) on your arguments based on the papers provided. (Yes, you can research this further if you would like and add to the list of papers.) Write in your own words a paper that
a) shows you understand the arguments given regarding global warming or human caused climate change and
b) some diuscussion of likely impacts and
c) the policy options represented in the two arguments.
The titles in italics are general overviews of the problem. The rest are on imapcts and then the last are specific as to the cap n' trade vs carbon tax policy options. The paper must be original.
Make sure you reference your new sources as well as the ones provided. Use college standards for citing of work. In the body of the text, authors should appear in parenthesis with the year of the publication. DO NOT USE FILENAMES or URLs AS CITATIONS! It should be author, title, publication and date. Consult the library for proper "APA" citation style. These can be footnotes or endnotes. You should provide a bibliographic list at the end.