Global Warming and the Ten Year Window

Recent consensus in the scientific community about global warming is that the world has about a 10 year window of opportunity to prevent a catastrophe. But doing something effective is going to take political will, political leadership, and money--lots of it. What it comes down to is that all the rich countries of the world are going to have to raise taxes to get enough money to get the job done. The carbon-based economy of the world has to be replaced by renewable energy sources such as safe nuclear (possibly based on pebble technology) power plants.

But the next presidential election is going to see the Republican candidate pledging “No new taxes”, and the Democratic candidate chiming right in. (What--raise taxes and save the world but lose the election? No way!) Maybe this could be prevented by demanding that all candidates--Republicans, Democrats, and others--sign a pledge that they will not rule out new taxes that are designed to fight global warming.

It should be possible to get a few candidates to make such a pledge, just to get the ball rolling. If nothing else, get some total outsider to make such a pledge. Those that pledge can then accuse those who won’t make such a pledge as hypocrites at best, not to mention cowardly and incompetent to be a national leader.