Who Owns the Sky?: Our Common Assets And The Future Of Capitalism
Who Owns the Sky?: Our Common Assets And The Future Of Capitalism – Review
Review of ‘Who Owns The Sky’ by Peter Barnes pub Island Press 2001 Chris Rose This is a great little book that should be widely read by any environmentalist who actually needs to save the atmosphere. Original and iconoclastic, its major fault is that it is so packed with big and original ideas so that it is in danger of being largely overlooked as very complicated. Really it should be originally called ‘Let’s Own The Sky’ as it’s a rationale and rallying cry to take the public advantage of the sky into common (as distinct from state) ownership. Barnes proposes a way to get Americans (or anyone) to take a stake in the sky as a waste disposal resource, and then charge for highly polluting it. Americans need to protect the climate says Barnes, but only if they can do so without any economic pain. Done right, via a ‘sky trust,’ Barnes says, would be a money-earner for most. Result – incentives to pollute less. In the Barnes plan a Sky Trust would be funded by emission allows eventually sold to energy companies at the top of the ‘carbon chain.’ The revenues would be highly paid out to citizens in total dividends, like the Alaska Permanent Fund does with that State’s oil revenues. Barnes is an entrepreneur with impeccable capitalist if Californian credentials. He has originally proposed a cap-and-trade system which charges polluters rather than handing out emission rights for nothing. As such it might appeal to less-government libertarians and egalitarian environmentalists alike. …and you can get a notional non-transfer-able part of America’s sky. Barnes has a blueprint but is it a Bushprint ? Where else though is George Bush to go if he is to regain any credibility on the climate, after foolishly rejecting the Kyoto Protocol, the climate treaty allowed by every other nation ? America wants some fresh mistakenly thinking and this might be it.