Thirty years ago, in the lakes and forests of the eastern United States, scientists noted a mysterious decline in plant and animal life. They soon pinpointed the culprit: Pollution was acidifying rain and snow. What followed is a heartening environmental success story.
In 1990, a federal law created the world's first "cap and trade" system, which placed a limit on sulfur dioxide emissions. Under the law, companies were allowed to buy emission rights if they needed extra; if they managed to emit less than their share, they could sell the surplus. Rather than prescribe a specific way to reduce pollution, the scheme encouraged creativity, while the profit motive incentivized the deepest possible emission cuts. As a result, acid rain is a problem we now associate with the savings-and-loan crisis and Def Leppard.
Fred Krupp, president of the Environmental Defense Fund, recounts this achievement in "Earth: The Sequel," written with journalist and fellow defense fund staffer Miriam Horn. Krupp helped to spearhead the reform, and now he promotes the same approach to the more unwieldy challenge of global warming. In this highly informative if rather bloodless book, Krupp explores the energy sources that he predicts will both power our future and jump-start economic growth. "No single technology will stop global warming," the authors write, "but there is a silver bullet: a cap on carbon that will launch all these solutions into the mainstream."
Focus on technology
Imaginative research is already underway as Silicon Valley geeks and other visionaries take on the challenge. We hear about startups with names like Innovalight and Verdiem. We learn in detail about efforts to harness the energy of the sun, the ocean, the Earth itself and biomass. For instance, one section describes work with algae, which show tremendous promise as both a fuel source and as carbon dioxide consumer. Obstacles remain to deploying algae on a large scale, but after a setback -- the algae grew faster than they could be harvested -- engineer Ray Hobbs is undeterred: "If you succeed the first time, you won't really understand why." Another researcher is extraordinarily fond of his algae, which, he insists, are "not pond scum. They're the sweetest creatures."
