http://www.sciam.com/ article.cfm?id=green-buildings-may-be-cheapest-way-to-slow-global-warming

buildings contribute about 35% of the GHG.

But for lots of reasons, some mentioned in the article, the idea is a non starter. there are much better ways to do it.

“Tax and dividend” sounds like it would backfire in our culture. If there’s something I’m missing, please let me know.

Something similar was discussed by Jonah Gelbach, and .

ALSO, it’s probably not enough alone, as an unintended consequence be a stronger push on coal… [rising oil prices have already pushed the price of gas faster than most people's idea of a carbon tax.]

For a carbon price to be effective it must, perforce, be large enough to cause a big impact on the public — otherwise it will not help bring about consumer changes that are needed to reduce emissions fast enough.

operative word: “help” — the dividend isn’t the whole consumer program.

Although energy prices will rise, you can bet your bottom dollar that lower and middle income people will figure out how to reduce energy use enough that, overall, they come out ahead. And in doing so, moving to more energy-efficient products, they will spur economic activity and create jobs.

operative word: “moving” — the methods and equipment have to be available, at scale. if he were advocating taxes alone, i’d expect him to describe consumers “demanding” more efficient tech.

oh, about the rich people getting refunds, i disagree. in the long run we are aiming for, aren’t we, an international personal resource allotment, loosely, which means things like cap-and-dividend, which are designed to work as an effective soft-ration — you get a certain use for free, down and down the cap staircase — and, with prices set high but typical use covered, above the effectively-untaxed usage level it’s up to the consumer to figure if it’s worth the money — it means dividends should be distributed evenly to every breathing person, with the problem of ferners and black market labor to be dealt with as shabbily and self-involvedly as usual.

hansen’s said recently he thinks there should be bans on extraction. he’s no deregulation zealot.

http://www.columbia.edu/ ~jeh1/ mailings/ 20080529_DearGovernorGreenwash.pdf

Hansen’s main theme (as ever) is to argue for a moratorium on coal fired power stations and on unconventional oil (oil sands, oil shale). This I definitely do agree with. In the corrupt world of American institutional politics I am amazed that someone as outspoken and Hansen ever rose to the top at NASA – and managed to stay there. He is one of the few people with real passion and integrity (on climate change) with a position of real influence.

Instead I’ll ask why “we are going to need major federal support for clean energy” which I take means pouring tax $$ into it. In a more ideal world, just removing subsidies for fossil fuels ought to do?