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Earth Chats: Bill McKibbenIf we don't slow global warming through growth control, we'll have to fight its disastrous effects.

Posted Monday, April 21, 2008, at 5:26 PM ET

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New York: Why is there so much emphasis on raising CAFE standards for automobiles when any changes are by necessity slated far into the future. Auto manufacturers then lobby Congress with emphasis on the economic impact from the fact that customers prefer larger cars, SUVs and trucks. Why not make the "gas guzzler" tax an annual tax rather than a one-time cost? Most vehicle purchases are financed, so this tax has very little impact on the purchase decision. Additionally, buying a used vehicle completely bypasses this expense! An annual charge of several thousand dollars would reduce greatly the demand for larger vehicles, thereby having a more current impact.

Bill McKibben: that's an interesting plan. I'll pass it on

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Los Angeles: How much of a concern is wealth disparity? Does this affect overall buying power?

Bill McKibben: It's a huge problem, especially internationally. Trying to solve global warming in such an unequal world is conceptually very hard—it means that we need to do some real work to help the poor world bear the cost

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Toronto: Hi Bill. Are you an advocate of the "steady state" economy advocated by ecological economists such as Herman Daly? If so, do we know what the optimal scale might be for such an economy? A related question—do you think it's time to begin thinking again of what the optimal population might be for places like the United States and Canada? Cheers.

Bill McKibben: At the very least we need a trajectory back towards the local and away from the global, which i think will make it easier for us to imagine an economy that doesn't grow. And in terms of population that gets a little easier to think about as world pop growth starts to slow markedly—we're not going to double again, so one driver of the need for endless growth will eventually start to moderate. We need to go to work on the others now

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Front Royal, Va.: How is it possible to determine the cost-effectiveness of any measure to stop or slow global warming?

Bill McKibben: Figure out what a reasonable price for carbon should be (i.e., what it will take to drive concentrations down below the safe level of 350 ppm). Once that price is factored into the cost of fossil fuel, we'll have a good idea from the markets about what is really economical

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Washington: The most oft-ignored cause of warming, deoxygenation and low-atmosphere toxification is factory farming. Europe recognizes it. Why won't we? Are these industries more potent than even the oil industry?

Bill McKibben: They're much too potent (see ethanol). It's one big reason to back the trend towards local, diversified agriculture.

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Orlando, Fla.: Are you a dreary-eyed Malthusian? Do you have a good working relationship with that great anti-human environmentalist Felix Rohatyn? Do you believe technology has the potential to solve environmental and population problems? If so, why are you not championing those solutions rather than an a turn to a new Dark Age?

Bill McKibben: I'm extremely dreary—I wrote a book called The End of Nature. And I think technology will be a big part of the solution—high tech (like concentrated solar power) and cool tech (like bicycles). I work to get the political and economic framework that can maximize those possibilities. I've never met or corresponded with Mr. Rohatyn. He's dreary also?

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Washington: With the economy, security and immigration being big issues for the presidential election; how do you see the environment fitting to this dialogue?

Bill McKibben: though they haven't; quite realized it yet, the biggest foreign policy questions for the new president will center on climate change—the ring of economic, env. and security problems caused by a destabilizing climate will grip his or her attention almost from the start. My sense is that Obama may realize this—he's talked about meeting with world leaders to discuss climate even before the conventions this summer, I think, though that was a while ago before we entered into the dreary trench warfare of the late primary campaign

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Bill McKibben is the author of Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future. He is a frequent contributor to the New York Times, the Atlantic, Harper's, Mother Jones, Rolling Stone, Outside, and Grist.

Photograph of Bill McKibben by Toby Talbot/AP Photo.

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