Posts


Introducing the Natural Resources and Electricity Cap-and-Trade Act

by David Shreve

In cap-and-trade systems, the government places a “cap,” or limit, typically on pollution or resource extraction. The amount of pollution or extraction is then divided into “allowances,” which are allocated to the polluting or extracting corporations. These corporations can trade their unused allowances in the marketplace.

Cap-and-trade policies promise significant abatement at an optimally low cost. But does experience with cap-and-trade systems vindicate this promise?

The United States and other countries have tested a variety of cap-and-trade systems.


Use and Abuse of the “Natural Capital” Concept

Herman Daly explains how we can use prices now as tools for rationing a fixed predetermined flow of resources, rather than determining the volume of resources taken from nature, or the physical scale of the economic subsystem.


Top 10 Policies for a Steady State Economy

While we’re hunkered down enduring the inevitable collapse of the growth economy, we should consider sound policies for a sustainable economy.