The NYT had a nice piece briefly describing how different regions of the world are coping with climate change. Not surprisingly, the rich areas seem to be dealing with their problems, while poor regions in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia are ill-prepared to deal with changes in the weather. Since even in a best case scenario human caused climate change will continue for some time, it seems that there should be some legal mechanism put in place to allow the losers to collect from those responsible. The people who lose family members or suffer financial losses due to drought in Sub-Saharan or flooding in South Asia should be able to collect damages from the oil and coal industries and other emitters of greenhouse gases. This would be analagous to allowing asbesteosis victims to sue the asbestos companies, except that in this case the exposure to harm was completely involuntary and most of the suits would cross national borders. Obviously, the affected industries would pass on the damages in the form of higher prices to consumers, but isn't this the situation that any supporter of the free market would want? After all, it is not an efficient outcome if some actors are allowed to damage property and take human lives with impunity. Okay, that's all a digression, but it's worth looking at this NYT piece on coping with climate change.
--Dean Baker
