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Looking for the Best and Most Innovative Solutions for
Global Warming, the Environment, and World Development
What we currently do for the environment is not working. A decade ago, global warming was still considered by many but a theory. Today, the crisis is very real.
Our own babies are now born with dozens of toxic compounds and carcinogens in their tissues. Resources are being depleted, permanent damage is done to oceans and the planet.... We need a new perspective on these issues.
Exploring New Solutions for the Environment
Mark C. Henderson's Structural Environmental Strategy
Most environmental problems directly result
from the way economies are setup.
The strategy proposed by Henderson would
change the incentive structure of economies in such a way as to naturally promote markets and demand for green goods, reduce CO2 and other carbon emissions, and turn economies green.
Addressing the cause of problems would be more effective than a cap-and-trade strategy and cost less. It offers a powerful new solution for global warming and the environment.
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A Daring Work
on the Environment
It argues that we have the means today to turn things around for the environment.
More below...
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What if we were able to develop a strategy to achieve full employment, to give a job to everyone that wants one? |
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The depletion of non-renewable resources and its consequences for the future of humanity and the earth. |
A Structural Strategy for
Global Warming and the Environment
Chapter 7
The First Premise:
Appropriate Scale |
Environmental problems are massive: climate change, pollution, deforestation, resource depletion, jet fuel in baby formula, etc.
We need more powerful approaches, ones that can deliver change on the scale needed. |
A large-scale strategy could not be based on a massive social commitment to additional funding. Nobody wants to pay more taxes!
Fortunately, there are revenue-neutral options. They offer a free and effective tool for the environment.
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Chapter 7
The Third Premise:
Minimal Social Commitment |
Chapter 7
The Fifth Premise:
The Use of Efficient Mechanisms |
To be successful, environmental strategies need to use efficient mechanisms. Subsidies and regulations will continue to have an important role but have limits.
Structural strategies that address the causes of problems could deliver more change and do so more powerfully and efficiently. |
Cap-and-Restructure
A Powerful New Approach for Global Warming
A Structural Strategy for the Environment
Henderson's strategy is based on the same forces that suddenly turned the renewable energy sector around last summer. So, we know that a turnaround for the environment is feasible and could be achieved in a relatively short period of time with the use of a market-driven strategy.
The new approach would significantly increase demand for green goods
and renewable energy just as the rising price of oil did for the latter
last summer. Businesses would naturally redirect their R&D (Research and Development) and production towards green sectors.
The global warming component (cap-and-restructure) of the green strategy would rely on revenue-neutral carbon taxes. The system would directly address the causes of problems rather than just its symptoms. As such, it would be more powerful than cap-and-trade as well as less costly. See Cap-and-Trade vs. Cap-and-Restructure for details.
Henderson's strategy would use revenue-neutral taxation to increase the
cost of toxic products, including those used in manufacturing. This would shift markets to more environmental alternatives. Not only would consumer goods become greener but so would industries and manufacturing processes.
The approach would also target non-renewable resources, such as metals, to bring about conservation, create and enhance natural markets for recyclables, and shift products to greener and renewable components.
It also addresses other issues such as packaging, hybrid, hydrogen, and electrical vehicles, the management of renewable resources, agriculture, renewable energy supply issues, etc.
Henderson's strategy could deliver change quickly
and on a large scale. It would address not only global warming problems but also the majority of the issues on the environmental agenda.
More details about Henderson's strategy and its components are available through the links below or at
The Strategy.
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A Proven Strategy:
The Renewable Energy Turnaround
For decades, many people struggled to make grounds for the environment. Most of it was to little avail. Despite all the efforts, SUVs' popularity
surged as if climate change or the environment did not exist. The
gas guzzler industry thrived up until very recently, and environmentalists
could do little to change that.
As the price of oil shot past $140 a barrel in mid-2008, the industry collapsed and major North American SUV manufacturers announced plant closures virtually overnight. A month later, they were all talking about their latest hybrid and upcoming electrical vehicles... and the struggling renewable energy industry was quickly becoming the wave of the future.
What environmentalists failed to accomplish in three decades was achieved by markets in three months.
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Henderson's green strategy is based on market principles,
i.e. on the same forces that turned the North American automobile industry and renewable energy sector around virtually overnight.
Could Henderson's strategy
be the solution
we have been looking for
for climate change and the environment?
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The Book's Predictions -- Mark C. Henderson
'Wasters, polluters, and those who do not care for the
environment or are unable to adapt would only fall behind
and see the
fate of the dinosaurs.' (p. 83)
-- Mark C. Henderson, July 2008.
In September 2008, major North American automakers Ford and GM begged governments for grants and subsidies to help them retool for new generations of green vehicles. Unlike European and Asian manufacturers, they had made the environment a secondary concern and focused on gas guzzlers like the SUV. But, there was a price to pay for that...
Only a month later, they were on the verge of bankruptcy. Because the automobile industry is so important to the North American economy, governments will likely bail them out. However, without intervention, they would likely have already seen the fate of the dinosaurs.
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