It is time to end the concept that we should all get to pollute for free. Since the environmental awakening began we have struggled with the notion that pollution costs and that cost should be integrated into the cost of a product or activity. Economists would term environmental costs to be ‘externalities’. That is, they are treated outside of the costing of production. Yet the costs are real, its just that it is always assumed that someone else will pay that cost. The cost may arise in health care costs due to air pollution, water treatment costs, remediation of spoiled landscapes etc. By not integrating that cost into the cost of production it always transfers it to someone else. The hue and cry should be ‘internalize the externality’.
 
That is what the Carbon Tax does and it is widely held by economists that it is the most efficient way to accomplish this. So why is the Canadian political landscape so littered with anti-carbon tax sentiment. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has reflected on the fact that pollution shouldn’t be free (MacLeans, November 2018, p22). His approach is well reasoned and one of the best ways to address the problem. It harnesses market forces to incentivize everyone to be more efficient in our use of fuels and our release of greenhouse gases. The Canadian Buisiness Council issued a statement supporting the use of the Carbon Tax, https://thebusinesscouncil.ca/news/business-council-statement-on-the-proposed-federal-carbon-pricing-and-rebate-system/. The name Carbon Tax doesn’t do it well though. In reality, it should just be labelled the Pollution Tax if you pollute, you pay the tax.
 
There are those that cry that it is just a burden on the taxpayer and a cash grab by the big government. However, a polluter is just transferring costs upon others without absorbing any of them. And the term polluter applies to all of us. Those SUVs that are so commonplace now pollute the air and contribute to climate change. Shouldn’t the owner bear some responsibility for the impact they are having? The homeowner that heats with oil (author included) should bear the cost of pollution the air. Every kilowatt generated with oil or coal should have the cost of that air pollution integrated into. Every industry that is energy intensive and derives that energy from the burning of fossil fuels should have the cost of that pollution integrated into their cost structure.
 
As climate change alters our environment and forces us into adopting expensive adaptation strategies, that revenue can be used to implement strategies to adapt to the future 2.0 Degree or worse world that we are headed for. Perhaps that is a better way to describe this. An Adaptation Tax, required to prepare us for an already warmer world.
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​Science and politics are brought together and projected into the future to form the basis of the Novels in the Sphere Series. When the President of the United States declared that he was pulling the US out of the Paris Accord I am sure that many thought it was not of great consequence, particularly his supporters. This is wrong, it is deadly serious. The Accord lays out targets that are conservative and even if met will still lead to substantial impacts from Climate Change.  The target of keeping temperature increases to 2.0 degrees Celsius is now morphing into a 1.5 degree Celsius target. The recent IPCC Report has addressed the impacts of one and a half versus two degrees rises in temperature stating that with the current carbon budget the Earth will warm by 1.5 degrees between 2030 and 2050 (IPCC SR1.5  4/06/18). However it is highly unlikely that we will come anywhere close to meeting the targets, these represent mankind’s minimal targets and little indicates that nations are on track to achieve them, “A mix of alarm and apathy has both galvanized efforts to secure a 2°C future and also bedevilled them. A target of 1.5°C is no more likely to be met, but may nevertheless encourage the world to try harder”. (The Economist, Oct 13, 2018, p.14). The message here is clear. We may never meet these targets, however, without the goal in front of us, humanity risks much greater catastrophe.
 
One of the key dynamics that is preventing us from meeting targets is the serious divide that exists between Science and Policy. Our Nations develop policy through the political process, that is what we elect people to do. However, the policy frequently follows ideological lines despite factual information that would point in the other direction. That is what is happening today. The largest economy in the world has abandoned the Climate Change Accord targets based on an ideological belief, one that denies facts, denies the science and promotes self-interest and greed. This has raised a strong reaction in the press,  “Trump's failure to fight climate change is a crime against humanity”,(Jeffrey Sachs, CNN,  www.cnn.com/2018/10/18/opinions/trumps-failure-to-fight-climate-change-sachs/index.html). 
 
The question has to be raised. Why would policy-makers ignore the science? The IPCC report recently released drew from over 6000 studies and was written by 91 researchers from 44 countries, (The Economist, Oct 13, 2018, p.76). Yet politicians in many countries, not just the US respond by saying they don’t believe it or they have a scientist who disagrees. “He [Trump] suggested that other reports were as valid as the UN's, though he did not specify any. "I can give you reports that are fabulous, and I can give you reports that aren't so good," Trump said.” (https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-doubt-un-climate-change-report-2018-10).
I would suggest that this presents a challenge to our political scientists and policy wonks to address. Humanity depends not only on scientists doing their job but on others developing the tools to be able to harness the science and use it to attack deadly serious questions of public policy. If we don’t do this we will be exposing our children and our grandchildren to a 3.0 degree plus world. As a writer, I have tried to bring this forward through the route of speculative fiction. I try to imagine the world that we are going to leave to our children. Starvation, conflict, disasters become the mainstay in that world.
There are two key words used in how to avoid this, one is mitigation, reducing greenhouse gas emissions; the other is adaptation, developing the technologies and processes that will allow our children to adapt and live in the new world that has been created. We have to realize that some changes are unavoidable, “Professor James Hansen, one of the world's leading climatologists, has demonstrated that the Earth's climate has moved above the temperature range that supported the entire 10,000 years of civilization,” Jeffrey Sachs, www.cnn.com/2018/10/18/opinions/trumps-failure-to-fight-climate-change-sachs/index.html
In The Sphere Conflict and The Sphere Wars, I have brought together the science of Climate Change with the political shenanigans that characterize our modern age. By forecasting this out to the future starting in 2074 I have tried to convey a sense of urgency but also one of optimism that human intelligence and cleverness can make a difference The third book in the series will take this even further with grand hope for humanity’s future.