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UMaine professor says polluters must pay

Posted on Monday, November 23rd, 2009, 1:36 am

A University of Maine professor of philosophy spoke to a crowd of roughly 50 people about the issue of global climate change Nov. 19 in the Bangor Room of the Memorial Union.

Michael Howard addressed the audience with the question, “Who is responsible for bearing the burdens of climate change?” He answered by mentioning what he called “the first possible solution” to global climate change, stated as “the polluter-pays principle.”

“This statement includes two principles. First, the principle of responsibility, according to which those who have created the pollution should pay. Second is the principle of capacity. Those who are more able to bear the cost should pay, so it’s the ability-to-pay principle. Both of these principles support the conclusion that, quote, ‘Developed nations should take the lead in combating climate change in adverse effects thereof,’” Howard said.

Howard said increasing global temperatures and their effects could be severe if people don’t take the global climate issue seriously and find no solution for it.

“If we continue on our current path, the concentration of CO2 will exceed 1,000 parts per million by 2100. This would mean the average global temperature rise would go from 3 to 7 degrees Celsius. To get an idea of what a temperature rise would mean, note that this would be warming to a higher temperature than any in the last 10,000 years, during which the temperature varied by only about 1 degree Celsius. The change in temperature would be as great as that from the end of the last ice age, when Bangor was under a mile of ice,” Howard said.

Gary McGrane, staff associate of the Bureau of Labor Education, who attended the lecture, agreed with the polluter-pays principle, but believes it needs more work.

“Polluters paying is fair because they are the ones contributing to the issues confronting us today,” McGrane said. “Polluter- pays principle is not a new idea but needs more work. We need major polluters to pay, not the general public. We are already paying with higher health care costs and a lower life expectance rate in this country. What we need are politicians with the political will to do the right thing.”

Howard mapped out the correlations between the changes in the Earth’s temperature and the concentration of carbon dioxide and methane in the atmosphere with a PowerPoint presentation.

“There’s a striking correlation over the last million years between the changes in the Earth’s temperature and the concentration of CO2 methane in the atmosphere. While these concentrations initially follow temperature increases from increases in solar radiation, as greenhouse gases, they contribute in the positive feedback group to continue warming,” Howard said.

Howard said the longer people wait to reduce carbon emissions, “the steeper the reductions will need to be.”

“If emissions were stopped in 2012, we could expect elevated levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere for a very long time. To keep the temperature at or below 2 degrees Celsius, emissions would need to cease by 2050. If emissions continue on the current path to the end of the century and then cease, we can expect a rise in the average global temperature of 4 degrees or more, with catastrophic and irreversible consequences,” Howard said.

Daniel Huy, a student who attended the lecture, said he thinks an issue like this does not really hit students until they hear about it.

“We don’t really know about it until we’re lectured about all these climate changes, like today,” Huy said. “It’s kind of uncomfortable knowing how CO2 levels can be so dangerous to our environment.”