Comment Re:C'mon (Score 3, Insightful) 288
would it be cheaper to simply compensate the affected people
It doesn't matter. Nobody has any intention of doing that. When a company pollutes an area, often its' biggest supporters are the people living in that area. They're just happy to have jobs. And if this ever get to disastrous levels, what are the odds that reparations will be paid to those who lost everything? What are the odds that this will be paid for by taxes/fines on the people who benefited most from causing the problem?
and secondly would it crimp the economy so badly that no future development (e.g. electric cars, new power generation sources like solar etc.) could occur because all resources would be spent in prevention* and maintenance.
Or would it make such development worthwhile? Alternate energies and new technologies have an uphill climb because they are having to fight against a well-established system with infrastructure and political clout on their side. If we had a reasonable system in place to require people to reduce emissions, then people would adopt newer technologies, the businesses that supply those technologies would grow, and they would have more money to research cheaper, more efficient production.
Also not discussed by "advocates" is the fact that the CO2 we generate is at this point probably insignificant due to the developing world, and their increased output.
That is a problem. It's hard for us to tell some third world country "now that we got ours, the rules are changing"