The PERC Reports exchange on property rights and climate change noted below, prompted a response from Sierra Club executive director Carl Pope. With his permission, I've posted his letter below. My comments follow.

There is much to celebrate and a mite to mourn in PERC's dialogue on whether the victims of global warming are, by free market principles, entitled to compensation. That the dialogue took place is the big celebration -- a sign perhaps, and not the only sign, that the right is emerging from its long vegetative, state on the ethical and policy issues involved in global warming. (Others include Richard Posner's recent treatment of the extreme climate change as an example of low-probability, disastrous consequence events that society should, in fact, guard against; the rising chorus of concern about the foreign policy consequences of reliance on oil; and the suggestion in the Weekly Standard on whether part of the problem with social security is that it rests upon a tax on work, a good thing, and wouldn't a tax on pollution and importing oil, less good things, be desirable.)

Continued . . .

Congratulations to Jonathan Adler for forcing his colleagues to confront the reality that consumers of fossil fuels do not own the global climate system, and have no established right to impose the costs of climactic change on others without compensation or permission. (CEI has distinguished itself in the past on other issues for its rigor in separating issues of net-total-welfare from individual rights and questions of compensation, but applying this to global warming is a big step forward.) A second bracing and positive feature is that everyone admitted that there are substantial practical difficulties with using common law mechanisms to achieve compensation, even if compensation is normatively called for. No one hid behind Ronald Coase by pretending that we live in a world without such transaction costs.

What was sad was that Adler's question, a basic ethical one, was too often confined to a debate about damage to property, and that the even more compelling reality that in many cases what is involved is loss of life was lost. While there are many countries where property rights are indeed poorly recognized, it is hard to construct an ethical basis for saying that consumers of fossil fuels are therefore licensed to kill these people.

Surely all theories of free markets rest on self-ownership. Assault on one's person is an even more egregious violation of freedom than assault on one's property. So the churlishness of some of the comments, implying that poor are somehow "free riders" was grating. Nevertheless, it's a good thing for everyone that this dialogue has begun. Thanks to you for publicizing it.

Carl and I agree that there are fundmental normative questions at issue, but we certainly differ on the stakes and the proper policy solution.

Even climate change that is largely benign in temperate regions could have -- indeed would be likely to have -- negative impacts on developing nations. Nonetheless, I think it is an exaggeration to say that the real issue is "loss of life." Most of the effects in tropical regions will not "kill" people -- at least not directly. Indeed, from a macro perspective, the various energy suppression policies favored in some parts of the environmental community pose a greater threat to the health and well-being of people in the developing world than climate change.

If the goal is to save lives in developing countries, direct investments addressing causes of mortality in these countries -- disease, unsafe drinking water, lack of sanitation, lack of infrastructure, etc. -- would do far more than a dozen Kyotos -- yet the the likes of Bjorn Lomborg get pilloried when they suggest as much. What I am suggesting here is that there may be a normative case for such investments -- that industrialized nations may actually have an obligation to fund such projects as a form of compensation for violating the property rights of developing nations that will bear costs due to climate change -- even if there is no practical way to make sure that such compensation is paid (or that it accomplishes its goal). Perhaps the Clean Development Mechnism is a step in this direction, but I skeptical that any other international institution -- existing or proposed -- is capable of fulfilling this role, and I do not believe there is any way such concerns justify Kyoto-type treaties. At least that's how I see it right now. To be continued . . .