Common good versus individual rights

I recommend everyone read this article. The basic premise is working with known psychological persuasions but still allowing for individual freedoms in order to extract desired behavior. You allow people to buy inefficient appliances if they really want them, but you make it more difficult or expensive up front. The market works, but the needs to the society are rarely priced in these days (aka the "tragedy or the commons"). Libertarians sometimes balk at these plans, but I really think it should assuage their concerns since it allows for individual rights and I think they sometimes underestimate the costs that individual actions have on others.

From Random images

Finally, I like how they score the presidential candidates' plans based on this scale. The only thing I'm still debating is the two carbon credit plans. McCain would give out a certain number, Obama would sell them. Obama's plan will cost us more (not just "big companies" but everyone), but it will have a greater impact. I guess it just depends on how serious a threat climate change is and how costly inaction will be... a notoriously difficult estimate to make.