[gustavo_duarte]

I'm all for private action, but you cannot take the government out of this issue. After all, whether to build the third runway in Heathrow is not a private decision. Likewise, it's hard for private parties to deal with externalities.

[ivankirigin]

Unorganized private action can easily outweigh government action.

With easily provable externalities like toxic waste, private lawsuits can take care of the problem. Other issues like CFCs are easily regulated.

Cap and Trade solutions for climate change are, say, 5 orders of magnitude more costly. With that comes added demand for certainty. The more rigorous the demands for certainty, the greater the indication that a single governmental solution is inappropriate.

A third runway at Heathrow _should_ be a private decision, by a private company that owns and operates an airport. Runways are also completely irrelevant in this discussion.

[jshen]

"Unorganized private action can easily outweigh government action.

With easily provable externalities like toxic waste, private lawsuits can take care of the problem. Other issues like CFCs are easily regulated."

This seems to be a contradiction.