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The pell-mell pursuit of profits by businesses has long been a major source of pollution. But could such greed be used instead to help preserve the environment? A growing number of politicians and economists think so, and they have come up with the idea of allowing companies to buy and sell the "right" to pollute as part of a plan to encourage them to clean up their operations.

Ultimately, there could be a national or even global market that would treat pollution permits like stocks and bonds. The strategy is not so strange as it sounds; the Environmental Protection Agency used it in the 1970s to curb pollution in selected cities. President George Bush made trading pollution rights the centerpiece of his plan to combat acid rain across the U.S., with his proposal attracting an ideologically diverse band of supporters, from conservative economists, who despised standard types of Government regulations, to environment-minded legislators, who were ready for a fresh approach to pollution control.

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Under Bush's plan, the Government would set a national limit on emissions of sulfur dioxide, a prime cause of acid rain. But, instead of dictating how to meet the target, the Government would let the marketplace determine the cheapest, most efficient way to get the job done. Each company would be allotted an acceptable level of SO2 production, amounting to its fair share of the national limit. If a company managed to pollute less than its share, it could receive permits representing the shortfall, which it could sell to firms that could not meet their target. That is where the power of greed comes in: companies would have an enormous incentive to cut their emissions so they could profit from peddling their surplus permits.

Even the most enthusiastic advocates admitted right from the start that a market in pollution rights presented an immense challenge, mainly due to the difficulty of making sure companies had enough legal permits to cover all their pollution.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,969366-2,00.html

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