(Editor’s note: This is Part 2 of a column on Global Warming. Part 1 on Monday discussed the approach to take in thinking about the problem. This part discusses possible solutions.)

On Monday I discussed the National Academy of Sciences study of global warming, released Thursday, which addresses the reality of the global warming threat over the next 100 years. Now I look at possible alternative solutions.

To tackle the problem, there are essentially four possible approaches. One is the approach taken by the 1998 Kyoto treaty, which was voted down almost unanimously by the U.S. Senate. This approach imposes legislative mandates on carbon emissions in advanced countries, requiring a short term (2010 — tomorrow by these standards, although still geological time electorally) drop of a substantial amount in emissions, with some flexibility as to how the drop is achieved but none in the outcome. An additional eccentricity in the Kyoto treaty is that it ignores the developing countries, which, if they are trying to reach Western living standards, are by far the largest problem. Even if the Kyoto goals were achieved, therefore, it is very unclear where we would go from there — 2010 is still 90 years from 2100, a reduction by even 20 percent in current emissions is not enough, and the potentially largest sources of emissions are not included.

A second alternative, much loved by economists, is to institute a carbon tax levied on emissions, which would then be tradable so that the most efficient forms of pollution control were used. If such a system were imposed, and the developing countries were included (possibly with some adjustment of the various international subsidies to cover cases of hardship), it would be the most efficient way of minimizing emissions, provided that the required decline was moderate.

There are two problems with the carbon tax/traded emissions approach. First, it would be extremely difficult to establish a scientific consensus, let alone a political consensus, about the best form and level of the tax. Such a consensus would be necessary, because there can be no question that any effective emissions control system must have long-term applicability, and must cover all significant actual and potential sources of emissions, otherwise it will simply result in the diversion of pollution to countries and processes not covered.

A second problem with a carbon tax is that it might not work, in other words, it might not be possible to achieve required goals of temperature reduction without a level of tax that was hugely economically destructive or that resulted in pollution “bootleggers” similar to drug smugglers today. Inevitably, with the level of uncertainty involved, political games will appear in any attempt to set a tax level.

Nevertheless, a carbon tax set at a low level, around or below the lowest estimates of what might be necessary, but broad enough to cover all significant sources of emission throughout the world, is probably a good idea. At the very least, it will be a move in the right direction and will ensure that the world takes advantage of any “quick and dirty” solutions to the problem. It will also throw up many of the enforcement and inequity problems of a larger tax and demonstrate any “free rider” situations, thus enabling the most difficult such issues to be addressed before a heavier tax is considered.

Having established such a tax, at a low level, by appropriate international treaty with all but an insignificant number of countries, the problem remains that it is likely to be ineffective in reaching the desired emission-control goal. At this point, legislation should be avoided, and longer-term, broader-based methods of climate control should be considered, including population restriction and artificial manipulation of the environment.

I discussed the disadvantages of continual population growth in this column two weeks ago. Suffice it to say that, if population could be halved by 2100, the rate of emission of climate-damaging pollutants would also be halved. Reducing population, by means of economic incentives, such as pensions for Third World oldsters (which would remove the current poor country incentive to have many children for old age support) may well be very much cheaper than any attempt to reduce emissions sufficiently to prevent global warming.

Like a modest carbon tax, population reduction incentives are well worth trying, to the greatest degree consistent with accepted norms of human freedom, to see what economic incentives can be made to have a useful effect. Unlike a carbon tax, population reduction imposes few if any negative externalities on the economy or the environment, and we can be absolutely certain that, if population is reduced, global warming and other environmental degradation will also be reduced, more or less pro rata.

Once a modest carbon tax and (at a minimum) modest measures of population reduction have been instituted, if the problem still appears serious, and appropriate technological “fixes” have not yet appeared from the research labs, it will be time to try the fourth possible approach — artificial manipulation of the climate by introducing temperature-lowering substances into the atmosphere. To the inevitable environmentalist squawk at such a concept, we should respond: If global warming is not serious, these steps will not be necessary, if it is serious they may well, on balance, be desirable.

At its most basic, artificial climate manipulation could simply consist of dropping a low-yield thermonuclear device down an appropriately large and unstable volcano to make it erupt. The cooling effect from the volcanic ash would counteract the greenhouse effect of the carbon emissions, as did the ash from Mount Pinatubo in 1991, Krakatoa in 1883 and (possibly most spectacularly) the 545 A.D. volcanic eruption that is thought to have disrupted Byzantine agriculture.

Naturally, a certain amount of calculation would be necessary to make certain we didn’t get too big an eruption, which might cause our civilization to go the way of Byzantium.

Another solution, as mentioned Monday, would be to retrofit our industry and transportation systems for coal, thus producing sulfates that would counteract the greenhouse effect, as they appear to have done quite effectively before environmental meddling began around 1970.

There are doubtless other possibilities, all with costs and disadvantages, but ones which may well be considerably less than implementation of the Kyoto treaty. In any case, we have means available if the need arises to reduce or even reverse global warming by artificial means, so if a modest carbon tax, and encouragement of birth reduction don’t achieve our objective, and the problem still exists, let’s use them. Modest economic action, accompanied by vigorous additional research appear by far the best approach to this problem.

Whatever we do, we should not enter into an arrangement like the Kyoto treaty, which imposes huge and unfair costs and disruptions on us immediately, for a benefit that is uncertain, short term, and insufficient to solve the problem.

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(The Bear’s Lair is a weekly column that is intended to appear each Monday, an appropriately gloomy day of the week. Its rationale is that the proportion of “sell” recommendations put out by Wall Street houses remains far below that of “buy” recommendations. Accordingly, investors have an excess of positive information and very little negative information. The column thus takes the ursine view of life and the market, in the hope that it may be usefully different from what investors see elsewhere.)

This article originally appeared on United Press International.