World/Germany: Don’t fine Volkswagen for the benefit of those who should have controlled emissions better. Be smarter.

Sir, I refer to Chris Bryant’s “New VW chief signals cost cuts to pay for emissions bill” October 7.

If I were Volkswagen’s new chief executive, I would not accept, laying down, to “slash costs to help to foot the bill for the diesel emission scandal” No way! I would strengthen Volkswagen by making a counteroffer the world could not resists… because of its implications.

I would offer the authorities, in lieu of any fines related to The Scandal, to give to each of VW’s 600.000 employees, and to each of 11.000.000 of VW’s diesel car buyers, for example €1.000 in Volkswagen preferred "green" shares, convertible into ordinary VW shares.

And, if the offer was accepted, I would not waste one € correcting wrongdoings on the past, but instead duplicate the € 11,5bn research budget of last year.  But, that’s just me.

I dare you to find one environmentally concerned, who is not a statist, who would not agree with me.

PS. Volkswagen, don't delay your answer... the faster the better.

@PerKurowski ©  J

Are there other alternatives than snus?

Sir, in How Europe can help snuff out smoking John Gapper points in the direction of the Swedish “snus”, a grinded tobacco you place under your stiffly curved upper lip. I have used it, 40 years ago, I liked it, but I can also testify against its total absence of esthetics, when brown liquid tobacco drips down between your front teeth. In fact giving up smoking this way might also require giving up other things as well, like dating.

An interesting alternative was also presented in 2005 by two professors of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Robert Haveman and Jon Mullahy who then proposed a scheme for their local community where bars could trade smoking permits as a mean let the market arbitrage the difficulties of imposing non-smoking bans. Though cute, the idea seems not to have taken off, and I suspect is primarily because if a bar wanted to be a non-smoking bar it would always come out as a seller of smoking rights, while a bar that wanted to allow smoking would always be a buyer, something that does not rhyme well with market efficiency. The possibility of assigning a fix number of smoking permits per square foot/hour and auctioning them off to the patrons on a continuous basis, with any rights so acquired expiring within a short time period, could be an option favored by the derivatives community, as it would allow for the trading in second hand smoke risk and perhaps even a market in not-smoking-guarantees.

Whatever, the difficulties enocuntered in the area of quitting smoking should be used when analyzing the practical and ethical aspects of quitting carbon emissions, like for instancce when we think of leaving the solutions for the climate change in the hands of the trading of carbon-emission rights, and which though reminiscent of the indulgencies (shamefully) traded by the Catholic church centuries ago, lately seem to have captured the interest of some mainly protestant countries.

If it is serious then one expects it to be treated seriously too

Sir, if an illness can be cured by a little pill, that will somehow take away from its perceived seriousness and something similar could be happening with the endangered environment when the sense of urgency we get from the scientists, is thereafter diluted by the wide array of solutions offered, of which many seem quite simplistic and others do seem more like commercial propositions… The world as you know it will end… unless you buy yourself a hybrid car!?

We agree fully with your “We need a clear and predictable worldwide price for carbon”, February 3, in that the way forward must include a compensation for the costs that developing countries cannot afford, but having said that we get an uneasy feeling about the suggested source of revenues, the trading of rights to emit, as societies do better if they use the markets to trade good-goods and services and not bad behaviors. Similarly developing countries, by just being poor, might be doing less damage, not necessarily, and they might have some overriding urgent needs but, to state “overriding development objectives” as an excuse for inaction of them is wrong, as it implies that either they are to be developing for life on another planet or that they are not suppose to share into the responsibilities of this one.

Finally, what does “the most efficient possible use of energy resources” mean? Before we have a real unbiased source of good solutions that make real sense, even though some of them will most likely hurt a lot, many will find it hard to believe there is a real emergency, and perhaps leading us all to cry “wolf” once too many.