Both referents nodded at this. Point of pride, in fact. Trying to out-do each other; attempt to attain Spocklike scientific objectivity a worthy goal, and so on. Dick quite hilarious on this matter.
Mary saw the nods and sighed again. All right, when you align both negative and positive reinforcements to press us toward a certain behavior, we then do that behavior. It’s just Pavlov, right? Stimulus and response. So how could we get this started?
Said, If the dozen biggest central banks agreed to do it together, it would go.
But that’s true of almost anything! Mary exclaimed. What’s the minimum you think it would need to succeed?
Said, Any central bank could experiment with it. Best would be the US, China, and the EU. India might be the most motivated to go it alone, they’re still very anxious to get carbon out of the air fast. But the more the merrier, as always.
She asked to be led through the time element again.
Explained how the central banks could simply publish the rate of return that they planned to pay out in the future, no matter what. Investors would therefore have a sure thing, which they would love. It would be a way to go long, and to securitize their more speculative bets. The stick, the carbon tax, also needed to rise over time. With that tax rate and its angle of increase published in advance, and a long-term rate of return guaranteed for investing in carbon coins, one could then calculate the cost of burning carbon, and the benefits of sequestering it. Normal currencies float against each other in the exchange markets, but if one currency is guaranteed to rise in value over time no matter what, then it becomes more valuable to investors. It will always stay strong in the currency market because it’s got a time stamp guarantee of a rise in value. The carbon coin designed in that way would eventually probably replace the US dollar as the world’s benchmark currency, which would strengthen it even more.
It’s like compound interest again, Dick remarked to Mary.
Said, Yes, but this time guaranteed by being delinked from current interest rates, which often hit zero, or even go negative. With this coin, you’re good to go no matter what happens.
Dick said, That could make for a liquidity trap, because investors would stash money there for safety rather than put it to use.
Shook head at that. Set the rate low enough that it’s seen as more of a back-up.
Dick said, If the central banks announced they were upping the amount of carbon needed to earn a coin, they could then balance it with other safe asset classes like treasury bonds and infrastructure bonds. That would add liquidity and give traders something about this that they could short, which is something they like to do.
Agreed this might be good.
Mary said, Could we issue these carbon coins ourselves from the ministry?
Shook head. You have to be able to buy them all back at some floor rate, to make people believe in them. We might not have the reserves to do that.
We can barely pay our staff, Mary said.
We’ve noticed, Dick joked. Good to see he liked this plan.
Mary brought the meeting to a close. Work this up into a full proposal, she said. One I can take to the central banks and defend. I’ve got meetings with them already scheduled. We’ll see where it takes us.
43
I am a secret so everyone can know me. First you must count every part of me, then translate those parts into signs that do not describe me. Together we are shackled, and with the sign that does not describe me you can open me up and read me as I am. People will give you their promises for me, and if wrongdoers try to take me away from you, you can find me and tell the world where I am hidden. I began as a silent speaking, a key to open every door; now that I have opened all the front doors, I am the key that locks the back doors by which wrongdoers try to escape the scene of the crime. I am the nothing that makes everything happen. You don’t know me, you don’t understand me; and yet still, if you want justice, I will help you to find it. I am blockchain. I am encryption. I am code. Now put me to use.
44
The part of Antarctica that holds its ice the longest is near the middle, between the Transantarctics and an ice-submerged mountain range called the Gamburtsev Mountains. The Gamburtsevs are almost as high as the Alps, yet still completely buried by ice; they were only discovered by overflights using ice-penetrating radar. Between this newly discovered range and the Transantarctics there’s a flat plain, surrounded by mountains in such a way that scientists estimate the ice sitting on it won’t reach the coast for at least five thousand years. In other areas of the continent ice will get to the sea in the next couple of decades. So it’s another case of location, location, location.
Naturally this Point of Maximum Ice Sequestration is a long way from the sea, and the polar ice cap there is ten thousand feet thick, meaning about that high above sea level, as the bedrock under all that ice lies just slightly below sea level. So if you were thinking of pumping seawater up onto this part of the ice cap to keep sea level from rising, it was going to take a lot of energy. And a lot of pipeline too. Run the numbers and you can see: not going to happen.
Still there were people who wanted to try it. Non-quantitative people, it would seem, and yet rich despite that. Chief among these curious people was a Russian billionaire from Silicon Valley, who felt Antarctica as a place to dump seawater just had to
