[This is an EXCERPT: read the whole article here. -Ed.]

by Ned Potter

"In San Francisco, regulators have voted 15-1 to impose America's first fee for emitting carbon dioxide.

"It's not terribly much -- 4.4 cents per ton of CO2 released into the atmosphere -- but the symbolism is obvious.

"The proposal comes from the Bay Area Air Quality Management District, which met today. About 2,500 businesses would be required to pay fees, most of them less than a dollar a year. A few big ones -- seven power plants and refineries, could pay close to $200,000. Cars and trucks, estimated by the District staff to account for half of local CO2 emissions, are not affected by this plan."

"'It doesn't solve global warming, but it gets us thinking in the right terms,' Prof. Daniel Kammen of the University of California, Berkeley, tells AP. 'It's not enough of a cost to change behavior, but it tells us where things are headed. You have to think not just in financial terms, but in carbon terms.'"

Photo credit: Stephen Mackenzie