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our beloved countryside - and that's without mentioning the other problems that come with climate change, like resource depletion and poisons in the air.

Position 4: OK, OK,

> climate change is happening,
> it's happening as a direct result of human activity,
> it's a bad thing,
> but we won't lift a finger to stop it because
> the markets will sort it all out on their own.

Ah, there's a tricky one. Not because it's true, but because most of us good capitalists are completely ignorant of how capitalism works. When we're told that the market always finds the best, most efficient solution to a problem we don't really have an answer for it.

The idea is that the competing selfish interests of the various participates of the market drive all processes to be as efficient as possible and guarantees that all our demands are met. The existence of these market forces, this "invisible hand", is not in doubt. It's relevance to the issue of climate change is.

Firstly, I should point out that all the many hands of Capitalist Vishnu are imperfect. Market forces only function perfectly under certain incredibly narrow conditions, linked to the perfect flow of information and the ability of all market participants to make and act upon rational decisions. These conditions have never been fully realised, and quite possibly never can be fulfilled, so the invisible hand is a clumsy hand.

Secondly, market forces only act on what's in the market. Obviously. And that means what market participants pay for with money. Anything that affects other people is externalised - ignored - as is anything that can't be measured in monetary terms. For the moment, almost all of the environmental (and social) costs incurred by our businesses are externalised, and internalising them is at the very heart of the movement for global justice. Add to this selective blindness the shortsightedness that our debt-based currencies create, and the markets work more to worsen climate change than to fix it.

That's a pretty good argument to redesign capitalism. It can be done, and if and when it is done then we will have harnessed the mighty markets to help save us from disaster. That would make an enormous difference. But mighty as the markets are, they can only ever solve the problem as it is posed in the algebra of prices. Whenever there is an imbalance between the supply and demand of a commidity, prices will change until the twain shall meet. In the case of climate change, we can see that there is an imbalance between

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