Choke Out River Pollution – a la Robin Hood!
Choke out River Pollution – a la Robin Hood! Ganga Prasad G. Rao gprasadrao@hotmail.com http://myprofile.cos.com/gangar What does a 'Green Robin Hood' do for a living? Rob the rich-right to feed the poor on the left? Not exactly, but not far from the truth either! So, what will a 'Green Robin Hood' propose if he is handed charge of controlling pollution in the infamous Cooum river? We're all aware of how rivers run across jurisdictional boundaries and how upstream pollution affects downstream water quality. But what do we do about it – beyond giving a couple of billion rupees to a Singaporean firm to clean it up? What's the prescription? The Green Robin Hood, as it turns out, also has a modicum of economics. So, he proposes a property-rights solution to solve river pollution. Consider the river basin as the unit, and 'hack' it in to 5 or 10 kilometer cross-sections, or better yet, in to cross-sections each representing a twentieth of the river-length. (T...