Sky Trust
= Air or sky trusts acknowledge that everyone has a stake in the atmosphere and that those who pollute it are rob¬bing us of something valuable. [1]
Description
Proposed by Peter Barnes, described by David Bollier:
"A more recent innovation is the Sky Trust, a trust proposed by Peter Barnes and inspired by the Alaska Permanent Fund. Barnes proposes auctioning rights to emit carbon. Large corporate polluters will pay significant sums into a trust fund in which all citizens own equal shares. The expense of buying pollution rights will encourage companies to find more cost-efficient technologies to reduce their pollution. The trust fund, in turn, yields dividends that helps citizens offset the higher prices they must pay for using resources (like oil) requiring pollution abatement. The principle behind the Sky Trust – also known as “cap and dividend” – is that polluters should not have a presumptive right to treat the atmosphere as a private dumping ground." (http://www.boell.org/downloads/Bollier_Commons.pdf)