Dr. Mike Walden, North Carolina Cooperative Extension economist in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences at N.C. State University, responds:

"I think there are three major options, and we can see these options discussed today in the public policy debate that's going on about how to reduce pollution. One is to rely on technology. It is to develop new ways of bringing fuels and power to us that pollute less. So the key here would be on developing that technology, and obviously that means research, research and development at universities and businesses. So the focus there is, let's get clean energy developed. Secondly is to try to motivate consumers to use less-polluting products today. And the way to do that would be through education. And so we obviously have had a lot of education over recent years trying to convince people - children, older people - about, look, what are you doing when you burn that fossil fuel? What are you doing to the environment, your health, etc.? The third way probably is the most controversial. And it says, look, technology's fine but it take many years to develop. Yes, education is fine, but not everyone follows that. So we have to nudge people with taxes. We either have to tax the producer who's producing a polluting product, or we have to tax the consumer, the consumer who's using that polluting product. And the idea is that taxes are the fastest way to get people to change their behavior. You will hear all three of these approaches discussed, and that's obviously one of the biggest public policy debates we have currently about which method or combination of methods is the best way to go."