I have decided to create a new currency, the Carbon. You can spend it and earn it, but cannot exchange it between people, because it's a transaction between you and the Earth. The symbol for the carbon currency is ¢. In earlier times, currencies were physical commodities, or their value was tied to them. For example, the British Pound was called a "pound" because it was set as equivalent to a pound of silver, and around an ounce of gold. This made it easy to know what you could get for a pound, and what it was really worth. So I have set ¢1.00 as worth 1.00kg of carbon dioxide equivalent in greenhouse terms. 1kg methane, for example is worth about ¢23, since it has a greater effect on the climate than does carbon dioxide.


Climate change, our bankruptcy
The reason to express it as a currency is that with money we have a simple idea which everyone can grasp: you cannot spend more than you earn. If you get into debt and can never pay it back, you're in trouble. Likewise, if we emit more greenhouse gases than the Earth can absorb, we get into trouble; if we spend more Carbons than we earn, we get into debt. Some people find it difficult to grasp the idea of climate change because, they say, the pollutants we humans produce are so small compared to the whole system, how can they have an effect? Well, imagine that in a town of 1,000 people every single household spent just a few percent more than they earned - every year for a century. That town would be in trouble, right?

We have been spending more than we earn. When you do that with money eventually you get declared bankrupt and the court writes off your debts. That's possible with debts in dollars, but not debts in Carbons Instead of bankruptcy we get climate change. The debt just grows and makes our lives more miserable and difficult. Our spending is greater than our income.

This is how the story has been running lately:

Figure 1 - Oil prices in United States Dollars

Following is the same story in other important currencies around the World.