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RomanDavis comments on Open Thread: June 2010 - Less Wrong
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Sadly it isn't. I consider(ed) myself libertarian, and then found that most self-identified ones reject that reasoning entirely. Pity.
I was also unpleasantly suprised to find that there was a group of people griping about programs that would make it easier to identify cars that weren't liability-insured or pollution-tested, and this was called a "libertarian" position.
ETA: And libertarian-leaning academics don't seem to "get" why paying polluters to go away isn't a solution, and don't even understand what problem is supposed to be solved, even when hypothetically placed in such a situation! (See the exchange between me and Hanson in the link.)
ETA2: I edited an EDF graphic to make this cute picture about the pollution issue and Coasean reasoning. ETA3: Full blog post with original graphic
It's not so much that it doesn't solve the problem as things just don't work that way. For starters, current energy distribution methods are local monopolies, so they are strongly regulated on price because the competition mechanism doesn't work as it should. The idea that a customers might "choose" cleaner energy doesn't always work.
Second, some logging companies tried that. They had an outside company, come in, do an inspection, and certify the ecological viability of their practices. There were a fair number of people who actually were willing to pay a little more. The problem is, another set of companies came by, inspected and approved themselves (with a different label that they invented) , and customers weren't able to tell the difference. That's a problem.
Also, to a great extent, electricity is fungible. Suppose you have both windmills and coal-fired plants connected to the same electrical grid, and they both generate equal amounts of power. Now suppose I tell the electric company that I only want to buy power from the windmills, so instead of getting half wind power and half coal power, I get 100% wind power (on paper). However, the electric company doesn't actually have to change the way it produces electricity in order to do this. All they have to do slightly increase the percentage of coal power that they deliver to everyone else (on paper). So all that changes is numbers on paper, and there's exactly as much coal power being generated as before.