Thanks to Michael J Smith for pointing us to James Hansen’s fine takedown of Waxman-Markey. I’m not going to quote much of it here; it’s fairly brief, and nicely written. Please click through and read it.
A side note: economists will tell you that, economically speaking, a cap-and-trade system has identical economic incentives to a carbon tax. What they ignore is that a cap-and-trade bill is an embarrassingly easy target for lobbyists to turn into … Waxman-Markey.
G-8 Failure Reflects U.S. Failure on Climate Change
It didn’t take long for the counterfeit climate bill known as Waxman-Markey to push back against President Obama’s agenda.
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With the Senate debate over climate now beginning, there is still time to turn back from cap-and-trade and toward fee-and-dividend. We need to start now. Without political leadership creating a truly viable policy like a carbon fee, not only won’t we get meaningful climate legislation through the Senate, we won’t be able to create the concerted approach we need globally to prevent catastrophic climate change.
Smith also points us to Joseph Romm’s attack on Hansen’s article, in which he manages to embarrass himself and the Center for American Progress. I won’t link to it here; you can get it from Michael, and you want to read his piece anyway.