America and climate change

Cap and trade, with handouts and loopholes

The first climate-change bill with a chance of passing is weaker and worse than expected

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Readers' comments



radical constitutionalist


So what exactly has Al Gore done that is so smart? Besides "inventing" the internet and making a powerpoint presentation, I'm not impressed. A sensible person would be very skeptical of something that wins an Oscar and a Nobel Peace Prize. Was the powerpoint presentation entertainment or peace-making? Whichever, it most certainly wasn't science.


We don't understand how climate works. We don't know what problems we may have. We don't know what the results of our actions might be. The computer models are primitive. Our data is insufficient. Charge !


There was a time when the Economist took a sensibly sceptical view of the dangerous man-made global warming hypothesis. Now you support it. But I suggest a review would be wise: the hypothesis has not been verified by science’s basic requirement, empirical evidence, i.e. by the scientific method on which Western economic, technical, intellectual and cultural success is substantially based. Instead, we must bow to the authority of the “overwhelming consensus”. Somehow we seem to have forgotten the principle stated by Thomas Huxley (the defender of Darwin's theory of evolution) that:


Science’s escape from the tyranny of the consensus of authoritative opinion was a major achievement of the Enlightenment. That we are ignoring that today should be of serious concern.


I was sold on man causes global warming until I began to look into the science of it. Now I am convinced if global
warming is even happening (the earth has cooled since 1998)
that man and CO2 have nothing very very little to do with it. The science is deeply flawed it only takes a little
research on the internet to ascertain this. However, we
are running out of fossil fuels no doubt about that so maybe
if we switch energy sources this will be good. However more
research shows that the only practical way to change is to
use nuclear fuel...I see none of that in this bill.

Obama is becoming a retread of Jimmy Carter (who introduced
55 mile per hour speed standards...and gave
away the Panama Canal) he will become deeply unpopular by
2012 and the republicans will have to undo all this pointless bill.

It is going to be a lot of fun to watch these politicians
when it becomes completely clear that man made global warming
is simply not true.

Read a little of the politics of this here:

There are endless sites about the poor science behind it.
Gore will go down in history as the biggest clown ever. Did
you know he got Ds in modest science classes he took at Harvard and flunked out of Divinity School. He is not intelligent in fact this crusade of his smells of over
compensation for his lack of success in science. Read the
Telegraph article for starters then begin to look around the
internet for global warming hoax and such you will find very
good articles and scientific arguments that show it simply
is not true.


This is like watching a slow motion train wreck in progress. I am encouraged that more and more people are finally realizing that just as King Canute proved to his ignorant subjects, there are some things that are bigger than mankind. For example, there was a warming trend at the end of the first millenium. The glaciers on Greenland retreated. Was this caused by monks burning coal in their power plants, coal that they transported in their trucks? It would be much more efficient for mankind to figure out how to deal with any warming trend than to attempt to fight it.

Jack Broadnax

I was afraid this would happen, and it has. Special interests - the carbon-industrial complex is taking over. Your article lays it out well.

I think it is very touching that some people really believe that China, India etc are just waiting for America's example.

The only thing that works to reduce CO2 emission is price. All this political talk just lines the pockets of those who are in positions to grab the gold.

Neal J. King

- On the science: There are plenty of websites promoting faux-science to distract people from the fact that the vast majority of climate scientists are in agreement about the actuality and cause of global warming. A good site that systematically and individually de-bunks these "skeptical" arguments:

- Cap & Trade vs. a Carbon Tax: A carbon tax would be more straight-forward, but seems to be politically unsellable. Even with give-aways, cap & trade DOES give a value to a reduction in CO2 emissions, so the credit can still be sold. Keep in mind the purpose is not just to reduce the impact of driving cars, but also to push industry to non-CO2 producing technology generally.


Neal J. King: the “faux-science” is your assumption that a scientific hypothesis is verified by the agreement of “the vast majority of climate scientists”. Not so – science is determined, not by majority vote, but by test against empirical evidence (i.e. physically observed, real world data), such test being capable of independent replication. The reality is that, although the world has warmed over the past 160 or so years (by about 0.7 deg.C) and that “greenhouse" gas emissions probably contributed something to that, there is no empirical evidence that such emissions were the principal cause. Moreover, and in particular, the hypothesis that our continuing to emit “greenhouse" gases will cause a dangerous increase in global temperature is equally unsupported by test against empirical evidence. No consensus – no matter how authoritative or distinguished – can alter these facts.

(See my post at 17:58 yesterday.)


So now, giving away emission permits for free to the biggest emitters in America is being sold as environmentalism! While those who aren't big emitters will have to pay for their emissions, hence reducing their demands for fossil fuels and making their burning even cheaper for the big emitters.

Whatever a bunch of dimwits with fantasies of being lauded by similar peers in Copenhagen may wish to pretend, this kind of legislation is infinitely worse than absolutely nothing whatsoever. With 19th century style SO/Rockefeller like laissez-faire, at least one of the pillars driving interest in alternatives-to-fossil-fuel investment would still be alive; namely the concern in some quarters over Peak Oil. With legislation like this being passed, no one with a single investable dollar will suffer any illusion that the government is not going to come crawling out of the woodwork to protect incumbents, under any ridiculous pretence whatsoever.

Look at wind. For any serious build out and deployment, it requires huge upfront investment in capital, huge up front energy inputs, and large numbers of skilled employees and engineers. Now wind developers will have to buy permits for the upfront energy used, which the competing coal guys get for free. The wind guys will not be able to demonstrate to potential investors that coal will get more expensive, as skeptical investors will simply conclude Congress will do whatever it takes to alleviate that 'problem'. And finally, the wind guys will not be able to hire and relocate previous autoworkers and engineers and such to do actual productive work for reasonable wages and benefits, as those guys' job security and salaries are being artificially inflated to keep Michigan a blue state. So, in the end, what we'll end up with is less wind than if Exxon Mobile itself were in charge of US environmental policy.

All the same concerns apply to solar, nuclear and wave. In fact, the development of every single even remotely viable low CO2 emitting energy resource, will be significantly worse off with this legislation passed than with absolutely nothing done at all. You'd think Mr. Gore's Kleiner partners would have informed their favorite greenie dunce of that, at least, before letting him spout hope and change hyperbole.

Or maybe the guys at Kleiner are simply a lot less gullible than those investors less exalted, and have long ago realized the true profit potential for alternative energy investments in the Obot era goes through political rent seeking; a task for which I am sure Mr. Gore is perfectly positioned.

K Engblom

A question to all the sceptics out there:
Let’s say you and a “sceptic” are sitting in a closed room. The sceptic suddenly brings forth a gas cylinder, and starts to empty the gas into the room.
You: “What gas is in the cylinder, and how it will affect the two of us in the room?”
The sceptic: “I don’t know. Maybe we will die. Maybe it will kill you but not me, or me but not you. I don’t know and I don’t care.”
You: “I never asked to be part of this experiment. Will you please stop?”
The sceptic: “Listen. Can you prove that this gas is dangerous? If not, it’s my right to keep emptying the cylinder. In fact, since I’ve already starting emptying it and nothing has happened so far, I might as well empty the whole thing.”

No one would question that the sceptic’s reasoning is insane, but in the climate change debate, it seems totally acceptable. The question to be answered is: can anyone prove that releasing another trillion tons of CO2 into the atmosphere will NOT cause any harm?
And if you can’t, is it really too much to ask that we all slow it down a little so we can see how it works out?
And please stop demanding “proof” when the burden of evidence is so obviously on you.


It would be nice of Pollies could just be honest with people, ok taxpayers share some of the blame by not wanting to hear the truth but the only way real dialogue can work is with truth telling. The US has an opportunity to deal with two issues at once, Global Warming (which I accept despite thinking Gore a Fool and an inconvenient truth just a means for him to sell carbon credits and make money for himself) and the horrible state of US Gov't's finances. Taxing petrol more and taxing carbon are effecient, and relatively inexpensive ways to achieve this. Instead we get a mess that neither deals with climate change, helps the US pay off its debt nore help people make necessary choices.
Tax's are a necessity in a mondern world. No one wants to pay too much but there comes a time when you have to bite the bullet and say well it just has to be done.
Shows that Obama is nothing more than every other politician just with a better spin machine.


The "greens" are one and the same with the socialists and communists.

Until 2008, this group knew they would never get traction in the polls. They switched tactics and targeted energy policy as a way to curb capitalism.

Cap and trade is the fruit of their labor.


I have no doubt that Global Warming is man-made and no doubt that we have already waited too long to prevent the consequences (i.e. at this point our actions serve only to mitigate the damage); nevertheless, I could never support this abomination of a bill. While some argue that continuing nothing is more harmful than a poorly-implemented solution, I must disagree. A poorly-implemented solution is even more likely to delay or prevent a proper one than continued inaction. I'm not even entirely convinced this is a solution at all. I mean if they give away the permits to the worst offenders that defeats the whole purpose.

If they really wanted to implement a gradual solution so as not to drive lots of companies out of business, the best would have been a tiny carbon tax that slowly increases into a noticeable one. Not only is that solution fairer, but it also allows firms to predict the future cost of CO2 emissions, which is very helpful in making investments to reduce said emissions. With a cap and trade system, even if the permits were to all be auctioned, there is a great deal of unnecessary uncertainty, which benefits no one.

Finally, all the politicians who are overly concerned with shielding consumers from added costs are clearly missing the point. Perhaps this is intententional because they just care more about their future vote totals than fixing the problem.


I am a Democrat in the U.S. who for the past 20 years believed global warming was caused by CO2. Now, I think the wheels are coming off the man-made global warming theory. More and more it looks like is a natural phenomenon to me.

A year ago I launched where I try to bring common sense discussion to our country’s energy policy. Since energy policy is closely tied to global warming (i.e. climate change) I set out to find the 'smoking gun' that proves global warming is driven by CO2. Instead, I found that the wellspring of man-made global warming theory, the UN’s IPCC reports on climate change, are compromised by politics, and that man-made global warming theorists cherry pick facts and ignore contradictory evidence from reliable studies. In short, there is no smoking gun and the man-made crowd refuses to entertain other possibilities.

Before the United States increases the cost of energy with a carbon tax or cap-and-trade, I believe it's imperative that we establish a non-political commission to review the facts and evidence surrounding global warming. The UN, a political organization, should not be determining American energy policy. The stakes are huge. If we respond to global warming incorrectly, our children and grandchildren will likely lead lives of increasing hardship and desperation.


Government cure is worse than the disease. Instead of simply getting baked to a crisp, we are being baked AND made to pay billions to the biggest polluters for doing us the favour.

This is a rerun of the Great European Practical Joke where national governments in competition with each other awarded more free carbon credits than needed by their champion smokestacks. The bigger the smokestack the more the credits, so everybody made it a great patriotic duty to emit as much as they could to merit those credits. That caused an almighty amusing crash in the carbon-credit price. The smokestacks made a killing, while naive investors (also doubling up as stupid taxpayers in this tragi-comedy in one act) who poured money into green projects hoping to create and sell credits lost their shirts and the enthusiasm to pay tax. The moral of this story: smoking is good for you and kills the lousy tax-paying whiners that elected the government that paid the smokers.

Until we stop believing that government is the solution, we will have no future, no peace, no healthcare and no green planet.



The evidence is overwhelming: climate change is, as you put it, "going on". It always has been and it always will be. It's a natural phenomenon and there is no evidence that mankind was, is or will be the primary cause of that change.

In particular however - and staying on topic - the key question is whether our adding more CO2 to the atmosphere will make the world dangerously warm. If not, cap-and-trade, carbon taxes, emissions trading, carbon sequestration and the Kyoto follow-on in Copenhagen this year are a waste of time. And, most especially, a disastrous waste of money.

And, as I have pointed out repeatedly, there is no empirical (physically observed, not theoretical) evidence validating the theory that our emitting more CO2 would be dangerous.



Yes, there’s no doubt that pollution is dangerous and is affecting us directly – and locally. I know LA well & it’s a good example. Chinese industrial towns are even worse. I’m a committed environmentalist and fully support efforts to clean all this up by a radical reduction in “pollution” and “noxious fumes”. But CO2 is not a pollutant – indeed it’s essential for life. Moreover, there is no empirical evidence supporting the theory that continuing human emissions of CO2 will cause dangerous global warming (see my earlier posts).

You seem, like Camileso, to be advocating the so-called “Precautionary Principle” – i.e. that, although we don’t know if emissions are dangerous, we should be imposing restrictions “just in case”. As I’ve said before, that might be acceptable if restriction had no deleterious consequences. But it does: partly by inflicting yet further damage on our already shattered Western economies – but especially because of the pain it would bring to the third world. More expensive energy (an inevitable consequence of CO2 restriction) would mean that even more already desperately poor people would be unable to access clean water, fresh food, better health care, better education, etc, etc … Almost everything they need would cost more. Do you really think we should let people starve for the sake of an unproven theory?

BTW, you say to Ray35 “It is not the place for ‘The Economist’ to state the validity of scientific theory”. I agree. But, as I said in my first post here, the trouble is that Economist, that once took a sensibly sceptical (and balanced) view of the unverified dangerous man-made global warming hypothesis, has now adopted the politically correct line and supports it without a hint of criticism.

As I said before, a review of that policy would be wise.

one economist

socialism at its best: taxes plus corporate welfare and congressmen-targeted benefits.

way to go America. More congrats for choosing an inexperienced, incompetent ideologue as your president.


When it finally dawns on the voters that the warmies have't a clue as to what's going on with the climate, most of the self serving "scientists" and profiteering pigs (like Al Gore) will either be dead or have made their money. I don't believe the public will stand for this crud much longer. Non Of the so-called computer projections showed the current cooling of the Earth. That doesn't matter to the leftist elites whose goals seem to be more a matter of ideology, theology and a screwy self hatred, than any reality. Getting off oil will happen and should happen. Coal is dirty. Clean it up or stop using it. But, do it in a way that doesn't destroy the economy for the sake of, possibly, a couple tenths of a degee of less warming a hundred years from now.If we are truly concerned about humanity, there are far more usefull ways to spend money than this very doubtful theory about the effects of a trace gas.


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