Barack Obama's BlackBerry

Subject: The environment

Another e-mail from the president-elect’s inbox

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Readers' comments



Obama, and the rest of the world, will sign up for long-term goals that require no pain until after he has left office. We'll know a politicion is serious about reducing greenhouse gasses when he promises to reduce them in 5 years.

Another sign of seriousness would be to enact a carbon tax, starting low ($30/ton?) with annual increases for the next 50 years. Cap and trade with offsets just pretends to address the problem.


As I've said before, a carbon tax coupled with an income tax reduction for the lower brackets would be both revenue neutral and progressive, which should make it politically palatable. It would also reduce GG emissions and shift our economy into a greener gear in the most efficient way possible: by harnessing market forces.


So now that market forces are at work why is everyone trying to back away? It is GOOD that energy prices are set to increase. Those of use who use energy as if there were no tomorrow now have reason to think twice. Even better, higher energy rates provides new opportunity for the market in energy efficiency and energy management.

No sense in squandering a fabulous crisis!

British Expat

I am uncertain why the need for climate action becomes more pressing as the planet cools. The only way to produce evidence of warming is to mine the data or to 'correct' the data - basically get up to the same mischief as economists. By way of example:a) expanding sea-ice in the Arctic in 2008 - only graph data up to 2007b) no evidence of a sudden warming compared with the last 1,000 years - write an algorithm to allow a single sample (tree-ring samples from California) to distort the entire global data-set to create a hockey stick c) can't find statistically significant conclusions above 95% - drop the threshold to 90%, and even drop to 60% to claim results are more likely than not.Economics holds the title of the Dismal Science. The title is now under sustained attack from the far-more-dismal climate science.Even if the President Elect wishes to commit economic suicide, hopefully there will be fewer than 67 Senators wishing to join him.


It will be at least a year before president elect Obama has to persuade those 67 senators to ratify an agreement to make US polluters fund emission reductions. Hopefully by then the US won't be in a recession any more and will be able to exploit it's green technology leadership - assuming president Obama is successful in developing that position.Funding businesses that improve American energy efficiency appears to have a negative net cost. Energy efficiency is low hanging carbon in the most wasteful country on earth and those saved dollars from reduced utility bills will help offset the cost of the investment in the businesses (and jobs) that helped bring the savings about.If I were him I'd stick to my promises on this one and act as quickly as possible.

Enrico Fabrizius

If the USA does not rapidly reduce CO2 emmisions, that is within a decade, it may be too late to do anything else later. We could have set in motion a positive fedback cycle over which we will no longer have control with devastating global consequences. Henry Schmid, Austria.


I realize I already made a similar comment last week, but is there anyone else who finds this "Blackberry" gimmick really stupid? Why can't we just have either a news or an opinion piece.

Has the Economist been taken over children?

Stop trying to be "cool" and do what you do best. Deliver excellent news pieces, and leave the gimmicks out, lest you desire to join the ranks of the second-rate.


“Detroit is sure to squeal, for starters”This is patently false. The US automakers have been long time proponents of a gas tax as opposed to the ludicrous and market distorting CAFE rules. Making people pay the full cost of what they use is much more reasonable than trying to distort demand by dictating supply. I guess the Economist has just decided that this is “bash Detroit week”.



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