Energy Test: Cap and Trade

by Brad Peck

The Politico today is running a special section examining the Waxman-Markey bill, check out all of the articles are here, and this video. I do want to call special attention to the Politico Arena debate which features posts by Mindy Lubber, from Ceres, and Bill Kovacs, from the U.S. Chamber; with rebuttals from each and each. Charles Calomiris, Professor of Financial Institutions at Columbia also weighed in; a bit of what he had to say:

The Waxman-Markey bill is a terrible idea. First, because we share the atmosphere with the whole world, domestic regulation of carbon would not work to reduce carbon emissions. Domestic taxation, however, would do substantial damage to US growth and give China and other countries even more of a comparative advantage in manufacturing production...

As I noted in another Arena posting, the Copenhagen Consensus (a group of economists and scientists that includes many Nobel laureates) has come to the conclusion that this approach is not the right one; a combination of adaptation to climate change and a more gradual reduction in carbon use via some expenditure on R&D for alternative energy sources would make more sense, especially since it would promote economic growth, and thereby permit us to solve other global problems where the payoffs from spending money are clearer and larger. The shallowness of the debate over Waxman-Markey reminds us that in Washington political fortunes are not made by the subtle application of scientific logic. That is no surprise. More disappointing is the hypocrisy of the majority of the intellectual community of scientists and economists, which are too interested in preserving their membership cards in the liberal intelligensia to risk speaking the truth about the illogic of this nonsensical bill.

Comments

[amsatpro]

Yes that's we really need to do!
Todd DiRoberto
http://biz.clush.com/ToddDiRoberto

[ateeq Muhammad]

we need a energy saver bulb manufacturing feasibility for pakistan's point of view