P.J. O'Rourke : We Blew It

The South Side of Chicago is what everyplace in America will be once the Democratic administration and filibuster-resistant Democratic Congress have tackled global warming, sustainability, green alternatives to coal and oil, subprime mortgage foreclosures, consumer protection, business oversight, financial regulation, health care reform, taxes on the "rich," and urban sprawl....

...And "bioenergy" is a fraud of John Edwards-marital-fidelity proportions. Taxpayer money composted to produce a fuel made of alcohol that is more expensive than oil, more polluting than oil, and almost as bad as oil with vermouth and an olive. But this bill passed with bipartisan majorities in both houses of Congress and was happily signed into law by President Bush. Now it's going to cost us at least $285 billion. That's about five times the gross domestic product of prewar Iraq. For what we will spend on the Farm, Nutrition and Bioenergy Act of 2008 we could have avoided the war in Iraq and simply bought a controlling interest in Saddam Hussein's country.

Inspiration for climate change - The Boston Globe

The only politically feasible approach that can make a real dent in the problem is a comprehensive, upstream cap-and-trade system to reduce carbon dioxide emissions 50 to 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050. The declining cap will increase the cost of polluting, thereby discouraging the use of the most carbon-intensive fossil fuels and providing powerful incentives for energy conservation and technology innovation.

The system could start with a 50-50 split of auctioned and free allowances, gradually moving to 100 percent auction over 25 years. To establish political support in the short term, free allowances should be targeted to sectors that are most burdened by the policy. And the auction revenue which will increase over time can be used to compensate low-income consumers, finance research and development, reduce the federal deficit, or cut taxes.

The best option may be to make the program revenue-neutral by returning all auction revenue to citizens through direct cash dividends or annual tax credits. This can go a long way toward making the legislation palatable to Republicans and Democrats alike who are reticent to take any actions that even resemble a tax increase.
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The bottom line is that getting serious about global climate change will not be cheap or easy. Beware of claims to the contrary. But if the current state-of-the-science predictions about the consequences of another few decades of inaction are correct, this defining moment provides an important opportunity for serious and sensible action.

Robert N. Stavins is a professor of business and government at the Harvard Kennedy School, where he directs the Harvard Project on International Climate Agreements.