Cap and Trade is not the answer.

This is a great video by the Story of Stuff people.  “We’re trashing the planet, we’re trashing each other, and we’re not even having fun.”

Cap and trade is a huge problem. The video maker’s explanation:

The Story of Cap & Trade is a fast-paced, fact-filled look at the leading climate solution being discussed at Copenhagen and on Capitol Hill. Host Annie Leonard introduces the energy traders and Wall Street financiers at the heart of this scheme and reveals the “devils in the details” in current cap and trade proposals: free permits to big polluters, fake offsets and distraction from whats really required to tackle the climate crisis. If youve heard about Cap & Trade, but arent sure how it works (or who benefits), this is the film is for you.

It’s easy to agree with this assessment even if it’s simplistic and she makes some claims that are hard to prove.  The Story of Stuff original movie was longer and more detailed. Cap and Trade is a difficult scheme to understand for non-economists (and even some of them).  What’s happening now is that countries are setting emissions (and will make it official in Copenhagen) goals no one can realistically meet using the process of cap and trade by the target date.  2050 seems a long way off,  but it’s not.   It’s too soon to get down to a necessary reduction in CO2 emissions without something more aggressive than cap and trade.   The goals are usually a reduction in emissions by 80% or more by 2050, but depending on markets and trading is not a  serious way to get there.  It doesn’t look like cap and trade will even get us close.

It’s also easy to agree that the cap is good and  necessary.  Carbon taxes are also necessary, and so is returning the revenue to the people, and not with a payroll tax.   We are still losing jobs, too many people are unemployed, some by choice (the self employed)  so payroll taxes are not the way to go.  It should not be tied to employers or taxes, just keep it simple and give direct rebates to people in the form of direct deposit or direct payment of energy bills.  Either way, allowances are “not cool” at all.   Giveaways to polluters are the most uncool thing of all.  Tying ourselves down to coal for ever and ever is the worst thing of all.  There is no such thing as clean coal. Cap that carbon!

Also obvious:  We should leave the carbon that is left in the ground, already sequestered. Why dig it out, burn it and then sequester it?  It’s not at all necessary.

People who think it’s necessary are approaching this from an economic point of view. The world has to look at this differently.

Climate change is a natural science issue about how our environment, whether we like it or not, is changing drastically in response [...]