David Leonhardt, an economics columnist and blogger for the “NY Times,” has just taken a good swing at the compelling arguments for a cap-and-trade bill. See Saving Energy, and Its Cost. (For a recent post from me on this and an exchange with an opponent, see The Facts of Cap and Trade.) Leonhardt has about a thousand times more juice than I do, certainly in any arguments on economics, and we come to the same conclusions. In his words: “The market is the most powerful tool available for dealing with the costs and risks of a hotter planet.”
In his Economix blog, he takes a moment to remind us of the compelling evidence regarding temperature. (See also Temperature 101 from me here.)
Meanwhile, over at “The Atlantic,” politics editor Marc Ambinder has a few insights regarding the possibilities on a climate and energy bill coming out of that strange leviathan, the United States Senate. He’s giving us some important inside baseball regarding the White House’s intentions and tactics, and whether or not cap-and-trade is analogous to the “public option” in the health care debate – in a word, expendable. Ambinder doesn’t think so. He tells us that he’s heard from the White House that Barack Obama “…will put the full weight of his presidency behind cap-and-trade in conference.” Inshallah.