"Cap and trade" is the "Earth Hour" of Climate Policy

There seems to be a widely held notion that global warming is something that we can stop and that measures like "cap and trade" will help us do this.  The point of my post is that reducing carbon emissions seems to understand the role of carbon dioxide in the warming of the planet, but doesn't really understand it at all.  If you buy the science, then you know we've already bought the climate change.

Yes, I scoff freely at feel-good measures that allow us to maintain such a blatant misunderstanding of the problem.  Does marginally reducing carbon emissions hurt?  It does when it enables us in believing that we're addressing the problem (or that the problem is even still solvable).  This doesn't even begin to get into more of the details, such as the power grid infrastructure that is responsible for the majority of carbon emissions.  We can make marginal reductions in our power consumption, but most of us simply can't opt out of this infrastructure.  Meanwhile, the coal still burns.

Will we one day reap the benefits?  Only if we eliminate the anthropogenic carbon emissions of post-industrial societies.  Even then, it won't be we, but they who follow us.  Is that a good reason to take action?  I think it is, but marginal reductions in emissions will not serve future generations much better than they will serve us.

Not to mention that there are plenty of good reasons to stop burning fossil fuels aside from global warming.  Petrochemicals are extremely valuable and necessary to modern standards of health as components of food production and chemical inputs for materials like plastic, which is practically invaluable in the field of medicine.  While there are alternatives for transportation, we don't have good alternatives for these purposes.

But, as I said in the original post, we're talking about problems that demand incredible levels of foresight.  Where will the political will necessary to make massive, fundamental changes to energy and transportation infrastructure come from if people believe that A) global warming can be "stopped" and B) weak iniatives like "cap and trade" will get the job done?

This is pretty radical stuff.  Obviously, it's never been tried before.  I've seen similar proposals along the lines of sequestering carbon.  One such suggestion involves pumping it to the bottom of the ocean.  The idea is that the immense pressure would freeze it.  Water has some unique properties, probably the most significant of which is that it expands when it freezes.  Air gets trapped in the spaces between the frozen water molecules, which helps it to float.  This isn't the case with carbon dioxide, so this would help keep the frozen gas at the bottom of the ocean.

Of course, there are possible side effects for this approach, too.  There's always the risk that the carbon dioxide doesn't all stay frozen and that it leeches off into the ocean, which, as I've mentioned, increases the acidity of sea water.  This has dire consequences for the bottom of the marine food chain, as these tiny organisms are vey sensitive to acids.  This is already occurring as the ocean absorbs increased levels of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere.

Also, I thought I'd mention that my post is partially inspired by one of my physics professors.  His message was clear: Global warming is happening.  Making reductions over the next five to ten years down to 1990s levels still leaves us on the uptick!  It's not good enough.  So the main thing to takeaway here is that we ought to count on climate change.  The notion that we can somehow save ourselves by making marginal reductions, especially when those reductions only have the goal of capping emissions back to a point where we were still putting excessive amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, is false and only seems to partially understand what science is telling us.

I'll also mention that this particular professor isn't entirely convinced that co2 is the lone culprit.  The data we have on carbon dioxide correlates very well with the warming trend.  The role of carbon dioxide in the greenhouse effect is also well understood.  Even so, correlatation does not equal causation.  To be clear: He doesn't deny global warming or that anthropogenic carbon dioxide plays a role, possibly even the primary role, but he reserves some skepticism in the absence of more definitive evidence.

However, the idea that anthropogenic carbon dioxide is the primary driving force behind climate change is the whole reason for efforts to reduce it.  It seems to be widely accepted now that co2 is the problem and that we put it there.  What doesn't seem to be understood is how long it will stay there even if we stopped producing it entirely.  To me, this key fact tells us that we have to think about how we will deal with a changing climate in our time and how to elimate, not simply reduce, co2 emissions for future generations.

Just to clarify, none of us disagreed about raising the gas tax, but you were advocating an immediate $5/gallon tax, which would be the hammer blow that would put our already staggering economy into a coma. Raise it, but raise it slowly.

And DF's point in this post is that whether you put enact a $5/gallon tax today or over 5 years, it's still not going to stop global warming.