Cap-And-Trade is Enron-Style Tax-And-Regulate

Samuelson takes down cap-and-trade, the unnecessary and horribly expensive non-solution to a non-problem (CO2 emissions).

Samuelson says: "Cap-and-trade would act as a tax, but it's not described as a tax. It would regulate economic activity, but it's promoted as a "free market" mechanism. Finally, it would trigger a tidal wave of influence-peddling, as lobbyists scrambled to exploit the system for different industries and localities. This would undermine whatever the system's abstract advantages."

Enron-style taxation, regulation, leading to all sorts of corruption problems that will end up harming our economy, our politics, and our world. All to have miniscule impact on CO2 to 'solve' a global warming problem in a world that stopped warming 10 years ago. Watch out, it's coming!

Will Wynn's Climate Protection Plan for Austin are this disaster in microcosm. A horribly expensive and unworkable system that will fail to solve a problem that isn't even that serious of a problem.

UPDATE: I have a simple response to those who urge immediate regulatory action to deal with this 'crisis'. Increasing CO2 in the atmosphere is not a crisis, but a very slow and long-trend effect (increasing by a mere 2ppm per year); it is so long a trend that in fact 60 years of 'warming' has led to no more than 0.5C increase in annual temperatures. Some demand immediate action despite the lack of real warming for the last 10 years; some insist 'the science is settled' and therefore severe warming is a certainty; is it? The models are not proven, the data doesn't confirm the models, and the impact is over-stated. How to 'settle' this without waiting until it is too late? The solution to the dilemma of 'when to act' is this - do it when the warming is really happening. We will call it the "AGW Proof Point Amendment":
Pass an amendment that all of these "Climate Protection Act" regulations will not take effect unless and until the global annual mean temperature (averaged over 5 years) is higher than the temperature recorded in 1998 by 0.3C. There has been no global warming since 1998, and there is no reason to impose any regulation unless and until the warming actually starts happening. No severe climate changes will occur unless we get 2C or more of warming, so a mere 0.3C warming will assuredly happen soon if the "AGW is a crisis" crowd is right.