Feminist Looking Glass

Ever since I started hearing about cap-and-trade, I have been unable to understand how it could possibly work.  I kept reading articles that said it would be great and yet nothing in those articles was able to assure me that the concept made any sense.  I kept coming back to the simple concept that, if you wanted to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, all you had to do was to set limits on the amount of emissions.  But, since the large majority of articles seemed to be for it, and since it was gaining strength world-wide, I thought that I must be missing something.

I especially realized that my simple solution of setting limits did not take into account the economics of the situation.  (As a general rule, I think that the analysis of something very important–such as the environment, civil rights, human rights–should only include economics far down the priority chain.)  But even if I thought about the economics, I still could not understand how cap-and-trade could possibly work.  My overall thought was that cap-and-trade was (another) big scam that would profit corporations and fail to help the emissions problem.

On October 31, EPA lawyers Laurie Williams and Allan Zabel (a married coupled) wrote an op-ed in the Washington Post about cap-and-trade and the current bills in the House and Senate (which are supported by the Obama administration).  It was titled “Cap-and-trade mirage.”  They wrote that cap-and-trade (carbon offsets) is not the answer and, in fact, will make things worse:

Carbon offsets create the illusion of “additional” greenhouse-gas reductions, but we are just getting business as usual. Untrackable shifting of economic activity and perverse incentives such as these are inherent problems for carbon offsets and cannot be solved by certification or verification processes. Since the most flawed offsets will be the cheapest, they will also be the most popular.

The House and Senate climate bills are not a first step in the right direction. They would give away valuable rights in cap-and-trade permits and create a trillion-dollar carbon-offsets market that will not lead to needed reductions. Together, the illusion of greenhouse-gas reductions and the creation of powerful lobbies seeking to protect newly created profits in permits and offsets would lock in climate degradation for a decade or more. The near-term opportunity to create an effective international framework would also be lost.

And so, while I am sure there are many others in the EPA who are also against cap-and-trade, I was pleased to know that at least Williams and Zabel were against it and had written about it in the MSM.

Today, I read that Williams and Zabel had made a YouTube video in September that made many of the same points and had said in the video that the current legislation is a “Huge Mistake,” is a “Big Lie,” and is a “Ripoff.”  Now, after the October 31 op-ed, the EPA has ordered them to take down the video until they make some modifications pertaining to the nature of their work with the EPA.

While the modifications the EPA is ordering seem minor, I am concerned about the tone of this.  It reminds me of the EPA during the Bush years when no dissenting opinions were allowed.

Even though Williams and Zabel took down the video, an environmental group put it back up.  Here is is.