I would leave transportation out of the cap and trade system. Why legislate what is inevitable anyway? The price of petroleum, gasoline, diesel fuel and jet fuel are going to soar in the coming years because we haven't had intelligent energy policy for decades. Let our previous stupidity and myopia drive the price higher for the foreseeable future.

While we should not interfere with the rising price of oil, we should cap total oil consumption and disperse oil-buying credits equitably to the population at large. People should be able to sell the credits on the market as a reward for conservation.

The alternative, to simply expose rich and poor alike to soaring fuel prices, condemns the poor who have the least margin to cut in fuel consumption. The poor have always been the best conservationists and should be rewarded for that conservation. The wealthy wasters should have to buy credits FROM the poor to fuel their evil Hummers.

Inside every stern Green beats the heart of an inhuman fascist who wants to see it all go to shit and flames while seeking a complete makeover of society, and consequences be damned. Sure, let's watch stark staring stupid as gas goes to what? $10/gal? You might want to rethink that since most people don't volunteer for starvation w/o force.

"If we delay serious action to 2025, we would then need to cut global emissions by 75 percent in a quarter-century or less."

Sorry Mr. Romm, you a have fallen a little behind what leading scientists like James Hansen are now saying. We pretty much need to cut climate-changing emissions by at least 75% over the next 15-20 years or risk being unable to reverse the worst (potential extinction) of climate change. We are already at CO2 levels that are putting us at risk and every year that we allow them to increase is another nail in our collective coffins.

In order to do this, we cannot wait for industry to get on board nor can we let market devices dictate emissions. You express the post-Reagan fear of quotas, but the only way to get the middle class and poorer Americans on board will be to force the extremely wealthy into the same boat as the rest of us. Using cap and trade or carbon taxes just means that the poor do without heat and transportation while Al Gore and other uber-wealthy continue to jet around; quotas are inevitable, equitable and, if sold properly, acceptable to most Americans.

Reagan convinced us that ostentatious consumption was patriotic and that "greed is good". We desperately need to return to the WWII spirit that, with our survival on the line, conservation is patriotic, greed is bad and doing without is admirable.

Note to Krauthammer: Have you ever met a scientist? "Compliant" is the last word anyone would use to describe them.

I know wherof I speak on this topic...

While in many situations scientists are compliant, when it comes to discussing a scientific issue among themselves, the macho, argumentative, defend my ideas until data proves me wrong grandstanding would put even the most belligerent Republican Pundit to shame.

That's one of the reasons why if there is general scientific consensus on something (such as Global Warming), perhaps you should listen.

(nb. the crucial difference between scientists and Republican Pundits is that the latter continue holding to a position long after the data proves them wrong).

Like Hannibal Lecter, Charles Krauthammer is an example of what happens when a psychiatrist goes bad. Krauthammer has turned into a right-wing troglodyte and has lost any touch with the realities of the world. If he were in touch, he would realize that the air he breathes is as threatened by the global warming forces as is mine and he would be running down the street screaming about the issue.

I think Romm is correctly arguing the consequences, but gets the remedy partially wrong because of class bias.

Who buys expensive hybrids? Wealthy people with money to spend 30,000 on a new car. But is that car more environmentally correct? Perhaps compared to an SUV, but what was the environmental cost of earning the money to buy either the SUV or the hybrid? Meanwhile, some of the cheapest cars get the best mpg, and don't have heavy metal batteries either.

I've had these same arguments with wealthy environmentalists on biodiesel. I pointed out that there wasn't enough waste cooking oil to fuel everyone's car (and in fact now theives are stealing it from restaurants due to short supply). Inevitably, running your biodiesel car takes cooking oil of some poor person's table. Technology fixes that exclude class-conscious economics are counterproductive to the environment because they undermine political support.

We need rationing. But you can't ration equitably without cap and trade. I'm not saying that all cap and trade systems are equitable (the sulfur scheme is not), but these trade systems CAN be equitable. Distribute the credits to the EVERYONE. Romm wants to let rich people, who consume the most, off the hook, plus have the government spend big bucks designing cars for them. That's class bias and is counterproductive to solving the very real climate crisis.

Similarly, carbon taxes MIGHT help the poor IF the government spends the money on reducing their burden.

Romm has it muddled: economically rewarding conservation will bring about conservation technologies OR reduced use. Simply creating more technologies is a tried and failed approach to environmental problems.

...all playing back random lies, repeated on an endless loop.

But it's not "conservatives." We need to get clear on this as much as neocon stupidity victims need to be educated on the meaning of the word "liberal" when used as a slur. So long as we allow ourselves to remain polarized by words instead of united by ideas, nothing will ever happen and the planet will slowly die beneath our feet.

Neocons are opposed to science -- except, of course, when it suits them. The science of harm, damage, destruction, the science of medicine (when it will save their fat, bloated ass from a complete shutdown of their lard-encrusted cornonary arteries) -- all these work for them pretty well. It's just science linked to progressive political movements that troubles them, because, in the end, it brings them not Nearer My God to Thee but, rather, nearer to "Oh no! We're a Negro!" Race is at the bottom of every fear-driven neocon stupidity campaign.

Be that as it may: the fact is that with a few small exceptions I would take, Romm has it right, at least near as I can tell. I am not a scientist. I am a conservative. I do know a little about the science of medicine and of fire. I respect those fields immensely, and the fundamentals of both involve physics and, sometimes, quantum (meta) physics. What I don't understand I can try to learn. I can observe, I can listen, I can sometimes think critically. In fact, it is my innate conservative nature as a thoughtful human being which gets me there. I may be slow, but I do get there. I've read Joseph Romm before. Most of what he has written here makes perfectly good sense as far as my poor pea brain is able to process it, and just like the radiologist who looks at my MRIs (which I struggle with most often, and that's why I don't work in radiology), I trust the science and its representative.

I also trust that ANWR or no ANWR, the price of oil will continue to climb,barring something unpredictable and probably unthinkable as well. The drilling may not have a significant effect on the environment (the sarcastic point my neocon associates seem so fond of using in their endless anti-science chain emails), but it sure as hell wouldn't be worth the cost and wouldn't make a significant dent in the problem; only a crash course in clean alternative energy sources will. Even an undereducated rube like me can understand that.

I also understand that $5.00 per gallon gas is probably inevitable and that I can deal with it (I've already proven that -- I'm good at conserving stuff. I'm a conservative for Christ's sake!). I understand, too, that as the price of existing fuel sources climbs, people will be forced to do the right thing, even if they hate it, a lot like kids being forced to eat their spinach.

My moronic neocon associates are, some of them, genuinely stupid people, but they are people. They are being manipulated by bald-faced liars who wear that "leer of pure, educated evil."

I'm no genius, but I'm smarter than them. I am a conservative and, in the words of the immortal Etta Mae Davis, addressing the House Subcommitte on Public Roads in 1964 (while standing shoulder to shoulder with fellow activist and outspoken socialist Sammy Abbot), "...I like that word as I believe in conserving. I would like to see a committee established to take a long look at what man is doing to his environment today...I shudder when I think of the heritage we are leaving for our children."

Ms. Davis and Mr. Abbot were instrumental in stopping a monstrous highway which would have plowed through three of the most desireable and historical neighborhoods in and around Washington, DC, to connect with that abomination we know as The Beltway. One small victory for sanity, a long time ago.

In the name of Etta Mae Davis, in the name of Rachel Carson (who lived nearby also), in the name of all those who started this "insanity" more than 40 years ago, and in the name of our children's children's children, leave us, for the love of god, not relent in our pressure upon the willfully stupid and destructive element masquerading as "conservatives" while trying to "die rich" at the expense of all our children and their children, and who would, if they could, suck the planet dry, blow it up, and hop the first spaceship out of here for the next whistle-stop in the galaxy, to start the process all over again.

Everything must change, and now is the only time we ever have. I'm down with Romm. The barbarians are at the gates. Let's do it.