Agree with him or not, it's worth paying attention to Thomas Friedman because he has an intuitive grasp of the American psyche. 

For example, I think he's absolutely right about people being suspicious about the complexity of cap-and-trade. Yes, a carbon tax is prone to manipulation too, but cap-and-trade is much more so.  The record from Europe is poor and I don't have much confidence in Obama and the Democrats preventing manipulation here.

Keep in mind that the Zeitgeist is changing. A few years ago, the Market was God, the solutions to all our problems.  Now, with the financial debacle, we are acutely aware of how markets are manipulated. The response of the Obama administation to the crisis has been disgraceful, a giveway of titanic proportions.  This does not inspire trust in cap-and-trade. 

I think what Friedman is picking up on, is that American attitudes are undergoing a sea change.  They will be much more open to the idea of a direct tax - if it is presented directly for what it is.

I am unsympathetic to David's argument that This Is A Crisis, You Have No Other Choice.  Nah - energy policy is going to be around for a long time.  We've just begun to think about this.  Cap-and-trade and a carbon tax won't solve the problem by themselves. There is much more to come.

The posts iin Grist by people from industry and mainstream economics have turned me off. I get the feeling that they have a stake involved in cap-and-trade which distorts their analyses. They are more interested in repeating their line, than in advancing understanding.

It's important to lobby from the green side, and not to cave in to threats.  Naomi Klien's idea of The Shock Doctrine applies as well to Democrats, as it did to the Bush administration.  Hold out for what you want, rather than be cowed by manipulative politicians.

At a certain point one has to compromise, but we have to make sure we get something in return for our support.

You don't advance your arguments by including any of the above-- from grist comments posting rules-- in your posts. Unprofessional, unnecessary, unconvincing. 

That sentence: "Since the opponents of cap-and-trade are going to pillory it as a tax anyway, why not go for the real thing — a simple, transparent, economy-wide carbon tax?"

...means that honesty and simplicity have an "acceptance vaule" to middle Americans.  The perception of "Sneaky Liberals" and "insider hijinks" can kill the cap and trade bill if it gets traction.

Yeah, I always thought that a carbon tax would fail to get support because it was called a "tax." What I don't get is why Cap 'n' Trade wasn't sold as a "market based" solution (which it is), so that you could sell it to the representatives and constituents who like the sound of a market, with the green team already on board (for the most part). Oh, and auctioning the permits would be another example of a market at work.

Both schemes have their relative advantages (C&T is in theory more efficient; a Tax is simpler and may be easier to regulate), but we need something stat. Get something going with an understanding that we'll go to Plan B once one is made ready. Oh, and and another point for C&T is that Friedman endorses a carbon tax. Guy's a schmuck and has consistently been behind the curve.

But Dave nailed it.  On this one Tom is not tuned in to the audience that matters--the 534 (one more in the oven) members of Congress.  To paraphrase Rumsfeld (not a habit of mine), we have to pass climate protection legislation with the Congress we have, not the one we'd like to have.  To protect the climate we need a law voted for by the men and women who hold office today.  We do not have the time to change who is in Congress; we need to change the attitudes of the members who are there today.  Most members of Congress are home on their "district work period."  Go ask them whether they think their constituents want them to vote for a carbon tax.  Got a "don't think so" answer?  Some argue with a massive campaign to explain this tax to the public we can change the minds of those 534.  Where's the evidence for this?  Where is the strategy to achieve it?  Where are the resources to implement the strategy?  Basing a strategy on a wish is a gamble we cannot afford.

Dave is right when he says the "ball" is not about prices.   The ball is about cutting carbon pollution.  The core of a bill that puts a limit (a cap) on pollution that gets tighter over time is less pollution!  A limit on total pollution tells power producers there is a market for electricity from cleaner sources, tells car companies there is a much more powerful market for vehicles that need less fuel to go a mile, tells fuel providers there is a market for products that need less fossil carbon to make a gallon, tells appliance manufacturers and builders there are markets for products and buildings that give us the shelter and convenience we want with a lot less energy required to run them. 

A tax approach to protecting the climate gets everything upside down.  It would push the supporters of lower pollution levels to argue for higher taxes in order to provide some assurance we would actually get the emission reductions we need.  That dynamic will make enacting anything that much harder because we will see nothing but ads that calculate the tax burden per household and play on the justified scepticism of the average voter to mistrust a promise that there will be a government rebate check in the mail.  There is no way around the fact that a tax approach specifies a price to be paid and tries to get buy-in with a much less believable promise that "we'll pay you back."

A program that limits total pollution doesn't need a particular price to cut pollution.  Cutting the pollution is the law!  The track record is very good that when told to conduct its business and make its products with less pollution, American industry steps up and gets the job done and gets it done with a lot lower cost than the industry lobbyists claim when the law is being debated.  In contrast to a tax, a program to cap and reduce pollution does not need to be expensive to be successful. 

If someone asks you, what is the average American more likely to believe--that a new government tax will be fully refunded or that industry lobbyists are exaggerating the costs of protecting the environment and delivering a cleaner, more secure energy future, what would you answer?

I have been an avid reader of Grist from the get-go and have been a fan of Thomas Friedman too.  I read his book, Hot Flat and Crowded.  I have to agree with almost everything Thomas Friedman said in his recent column, Show Us the Ball.  A cap and trade system would be complicated and cumbersome, while a carbon tax would not.  Either path could work towards the goal of reducing carbon emissions but I would rather have a simple, upfront, easy to understand, transparent strategy.  In my opinion, the longer and more complex a bill is, the more loop holes it will have and the more policing will be required for it to function.  A cap and trade system would be complex, complicated and inefficient.  I am for a big wamping carbon tax.  I look forward to the day when fosil fuels are gone because they are too expensive to compete with clean, renewable energy.  Our family has already shrunk back our carbon footprint to half the US average and could do more if renewable engergy systems were scaled up and less expensive.

Regarding the timing of his column, I think now is the perfect time to fully vet both proposed paths to lowering carbon emissions.  I don't believe in insult as a form of argument.  David Robert's framing of Thomas Friedman's column was verging on insulting and did a poor job of proving the merits of cap and trade over a carbon tax.

I honestly am running out of ways of responding to this. It flies in the face of all available evidence, all available polling. It is a hyper-educated wonk fantasy, projected out on the great mass of Americans. Why people feel they can just breezily assert it over and over again is deeply mysterious to me. 

In addition, the sudden and bizarre requirement that federal policy dealing with an enormously complex problem has to be simple enough to write on a napkin ... where the hell did that come from? It's just something people made up and started repeating to one another. But why? What other major federal policy is held to this strange standard?

And this notion that because a C&T involves a tradable commodity -- like any of dozens of tradable commodities currently being traded willy nilly by advanced economies -- it is analogous in some way to the complex derivatives that grew out of the mortgage market ... that too is just random. Do we oppose all markets now? Is that supposed to be the green position?

It's just astonishing to me how quickly this weird mythology has grown up around carbon policy, out of thin air. And sorry, Bart, but we don't have time to noodle around forever, and we're unlikely to get a more favorable political climate than this for a long time. 

Another tax idea I like is the one by proposed by the Rocky Mountain Institute, which is to tax all consumers who purchase cars and trucks with poor fuel economy and give a rebate to all consumers who purchase cars or trucks with higher than average fuel economy.  The level of the tax or rebate would increase as you go towards most efficient or least efficient.  The system would be revenue neutral and require little bureaucracy, but its effect could be immediate and wide spread.  Companies who choose to be the most green would grow.  This could easily be done with household appliances as well.

To me, this is SIMPLY smart.  This is DIFFERENT than saying it is smart because it is simple.

I don't favor the carbon tax over the cap "n" trade route because it is simpler, but because I think it would be effective more quickly.

Regarding all the talk of politics and timing, I also think many Americans are tired of the rushed approach to passing bills.  I think this is a good trend.

Larson's tax bill isn't any more credible. Does anyone really believe that we're going to commit to annual tax hikes without limit? Why not just cut to the chase and set the tax rate at whatever we're able and willing to pay? Then if emission goals are being exceeded, the tax can be automatically decreased.

And "carbon dis-incentive" law is going to be entirely weak
Or if it's going to be very risky (piled up like a house of cards, ready to collapse at any moment)

Then what's the point?
_

Also to be frank.  I prefer any carbon disincentive that doesn't include offsets.
Since fake offsets, that are equivalent to fake permits, invalidate the permit market.

If we can get cap & trade without offsets?  Then cool beans.
However if we can't.  Then perhaps a tax is the better option.

_

That said, I still question if a broad weak disincentive is more effective than a narrow strong incentive.

    Joe Romm is so thrilled that Friedman once recognized his work, he has a quote up on his blog.  I respect Joe more than he respects himself.  Friedman lives in a giant McMansion and is certainly not a functioning environmentalist.

    Look for Friedman to do more insipid, ignorant criticizing of energy and environmental legislation and policy.  For him, it's all about the money - and about being married to an heiress to the (happily) nearly-bankrupt largest mall developer in North America.

     Please STOP calling Tom Friedman a "progressive."  It gives those of us who are the brightest kidz in the room a bad name.

On the more important question, a carbon tax or cap-n-trade is really one in the same. Neither will be effective at seriously reducing carbon emissions. Either one is really an attempt to pass to the market the issue of managing emissions without any meaningful regulation or actual impetus to reduce emissions (in bith cases costs are passed on to consumers). As well, both programs, and especially cap-n-trade, will require additional bureacratic bodies to oversee, manage, and regulate. Taxpayers will get hit coming and going.

If the US is going to insist on maintaining the failed free market system - and it is, then the solution becomes blindingly obvious: The Obama administration must dictate that all emissions from economic activity must be reduced 80-90% by 2050 with no exceptions and that solutions must not produce or contribute to other harmful impacts (i.e. biofuels on loss of habitat, human food production, or chemical pollution contributing to deadzones). And then leave it to the market, governments, and individuals to determine the best ways to implement that directive.

The federal government could invest dollars that would otherwise be lost on bureaucracies no longer needed. Additiional dollars could be made available by ending subsidies to oil and gas, agri-biz, bio-ag, and other corporate lobbies and groups that contribute to their bottom lines by promoting unsustainable and ultimately destructive industrial and lifestyle practices.

Every day wasted on frittering at the edges with plans such as carbon taxes or cap-n-trade, which are really efforts at delaying serious action, is a day lost forever to real change.

This line of argument is getting really, really old now.

Friedman's value is three fold:

1.) At least since 2006 he has been largely responsible for creating a palatable language for the great energy transition to renewables, built around a patriotism and security gestalt that has really caught on.  He also introduced the idea that the oil companies and conservatives were cleaning our clocks by owning the WORDS and LANGUAGE around fossil fuels and CO2, and how to get out from under that without looking like a scary Earth-Firster.

2.)  He has an audience you don't.  Its that simple.  A column by Tom gets read by people (who vote!) who wouldn't give you the time of day.

3.)  He brought global warming and CO2 concerns into the living rooms across middle America through his Discovery Channel specials and had a much larger influence than any of us will ever have.

So please, take your purity and go to a hate-fest somewhere else.  An ally is an ally is an ally.  We should be so lucky as to have a voice like Tom's, even if its not always right, or as David put it, wrongly timed.

For what it's worth, I think there are two reasons green groups, with a few honorable exceptions, have been unable to speak honestly about carbon caps.  First, they still hope against hope that they can conceal the effect that a carbon cap, by itself (with a rebate), will have on households.  Maybe they won't see it's a tax, and we can avoid all that political hassle.  Second, their favorite projects have been starved for funds for so many years that they don't want to let the carbon revenues slip through their fingers.  They have visions of hundreds of billions going to renewables, transit, etc.  This second motive is both a profound political misjudgment (that they will be the ones to allocate the new revenue stream, unlike all the previous revenue streams) and a failure to recognize that the green investment agenda is not about a massive increase in spending (which would require massive new taxes), but a redirection of the billions that now go to subsidizing unsustainable practices.  Even if we wanted to dip into the taxpayers in a big way, a sales tax (i.e. an unreimbursed carbon cap) is the worst option around.

This is about economics, but also politics.  To succeed politically, enviros have to be honest and clear, and they have to recognize that protecting the finances of American (and other) families can't just be an afterthought.

_

Also if we're focused on preventing some of the worst behavior, a "carbon-disincentive" might proclude instead using the regulatory approach.  For instance beefing up the Clean Air Act of 2005 would have far more potential to deal with coal fired power plants than a carbon disincentive.

Or perhaps a national "low carbon fuel standard" would be far more effective in dealing with Tar Sands.

So, does this mean I'm being mr.pure, I don't like anything that isn't perfect?  I'm not saying cap-and-trade is necessarily bad (although experience shows that Kyoto has plenty of problems), or a carbon tax is necessarily bad, they are completely insufficient.  So pass it, but then I hope the environmental movement gets on with actually trying to prevent global warming.

Or, in the words of someone far more eloquent than myself;

Look, the biggest energy tax Americans pay every day of our lives is the cost of oil and coal. Every time you flip on the light switch or fill up your gas tank, you're paying the equivalent of a huge tax--not to government, but to Big Oil and Big Coal. Your hard-earned dollars are going straight to Exxon-Mobil, Peabody Coal, and the Saudi royal family.

As global demand for energy continues to skyrocket in the coming years, and supply remains stable or shrinks, oil and coal costs will only go up, up, and up some more. The $4 a gallon gas we paid after Katrina was just a hint of what's coming.

Big Oil and Big Coal want you to believe that it's cheaper to stay totally dependent on them and their product. How convenient for them. Don't buy it. The sun and wind are free. Oil and coal are not. It's just common sense that free is cheaper than not free.

Gobs of pork, with a RES&PTC, minus the RES&PTC

Gobs of pork, with a RES&PTC, minus the RES&PTC

Is it any wonder that it's impossible to pass decent legislation? Conservatives won't support it, and neither will progressives. Conservatives are unified in their opposition and progressives are forever waiting for their pony.

Still though, shouldn't the real argument there though be that it really doesn't matter what the bill is.
And what matters is the prospect of attaching all these other provisions as riders to a main bill that will pass.

So the enemy of my enemy is my friend? How enlightened. It is true Friedman has a large audience. So does wrestling and Britney Spears. What is important is the message. And Friedman from one side of his mouth is the voice of imperialism and the violence and ecological destruction inherent with that sort of ideological underpinnings, and, from the other side of his mouth, he wants to argue we can have it all, including a globalized consumer society, and still be sustainable.

In my opinion, that is as destructive an argument as any put forward by climate deniers and/or Exxon and Exxon's corporate and political allies.

A sustainable Earth means less. Less energy, less consumption, less waste. And Earth Firsters may be scary to you, but to my knowledge (and I admit it is limited) they have never advocate bombing anyone or acted as cheerleader for mass killings in the name of politics or ideology.

1.) To disagree with a person on one issue and agree with them on another, is kind of normal. In what universe is the great energy transition away from fossil fuels made without alliances with folk you wouldn't normally work with? Please show me this reality so I can go there. My bags are packed right now.

Speed and efficacy are more important than purity in this case. The ends definitely justify the means -- in this case.

2.) I'M not scared of an Earth Firster, the middle American voter is. Do you understand politics and language and appearances? Do you ever attend Oklahoma backyard BBQ's?

Of course your moral concerns are right, but we gotta get this thing going -- now.

You said:

"But what you might fail to recognize is that to adopt Friedman as an ally is to be co-opted."

I couldn't disagree more. I'm a big boy, I know the difference between the helpful and the unhelpful, and I'll be just fine. So will the movement to get rid of CO2 emissions. We don't need a mother telling us to look both ways before we cross the street.

And I while Friedman is helping the general public understand the dangers of fossil fuels for the past 3 years (very effectively I might add), I'm happy to not belabor something he wrote SIX years ago about GMOs (something he has no sway over today).

I think you have exactly one half of the truth, the kind a 20-year-old has, and I appreciate it for what it is.

Has Friedman changed his tune on GMOs? What about clean coal? Isn't Friedman an advocate of clean coal? Do you support his advocacy on that matter?

And if you are going to attempt to align the "movement to get rid of CO2 emissions" (is that separate and apart from the green movement?) with the likes of Friedman, then I would suggest you do need someone to tell you to look both ways because your movement is about to get crushed under the wheels of a mammoth bus.

If Friedman has been so helpful, and I suggest he hasn't been, then why are those Montanna BBQers still so afraid of Earth Firsters? Why is the debate still centred on frittering at the margins rather than meaningful change?

I think having half the truth, if I even have that much, is 100 per cent more than Freidman has and a great deal more than you can purchase with any amount of condescending arrogance. And that was both condescending and arrogant. There are many 20-year-olds who "get it" far more than you, Friedman, or I. It is, after all, their future that is going down the tubes while we place the all consuming consumer economy over ecology every single time.

That's an awfully nice thought.  I wish that could happen too. Maybe in another 50 or 100 years that would be nice for the majority in our society to have such altruistic reasoning at the front and center of their consciousness.

Let's you and I work on that.  A noble thing.  It's a lifetime of work.  But its a classic youthful mistake to bring a litmus test of progressive environmental purity to the practical work on the table before us now.  If fricken Wal-Mart is reducing more tons of CO2 emissions per year than Whole Foods, then Wal-Mart is my partner in this.  

In the meantime?  Before THIS December.  Lets do the mechanical things that MUST be done to pull this off in time, OK?  

Maturity let's us hold two open palms up, not one fist.  One palm is for the long term evolution of humanity and the other is for pragmatism to get important things done on time.

The arrogance was in the need for you to feel you need to police a group of smart adults who already know they will drop Friedman like a hot potato the moment he isn't helping anymore.  And it became about me when you called me a sell-out.

You and I are a team, Cyberfarer.  I'll meet you on the trail in the Sierra and share your values, but right now we need you and your government representative to support fricken CO2 reductions, OK?

Look, we both have better things to do and there will be plenty of topics for us to meet and possibly agree upon (or not) in the future. So I will have my last comment on this topic here and now.

Here is the deal: We are out of time for playing games. The time to act is now or suffer the consequences (if not you and I neccessarily, certainly our children).

Technology is not energy. It is important to understand that. It is also important to understand that there is no such thing as a sustainable consumer capitalist economy. We cannot eat our way to resource freedom. The challenges we face go well beyond climate change. They are the three Es: Energy, Economy, and Ecology. They are like legs on a stool. Pull one out, and the stool tumbles. They are interdependent.

We are approaching a perfect storm of energy depletion, resource scarcity (especially water), and ecological collapse on a global level (fisheries, forests, biodiversity, species, atmosphere, climate, ecosystems, oceans, hydrological cycles, etc, etc ...), and a much smaller economy (globalism is dead no matter what they tell you).

When you say, "if fricken Wal-Mart is reducing more tons of CO2 emissions per year than Whole Foods, then Wal-Mart is my partner in this," I say you don't really get it. The limited number of emission savings Wal-Mart can offer - which buys prodigious amounts of greenwash - can't possibly erase the overall destruction (not only ecological, but cultural and social as well) brought about by the business model, the industrial extraction model that feeds it, the philiosophy of cheap, and the promotion of consumption for consumption's sake.

Yes, we do need to have a much larger debate on the type of society we want to have and what is meant and what is possible when we speak about sustainability, A sustainable human species requires a paradigm shift in our thinking and our behaviour. And if it is your argument that we, as a nation, as a people, as a species, are not yet at the point where we can have that discussion, then I say it shall never take place because the time to have it is now or never.

We can choose to steer our way through the storm or we can be victims of it. Debating half-measures such as carbon taxes and cap-n-trade condems us to being victims.

If Chu can't name 60 coal plants to close in 15 years with a plan to do it, he's as worthless as gristwash acting like there's a cap in play that's worthy of us

The irresponsibility of Wal-Mart will be fazed out by regulations to come (taking legal powers away from corporations, for example).  That's the doctor part.

Using the sheer size and power of Wal-Mart, and Friedman, to get CFLs into millions of homes in a short amount of time is the emergency room part.  Wal-Mart is a 100 story-high tool kit that is ingrained in the culture -- right now.

Its the reality on the ground.  I don't want to marry them. Ha!  I want to use them for their body and leave them in the morning before they wake up!

And if this two handed approach isn't used (one for the long term changes and one for the short term emergencies) then the selfish, the dimwitted, and the conservatives are gonna fear you and clean your clock in every election.  I've watched it happen for too long.

No, I totally "get it", and I say, "yes, and even so..."

Besides, what was your plan to make this panacea happen by December's Copenhagen anyway?  Buy an AK-47?  Then what?

So long Grist, it's been a short slice.

Besides, I'm being lively and cheeky, not an A-hole, because you're so scrappy and judgmental, and because the world isn't meant to be boring. I would never be an actual A-hole to my ally. Really. We're on the same team.  I'm just enthusiasticly meeting you at your energy level.

I was trying (unsuccessfully) to demonstrate a reality-point about progressive politics and emergency situations like ocean acidification and climate change.  And that there is 8 months to come up with a practical plan that actually displaces CO2. Making EVERYTHING right is on another thread.

You didn't really think you were going to bust into this thread, call everyone on here who is trying to gather a diverse team under a climate legislation tent, a "sell-out", and then waltz right back out the door without commentary, did you?

You are not being "cheeky". You are being deliberatley rude, and insulting. Red baiting is intended to silence debate not to further it so please don't insult my intelligence with your bull. 

You are unsuccesful because one does not, in any discipline or any field, address emegencies by frittering about debating the type of bandage or the necessity for anti-septic cream while the victim is bleeding to death.

Your thinking, lke your hero Friedman, is two-dimensional and out moded and is symptomatic of why any efforts to address the serious crises the planet faces will be too little, too late. European economics remains a system founded and premised upon permanent growth through the infinite consumption of the resources of a finite planet. Try the math.

Any chance of success requires we move past your 1970s mindset into a new century where economics are centred not on the destructive growth model but on a sustainability model and that will not happen, can't happen, until we have the public debate.

The emphasis on policies that have failed elsewhere is just lost time. The issue is not CO2 in and of itself. The issue is the reasons why CO2 is being pumped into the atmosphere. Friedman, for example, believes we can continue plundering the earth and living beyond our ecological means by addressing CO2 with the fiction of clean coal when the issue is and remains the plundering of the earth to live beyond our ecological means.

Only when we are ready to move past silver bullets and magic pills to seriously address issues of sustainability and new economic models, free of the political correctness enforced through red baiting and other efforts to "shut up" thoughts not our own, will there be progress.

maybe if progressives had clapped hard enough, there would be a few more iraqis alive today.

maybe health care costs wouldn't be eating a hole in the american economy, or what's left of it after the progressives FAILED to stop the bankers from writing their own regulations and hiring themselves to check their books.

maybe if progressives had really pulled their weight, the CIA wouldn't "rendition" people for torture.

maybe if progressives cared enough to try, "new urbanism" would have squashed speculative real estate sprawl.

who do you think you're kidding.

The problem for me is this. Let's say I try to sell this idea to grassroots, green or peakoil people, what do I have to work with?  The arguments are:

Not very persuasive.

The level of distrust is pretty high. Obama's a great guy, and I don't think anyone from my neck of the woods is going to fight the proposals.  But enthusiasm? Trust? 

Here is an approach that I think has possibilities.

Grist is a step in the right direction because it provides a place for mainstream environmentalists and greenies to meet. But I think it is the exception.  In general, I think that greenies are better served by working on their own projects than by getting sucked into the great Democratic maw.