And Now, We May Begin! Commentary by Charles Komanoff, CarbonTax.org, July 22, 2010. "And now, ve may begin? Readers of a certain age, and a certain literary bent, will recognize the words of Alexander Portnoy's psychiatrist, spoken at the close of Philip Roth's transgressive 1969 novel, Portnoy's Complaint. After lo these many years, they popped into my head today as I read that Senate Democrats had finally thrown in the towel on an energy bill that would have included a partial cap-and-trade provision for limiting carbon emissions from power plants. The bill, written by Senators John Kerry and Joe Lieberman, was touted by Washington insiders and some major environmental groups as this year's last hope for federal climate legislation. Yet it would have relied on carbon offsets and other dodges to postpone the day of reckoning with true, visible carbon emissions pricing - the cornerstone of meaningful climate policy...
"If you're in the climate movement, you recognize that fossil fuels' assault on Earth's climate is an ultimate form of oppression and injustice: of rich against poor, of the profligate against the frugal, of the present against the future. Ending this assault will require concerted action on many fronts; and it starts by internalizing the climate-damage costs of coal, oil and gas into their prices, so that the free ride for fossil fuels is ended and all of the alternatives, from energy efficiency, renewable energy and low-carbon fuels to conservation-based behavior and mindfulness toward energy consumption, may compete fairly and effectively. Political action to accomplish this must be done in bright sunlight, not in Beltway shadows. Cap-and-trade, let us hope, is dead. And now, we may begin!" Charles Komanoff is the cofounder and director of the Carbon Tax Center. Note his other recent commentary, Senate Climate Bill Dies -- Does the Environment Win?The Nation, July 28, 2010.
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