Pirate's Cove

Strangely, this super duper Harvard professor isn’t calling for Warmists to act like it’s a crisis and modify their own lives to be climate neutral

Harvard professor has it right: U.S. climate push requires intense grassroots support around ‘cap-and-dividend’ bill 

In the past three weeks there’s been much debate in U.S. environmental circles over a provocative new paper [PDF] from Harvard University political scientist Theda Skocpol. In it, Skocpol gives the most compelling analysis yet of why the 2009 cap-and-trade bill to fight global warming went down in flames. In sum, Skocpol argues that intense and radical opposition from Tea Party Republicans proved much stronger than the environmentalists’ insider-game, partner-with-business, harness-polls-instead-of-the-grassroots approach.

Wait, I thought we were only supposed to listen to people who are climatologists?

Skocpol, on the other hand, from my field-based perspective, nails both the key problems and the solutions we need for moving forward. She is absolutely correct to call for a completely different legislative approach for the next big push on climate in Washington. She is correct in arguing that round two should be based on the policy of “cap-and-dividend” instead of cap-and-trade. David Roberts at Grist and others have applauded Skocpol’s criticism of the cap-and-trade campaign. But they are skeptical of her view that the best alternative is a policy that caps carbon emissions through permit auctions and then rebates the money directly to all U.S. citizens with a monthly check — cap-and-dividend.

What these greenie weenie hypocrites are pushing for is to penalize Other People while giving money to themselves, because, um, well, prices are going to skyrocket, oh, and, that liberal canard of redistribution of wealth to those who haven’t earned it.