“Cap-and-trade is a hidden regressive tax, benefiting the select few who have managed to get themselves written into the … bill…. Think revolving door between the government and Wall Street.  Think revolving door between Congress and lobbyists.”

– James Hansen, “I Just Had a Baby, at Age 68,” (2009).

“Ontario and Quebec to sign cap-and-trade deal Monday ahead of premiers’ summit on climate change,” the headline from the National Post (Canada) read over the weekend. Yesterday, in fact, Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne signed an agreement with Quebec Premier Philippe Couillard to price (regulate) carbon-dioxide (CO2) emissions in an effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Such joins California, which has an operating cap-and-trade program pursuant to the Western Climate Initiative.

Cap-and-trade has been lambasted by the father of climate alarmism, James Hansen, whose testimony in mid-1988 brought the issue of the enhanced greenhouse effect to a national audience.…

“Whereas the direct and indirect effects of climate change have a disproportionate impact on marginalized women such as refugee and displaced persons, sexual minorities, religious or ethnic minorities, adolescent girls, and women and girls with disabilities and those who are HIV positive …

Resolved . . . That Congress … encourage[s] the President to … integrate a gender approach in all policies and programs in the United States that are globally related to climate change….”

“Did you know that the small minority of climate change deniers among us, me included,” wrote Timothy Taylor, “are Hell bent on turning our planet into a global whorehouse?”

That’s right. Unless we climate change deniers are silenced once and for all, and mankind is forced to drastically reduce his carbon footprint, the detrimental effects of human caused global warming will soon overwhelm the entire earth and drive our women into prostitution.

[Editor note: Political capitalism, aka crony capitalism, is a major theme at MasterResource because special government favor enables three major energies: ethanol, wind power, and on-grid solar power. Gabriel Kolko, a socialist-leaning historian, popularized the term political capitalism — and concluded, with few exceptions, that business led government, rather than government (reformers) led industry, into interventionism. Kolko overstated his case, however, as this post contends, misleading free-market proponents of Kolko and political capitalism.]

“Bradley and Donway closely analyze Gabriel Kolko’s contention that nineteenth-century railroad officials sought regulation, identifying mistaken notions about private property and capitalism, as well as Kolko’s uncritical reliance on railroad statements that were coerced by the threat of legislation, weak citations, and misquotes.”

We can thank New Left historian Gabriel Kolko for the modern concept of “political capitalism” and its offspring, “regulatory capture.”…

Jerry Taylor has written a lawyer’s brief for climate alarmism and open-ended forced energy transformation via the tax code. Might he like to demolish his new ideas in a second White Paper–“The Libertarian Case Against ‘The Conservative Case for a Carbon Tax'”? It is in his head and can be put on paper–if his emotions can get out of the way.

The intellectual case for government control of greenhouse gas emissions–the all-in cause of the anti-industrial neo-Malthusians–has always been suspect, not unlike earlier man-versus-earth outcries. But climate alarm has become weaker since its heyday (1988–98) for several reasons.

First, temperature rise has slowed significantly in the last 18 years (the warming “pause” or “hiatus“). Second, sensitivity estimates have been coming down toward long-held “skeptic” levels. Third, “fat tail” extreme-warming scenarios for risk analysis are under  assault. …