What's Wrong with Cap-and-Trade?

There are two sides to every argument, and cap-and-trade is no exception. While, as Morgan pointed out, there are many benefits to cap-and-trade, many people also find flaws in the proposal.

Check out this video--It's kind of long but worth watching! (Thanks to Morgan for finding it!!!!)

http://www.vimeo.com/7908590

In this video Annie Leonard makes three claims about the problems of cap-and-trade:

1) She believes that instead of giving away the permits we should sell them and then use the money to further help the solution. Her suggestions include "using the money to build a a clean energy economy," give money back to citizens to help with the transition to a greener economy, and also giving money to those who are "most harmed by climate change" or as she calls it "paying our ecological debt.

2) She also discusses a clause in the proposal that refers to offsetting, which basically means that when you cut back within the cap, someone else can pollute more while still being able to stay under the cap. Her problem, however, is that it is very hard to prove actual offsetting occurs and that many firms are cheating, claiming to have cut back when they really haven't.

3) Leonard also sees cap-and-trade as a distraction. Many people are so convinced that it is an effective solution that they don't look past it and cut back on new research. She describes it as "false progress," meaning that many people think that we are cutting back on our emission, but in actuality we are actually just "distracted" from the growing problem.

Leonard also complains that the primarily goal and eventual outcome of this proposal is to protect businesses. She believes that instead we should be looking at policy that includes "solid caps, strong laws, citizen action, and carbon fees."

My thoughts: Annie Leonard makes a lot of really interesting points, however I am not 100% convinced. This is mostly because I don't have a reason to believe her. She never refers to any actual data, While she has a good reputation (http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,1841778_1841781_1841805,00.html), I really wish that she talked more about her sources and why we should believe what she says. Ultimately though, I think her main point is that she likes what of what cap-and=trade is trying to accomplish, but she finds major flaws in the proposal as is. All legislation is going to have flaws though. There is no such thing as a "perfect bill." While I have not yet studied the bill myself, I am definitely one for implementing solutions even if they are imperfect. This is definitely a problem that we need to start cutting back on, but we are wasting time going back and forth on the bills and editing and revising over and over again. I don't pretend to be an expert on the cap-and-trade or the fine details of the bill, but I really do believe that we need to start doing more. If we can find evidence that cap-and-trade will reduce emissions at a relatively low price to Americans and the rest of the world, I believe it is something that we should go and ahead and implement. Annie believes that cap-and-trade will cost more money to Americans, and this is definitely something I plan to do some research on for future blogs.

This is only one person's opinion on cap-and-trade and I plan to post some more opinions next week. (I don't want this entry to get too long!!!) Look for more about the CONS of cap-and-trade in future blogs as I gain more information and understand what cap-and-trade really is and the outcomes it can produce.

--Sara McKnight