There is only one goddess Gaia and Al Gore is her only prophet...

[kandrathe]

People don't just stand still in one place while they freeze to death, hoping to save a few nickels on their heating budget. If you can't afford to live in a place, the easy solution is to stop living there. There's a reason 90% of the population of Canada is along the US border, and it's not just because we really love our neighbours.

Historically, no, they do stay and die. I can't think of any large population that has up and moved over a significant geography due to issues with climate (or other natural challenges for that matter). I think the hallmark of humankind is our temerity in the face of the challenges of the natural world. Why else would we build a nuclear reactor over a fault line in California, or ever think Venice, or New Orleans were good ideas?

Regardless, since every sensible proposal has exemptions or credits for low income households, people who might conceivably be in danger of dying should not be unduly affected.

Because... When the crap hits the fan, there will be lots of rich people to pay for the heating and cooling of poor people. Actually, I think the reality and history will show that poor people suffer, and they tend to suffer the most when the crap does hit the economic fan and the concept of "tax the rich" fails when the number of "rich" declines. Again, no where have I seen socialism ever become other than an exercise in reducing everyone to an equal level of poverty.

Talk is cheap, but it also doesn't do anything, so I'm not hopeful about "leadership", sans expenditures. As for incentives, I'm all for it - but they will be effective in rough proportion to cost, and every dollar of expenditure is a dollar that needs to be taxed somewhere else. Surely I don't have to explain this to a libertarian. So, you're still punishing people, just different people. That seems inefficient to me - why not penalize those who pollute directly?

The reality is that "the people" pay for "change" whether you tax them, or if it shows up in the costs of goods and services. Government is merely (a potentially wasteful) middleman in the economic stream, who tends to artificially redirect the natural order of the flows of commerce. Thereby, whenever they do anything they also tend to cause harm, and unintended consequences.

Replacing the entire energy system of the US in 10 years is not slow and steady. But I support it anyway. This accomplishes the same thing as a carbon tax - changing the relative incentives of building plants that do not pollute carbon vs. those that do. The difference is that you're charging different people to do it, taxpayers instead of industries, and you're locking yourselves into sweetheart loans with specific companies. However, if that's what it takes, I wouldn't be opposed to it.

The costs of the change will be expressed either as a tax, or as a change in the price of energy. I think this way, you can remove the barriers to the change occurring, the capital risk is born by government, and industry ends up in control of the means of production. A slight cost would be born by taxpayers in providing a small profit for banks to provide the capital, and then by correctly control the supply of available energy in the system (new plants come online before old ones are decomm'd) you'd in effect be able to control the price keeping it relatively stable over the transition period. I'd even be willing to keep this model in place in perpetuity, since the abundance of cheap energy is a main driver of GDP. But, again, an unintended consequence of a higher GDP is higher standard of living and/or higher population resulting in an increased need for focus on renewable resources and waste recycling. The idiotic myopia of our current world system is that we rush from human caused crisis to human caused crisis without understanding the interconnections.

Any improvements in home energy efficiency are *very* good deals for the economy. Auditing a bazillion home projects would exceed the returns from the project, but I think on the whole, this is still a fantastic idea, and the opposite of wasteful.

Auditing a homes energy, and creating a plan for the homeowner to improve the dwelling is better than paying people to dig holes and fill them up again.

The credit idea is just a roundabout pollution tax - rather than tax the polluter, you tax everyone, and credit the former polluter. Same difference. Loans for zero emissions furnaces sounds like a great idea.

The biggest investment the government can make into the economy is to lower taxes. If you reward those that are in compliance with the overall "national strategy", then people are rewarded rather than punished, and they feel they are contributing to the greater good.

Any idea that starts with the phrase "remove sovereign immunity" is doomed from the start.

Realistically, I agree. But, we all need dreams.

We still need a systemic solution - something that plugs more or less all the holes, not just specific ones. Otherwise, the elasticity of demand is going to cause serious problems for potential solutions. As prices drop from less use, use will go up again as people find new ways to burn fuel.

I think again (referring to the myopia comment above) we are in agreement.