I’m glad that my colleagues across the aisle are feeling political pressure to no longer deny science. But we have entered an era of consequences. The time for baffling half measures has come to a close.
The @GOP was once a leader on environmental matters. Nixon created the EPA. The idea of tradeable permits and the Montreal Protocol was championed by the Reagan and Bush Sr White House’s.
SOx markets led from those insights and have allowed us to address acid rain vastly more cheaply than anyone predicted - and more cheaply than traditional command-and-control would have delivered.
Kyoto should have been a victory lap for the @GOP insofar as it took the idea that came from their side of the aisle and adopted it into an international framework. Instead, they chose to politicize it and have spent 3 decades attacking science.
So while it is refreshing to see them finally pulling their head out of the sand to furtively look around, we are in a race against time and must run. This is no time for baby steps in the name of bipartisanship.
And yet we should not lose sight of the fact that the ideas that the @GOP once championed have proven effective. And my door is open to any of my colleagues who want to join me in using those ideas, within the context of all the urgency this crisis requires to move forward.
