The aim of the American Clean Energy and Security Act is to reduce the greenhouse gases that many scientists believe are a leading cause of climate change by 20 percent by 2020 and 83 percent by the middle of this century.
If we don’t reach those levels, some argue, we won’t be able to stave off the ills of global climate change.
In Colorado, that could mean a plethora of things, not the least of which is less water for our growing population and a much shorter ski season as less snow falls in the mountains.
Under cap and trade, a ceiling, or cap, would be placed on emissions and companies would have to buy or trade allowances to continue releasing the gases above the cap.
In today’s Perspective, Denver Post columnist David Harsanyi writes that “The cap-and-trade bill being rammed through Congress by Henry Waxman, D-Calif., and Ed Markey, D-Mass., aims to dramatically reduce carbon dioxide emissions by making greenhouse gas-emitting businesses purchase or trade government-rationed or -auctioned coupons in a “market.” On the other side of the debate, Michael Bowman of the National 25x’25 Alliance argues that the “legislation will, for the first time, assign a price to the emission of greenhouse gas pollution that threatens to increase the likelihood of vast wildfires and persistent, more severe drought.”
