cap-and-trade

The 2008 Democratic National Convention kicked off yesterday with throngs of delegates descending on Denver and a firm party commitment to embrace Barack Obama’s election plank -- energy and climate policies included.

ENS parses the green details here, while the Wall Street Journal clears the air on Obama and cap-and-trade legislation: if elected, expect it to be President Obama's #1 economic priority.

As predicted, aspiring First Lady Michelle Obama and ailing Senator Ted Kennedy stole the Day 1 show with electrifying, homerun speeches, earning near-unanimous media praise. (Read the transcript of Obama's speech here and Kennedy's here. Videos of both follow the post.)

Among the other first impressions to emerge, here's one of the most prevalent: ExxonMobil, the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity and the whole clean coal lie are "everywhere."

Right now, the leading global warming law pending in the Senate would give away rights to pollute the sky for free. The rights would be worth hundreds of billions of dollars. Sounds like a bad idea, doesn't it?

Here's a promising alternative, gaining popularity: it's called the Sky Trust. It's also know more technically as cap-and-dividend or cap-and-recycle, because it's different from cap-and trade.

The idea behind the Sky Trust is this: The atmosphere is a public "commons," belonging to everyone. Not to the government. Not to corporations. Not to polluters, gaming the system. We all "own" the sky, equally, and therefore we all ought to be equal beneficiaries of any system designed to protect it.