Inhofe, the greatest climate denier of all time has become the savior of the poor!  The problem is that he has a point: solving climate change will cost (at least in the short term) and it will be regressive.  

We need a real solution to this problem, and the "Cap and Dividend" idea is the best out there.  

The idea that GHG mitigation is economically painful is founded on the (faulty) premise that our economy is optimal, which therefore implies that we have already perfectly allocated capital resources and are doing everything we possibly can to reduce our GHG emissions.  The premise isn't remotely true.  And even if it was, it beggars belief that optimal capital allocation made in an environment when fossil fuel cost $2/MMBtu is still optimal today.  The average US power plant is 42 years old.  The average steam boiler is 50 years old.  How can either possibly be optimal?  And when thermal and electric energy production account for 2/3rds of all our CO2 emissions, how can we possibly assume that GHG mitigation is economically painful?

You're right about the need to re-frame, but wrong about the fatalism.  Can we go all the way to zero CO2 emissions without pain?  Of course not.  But we can easily knock it down by 20 - 30% with profitable investments.  Our issue is not whether we ought to argue for fear or courage.  It's whether or not we want to unleash the power of american capitalism or continue to shelter protected industries.  Because at core, that is the issue.  Putting a price on CO2 emissions will induce a massive wealth transfer from dirty to clean sources of energy.  But it need not raise the price of energy.

I think you overestimate both our Republican brethren and the public to which they speak.  The message is not "capping emissions will hurt you;" most Americans have no freaking clue what "capping emissions" means. The message is "dirty f*cking hippies want to save the f*cking spotted owl while your kids are starving to death."  The message is "the f*cking liberals whine about tadpoles and deer and you just lost your job at the coal mine because of them."  The message is "the f*cking treehuggers want to deny you your rights as an American to own your own home, your own car, your own lawn."

The message is: "lazy, dirty, immoral, pot-smoking, law-breaking, bean-curd-eatin', sexual deviant liberals want to RUIN OUR WAY OF LIFE. They want to turn us into a bunch of pansies who can't drive trucks, can't eat steak, can't own a gun and can't beat the crap out of a bunch of towel-heads when we damn well please. Worst of all, they're going to use YOUR hard-earned dollars to pay for it all!"

It's not about capping emissions.  Never has been.  It's about us vs. them, red vs. blue, Vader vs. Luke. The oldest story in the world.  

If we want to fight fire with fire and really get Americans on our side, we need to show people that the fossil fuel guys ARE the enemy; we may be the rag-tag band of rebels (complete with some cute & furry allies), but they are the Death Star.  They have all the money, all the power, and they will lie and cheat and steal, and use OUR money, to keep that money and power for as long as they can.  But the very last thing they have in mind is OUR welfare.  

So, a message of "capping emissions will save your family" is too weak.  Most American's will go "huh?"  Or they will go "hmph. Yeah right. Dirty f*cking hippies."  Our message needs to be:

"evil f*cking corpratist billionaires are raking in profits hand over fist while our kids starve. They scare us into thinking that we can't afford to move away from fossil fuels, because they want to get even more rich.  They know that it will ruin our families to do so, but they don't give a shit.  They lie, cheat and steal to keep getting a bigger and bigger piece of OUR MONEY. In fact, if it makes them more money, they are perfectly happy to destroy this country and RUIN OUR WAY OF LIFE."
 

"and look around -- it isn't even paying the bills. it's really hit the wall.

"there's good money in going green and that's fortunate because it's also our only escape route from the pollution problems, and the drought problems, and the food problems, and the war problems, and the…"

I have to say, I think it's you that is playing into the hands of the right.  Ignoring the realities that there will be short-term costs as we shift from a carbon-based economy to a new green economy is silly and will be fatal to any efforts to pass effective climate policy.  

We need to have real solutions to deal with this cost- not just wish it away. Otherwise, any climate policy we try to pass is going to get shot down by the 2nd coming of Harry & Louise or be blamed for the resulting increase in gas/energy/other costs and lead to the routing of our coming Dem majority.

1. Standard of living reductions
   
2. Fuel switching
   
3. Increased primary fossil fuel/useful energy conversion efficiencies

This isn't an issue of playing into anyone's hands, right or left.  It's simply an acknowledgment that damn near 2/3rds of the options we have available to us to lower GHG emissions are economically good.  Why focus only on the 1/3rd that sucks?  What I can tell you from personal experience is that the size of the opportunity represented by numbers 2 and 3 above is way, way, way bigger than anyone gives it credit for.  And the economic pain implied by number 1 is generally much smaller than it gets credit for.  

Consider that the states in the US with the highest energy costs are also generally those with the strongest economies.  Frame the question as "do you think poor people should pay 6 cents/kWh for their electricity or 12 cents/kWh for their electricity?" and you get one answer.  Frame the question as "do you think poor people have better employment prospects in West Virginia or Californian ?" and you get the opposite answer.  This is not to suggest that higher energy costs are good for jobs - simply that energy costs are only one factor in the overall economic health of a country, and one that - as the above example shows - can be ameliorated with other policy changes.  

At core though, the issue is as I first framed it.  Burning less fuel saves money.  Burning less fuel reduces CO2 emissions.  Why are we starting the conversation with the certainty that this is going to be a painful transition?

Having manufacturing and agriculture close to the final market would be more efficient, for more reasons than just less transport costs -- the food would be fresher and thus more healthy, the manufacturing would be closer to the consumer and engineers.

If people mostly lived in apartment buildings, it would be much more efficient, for instance, just in terms of heat, but also for economies of scale like recycling.

There are also plenty of inefficiencies that many might not agree with: it would be more efficient if firms were employee-owned and operated; if 2 million people weren't in prison, most for drugs; and unbelievably wasteful military; subsidies; a privatized health care system; the list goes on, this society is extremely inefficient.

It is possible that we could follow the European example (more social democracy) and generate a high standard of living for half the energy-use. But I see energy as the general limiting factor in future economic growth (Liebig's Law of the Minimum). (And no, I don't believe renewables have any chance of replacing depleting fossil fuels.) Even if we get a new New Deal, I think we'll all be living a lot more frugally in the years ahead. (Heck, some school district (MN?) is already cutting down to 4 days a week because of diesel costs for school buses.)

So my feeling is we shouldn't sugar-coat any climate legislation with vague and happy promises of increased prosperity. I don't see any alternate but to frame the issue truthfully. Yes, climate legislation may hurt American families. But losing the planet will hurt all families a lot more. (And we can ease the economic pain by funneling money downwards to the poor and middle-class.)

our standard of living will go down but it was already bound to do that, without anything peaking, because we were driven to insane measures like using our (and each others') homes for gambling collateral and borrowing money to pay our health insurance. for many of us this is the second or third generation in a row that's treading water. slowly creeping up the ladder.

the resource use reckoning that's upon us shouldn't be blamed for our bad money management. they come from the same "no tomorrow" mindset but to say, for your mid-pack family, that flashy living will decrease -- or something like our HDI rank will drop -- because of energy alone -- is wrong. we've been cooking the books. that's the main reason.

in terms of future prosperity, it's not a lie or fairy tale to say it. the end of the energy-intensive throwaway society doesn't necessarily mean the end of glamor, because people like glamor and will work to maintain it, to an extent, and because what wind, solar, etc can or can't do is something we need to learn, not something we know.

liebig's law is for unthinking plants in a closed system with strictly-limited goals. that's got nothing to do with us. not even with our agriculture -- today we know that there are more ways to make a field productive than to force feed it nutrients chemically; better crop rotation and soil management are a key part of the latest UN recommendations relating to food security.

it's a 200-year-old rule doesn't even stand up to scrutiny in its own area of expertise. don't let it run your life.

Critical is creation of a positive message, and the message is based on reality rather than fantasy.

Another element of this, the fossil-fuel industry is taking this battle seriously and pumping $100s of millions into the fight. This is closely coordinated with reality-denying Republican Senators. They are on message, coordinated, and using multiple tools to fight their battle.

They have OPEDs in the Washington Post, Newsweek, Wall Street Journal, etc, all with overlapping and reinforcing (and false) messages. (See, for example, "Waving a White Flag: Samuelson and Global Warming" http://getenergysmartnow.com/?p=611)

Where is the strength of the message to save the American economy and to turn the tide on Global Warming?

Blogging regularly at Get Energy Smart. NOW!!! to Energize America .

Lead didn't become more expensive when we banned it as a gasoline additive.   Nor sulfur, nor mercury, nor any other pollutants that we have gradually removed from fuels.  OK, so we didn't remove those in a cap & trade or carbon tax type structure, but that only proves my point: namely, that the way we choose to regulate the pollutant plays a role in whether or not the constraint causes the price to increase.  But at core, an assumption of increased prices for carbon-dense fuels implicitly assumes that in a carbon-constrained world those fuels have value.  There's no reason that they would.  

Put it another way: setting any moral judgment aside, would you consider investing in a coal mine today?  If you think that GHG regulation is coming, you might well conclude that the assets in the coal mine aren't going to be worth very much.  But that is inconsistent with the belief that carbon-based fuels are going to become more expensive.

Cost of energy and quality of life need not go hand in hand, as was mentioned above. California energy costs twice what it does in West VA but on any number of indices the quality of life won't be favoring the mountaineers, I think.

My personal experience with carbon footprint calculating leads me to see that most Americans have not yet begun to tap into their creative ingenuity to save energy.  Too many are still not recycling, still driving pickup trucks an hour each way to work, haven't switched from incandescent bulbs to CFLs, waste time and money with gas powered lawnmowers and bags of chemical lawn fertilizer, run too many household appliances, don't open their windows in the summer at night, haven't planted native species in their yards...  you get the picture.

I think that businesses are even less likely than households to have made the necessary efficiency improvements from a carbon / energy standpoint.  Much more "low hanging fruit" is out there if we care to look in the right places for it.

As mentioned above this will entail divestment from carbon-intensive sources of energy and investment in low-carbon energy but not necessarily any loss in quality of life-- actually a great increase in quality of life from a global standpoint.

Moving toward sustainability with hopefulness, one revolution at a time.