Yes, Mr. Levinson, I share your point of view: from a non-teleological point of view, there is no such a thing as (totally) useful or useless, but it is a continuosly variable shade of Utility. Though I personally quite abhor how the word "utility" is commonly used and meant of, because it only implies aims but not origin, the psychological way of thinking "to what end?" is still deeply rooted in the western world culture, as opposite to an "as is" sight that would also make many things easier. Thank you, I look forward to your next columns.

I loved the article "Henry Ford Would Dump California". This needs to be required reading for every American.  It certainly will be for my class at the community college.

Mr. Levinson,

Interesting thesis, and well written.  However, I am not fully convinced of the conclusions.  If cap and trade is not an incentive to drive either efficiency or, at least, reduce carbon emissions, what would be a preferred alternative?  For too long industry has not had to account for all aspects of their operations, particulalry carbon output.  Granted, the deleterious effects of carbon emissions is a more recently understood negative impact, but the point is that manufacturers everywhere need to account for all aspects of their operations, and wastes are certainly a part of that.  Would you support a carbon tax?  More direct regulations that require particular control technologies be applied?  Something else? 

Yes, in this case California has taken a lead role (again) with the cap and trade system, and certainly risks some negative consequences, but it is likely that other parts of the U.S., and eventually the world, will also begin to implement some kinds of carbon-controlling requirements.  The question remains, what would be the better approach?  With this action, at least we can learn if cap and trade will have greater positives or negatives.  Someone always must try new approaches first; this time it is a state that tends to lead in the arena of environmental management in this country.

Thanks for your thoughtful arguments - look forward to a response.

The cap & trade method is an attempt to capture an externality of the power generation process and feed it back into the costing function so that capitalism can correctly find the true cost/benefit balance.

It is clear that you do not find the cap & trade method an effective way to do this.

Skipping the whole question of "is excess carbon bad" - assume that is for this question - how do you propose to capture this externality so that capitalism can function correctly?

Is it even correct to anticipate a cost and feed it back into the process to reduce the final cost? Do you have to allow a reactor to melt down to find out how expensive it is to clean up afterwards? Waiting until the true costs are easily measurable (sea rises 2 meters, triggering another ice age, ...) is likely to make the eventual cost much higher.

Or are you proposing that the correct behavior of an organization is to foul the environment until someone makes you pay for the damage and them move on to some other place and repeat the process?

Mark