What's Cap and Trade? A New Video Breaks it Down and Reveals the Plan as a Scam

By Janet Redman, MinuteMan Media
Posted on December 3, 2009, Printed on December 4, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/story/144359/

Whether you listen to NPR or Rush Limbaugh, you've probably heard about climate change. And if you've heard about climate change, chances are you've also heard about "cap and trade." It's a scheme that tries to sell business-as-usual as a solution to global warming.

Here's how it works. The government puts a limit on how much greenhouse gas can be released in a year (the cap), and industries covered by the system are issued an equivalent number of emissions permits. As the cap is tightened each year, permits become scarcer and thus more valuable. The increasing value of the permits is supposed to encourage dirty industries to clean up their act fast, and sell their spare permits to the dinosaurs that didn't innovate. That's the trade.