Cap and Trade or Cap and Fade?

Cap and trade is looking like a fait accompli for the US, and there are two Op-Eds in today's NYT that look at climate change legislation and its economic and environmental effects.  The first is by Paul Krugman, and he makes an argument similar to those made in The Economist, namely that addressing climate change may pay in the short and long run:

"...The truth, however, is that cutting greenhouse gas emissions is affordable as well as essential. Serious studies say that we can achieve sharp reductions in emissions with only a small impact on the economy’s growth. And the depressed economy is no reason to wait — on the contrary, an agreement in Copenhagen would probably help the economy recover."  Continue to the article...

Jim Hansen, climate scientist at the Goddard Space Flight Center has a different take on the environmental effects of cap and trade legislation--basically that it is a scam that will leave us short of what we need to do on climate legislation and long on lining the pockets of big business.  

"At the international climate talks in Copenhagen, President Obama is expected to announce that the United States wants to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to about 17 percent below 2005 levels by 2020 and 83 percent by 2050. But at the heart of his plan is cap and trade, a market-based approach that has been widely praised but does little to slow global warming or reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. It merely allows polluters and Wall Street traders to fleece the public out of billions of dollars." Continue to the article...