Paul Krugman’s recent climate piece in the New York Times is well written and relatively thorough at ten pages. While the articles’ outlook is insightfully bleak in its own right,  the cap & trade / carbon tax sections are lacking the additional troubling point raised by UC Berkeley’s Severin Borenstein that the price of oil and coal can flexibly drop towards their low extraction cost in response to any added carbon penalties or emerging competitive green energy sources, which means that to keep fossil fuels from entering the market (and the atmosphere), either far higher carbon penalties must be considered or other mechanisms need to be added.

Krugman excerpt: ‘…this risk of catastrophe, rather than the details of cost-benefit calculations, makes the most powerful case for strong climate policy. Current projections of global warming in the absence of action are just too close to the kinds of numbers associated with doomsday scenarios. It would be irresponsible — it’s tempting to say criminally irresponsible — not to step back from what could all too easily turn out to be the edge of a cliff.’

via Magazine Preview – Climate Change – Building a Green Economy – NYTimes.com.