We have long suspected that the never-ending sturm und drang surrounding climate change would have little real impact on public policy or energy markets because no politician ever got elected by promising to impose â?? or defending the imposition of â?? significant, observable costs on the present for the well-being of the future â?¦ in any policy arena. Believe what you like about the science, but the inescapable political fact is that voters â?? and in particular, swing voters â?? have the time horizons of newborn babes. Any serious policy response to climate change would, by force, require a rather steep increase in fossil fuel prices and American voters have demonstrated time-and-time-again a deep aversion to exactly that. Good luck finding the pol-on-the-make willing to put his or her head into that political wood chipper.
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