E PLURIBUS UNUM ISN'T PUNIC:

Taming Fossil Fuels (NY Times, 3/17/07)

Last week the chief executives of America's largest automobile companies -- General Motors, Ford, Chrysler and Toyota North America -- pledged to support mandatory caps on carbon emissions, as long as the caps covered all sectors of the economy. They delivered their promise to a House committee run by John Dingell -- the crusty Michigan Democrat who is another convert to the cause and has taken to describing the global warming threat with phrases like "Hannibal is at the gates." [...]

[W]hile technology will play an indispensable role, the lead authors of the M.I.T. report, writing in The Wall Street Journal, argue that the most effective way to reduce emissions is to attach a significant price to carbon emissions, either as a carbon tax or through a cap-and-trade program of the sort now embodied in various legislative proposals in Congress. Forcing people to pay to pollute would do more than any other known incentive to bring new technologies to commercial scale. That is the task before Congress.

Even supporters of higher gas taxes would do well to remind Mr. Dingell how Carthage did in that war.

Posted by Orrin Judd at March 17, 2007 8:46 AM