It would greatly help the "we must do something" crowd if they spent some time working out exactly what that "something" would be, posting it for public comment and refining as needed.

I am sympathetic to the idea that leveling off and eventually reducing global CO2 emissions would be a sensible thing to do, but the key word there is "global". China is already the world's leading emitter by a good margin and will likely continue to increase their emissions, regardless of what happens in the West. Indeed, if we make energy and its uses more expensive here, the likelihood is that at least some of those emissions will simply migrate to China, where they will be cheaper but likely greater for the same degree of production.

I have yet to hear a proposal that is likely to both have an effect that justifies its cost (carbon taxes are wildly regressive, and removing that feature is tricky!), and is not absurdly unlikely to ever come to pass.

The cap and trade bill mentioned in this article fails the first test, I believe.