Worth repeating: On Banning Coal Plants

“As CIBC economist Jeff Rubin put it this week: ‘It becomes absurdly quixotic to ban coal plants in North America while at the same time China’s got 570 coal plants slated to go into production between now and 2012, 30 plants between now and the Olympics.’
“With the growing realization in the West that the economy and the environment are but two sides of the same coin, a consensus is emerging that the only sure way to halt climate change is to put a realistic price on carbon that captures the environmental damage it is doing. This view, however, is being fiercely resisted on the other side of the planet, where carbon emissions are surpassing those of the West….
“The time has come to recognize that globalization doesn’t simply mean mutual dependence in trade and investment; it has to be reinterpreted to mean interdependence on a far broader scale.”
— From an editorial in the Toronto Star, March 29.