You Must Eat Watermelon

clipped from althouse.blogspot.com [S]urveys show that very few people are willing to make significant voluntary changes, and those of us who do create the false impression of mass progress as the media hypes our actions. Instead, most people want carbon reductions to be mandated by laws that will allow us to share both the responsibilities and the benefits of change. Ours is a nation of laws; if we want to alter our practices in a deep and lasting way, this is where we must start. After years of delay and denial and green half-measures, we must legislate a stop to the burning of coal, oil and natural gas. Of course, all this will require congressional action.... We're a nation of laws, and, in Tidwell's mind, that means not that we are free but that we need law telling us every last thing we ought to do:  Individual voluntary action is a big distraction from what we really need — compulsion.

Green on the outside, red on the inside.