Why a climate bill failed

If you wanted to design a threat that our political system couldn't address, here's what you'd do: You'd make the pain of doing nothing come much later, but the pain of doing something begin right now. You'd concentrate the costs of failure in poor countries, while the costs of a policy solution would be concentrated in certain regions of America. You'd make it hard to solve without the imposition of a new tax. You'd make sure that some of the largest and richest industries in the world had an enormous amount to fear from that tax.

Which is all to say, it's no surprise that Congress is collapsing beneath the weight of an energy bill. Climate change, a long-range problem that will primarily harm developing countries and require immediate and difficult policy changes on the part of rich countries that will impose huge costs on particular regions of the United States, is exactly the sort of problem our system can't handle.

And for all that, we got fairly close. The House did pass Waxman-Markey, which wasn't a perfect bill, but would've at least been a serious start. It was in the Senate, where you added the Republicans' preference for paralysis and their ability to filibuster that preference into reality, that it just became impossible.

But the fact that we're not going to solve the problem doesn't mean the problem goes away. Just look at the financial crisis or the BP oil spill for evidence that bad things can happen to inattentive countries. Better hope someone invents a brand-new, low-cost, easily scalable, endlessly renewable, totally sustainable energy source, and quick.