Carbon Caps: Is the cost worth it?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/31/AR2009053102077.html

In the article above, the author talks about the imposition of carbon caps, and how during this turbulent economy the additional cost that it would add onto families is not worth the CO2 reduction globally speaking. What is interesting in this article is the observation how the value of a dollar fluctuates not in global markets, but in peoples' minds. Several years ago, it may have been appropriate to say that the American family could afford to pay the additional consumer cost of carbon caps being passed from the suppliers to the consumers, but now, the intrinsic value of the dollar has gone up, as the author does not believe it is appropriate now to ask American families to pay to remove CO2 from the air. This cost-analysis model may never be able to be really calculated, as a lot of the value cannot be converted into numbers, and as such, a verbal debate is needed to help make a decision.

I think that a cap and trade system could actually be beneficial to the american household. Currently a majority of the research funds/ go green initiatives are paid for by taxpayers regardless of how much energy they consume. Under the cap and trade system, an american family could reduce their costs towards research along with their energy costs at the same time. (this is assumming that the money allocated in the federal budget to research is removed and given back to the consumer)

In terms of impact on global warming, we need to understand a lot more about the impact of CO2 on global warming in the future. Many of the current models on global warming developed by the foremost global warming experts, predict that we are "past the tipping point"

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=global-warming-beyond-the-co2

If this is true the cap and trade system would then turn into a "mandatory donation system" because there would be no way for those paying into the cap and trade system to get a return on their investment.