No one would argue with that. But placing a lower value on the subjective merely because it *is* subjective excludes anything that cannot directly be valued in dollars and cents. In its dense and blind way it ignores the power of ideas, of moral example, which move people to action at least as much as their economic situation.

…as far as the rest of your argument goes, it's strikes me as non-sequitur, but I will sign on to raising the retirement age significantly, but also point out that debt levels (post-stimulus) aren't a serious issue when you look historically or compare to other western-style democracies.

PS:

“A) Take a deep breath before you respond. Let the emotion subside”

Is that geek for “fuck you”?

You can reduce your carbon footprint by 100%. Kill yourself. What's the multiplier on that?

Democrats are delusional.

A) Take a deep breath before you respond. Let the emotion subside

B) Stop bringing up WWII. (And don't spend 100 words explaining/defending why you brought it up. I know why you did and it's tangential at best.)

C) “Less-quantifiable-but-important” Less quantifiable means the importance becomes more subjective. More subjective means more wiggle room to get things wrong. Fault me for being a skeptic if you must, but I think it only reasonable to have some grasp of the cost-benefit of a policy.

D) “the reality-based world is moving on” It is moving on to a bill that amounts to corporate welfare under the veneer of controlling climate change. At the very least, they could auction off the permits/vouchers/whatever.

E) “it's kind of hilarious when you re-enter the debate at some early stage” Better we wait until a late stage?

I find this bill hard to defend. The moral leadership aspect is one of those squishy less-quantifiable-but-important issues.

I'll give you a more quantifiable issue. Our public debt is exploding and it will only get worse as Medicare and Social Security come due. Just this week, the rating's agencies considered downgrading US Treasuries from AAA. And they're supposed to be the “risk-free rate.” What foreign entity holds the most US debt? China. What if they don't follow our moral leadership? Trade war? They'll tell us to piss off, dump a bunch of treasuries, raise the price of borrowing for the US government, and put us in a deeper hole. Eventually it will take either 75% tax rates or 10% inflation to get us out.

For the record, I support a carbon tax phased in over time.

Got it.

I understand that libertarians want metrics that involve cost comparisons in dollars before endorsing any option. That completely misses out on huge swaths of everyday reality. Which is the kind of thing that makes Will question the value of intervention in WW2 (look it up).

It makes libertarians in general unreliable in the defense of the less-quantifiable-but-important. You all seem to be willing to follow utilitarianism – and in general, anything that seems mathematicky – over a cliff.

You have two choices – a government-oriented attempt at the beginnings of a solution to the climate problem. On the other, a facile market-based solution. But libertarians are stuck in paralysis at various stages here: is there a problem at all? (y/n?) There's a problem, but is it worth it to do anything about it? Some might think we should do something about it – ok it better be market-oriented!

Fortunately the reality-based world is moving on. You're chosen not to be part of the solution by being unserious, and it's kind of hilarious when you re-enter the debate at some early stage and expect people to be patient with your arguments.

A full-time position of skepticism and lack of urgency may be philsophically appealing in a lot of ways, but it's hard to control a policy debate that way.

Someone who claims that private toll roads are much more difficult to organize than world peace hardly has a reasonable claim to be more intelligent than National Review, yet isn't that what Ryan Avent is doing below:

Unsurprisingly, it’s very difficult to get millions of urban denizens to voluntarily come together to build and fund a road network or transit system in the absence of a coercive mechanism. The benefits are too broadly shared, and the incentive to free ride too great.

And yet private toll roads predated world peace. Fancy that.