Russ Steele
The California Air Resources Board voted Monday the 22nd of August to proceed with it’s cap and trade program in California. The global carbon market has collapsed and they will be in the market alone in a naked attempt to extort $30-40 dollars a ton from California business that generate CO2.
When the Chicago Carbon Exchange closed carbon was selling for less than a nickel ton. All the states originally recruited to be in the Western Climate Initiative and participate in carbon trading have with drawn, except for two Canadian Providences that may participate someday.
Compliance with the cap-and-trade program has been pushed back a year and is now set to begin in 2013. By then we will be coming close to solar maximum for Solar Cycle 24, and maybe we will have some new faces in Sacramento who will have enough spine to reign in CARB.
The Next Grand Minimum 
Honestly, I have no hope for California politics. I’d be very surprised if the legislature wasn’t just as “progressive” in 2013 as it is now. The real reason I suspect the date was moved is that California politicians probably want to see what happens in the general election in the rest of the US. If Congress becomes more conservative, there is a Republican president and California’s unemployment rate takes over the number one spot from Nevada, only then would I expect the California legislature and CARB to rethink their cap and trade strategy.
I wonder where they buy them – CA I guess, who knows – kinda like a one man band