We have a good editorial up today about Waxman-Markey. An excerpt:

Our green friends concede that ACES may be a terrible deal by itself, but insist that the United States should lead the world by example — and thereby achieve wider benefits. These hopes are vaporous: The strategy of unilaterally giving away our best negotiating leverage (reducing our emissions only if other nations reduce theirs) in the hope that those nice men who rule China will be shamed into sacrificing their own economic interest — if only we jump off the cliff first — is naïve. More fundamental, the global deal that we would theoretically be chasing isn’t all that attractive, even if we assume every climate-change prediction by the UN IPCC to be correct.

I made a related point in my cover story on oil drilling in the latest issue of NR:

Which brings us to the futility of the “Stop Me Before I Drill Again” mentality that characterizes the Democratic party and the environmental movement. We are constantly told that America must “take the lead” on global warming in order to persuade the rest of the world to cut their own emissions. But America has restricted domestic drilling for decades. Has anyone—anywhere— followed our example? No. Everywhere in the world, governments jump for joy when they discover new oil fields to exploit. Tell a Brazilian official that he should stop drilling because drilling is just wrong, and, once he realizes you’re not joking, he’ll throw his caipirinha in your face.

It’s funny how so many liberals have become “realists” of late, insisting that we can’t expect to cajole sovereign nations into doing what we think is right if it’s not in their interests, but the same liberals insist that if we hobble ourselves with the dull-rusty axe of cap-and-tax, our example will inspire other nations to do likewise. Yes, yes, liberals will likely say that fighting global warming is in these nations’ interest, but they just don’t realize it. Well, maybe. But who are we to tell these countries what their interests are? Isn’t that the sort of imperial hubris these folks usually denounce? Regardless, there’s zero evidence and sub-zero reason to believe that countries such as China and India will ever be inspired by our action on global warming.

If you want a must-read on the topic, see Peter Huber’s “Bound to Burn” in City Journal.