Matt Taibbi recently offered to start answering some questions as a part of a weekly mailbag. I sent in one about global warming and it got posted to his column:

Matt,
I was wondering on what your take on global warming ever since your piece on how cap and trade will profit Goldman Sachs. Most of what I read about it makes me think the IPCC is too conservative and is low-balling most of the dangers, which in turn gets ignored or sidelined by the mainstream media. Do you think that global warming is only “maybe” a danger or do you agree with what the majority of climate scientists and other science bodies say about it? Do you support a direct tax on gas?
Jeff Querner

Jeff,
My problem with cap and trade isn’t that I don’t believe in global warming — I do — but that cap and trade is basically a carbon tax, except that instead of simply collecting the tax the government plans on privatizing the effort into the hands of a bunch of financial companies who have long records of manipulating exactly the kinds of commodities markets the carbon-credit market will be modeled after. It’ll be a massive financial subsidy to companies like Goldman and Morgan Stanley, as if they needed another one.