Over at change.gov, Obama antes up to Britain on its greenhouse emissions agenda:

“Implement an economy-wide cap-and-trade program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent by 2050.”

There’s a few problems with cap and trade approaches, but the big one is setting the cap at meaningful level, in the face of enormous financial and political pressure, not to mention scientific uncertainty. But 80% is probably something like right.

Treeplanters have a saying: “How do you plant 2000 trees a day? Plant 1000 by lunch.” 2050 is an easy target, in a sense, but it’s completely right to be thinking long term. Now, we have to start setting aggressive mid and near term targets so we can get there. And them enforce them. And defend them against push-back when the enforcement starts. But hey, this can happen. 1000 by lunch people, let’s get on it.