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Tomorrow at the Big Picture roundtable we will confront the question: should we ban gasoline powered cars? The real question however, is could we? Even if a huge majority were somehow convinced to support a ban, could capitalist democracy allow it to happen?

In the first place, even the liberal media which supports climate action would condemn the concept of "ban" as top-down and authoritarian. Think of the push-back if the government banned cigarettes. While it is true the government was able to ban CFC's in order to stop ozone deterioration, it was only because there was little economic disruption, effective coolant options already existed. So it would be difficult to build that majority. Even many in the climate movement would complain it is government over-reach, that we should work at the local level for local solutions blah blah. That the Market needs to decide, not "Big Brother".

But even in the unlikely chance you achieved a majority, there would be Constitutional challenges and international trade violations to deal with. And surviving those (years later as it wound through the courts), capitalists would then go on strike and purposely depress the economy, raising unemployment and eliminating services, so that your public support would vanish before your eyes.

The point being, in the current "democratic capitalist" system, the only measures to slow global warming that are allowed are the ones that don't slow economic growth. And those half-measures are sure to be ineffective (or at least not to scale). So yes, the climate movement should definitely support the policy knowing full well it can't be enacted. But it does so to point out the contradiction, to de-legitimize the system and struggle on that crucial terrain of ideology.