What Is The World Coming To?

So the CBI releases a report on climate change and what needs to be done about it and I'm raring to go. The newspaper reports say that they favour a cap and trade system to limit emissions, rather than a carbon tax.

Excellent thinks I! Cap and trade where permits are allocated instead of auctioned is functionally equivalent to a carbon tax, just with dollops of added extra corporate welfare. The current and likely future cap and trade system allocates instead of auctions, so I've got a piece there. Trot out old Adam Smith, businessmen seldom gather together except to engage in a conspiracy against the public and I'm away, don't you think? See, they're recommending the system that benefits them. Editors had even been approached!

Then I did something sadly unjournalistic. I went and read the report (instead of just the executive summary or the press release). The report in which they recommend that permits should be auctioned, not allocated.

Look, what is the world coming to when people issue a report that's reasonable, informed, and doesn't solely push their own view, one in which they actually recommend actions that are against their own short term interests?

How's anyone supposed to make a living as a journalist in a world like that?

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