What is cap and trade?

It gets easy for those of us who are constantly reading, writing, or thinking about global climate change and environmental policy to forget that most people are not as up to speed when it comes to the latest in hot-button environmental policy topics (if there is such a thing). But when Rasmussen recently published the results of a poll showing that 76% of Americans didn’t know that a cap and trade had anything to do with the environment, as an admitted cynic, even I was a little surprised. And apparently so was Hank Green of EcoGeek who gives this four-minute-long elevator-version of what a carbon cap and trade would look like.

As always, I appreciate Hank’s enthusiasm for the topic at hand — and in this case — his enthusiasm for the wonkish and mundane topic of climate policy.