The politics of global warming, continued

Following up on my last post about global warming, I see there was a bit of a kerfuffle at the White House Correspondents Dinner. Sheryl Crow and Laurie David explain over at The Huffington Post: The "highlight" of the evening had to be when we were introduced to Karl Rove. How excited were we to have our first opportunity ever to talk directly to the Bush Administration about global warming. We asked Mr. Rove if he would consider taking a fresh look at the science of global warming. Much to our dismay, he immediately got combative. And it went downhill from there.... We felt compelled to remind him that the research is done and the results are in (www.IPCC.ch). Mr. Rove exploded with even more venom. Like a spoiled child throwing a tantrum, Mr. Rove launched into a series of illogical arguments regarding China not doing enough thus neither should we. (Since when do we follow China's lead?)... In his attempt to dismiss us, Mr. Rove turned to head toward his table, but as soon as he did so, Sheryl reached out to touch his arm. Karl swung around and spat, "Don't touch me." How hardened and removed from reality must a person be to refuse to be touched by Sheryl Crow? Unphased, Sheryl abruptly responded, "You can't speak to us like that, you work for us." Karl then quipped, "I don't work for you, I work for the American people." To which Sheryl promptly reminded him, "We are the American people."The New York Times story by Jim Rutenberg on the encounter discusses the fallout: Recriminations between the celebrities and the White House carried over into Sunday, with Ms. Crow and Ms. David calling Mr. Rove ?a spoiled child throwing a tantrum? and the White House criticizing their ?Hollywood histrionics.? ?I honestly thought that I was going to change his mind, like, right there and then,? Ms. David said Sunday, The Associated Press reported.... In their Web posting, Ms. Crow and Ms. David described Mr. Rove as responding with ?anger flaring,? and as having ?exploded with even more venom? as the argument continued. ?She came over to insult me,? Mr. Rove said Saturday night, ?and she succeeded.? Lots of blog reaction -- Joe Gandelman, Colin McEnroe, Ann Alhouse, and, well, lots of other places. A few thoughts: 1) Laurie David is 100% correct on one thing -- no one should ever say "don't touch me" to Sheryl Crow. I mean, really, that's just wrong. 2) It also appears that Laurie David subscribes to the Jeffrey Sachs theory of politics: there are no genuine political or policy disagreements, just a nice long talk can convince anyone to change their position. This is not to absolve Rove or the Bush administration of their rejection of global warming. It's merely to point out that there is a political logic to their policies. Which leads us to .... 3) This is not a case of "why can't everyone just get along?" Yes, there are significant benefits that can be attained through multilateral cooperation to combat global warming. There are also very significant distributional consequences as well, however. Those distributional consequences will not be resolved anytime soon, will be subject to fierce bargaining, and will likely result in policies that seem unfair to a great many people. 4) Everyone should breathe a sigh of relief that righteous indignation is not a flammable gas... just think of the potential carnage that would have ensued.Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe people like David and Crow will actually generate a Kumbaya-moment in world politics. But I'm very, very dubious about it.