Thanks for the Summary JK. I too am astonished at the pace of events. Kudos to all the advocates who have made this possible.

Spitzer should be at Bloomberg’s side. So should Bill and Hilliary Clinton, Schumer, Obama, Scwharzenegger, Al Gore, Elizabeth Kolbert, Joseph Fromm and lots of others and with public discourse at places like the New York Academy of Sciences and at town hall meetings and the media detailing the facts, figures, and with explicit media showing what is happening and what will happen if we do not act.

A huge amount of inertia — both human and geophysical — has to be overcome to start mitigating and adapting to global warming and it can’t be stressed too strongly that we have to act now. Making NYC a focal point for doing this will benefit us all.

Those few people who lose money or are inconvenienced can be subsidized or assisted — offer immediate services to baby them if need be to help them adapt to the change; bring those people front and center and tell them how they will be assisted — still, the costs will be minimal compared to the benefits and the accelerating astronomical costs and extreme difficulties, pain and suffering that will be incurred if mitigation and adaptation are not done on a timely basis and now. Call in Joe Stieglitz or Jeff Sachs to run the financials and how it is many times cheaper and easier to pay now rather than later (if the resources are still available). Or scientists Cynthia Rozenswieg and Wally Broeker to describe the enormity of the environmental problem and grave concerns of the world’s scientists.

Put in perspective, congestion pricing is a miniscule but necessary step that has to be taken now.

to #3: Gas prices and taxes do not come close to reflecting the actual costs (to others) of driving. This is what economists call “externalities,” or indirect and hidden costs. For example, increase in health problems due to exhaust, or just plain extra energy usage compared to public transit.

So individual drivers get quite a break, but it’s little talked about because we don’t talk about middle-class subsidies for fear of alienating them.

Point taken but probably not true in Bloomberg’s case. It’s true he’s often picked his battles with successful outcomes dependent on chess games of political capital but he comes across as a standup guy trying to do the right thing.

The stakes are too high for busineess as usual — which is bad business at this critical time — and as more and more people of action realize this so will the politicians; the smarter and more capable ones first.

Rod — Who do YOU think is going to pay for the free transit??

Uh.. Rod, smoking has gone down significantly. I think you just made an argument in favor of congestion pricing.

Taxi and hired car trips are already taxed proportionate to their length and accounting for daytime congestion. They’re so expensive, I walk and ride the subway everywhere I go! I like walking around my city, except when I’m faced with hostile drivers using their personal cars as weapons at every fourth intersection. It’s weird, because I’m doing the right thing and only using about one square foot of public space and they use about a hundred square feet, pollute the air, and fatally run down hundreds of New Yorkers a year, yet they get to push me around. They clog the streets because personal cars, big and flashy as they are, have become too cheap for New York; I could buy one with a year’s taxi fares, if I took taxis. But soon, personal car owners like taxi riders will have to pay for each trip and there will be fewer of them abusing people like me on the street. So my “group,” whatever that is, supports congestion pricing, and we’ll join anyone in supporting a taxi fare/tax increase too if that’s ever seriously proposed (and not just an embittered distraction from the present debate).