The Baptist and the Bootlegger

An unlikely coalition for climate control

Ronald Bailey | November 16, 2006

p class="MsoNormal c2"> NAIROBI span class= "c1">—The carbon traders, brokers, and consultants, the companies seeking wealth transfers, the climate bureaucrats, and last, but not least, environmental lobbyists are crawling all over the UN's Gigiri complex on the outskirts of Nairobi. Several years ago, Clemson University economist Bruce Yandle predicted that a classic Baptist and Bootlegger climate coalition would emerge in the wake of the Kyoto Protocol. And so it has. The idea of a Baptist and Bootlegger coalition is that both Baptists and Bootleggers support blue laws forbidding the sale of liquor. The Baptists favor blue laws because they are against sin and the Bootleggers because it creates a profitable market for them. o:p> /o:p> /span> /p> p class="MsoNormal c2">