The 2010 congressional elections confirmed the end of cap-and-trade putting Republicans back in control of the House. Several prominent Democratic incumbents who had voted for it lost in stunning fashion.

That, of course, is not the end of the story. President Obama and Democrats in Congress have become deeply committed to a wide range of policies designed to reduce conventional energy production and consumption, to mandate energy efficiency and increased use of alternative energy, and to force people to pay more for electricity and motor fuel, even as the reason for this agenda has disappeared from public debate. Polls show that most people have stopped believing in global warming as a crisis or even as a problem that needs to be addressed. 

Partly, this is due to the economic crisis, but only partly. Despite the establishment media and America's bi-coastal elite (which are roughly equivalent to London's chattering classes) repeating over and over that there is an overwhelming scientific consensus that the scientific evidence for catastrophic global warming is overwhelming (and so on), many people who make stuff, dig up stuff and grow stuff for a living — and consequently have more practical knowledge of the material world than those who manipulate words or financial data — have refused to learn the lesson. 

Instead, they have had several glimpses behind the curtain of scientific consensus — most notably the Climategate scandal — and have found that global mean temperatures have risen by only a small fraction of what the computer modellers confidently predicted beginning in the late 1980s and have continued to predict with ever more confidence. They have also found that recent temperatures are no higher than those in the Medieval Warm Period, an era of human flourishing. And they have found that the dire effects of warming, such as accelerated sea level rise, are not occurring or are not likely to occur or have been vastly exaggerated.

Complementing the weak scientific case for alarm, many people have realised that warmer climates are more pleasant and healthier. That's why Americans move to Phoenix or Florida when they retire. If global warming theory turns out to be correct and winters become milder, then they may not be so eager to move from Michigan or New York.