Global warming catches fire

A perfectly reasonable skeptic can speculate about the role of global warming in the purchase of a giant Texas utility by private investors this week, but there is no doubt the underlying topic of climate change has gone mainstream.

One immediate effect is to embolden political leadership. Five Western governors agreed Monday to establish a carbon-trading system and pool their efforts to limit greenhouse-gas emissions. Washington, Oregon, California, Arizona and New Mexico combined local and regional efforts into a bigger vision. Efforts to pooh-pooh global warming will continue at self-serving think tanks, but last month's report by an international scientific panel in Paris settled the question for those without a stipend from an industry group: The Earth's temperature is rising, and the cause is human activity.

Maybe it is the wacky weather the planet has experienced in recent decades, the melting polar ice and retreating glaciers. The world's population recognizes the changes, and the change in conversation.

Piecemeal responses are not perfect, but Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano summed up the operative sentiment: "In the absence of meaningful federal action, it is up to the states to take action to address climate change and reduce greenhouse-gas emissions in the country."

Federal aloofness can end, quickly. Plug global warming into the middle of a $45 billion leveraged buyout, and the subject takes on a whole new look. Climate change becomes a cost of doing business that means something to people who have the ear of the White House and Congress.

Did the bidders for TXU Corp., the largest power producer in Texas, pledge to cut eight of 11 planned coal-fired plants and promote conservation as a ruse to impress regulators who must approve the deal? Maybe, maybe not. The key is that climate change is now part of such discussions.

TXU might not be a model for future buyouts and energy transactions, but the conversations have changed forever. The effect is cumulative. Five states in the West adopted a plan, following 10 states in the East.

Tougher, coherent national climate-change legislation is inevitable.