Wake Forest debated in favor of the cap-and-trade model, which would set a fixed amount of carbon that all sectors of the country could use, said Will Repko, head coach for MSU’s Debate Team. The cap would be made smaller and smaller, meaning less and less people would be able to use carbon.

With a carbon tax, MSU argued, anybody could use carbon, but they’d have to pay a very high price, Repko said.

“Cap-and-trade has been Obama’s consistent stance from the primaries on,” Repko said. “It’s not been clear he wants to do it within the first 100 days, but it’s a priority.”

International relations senior Garrett Abelkop said a carbon tax would be more effective because Americans need to feel the cost of carbon emissions.

“The cap-and-trade will incentivise cheating, and the cap will only be as strong as the government’s ability to enforce it,” he said.

MSU argued climate change should be addressed within the first 100 days of Obama’s administration and that the United States already has waited too long.

“Waiting for the right political moment is … an ongoing delay tactic that has hampered our environment,” Abelkop said.

However, Wake Forest argued that if a plan was legislated that quickly, it would taint the country’s economic growth.

“In the economically vulnerable period, Congress should be focusing its efforts on a stimulus package and not be distracted by a tax policy,” said Marie-Odile Hobeika, a philosophy senior at Wake Forest.

Rohit Nath, an economics senior at Wake Forest, said the cap-and-trade solution is the closest thing to a consensus in Washington and that reversing the tactic would derail the stimulus package.

“There’s potential for the recession to turn into a depression,” he said. “The tax could be not the straw, but the sledgehammer that broke the camel’s back.”

MSU political theory and constitutional democracy senior Carly Wunderlich said there is no reason the focus couldn’t be on both the stimulus package and carbon tax.

A winner was not determined, but Gordon Stables, director of debate at the University of ?Southern California, said it would have been a tough decision to make.

“If you were leaning more toward the environmental problems, you’d pick MSU,” he said. “And if you felt the economic reality (was) the bigger part, you’d probably vote for Wake Forest.”

However, if a survey were taken on Capitol Hill, most would agree with the cap-and-trade solution, because it is not as radical of a change and is discussed more often, Stables said.

“That was a tough sell (for MSU) to explain why something that dramatic should be a good idea,” he said.