A New York Times article (Oct 21, 2011, A25) describes recent passage of greenhouse gas emissions laws in California that aim to impose stringent caps on emissions with the flexibility to trade with any other firm across the US for pollution credits.   A potential success is claimed by Clean Harbors, a company whose plant in Arizona destroys old refrigerants and thus gains pollution credits it can trade. Can unilateral actions by California generate genuine greenhouse gas reducing actions that would otherwise not occur? Should California restrict the pollution credit trades to companies in California alone ? Will the associated technologies that might be created to reduce emissions provide sufficient green jobs in California to provide a long term global competitive advantage?