Act first, ask questions later

I don’t really follow this, from Ezra Klein. He links to a Brad Plumer piece on cap and trade proposals leading to massive trade wars (he misleadingly titles the post “Could global warming end in a trade war?”; the title should be “Could trying to solve global warming end in a trade war?”). Then he says this, which doesn’t quite compute for me:

What’s apparent in his comments is that America can’t begin theorizing about international cooperation until it commits to domestic action.

So because we can’t even begin to imagine the incredibly complex and damaging fallout a cap and trade system might have on the world economy (in the form of rampant protectionism and capital-destorying trade wars) we should rush headlong into embracing a system that will do minimal good on the global warming front anyway? Does that really sound like a good idea?