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No Courage Behind Global Warming Convictions
The House is expected to vote as early as Wednesday on a resolution that decries the dangerous threat posed by rising industrial greenhouse gas emissions. The resolution calls for an emissions cap on greenhouse gases as long as (i) the cap doesn’t harm the U.S. economy, and (ii) U.S. trading partners agree to live under a similar cap.
While the Greens are quite exited that the GOP seems prepared to go along with this, these things are called “resolutions” for a reason – they echo promises made on New Year’s Eve. In short, it’s nothing but a statement that the Congress thinks that this would be a good idea, but that they are unprepared (at the moment) to do anything about it.
Does this represent progress for the enviros? Not really. Show me an emissions cap that won’t have a negative effect on the economy and I’ll show you an alterantive reality where up is down, black is white, and rivers are made of liquid chocolate. Now, depending upon the nature of the cap and the regulations attached thereto, the negative economic impact might be very modest or rather signficant. But ruling out caps that have any negative economic impact is to essentially rule out a cap.
Frank O’Donnell, head of the Left’s Clean Air Watch, was not too far off the mark when he was quoted in the subscription trade journal Energy & Environment Daily this morning as noting that “The way [the resolution] is worded, you’d have to be a kook to be opposed to it.” Indeed, who would object to what is in effect an insurance policy with no premium?
If the Greens really think that global warming is serious, they are demonstrating both political and intellectual cowardice by backing pablum like this. All this resolution would accomplish is to allow politicians to claim environmental virtue from empty political gestures.
So why would the enviros provide an easy out for politicians who want to appear Green but not do anything real to advance the Green agenda? Because it’s the best the enviros can do right now. That speaks volumes. This is a resolution that advertises Green political weakness, not Green political strength.
The resolution, then, is pretty meaningless. That having been said, you don’t have to be a “kook” to be skeptical about all the “doom, doom I say” hand-wringing that litters the resolution. That is, unless you think a Vice President of the U.N.’s oft cited International Panel on Climate Change is a kook. And if you do, what does that say about the merit of that much-worshiped body of scientific experts?
Caution: Supply and Demand at Work
According to a report released yesterday by the International Energy Agency, high oil prices are forcing analysts to make sweeping cuts in their forecasts regarding energy demand and substantially revise upward their forecasts regarding energy supply. Apparently, producers and consumers aren’t the mindless economic zombies that politicians would have us believe.
Who knew this crazy invisible hand thing might be legit?
Energy Policy Hooch
It what might be the quote of the week, Bob Dinneen, president of the Renewable Fuels Association, warned the House Energy & Commerce Committee yesterday in an open hearing that removing the U.S. tarriff on Brazilian ethanol would send “a very negative signal to our marketplace.”
So there you have it. According to the loony-fuels lobby, positive signals to the market = trade barriers and negative signals to the market = uninhibited global trade. Say this stuff enough times and you too might be able to work for the renewable energy business.
Hollywood Ad Hominem
Over at the Huffington Post, enviro activist Laurie David complains today that the media is willing to give some ink to my colleague, Prof. Pat Michaels, on the issue of global warming. One of her main complaints is that Pat is nobody (scientifically speaking) and the fact that he has “(finally) gotten a paper published” does not qualify him as an expert.
And Laurie has published peer reviewed papers … where? Anyway, Prof. Laurie has nothing substantive to say about the arguments in the Michaels paper that sent her around the bend.
It’s truly a wondrous thing when Hollywood celebs with no scientific training feel free to attack the credentials of academics with Ph.Ds in their (momentary) field of interest. She did a similar smear-job on MIT Prof. Richard Lindzen. More such attacks are likely to come.
Regardless, Laurie’s ad hominem attack is bogus. Pat is in fact one of the most widely published climate change experts in the peer-reviewed literature. If she had ever bothered to actually read the U.N.’s “state of the science” IPCC reports she claims to have digested, she would have seen multiple references therein to his work.
But for the record, Pat’s peer-reviewed papers and presentations since 2000 follow:
The Red Menace
China’s plan to build 48 new airports over the next five years is freaking out environmentalists, who worry abou the impact of Chinese air travel on ozone depletion. Apparently, the poor, unwashed masses of China should stick to their bikes while the rest of us jet around to U.N. conferences where we can worry about global warming and the oncoming environmental Armageddon in peace.
I’ll put “Chinese air travel” on my list of things to worry about tonight.
You Put Your Left Foot in
Look, I’m all for blaming government when blame is due, but conservatives have got to stop suggesting that high gasoline prices would disappear tomorrow if the government would repeal the ethanol mandate, build new refineries, open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, or do the hokey pokey [.pdf].
Doing all of the above (save the hokey pokey) might reduce prices somewhat (and do more so over time), but 85 percent of the variation in gasoline prices is explained by variation in global crude oil prices. Crude oil prices are established by global supply and demand patterns, and there’s not much Congress can do about either.
Arguing that there are simple legislative fixes encourages the mistaken belief that there’s no problem Congress can’t solve. Too many people believe that already.
Uncle Sam: Lord of the Flies
The Fish & Wildlife Service announced yesterday that it will move with great dispatch and determination to save 12 species of rare Hawaiian flies from the brink of extinction. Thank God for the Endangered Species Act. Who knows what sort of dark ecological night might descend upon us without it?
Of course, the ESA is like an operating room in which patients check in but they don’t check out. Its success as saving and reviving patients is akin to Jack Kevorkian’s. So don’t throw a party for those flies yet.
Economics 101, Republican Style
According to Greenwire (a subcription-based electronic daily on all news environmental), House Speaker Denny Hastert (R-IL) told reporters yesterday that increasing the supply of ethanol available to refineries would have no positive effect of any kind. “I just don’t see an economic plus in it right now” he said. Apparently, it’s just a Democrat myth that increasing the supply of something will have a favorable impact on the price of that something.
Of course, Hastert’s comment was made in the context of a discussion about tariffs the United States currently has in place to discourage ethanol imports from Brazil. Removing those tarrifs would certainly help motorists (whose fuel prices are going up in part because Congress mandated massive increases in ethanol consumption at the pump in the 2005 energy bill), but there would indeed be “no economic plus in it” for U.S. corn farmers, who are thriving on the ethanol shortages that are driving up fuel prices.
Sooner or later, politicians are going to choose between motorists and farmers. Denying economic reality isn’t going to hold off the day of reckoning.
Max Boot, Oil, and the “Dictatorship Dividend”
In the LA Times today, Max Boot identifies a real problem: oil revenue goes disproportionately to some pretty odious regimes. His solutions, such as “increase federal funding for research and rollout of fossil-fuel substitutes such as hydrogen, cellulosic ethanol (produced from grasses and agricultural waste) and plug-in electric engines,” reflect a touching faith in the ability of the federal government to pick winners among all the potential alternatives to oil out there. He would be on stronger ground if we were to argue “tax the hell out of oil and let’s see what emerges.”
Unfortunately, the cost gap between conventional gasoline and the alternatives is quite steep. Look at Europe for instance. Even with gasoline taxes that put prices at between $5-8 per gallon, we don’t see non-oil transportation fuels penetrating the market in any significant way.
I call this the “wish upon a star” policy. Yes, it would be nice if we could render oil valueless through some sort of concerted government effort. But we have made a number of great and small stabs toward that end over the decades and have nothing to show for it save for bankrupt companies, synfuel stories that no one apparently pays any attention to anymore, and forgotten white elephants like California’s glorious attempt in the early 1990s to produce high performance golf carts to replace the automobile. But alas, hope springs eternal. Read the rest of this post »
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