Sunday’s NY Times acknowledges that:

It is time to end an outdated tax break for corn ethanol and to call a timeout in the fivefold increase in ethanol production mandated in the 2007 energy bill.

But then it goes on to state:

This does not mean that Congress should give up on biofuels as an important part of the effort to reduce the country’s dependency on imported oil and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. What it does mean is that some biofuels are (or are likely to be) better than others, and that Congress should realign its tax and subsidy programs to encourage the good ones. Unlike corn ethanol, those biofuels will not compete for the world’s food supply and will deliver significant reductions in greenhouse gases…

Congress’s guiding principle should be to tie federal help to environmental performance. The goal is not just to stop the headlong rush to corn ethanol but to use the system to bring to commercial scale promising second-generation biofuels — cellulosic ethanol derived from crop wastes, wood wastes, perennial grasses. These could provide environmental benefits and reduce dependence on oil without displacing food production.

But as noted on this blog previously, this is wishful thinking. Tilting the field to help cellulosic ethanol, whether directly through subsidies or indirectly through mandates, will inevitably make it more attractive for farmers to divert land and water to grow fuel rather than food. As a result some portion – perhaps even a large portion – of the resources that would otherwise be used for food production would go toward fuel production.

It is, therefore, naïve to claim that fuel production will not compete with food production. But the NY Times seems naïve about mandates, apparently assuming that mandates don’t entail costs, especially if they are in pursuit of goals it deems laudable.

One can get an inkling of the potentially disastrous effects of tilting the field toward biofuels (such as ethanol) from the Burmese experience regarding jatropha, a bush that can provide feedstock for biodiesel. The Wall Street Journal’s James Hookway reported last week that:

United Nations World Food Program officials say the storm wiped out much of Myanmar’s midyear rice harvest and add that grain stockpiles are dwindling because of the military’s jatropha drive. That makes it likely Myanmar’s plans to export rice this year to other needy nations such as Bangladesh will be scrapped…

The most notorious example of errant policy making reflects the fascination of 75-year-old junta leader Senior-Gen. Than Shwe with biodiesel as a way to break the country’s dependence on expensive imported oil.

In December 2005, the battle-hardened commander kicked off a nationwide campaign to grow jatropha, a squat, hardy bush that yields golf-ball-sized fruit containing a sticky, yellow liquid that can be made into fuel. His drive was similar to initiatives in other parts of the world, including the U.S., which encouraged farmers to grow corn, palm oil or other crops for biofuel and which are now facing criticism for driving up the price of food. [Emphasis added]

India, China and other countries grow jatropha on scrubby land where food crops can’t survive. But researchers say that in Myanmar, some of the country’s most fertile land has been converted to cultivating the shrub…

It isn’t clear how much of Myanmar’s arable land has been converted to jatropha cultivation. Organizations such as the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization warned the government about the risks of farming jatropha on land that could be used to grow food. But Gen. Than Shwe’s goal was to set aside an area the size of Belgium to grow jatropha — a huge commitment for Myanmar, which is roughly the size of France.

In 2006, the chief research officer at state-run Myanmar Oil and Gas Enterprise said Myanmar hoped to completely replace the country’s oil imports of 40,000 barrels a day with home-brewed, jatropha-derived biofuel. Other government officials declared Myanmar would soon start exporting jatropha oil.

Despite the military’s efforts, the jatropha campaign apparently has largely flopped in its goal of making Myanmar self-sufficient in fuel.

While this is an extreme example of poorly conceived policy, it should be kept in mind that the Burmese regime was pursuing what many consider to be a laudable goal – energy independence (with — who knows — possibly the hope of obtaining carbon credits). And what a totalitarian regime can effect with fiat (and sticks), other governments can accomplish with a combination of seemingly more benign policies, specifically subsidies and mandates (i.e., carrots and sticks), in pursuit of the same laudable goals.

The lesson from all this, which the NY Times doesn’t quite get (reiterating from the earlier post) isn’t that biomass – and farmers — shouldn’t play a role in helping meet our energy needs, but that “If farmers can profitably grow fuel rather than food through their own efforts, so be it. But we shouldn’t favor growing one over the other either through subsidies or indirectly through government mandates for so-called renewable fuels. And if anything should be subsidized or mandated, it shouldn’t be growing fuels. That would inevitably compete with food.”

In his excellent blog, Roger Pielke, Jr., notes that “On NPR’s Fresh Air earlier this week, Al Gore suggests that Typhoon Nargis, which may have killed 100,000 people in Myanmar, is linked to greenhouse gas emissions, or does he? He said ‘we’re seeing consequences that scientists have long predicted might be associated with continued global warming.’”

So I checked the sea surface temperature (SST) “anomalies” (that is, differences in temperature from the long-term average) along the track of Cyclone Nargis to see if SST might have been unusually warm from April 28^th to May 3^rd (when it hit Burma) of this year compared to last year. Comparing the SST anomalies from NOAA for April 28, May 1, and May 5 of 2008 against April 28, May 1, May 3, and May 7 of 2007, SSTs along the track of Cyclone Nargis don’t look that much different from last year. And for April 30, May 3, and May 7 of 2005, the Bay of Bengal seems to have been noticeably warmer.

Granted, this is based on a cursory eye-ball view of the maps using a non-continuous data set. I await more detailed analysis with bated breath.

Supporters of ethanol, stung by the backlash over its unintended but foreseeable consequences (see, e.g., here and here), namely, increasing hunger due to a run-up in global food prices and increased threats to biodiversity, now tell us that cellulosic ethanol will come to the rescue. The theory is that cellulosic ethanol, which is still in the research and development phase, would be produced from non-edible plant material, e.g., switchgrasses, crop residue and other biomass that is not currently grown or used as edible crops. Thus, it is implied, it would have no effect on food prices.

But this is wishful thinking.

If cellulosic ethanol is indeed proven to be viable (with or without subsidies), what do people think farmers will do?

Farmers will do what they’ve always done: they’ll produce the necessary biomass that would be converted to ethanol more efficiently. In fact, they’ll start cultivating the cellulose as a crop (or crops). They have had 10,000 years of practice perfecting their techniques. They’ll use their usual bag of tricks to enhance the yields of the biomass in question: they’ll divert land and water to grow these brand new crops. They’ll fertilize with nitrogen and use pesticides. The Monsantos of the world — or their competitors, the start-ups — will develop new and genetically modified but improved seeds that will increase the farmer’s productivity and profits. And if cellulosic ethanol proves to be as profitable as its backers hope, farmers will divert even more land and water to producing the cellulose instead of food. All this means we’ll be more or less back to where we were. Food will once again be competing with fuel. And land and water will be diverted from the rest of nature to meet the human demand for fuel.

Does this mean that biomass – and farmers — should play no role in helping us meet our energy needs? Not necessarily. If farmers can profitably grow fuel rather than food through their own efforts, so be it. But we shouldn’t favor growing one over the other either through subsidies or indirectly through government mandates for so-called renewable fuels. And if anything should be subsidized or mandated, it shouldn’t be growing fuels. That would inevitably compete with food.

Here’s a new bill in Congress that strikes me as a peculiar encroachment on freedom. H.R. 5912 would amend the U.S. code to make cigarettes and certain other tobacco products nonmailable. Undoubtedly, this would make it a teensy bit harder for some people to smoke and chew tobacco.

More importantly, I think, it would deepen the role of the Postal Service in surveillance and enshrine the USPS a part of our niggling nanny state.

Does this bill affect you directly? Chances are it doesn’t, as few people send or receive cigarettes in the mail. But what happens tomorrow when you’re part of a disfavored group?

The bill’s sponsor is Rep. John McHugh (R-NY) who today features on his homepage House passage of a bill to establish a thing called the Hudson-Fulton-Champlain Commemoration Commission.

Last week, a Gallup poll was released revealing that about one-third of Americans worry “a great deal” about global warming, a number that hasn’t changed much since 1989. Less than half of the respondents believed that climate change would pose a serious threat to them in their lifetimes. The trade publication ClimateWire (subscription required) quotes a Gallup official as noting that “there has been no consistent upward trend on worry about global warming going back for decades.”

Today, ClimateWire reports that a new study from the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press has even worse news for environmentalists: climate change is at the absolute bottom of the public’s list of priorities for the federal government (oddly enough, there’s no trace of the report on Pew’s website). When given a list of issues and asked to state whether the issue should be a “top priority” for President Bush and the Congress, those surveyed responded as follows:

Strengthening the nation’s economy: 75%
Defending the country against terrorism: 74%
Reducing health care costs: 69%
Improving the educational system: 66%
Securing social security: 64%
Improving the job situation: 61%
Securing Medicare: 60%
Dealing with energy problems: 59%
Reducing the budget deficit: 58%
Protecting the environment: 56%
Reducing crime: 54%
Providing insurance to the uninsured: 54%
Dealing with the problems of the poor: 51%
Dealing with illegal immigration: 51%
Reducing middle class taxes: 49%
Dealing with moral breakdown: 43%
Strengthening the military: 42%
Reducing the influence of lobbyists: 39%
Dealing with global trade: 37%
Making tax cuts permanent: 35%
Dealing with global warming: 35%

Surprised? You shouldn’t be. The political strength of the environmental lobby is almost entirely based on the proposition that they represent a large number of well organized swing voters who will reward and/or punish politicians for their position on environmental issues in general and climate change in particular. Hence, a great deal of hard work and effort goes into the Green campaign to scare hell out of politicians regarding the political risks associated with saying no to things like a cap & trade program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. To be fair, all special interest groups have the same incentive to talk-up their alleged public support. Regardless, this particular political Green emporer has no clothes.

In a piece by Jad Mouawad, Tuesday’s NY Times reports that Oil Price Rise Fails to Open Tap.

He identifies a number of reasons for the lack of responsiveness on the supply side:

1. OPEC countries’ “explicit goal is to regulate the supply of oil to keep prices up”. Iran and Iraq’s productive capacity has been crippled by war and civil unrest. In non-OPEC countries, problems are due to “sharply higher drilling costs and a rise of nationalistic policies that restrict foreign investment.”
2. Some regions are simply running out of reserves, e.g., Norway, Britain, Prudhoe Bay.
3. “In many other places, the problems are not below ground, as energy executives like to put it, but above ground. Higher petroleum taxes and more costly licensing agreements, a scarcity of workers and swelling costs, as well as political wrangling and violence, are making it harder to raise production…”
4. “Foreign investment could help Mexico produce oil from deeper waters, but that is a controversial proposition in a country where oil has long been seen as part of the national patrimony.”
5. “The Russian government has been muscling Western companies to gain more control over its energy resources. That rise in energy nationalism could freeze new investment and slow any meaningful growth in supplies there for years.”

Surprisingly, in an otherwise decent article, absent from this report is the credit that is due to the New York Times itself (and like-minded entities) in their long-standing efforts decrying the search for oil and gas within the US. A search of the Times site for the words “editorial drilling oil gas”(sans quotes) over the past few years reveals a constant stream of editorials in the Times decrying efforts to drill for oil and gas. Examples include:

Leave Bristol Bay Alone, December 6, 2006: “President Bush is thinking about rescinding a longstanding presidential order that specifically prohibits oil and gas drilling in Alaska’s pristine Bristol Bay… Mr. Bush has been speaking out lately about the importance of making America more energy independent. Few things are more important for the new Democratic Congress than developing an energy policy more heavily weighted toward conservation, efficiency and development of alternatives to traditional fossil fuels. This might be a rare area in which both sides can work together, but opening Bristol Bay to drilling would be exactly the wrong way to begin the conversation.”

Regulatory Games and the Polar Bear, January 15, 2008. Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne could do the polar bear … a favor by ordering a timeout and halting the [oil] lease sales for at least a year… There is no urgency to lease Alaskan waters. President Bush’s suggestion that new oil production will bring short-term relief at the pump is nonsense, since oil fields take years to develop. It is urgent to help the bears.

Losing Patience, August 21, 2007. Dirk Kempthorne’s arrival … raised hope among conservationists that he would moderate the Bush administration’s aggressive search for oil and gas in some of the country’s most environmentally sensitive lands. This has not happened.

Protecting a Monumental Sculpture, February 18, 2008. “There is every good reason to call this plan to a halt on aesthetic grounds. But there are other reasons too. This stretch of the lake is also a critical breeding ground for many species of shorebirds.”

Drain America First, July 25, 2006. “The Senate measure is narrower and less mischievous than the House bill. Yet it, too, is aimed exclusively at increasing production. … This is mind-boggling. The bill’s stated purpose is to reduce fuel prices. But while the gulf may hold enough natural gas to affect the price of that commodity, the same cannot be said of oil.”

And of course the NY Times has been in the forefront of opposition to any drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge based on the logic that it would supply only six months of US oil consumption while forever sullying the Wildlife Refuge (an arguable claim).

Using this logic we could shut down every farm in the U.S. — and the world — since no single farm provides more than a few hours’ worth of food, and food production is the single greatest threat to terrestrial and freshwater biodiversity worldwide.

This is not to say that drilling – or farming, for that matter — is acceptable everywhere, but reflexive opposition to energy production is not.

What do they have in common?

Apparently, buying and selling indulgences.

A piece in Slate, How To Spot a Persian Prostitute: Streetwalkers in chadors, by Juliet Lapidos, informs us:

The penalties for prostitution [in Iran] are severe—ranging from whipping to execution. But there’s a loophole in Islamic law called sigheh, or temporary marriage. According to Shiite interpretation, a man and a woman may enter an impermanent partnership with a preset expiration date. There’s no legally required minimum duration (a day, a week, anything goes) and no need for official witnesses—unless the woman is a virgin, in which case she needs the consent of her legal guardian. An Iranian who’s wary of arrest can simply escort a prostitute to a registry, obtain a temporary contract from a Muslim cleric, and then legally satisfy his sexual needs.

QED (quite easily done).

Is this reminiscent of purchasing carbon credits for that jet flight to Bali, or what?

Were getting real meaningful emission reductions as simple.

I’m sorry to bring bad tidings so close to the weekend, but apparently House and Senate conferees have reached agreement [$] on the broad outlines of a Farm Bill.

We will have to wait until Monday to get the full, disgusting details but broadly, we know this about the proposed bill:

• it will raise the target prices and loan rates for northern crops (i.e., wheat, soybeans, other feedgrains) beginning in 2010
• raise the sugar loan rate three-quarters of a cent
• include a sugar-to-ethanol program (whereby the USDA would buy sugar that would otherwise threaten the domestic minimum price and sell it, presumably at a loss, to ethanol plants)
• an additional $4 billion for conservation programs
• $10.361 billion extra for domestic and international food aid programs
• The bill also includes the new “permanent” disaster program (some thoughts on that here), albeit at $250 million less than the original $4 billion request

To pay for this, your representatives in Congress cut the $5.2 billion per year direct payments program (that is the program that pays farmers on the basis of past production and yields, regardless of what they produce now) by 2 percent per year for four years. Recall that the direct payments program, while an offence to taxpayers everywhere, is at least less trade distorting than the price-linked subsidies that the conferees have agreed to increase. And in the final year, when it really counts for purposes of planning future spending levels (i.e., the baseline), the direct payments will go back up again.

The one possible bright light at the end of this sewer-pipe: a presidential veto. No word from the administration on this latest deal, but it does not fit their past definition of an acceptable amount of reform and thus, assuming intestinal fortitude on the part of President Bush (I know, I know), would likely elicit a veto threat.

Happy weekend, everybody.

How often have you heard that coral reefs are fragile and would be wiped out by global warming?

If you google “fragile coral reefs” (without the quotes) you’ll get 493,000 hits. So imagine my surprise on stumbling on a news report titled, “Marine life flourishes at Bikini Atoll test site.” The report tells us:

It was blasted by the largest nuclear weapon ever detonated by the United States but half a century on, Bikini Atoll supports a stunning array of tropical coral, scientists have found.

In 1954 the South Pacific atoll was rocked by a 15 megaton hydrogen bomb 1,000 times more powerful than the explosives dropped on Hiroshima.

The explosion shook islands more than 100 miles away, generated a wave of heat measuring 99,000ºF and spread mist-like radioactive fallout as far as Japan and Australia.

But, much to the surprise of a team of research divers who explored the area, the mile-wide crater left by the detonation has made a remarkable recovery and is now home to a thriving underwater ecosystem.

99,000 degrees Fahrenheit! By comparison the upper-bound estimate for global warming is a puny global temperature increase of 11.5 degrees Fahrenheit (less in the ocean). So even if global warming wipes out life on earth, global warming catastrophists can take comfort that nature will, as it inevitably must, reassert itself. Some, convinced that humanity is the problem, may even welcome such an outcome — no humans, but plenty of nature (over time). [Fifty-four years later at Bikini Atoll, recovery is not complete. Perhaps 28 percent of coral species may still be absent.]

Post Script: On the topic of corals and global warming, here’s an article on temperature tolerant corals off the coast of Eritrea, where waters can reach 98.6 degrees F, which incidentally is the average core body temperature of a human being.

Post Post Script: Also check this story from Science Daily: “Coral Reefs Living In Sites With Variable Temperatures Better Able To Survive Warm Water.”

According to James Hansen, the Paul Revere of global warming, the safe level for CO2 may be 350 ppm. Hansen is concerned that “ice sheet disintegration, vegetation migration, and GHG release from soils, tundra or ocean sediments, may begin to come into play on time scales as short as centuries or less.”  But currently the atmospheric concentration is 385 ppm. The 350 ppm level was reached twenty years ago in 1988, the same year that James Hansen sounded the alarm over global warming at a Congressional hearing.

Is the world better off today compared to 1988?

Let’s check:

• Life expectancy in developing countries was 4-5 years lower in 1988 than it is today (62 years rather than the current 67 years). Even in the US, it increased from 74.9 years in 1988 to 77.8 years in 2004!
• Compared to today, at least 15 more infants out of every 1,000 in developing countries died in 1988 before reaching their first birthdays. In industrialized countries, the infant mortality rate dropped from 9 to 5.
• India’s per capita income (in constant dollars adjusted for purchasing power) has more than doubled since 1988. China’s has more than quadrupled. As a result, hundreds of millions are no longer living in absolute poverty today. Even the US’s per capita income has increased by 40 percent.
• Food production per capita in developing countries has increased 36 percent since 1988, despite a population increase of 40% (that is, 1.5 billion more people). [What fraction of this was due to the increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and petroleum-based and greenhouse gas-emitting fertilizers, all of which stimulates crop growth?].

Much of these improvements are due to economic growth and agricultural activity that fueled the rise of CO2 concentrations beyond 350 ppm. Because of technological change, it is likely that a portion of these improvements would have occurred absent any economic growth (as pointed out in the book, The Improving State of the World ). But had CO2 concentrations been capped at 350 ppm, we would have to forgo many of the above improvements in the quality of life, and not only in the developing world.

But would we want to go back to the world of 1988 — or even 1998 for that matter?

If we can go back to 350 ppm without giving up the real and tangible advances in human well-being that have accrued since that “benchmark” was passed, I’d have nothing against that, but based on the precautionary principle, one needs a stronger reason than the speculative catastrophes that Hansen is concerned “may begin to come into play on time scales as short as centuries or less,” whatever that means.

August, 2005 - Hurricane Katrina blows into the Gulf of Mexico and blasts New Orleans to smithereens. Environmentalists quickly blame the storm on global warming — or at the very least, claim that warming will inevitably lead to more Katrina-like hurricanes. Although there is no clear scientific consensus on what impact a warming world might have on the frequency of big Gulf hurricanes, it’s enough to move public opinion significantly on the question of whether federal, state, and local governments ought to do something about climate change.

May, 2006 - Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth opens in New York and Los Angeles. The companion book becomes the #1 paperback non-fiction book on the New York Times bestseller list in July. The movie goes on to become the fourth highest grossing documentary in U.S. history and wins an Academy Award.

July, 2007 - Live Earth concerts to save the planet feature 150 top musical acts in 11 cities around the world. While it’s unclear how many people actually watched those concerts, Live Earth set a record for on-line entertainment with over 15 million video streams during the live concerts alone.

October, 2007 - Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change win the Nobel Peace Prize.

March, 2008 - The Heartland Institute sponsors a conference in New York City to showcase scientific skepticism about the seriousness of climate change. The event is received with uncharacteristically loud derision by the mainstream media.

Now, with all of that in mind, wouldn’t you think that the public would be growing more — not less — worried about climate change? You might,  but you would be wrong. According to today’s Energy & Environment Daily (subscription required), a new poll conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates and released by the John Brademas Center for the Study of Congress at New York University finds that Americans are less worried about climate change than they were a couple of years ago.

E&E Daily reports that the survey’s margin of error was +/- 3 percent. Here are the highlights:

The percentage of Americans who said global warming requires immediate attention declined from 77 in 2006 to 69 percent today.

The percentage of Americans who said they were “very worried” about global warming increased from 31 percent in 2006 to 39 percent in 2008. But that’s misleading; everyone gets “more worried” about everything in a presidential election year. What’s striking to me is that the rise in the number of those “very worried” about global warming was less than the rise in the number of those “very worried” about the four other issues surveyed by Brademas Center (Medicare, Social Security, and energy).

The declining number of those who said they were “somewhat worried” about global warming more than offset the increase of those who reported being “very worried.”

There are several possible explanations for this data. My guess is that it’s a little of each of the following.

Explanation #1 – The public has only limited patience for “end of the world” prognostications. If the world isn’t visibly ending from whatever boogey man is said to menace said world, most of us begin to lose interest. We’re all well aware that Earth has been sentenced to doom hundreds of times over by activists of various stripes but has somehow gained a reprieve time and time again.

Explanation #2 – The time horizon of most voters is very, very short. Getting people to voluntarily sacrifice for “the grandkids” or whomever is a near-impossible task. It would probably take a Katrina-a-year … and even then, that might not be enough. The mathematical certainty regarding the economic train wreck about to be visited upon “the grandkids” as a consequence of the trillions of dollars of unfunded liabilities for present federal health care and retirement programs does not engender sacrifice. It engenders shrugs and accelerated wealth transfers from the future to the present.

Explanation #3 – Global warming, if it plays out as the IPCC suspects, will be a slow-moving event. Panic over climate change has to compete with panic over Islamic terrorism, panic over housing markets, panic over globalization, panic over energy prices, panic over immigration, and episodic panic over dozens of other (usually dubious) worries. Simply put, global warming has a hard time competing with all of the other items on the policy agenda.

So conservatives, take heart. Enviros, take a valium.

Over at National Review Online today, Clifford May asks:

What if lawmakers could guarantee that the price you pay to fill your car’s tank will go down, not up, in the years ahead? What if they could launch a new industry that creates more jobs for more Americans? What if this would produce environmental benefits, too? Would that not send a message to the markets? And would that not represent the kind of change so many politicians have been promising?

All of this would come true, Mr. May believes, if the federal government would force auto makers to ensure that every new car sold in the United States could run on gasoline OR high blends of ethanol OR methanol OR fill-in-the-blank. After all, it would only cost about $100 up-front during the manufacturing process to make such “flex-fueled” cars a reality, a modest investment that would give motorists a ready-made ability to run their cars on whatever strikes their fancy.

Well, to answer Mr. May’s questions in the order they are posed, they can’t, they won’t, it wouldn’t, it would, and it wouldn’t.

Congress can no more guarantee that fuel prices will go down from now until the end of time than it can guarantee a robust sex life for fat, balding, middle-aged men. Fuel prices are subject to supply and demand curves that do not answer to Congress — particularly in global energy markets.

The conceit that government can create jobs by creating industries out of whole cloth glosses over the fact that the money needed to create those industries and those jobs starves other industries of cash that will, in turn, eliminate other jobs. While it’s not inconceivable that government could on balance create more jobs than it destroys in this manner (that is, that the industry created is more labor-intensive than the industries harmed), that’s still not a good reason to go forward. After all, one might on balance increase employment in the United States by banning modern farm machinery and food imports, which would put a lot of people into the fields. But no sane person would endorse such a thing on economic grounds. Economic growth occurs when we increase productivity, and we don’t necessarily do that by biasing investment toward labor-intensive activities.

Promoting alternative fuels is not necessarily good for the environment. Ethanol, for instance, increases urban smog without any corresponding reduction in greenhouse gas emissions. It drains already depleting groundwater reserves and pollutes those that remain. It puts millions of additional acres of land under the plow, which in turn kills ecosystems and further pollutes navigable waterways. In short, gasoline looks positively “Green” compared to many of the fuels Mr. May hopes to champion.

Mr. May is correct, however, about the fact a mandate like this would send a message to the markets. The message would be “Congress is not a serious legislative body.” But to be fair, it’s not as if the market hasn’t heard that message before.

Mr. May is wrong, however, to think that a flex-fuel mandate would represent the kind of “change” that most politicians are promising. Congress has told Detroit how to build its cars for decades now. Nothing new there.

The main reason that this sales pitch is hollow, however, has to do with the fact that, at present, there is no cheap alternative to gasoline. The problem isn’t that cars can’t use the fuel. The problem is the cost of the fuel. For instance, on wholesale spot markets as of Jan. 24, 87 octane was selling at $2.32 per gallon. Compare that to the price for alternative fuels (in the same spot wholesale markets) once you adjust for the differences in energy content:

• E100 ethanol — $3.53 per gallon
• B100 biodiesel — $3.97 per gallon
• Methanol — $4.22 per gallon

In short, there’s a good reason why auto companies aren’t popping flex-fuel capabilities into every engine sold: consumers don’t seem willing to spend the $100 extra for that extra. Well, to be precise, most consumers don’t seem that interested. Some are in fact buying flex-fueled vehicles right now — 4 million such vehicles are thought to be on the road at present and dozens of models are on sale right now. But some of us aren’t willing to fork over the extra money for the option to use those fuels over the lifetime of our new car.

Should Congress override consumer preferences in that regard? No. Given the high cost of alternatives, consumers are not acting irrationally when they say “no thanks” to flex-fueled vehicles.

Would auto companies be advantaged by a flex-fuel mandate? Mr. May thinks so, but auto executives tend to disagree. My guess is that Mr. May knows less about their business than they do.

If and when alternative fuels are cheaper than gasoline, you can rest assured that consumers will increase their demand for flex-fueled vehicles and that auto makers will supply them out of simple interest in profit. Government mandates are not necessary.

A few days ago, I was quoted in an AP story as saying that scientists as scientists are in no position to dictate federal policy to address global warming. A rather predictable outcry followed, prompting my defense here.

Amazingly enough, that somewhat provocatively titled post did not soothe the savage environmental beasts. Michael Tobis, a climate scientist at the University of Texas Institute for Geophysics, posted a rather angry shot over at Grist (the preeminent gathering place for environmentalists on the web) arguing that economists and economic analysis have absolutely nothing to add to the policy conversation about global warming. An editor over at Grist kindly invited me to respond, so I Fisked the man and responded to the commentary about two-thirds of the way down the page in a post titled “Taylor Defends Taylor.”

What exactly informs this “economists are a plague upon mankind” view of the environmental Left? My guess is that it is a combination of things. First, environmentalists deeply resent the fact that anyone would presume to put a price tag on things they value. Second, many environmentalists do not understand economics very well and thus fall for all sorts of cartoonish depictions about what economists do and what they think. Third, economic analysis does not support many environmental fantasies about the future of humankind under either the “business as usual” scenario or under the environmentalists’ vision of the Book of (Environmental) Revelation.

Of course, speaking of “economists” generically — as if all economists are alike — is as dubious as speaking of “environmentalists” generically. If the environmental Left really wants an informed criticism of economics, they would do well to pick up Robert Nelson’s Economics As Religion: From Samuelson to Chicago and Beyond.

Yesterday, 215 scientists released a petition in Bali - site of a global confab to talk about whether and how we should talk about a future treaty to reduce greenhouse gas emissions - that “begs” the world to cut greenhouse gas emissions in half by 2050. I was quoted in an AP story on the matter to the effect that scientists are in no position to intelligently dictate such a policy. And as expected, some in the blogosphere howled.

I do not believe in leaving public policy to “guys in white coats” - in any discipline. And that’s not necessarily a proposition that vitiates against environmentally-friendly public policy. Climate scientists do not have the training to tell us whether the costs associated with reducing greenhouse gas emissions are less than, equal to, or greater than the costs of business as usual. And that’s something you would want to know before signing off on greenhouse gas emission reductions. When climate economists have explored that matter, they find little to support such emission reductions even if we accept the prognostications about the future coming out of the IPCC.

Likewise, economic calculations about the same are heavily predicated on how you feel about future costs and benefits. If you believe in valuing dollars and lives in, say, 2150 as much as you value dollars and lives today, then it’s hard to accept IPCC reports and not conclude that GHG emission cuts pass a cost-benefit test. If you apply a discount rate of, say, 3, 5, or 7 percent, then it’s hard to accept IPCC reports and not conclude that GHG emission cuts don’t pass a cost-benefit test. But how you value the future is subjective, and economists have no objectively “better” preference regarding that matter than you or I.

Many have argued that we should value our great grandchildren’s lives and money as much as we value our own. Fine - there is nothing objectively wrong with that belief. But if you do, hand in your Rawlsian membership card. That’s because you’re endorsing a policy that will transfer wealth and well-being from the relatively poor (us) to the very rich (them). That is, even if the Stern Review is correct about the economic costs of climate change, real per capita income in developing countries will be higher than that of the developed world today by 2100. Moreover, if you value the future every bit as much as you value the present - and thus embrace, say, a 0.1% discount rate - then simple math suggests you ought to be saving just about everything you earn.

I do not believe that “the experts” in any field should be dictating climate policy because there are plenty of important value judgments built in to those policies and experts however defined have no objectively better values than you or I. I do believe, however, that any serious reflection on the ethics of reducing greenhouse gas emission will find that the case for such a policy is harder to make than you might think, even if you accept what the IPCC is telling us.

No, the title does not refer to possible policy changes if Tories win the next election (after all, that would require a smaller-government agenda). Instead, it is a somewhat tongue-in-cheek reaction to a story in England’s Daily Mail about couples who choose sterilization because they think children cause an unacceptable carbon footprint.

It is probably reasonable to assume that these people have a statist orientation. Since voting patterns and ideological orientation tend to be passed from one generation to the next, the electorate presumably will shift over time in a more market-friendly direction (or at least won’t shift as quickly in the wrong direction).

From the article:

Had Toni Vernelli gone ahead with her pregnancy ten years ago, she would know at first hand what it is like to cradle her own baby, to have a pair of innocent eyes gazing up at her with unconditional love, to feel a little hand slipping into hers — and a voice calling her Mummy. But the very thought makes her shudder with horror. Because when Toni terminated her pregnancy, she did so in the firm belief she was helping to save the planet.

…At the age of 27 this young woman at the height of her reproductive years was sterilised to “protect the planet”. Incredibly, instead of mourning the loss of a family that never was, her boyfriend (now husband) presented her with a congratulations card. …”Every person who is born uses more food, more water, more land, more fossil fuels, more trees and produces more rubbish, more pollution, more greenhouse gases, and adds to the problem of over-population.” While most parents view their children as the ultimate miracle of nature, Toni seems to see them as a sinister threat to the future.

…Toni is far from alone. When Sarah Irving, 31, was a teenager she sat down and wrote a wish-list for the future. …Sarah dreamed of helping the environment — and as she agonised over the perils of climate change, the loss of animal species and destruction of wilderness, she came to the extraordinary decision never to have a child. “I realised then that a baby would pollute the planet — and that never having a child was the most environmentally friendly thing I could do.” …[Her husband] Mark adds: “Sarah and I live as green a life a possible. We don’t have a car, cycle everywhere instead, and we never fly. We recycle, use low-energy light bulbs and eat only organic, locally produced food. In short, we do everything we can to reduce our carbon footprint. But all this would be undone if we had a child. That’s why I had a vasectomy. It would be morally wrong for me to add to climate change and the destruction of Earth.”

European leaders (and their doubtlessly bloated staffs) plan to fly to Lisbon to sign a treaty and then fly to Brussels for a summit the following day.

This has caused a bit of griping, but not because taxpayer funds are being wasted, but rather because all those private jets will cause a large carbon footprint. So in a hollow gesture, the political heads of three countries are going to share a jet.

Gee, how thoughtful.

The EU Observer reports on the farce:

At the insistence of the Portuguese EU presidency, all 27 EU leaders and their delegations will fly to Lisbon on 13 December for a special signing ceremony of the bloc’s new treaty — and then jet on to Brussels for a regular EU summit meeting the next day. The cumbersome travel arrangements allow Portugal to call the new treaty the ‘Lisbon Treaty’ — but they have also led to criticism that EU leaders are setting a bad example by preaching about green values but then unnecessarily contributing to global warming through the short round trip. To reduce at least part of the summit’s carbon footprint, the Benelux leaders will board a Dutch government airplane when flying to and from Lisbon — something suggested by Mr Balkenende.

In a post yesterday, I scored U.S. News & World Report’s Marianne Lavelle for (among other things) passing on an estimate from an advocacy group called “CalCars” that “with today’s electricity prices, drivers would be paying the equivalent of 75 cents per gallon.” In fact, it would cost you almost $3.50 to get the same amount of BTUs from electricity that you get from gasoline in this country (assuming, of course, you are paying the national average price for electricity). This morning, The Daily Kos takes me to task for not going further and taking into consideration the greater efficiency with which electric motors convert BTUs to energy vis a vis internal combustion engines powered by gasoline.

Fair enough. Concentrating simply on BTU costs doesn’t tell the whole story. I did not, however, read Ms. Lavelle’s claim as anything beyond a claim about the cost of electricity versus the cost of gasoline - that is, the cost of fuel.

A good walk-through of the conversion efficiencies in play can be found here. The environmental calculations therein, however, are more problematic in that the authors assume the fuel used to produce the electricity in question comes exclusively from natural gas. That’s not a very good assumption.

Despite claims to the contrary over at the Daily Kos, neither I nor libertarians in general have any axe to grind regarding electric motor vehicles. I am not “for” them or “against” them. When electric motor vehicles become economically attractive, I’m confident that auto manufacturers will produce them. If that were to happen over the next year or two, I would have zero complaint. And to the extent to which I have any opinion on the matter, I think it would be a very good thing if battery technology advanced to such a degree that electric power could compete with petroleum in transportation markets. I simply don’t think government subsidies or mandates are likely to hasten the day in which that wish will be translated into reality.

In an article posted the other day at U.S. News & World Report, Marianne Lavelle reports on the state of affairs in the renewable energy industry. While the story she tells is a good one, she makes two stunning errors that lead me to question every other figure reported in the article.

Error #1 -

Historically, ethanol has been more expensive than gasoline, but crude oil prices are now so high that ethanol would be cheaper even without its 51-cent-per-gallon subsidy. Indeed, one reason pump prices have not skyrocketed along with the price of crude oil is that so much fuel is blended with 10 percent ethanol.

Really? Ethanol (E100) prices on U.S. spot markets last week averaged $1.87 a gallon. That is indeed cheaper than the price of conventional gasoline in those same markets ($2.25 per gallon), but ethanol has only two-thirds of the energy content of gasoline. If you want to buy enough ethanol to displace the energy you get from a gallon of gasoline, you would have to spend $2.80 per gallon. Hence, ethanol is not cheaper than gasoline, and federal mandates to use ethanol in transportation fuel does not reduce pump prices.

Error #2 -

The plug-in advocacy group CalCars estimates that with today’s electricity prices, drivers would be paying the equivalent of 75 cents per gallon [were they to run their cars on electricity rather than gasoline].

Again, really? Electricity prices last week averaged 9.57 cents per kilowatt hour. Given that there are 3,400 BTUs in a kilowatt hour of electricity and about 124,000 BTUs in a gallon of gasoline, simple math dictates that it would cost almost $3.50 to buy enough electricity to get the same amount of energy we get from a gallon of gasoline.

Reporters have got to stop taking figures at face value from policy activists with political axes to grind. And editors have got to start asking reporters to independently back their numbers up. Until that happens, don’t bother with the print media. The “facts” bandied about therein are a crap shoot. Some are correct, some are not, but you never know which.

A couple of weeks ago, the Secretary of Agriculture proudly gave the Chief of the Forest Service an award for “exemplary leadership and accomplishment in reducing the risk of catastrophic fire to both the wildland and Wildland Urban Interface areas through the U.S. Forest Service Hazardous Fuels Program supporting the President’s Healthy Forests Initiative.”

This award would be ironic even if fires in California had not burned hundreds of homes and hundreds of thousands of acres this week. Prior to the southern California inferno, wildland fires had already burned well over 1,800 structures and more than 8 million acres in 2007.

In fact, President Bush’s signing of the Healthy Forests Act in 2003 seemed to signal a huge increase in fires. In the decades prior to 2003, an average of about 4 million acres burned each year and only one year had topped 8 million. Since then, the number of acres burned has never been less than 8 million.

The real problem is too much money: Congress has given the Forest Service a virtual blank check for fire suppression. The agency — perhaps subconsciously realizing that it needs a sustained number of homes burned each year to keep Congress’ interest in giving it money — has not adopted policies aimed at cost-effectively protecting homes. Instead, it merely promises that it will save homes through fire suppression — a promise that it cannot keep.

The result is that homeowners — expecting that the Forest Service will apply massive resources to save their homes — do not make the efforts needed to protect their structures from fires. Those efforts are not very much: mainly applying a nonflammable roof and keeping flammable vegetation to a minimum within 100 to 150 feet of their homes. Those efforts are really all that is needed. In fact, some housing developments have been treated to be so safe from fire that residents are advised to stay in their homes during a fire rather than to evacuate.

For a thorough analysis of Forest Service fire policy, read my Cato policy paper, The Perfect Firestorm. For a review of the recent fires, see my Antiplanner blog.

My recent Cato policy analysis, Debunking Portland, said Portland’s light rail is a failure. Paul Weyrich, the noted conservative and president of the Free Congress Foundation, responds that it is successful.

The question becomes, “How do you define success?” Weyrich claims that Portland’s light rail led to billions of dollars in economic development. But my paper shows that that development received billions of dollars in subsidies — and before the city started offering subsidies, not a single transit-oriented development was built along the light-rail line.

“Many (Portlanders) use their public transportation system,” says Weyrich. In fact, 9.8 percent of Portland-area commuters took transit to work before the region build light rail. Today it is just 7.6 percent. In a story repeated in numerous cities that have built rail lines, rail cost overruns forced the city to raise bus fares and reduce bus service. That’s a success?

To Weyrich, rail is successful if anyone at all rides it. My standard is somewhat higher. For a point-by-point response to Weyrich’s article, see my Antiplanner blog.

The Washington Post has an interesting story today about E. coli on lettuce. A batch of lettuce produced in California last month passed through numerous screenings and was sent to U.S. grocery stores. Some of it was also sent to Canada, and the government there found E. coli, which led to a major recall across both countries.

Here are some speculations:

• Globalization increases the safety of American-produced goods because those goods must often pass muster in foreign markets where consumers and governments have different standards and safety procedures.
   
• I don’t know whether American or Canadian food safety procedures are better, but a diversity of systems generates greater information, which allows producers and governments everywhere to improve quality.
   
• Globalization doesn’t lead to a “race to the bottom” on environmental standards as critics often claim. Some countries, such as Japan, apparently have very high standards on food, and that tends to push up standards elsewhere. When Japanese importers demand strict standards from Chinese food producers, Americans consuming Chinese products also benefit.

At the Guardian’s “Comment is free” site, skeptical environmentalist Bjorn Lomborg has some tart words for the Nobel committee:

This year’s Nobel Peace Prize justly rewards the thousands of scientists of the United Nations Climate Change Panel (the IPCC). These scientists are engaged in excellent, painstaking work that establishes exactly what the world should expect from climate change.

The other award winner, former US vice president Al Gore, has spent much more time telling us what to fear. While the IPCC’s estimates and conclusions are grounded in careful study, Gore doesn’t seem to be similarly restrained.

Gore told the world in his Academy Award-winning movie (recently labelled “one-sided” and containing “scientific errors” by a British judge) to expect 20-foot sea-level rises over this century. But his Nobel co-winners, the IPCC, conclude that sea levels will rise between only a half-foot and two feet over this century, with their best expectation being about one foot - similar to what the world experienced over the past 150 years. …

The IPCC engages in meticulous research where facts rule over everything else. Gore has a very different approach.

The Congress for the New Urbanism has responded to my July policy analysis, Debunking Portland, with a paper titled, Debunking Cato. I am posting my reply on the Antiplanner blog.

New Urbanism refers to a recent architectural fad that includes mixed-use developments (retail and housing in the same complex), high-density housing (either multi-family or single-family on tiny lots), and pedestrian-friendly design (limited parking and storefronts on sidewalks instead of facing large parking lots). There is a demand for this type of development and no one objects to developers meeting that demand.

Portland, however, has decided to go far beyond market demand by imposing this type of development on many people. An urban-growth boundary has driven up the cost of single-family housing and the city uses subsidies, including tax-increment financing and below-market land sales, to promote high-density housing. A member of the Portland city council (and leading candidate for mayor) has even said that no new housing should be built in Portland that does not meet New Urban densities and designs.

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After a disastrous result in the House of Representatives, the farm bill debate has moved on to the Senate, where the main conflict is about how to provide assistance to farmers. Senator Max Baucus (D, MT), who sits on the Agriculture Committe but also holds the purse strings as Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, favors a permanent weather-related disaster relief fund alongside more “traditional” farm subsidies. The Chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, Tom Harkin (D, IA) prefers government subsidies based on farm revenue rather than commodity prices, and more spending on “renewable fuels” and conservation of farmlands.

Sen. Harkin wants about $10 billion dollars over the amount currently slated for farm programs to pay for his pet projects, but Sen. Baucus has made it clear that if Sen. Harkin wants more money, then he has to dance somewhat to Mr. Baucus’ tune. Sen. Harkin has in recent days appeared more open to a “modest” permanent disaster-assistance program if it means he gets his money (see here). Something tells me that Sen. Harkin’s definition of “modest” might be different to mine. Nor am I convinced that a permanent disaster relief trust fund would prevent Congress from approving extra disaster funds along the way.

The administration has issued a veto threat, but on ominous grounds. For example, the administration does not like the tax package that the House approved to pay for extra money for food stamps and sees the House income cap of $1 million dollars annual adjusted gross income as an insufficiently tight means test. As well they might, because it would affect only 7,000 farmers.

The veto threat is ominous because (a) it is based on things that are minimal and easily fixed relative to the entire package itself and (b) President Bush passed the similar 2002 farm bill without too much wailing