Panic! We've Got More Global Warming!!!!

...along with snow in North Dakota in June for the first time in 60 years. No, no. Never mind. We have a world to save. Facts are beside the point.

And there is also this from the eminent physicist Freeman Dyson.

The OTA and Environmental Policy

This week's change in the Environmental Protection Agency's stance on carbon dioxide is an excellent example of why the Office of Technology Assessment needs to be reopened. In short, the Obama administration declared that "carbon dioxide and five other industrial emissions threaten the planet."

Leaving aside the threatening the planet thing, it is worth noting that this change was brought about, in part, because the U.S. Supreme Court--not a group of scientists or even scientifically trained lawmakers--declared that CO2 was a pollutant under the Clean Air Act and, as such, subject to regulation under the EPA. The Bush Administration has ignored the ruling, for the most part, just as the U.S. Senate voted overwhelmingly to reject the Kyoto Treaty during the Clinton Administration, for the simple reason that the regulations required to comply with Kyoto would impose serious costs on our economy. The Wall Street Journal continues:

Lamar Alexander of Tennessee, chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, sought a middle ground, proposing to focus carbon caps on coal-fired power plants and vehicle tailpipes -- and holding off any move until the nation emerges from recession.
American Electric Power, a utility giant with 5.2 million customers in states from Texas to Michigan to Virginia, is already considering what coal plants would have to be shuttered and how high rates would have to go to comply with either a regulatory or legislative mandates to curb carbon dioxide.

Senator Alexander's take might make sense as a fall-back position, but the simple fact is that additional environmental regulations will slow down an already-troubled economy. Want to stay in recession for a few more years? Carbon dioxide regulations will do that, as businesses will have to pay heavy fines, make alternate investments, or just plain go out of business because they can't meet the technological needs of complying with new CO2 regs.

Regardless of the good intentions of the regulators and environmental-protection lobbyist groups, the end results will be less energy production, as witnessed by American Electrical Power decision above, and also less movement of goods and services. Trucks and planes are the primary means of getting goods and services to market, and if more truckers and airlines face bankruptcy due to lower sales or higher regulatory costs, our economy will grind to a screeching halt. People also will travel less because businesses pass on higher costs to the consumer. That means an even slower commercial aviation sector. And with a sicker economy, where will Obama get the tax revenues to pay for his massive budget?

Again from the WSJ:

A proposal by President Barack Obama would cap the emissions of greenhouse gases, then force polluters to purchase emission permits, which could be traded on the open market. The details of the cost of carbon credits have been left to Congress, although Mr. Obama has said he wants all emissions covered, with no allowance for free emissions, as some business groups and lawmakers want.

Interestingly, the "cap and trade" carbon credit scheme was born at NASA, where scientists needed to find a fair way to get time on the limited number of instruments available on the Galileo spacecraft orbiting Jupiter. Since lots of people had experiments they wanted to run and there were only a limited number of instruments aboard the orbiter, the Galileo team came up with a way to trade time. Someone considered applying the same logic to how much pollution would be allowed in a given region, and thereby allowed businesses to pay for more "carbon credits" to make up for additional pollution, or make a profit by improving efficiency and selling their lower carbon needs to companies that need them. This system has also been used to control the production, distribution, and use of electrical power.

Sounds great, right? Well, maybe. However, there are a couple of problems with the cap-and-trade system, the first of which is that the "experts" setting up the system established an arbitrary level of "total pollution" allowed or energy available to the system. They make no allowance for the possibility that their standard for carbon emissions might be too stringent (in the CO2 example) or that the amount of energy available might increase through new technologies in the power grid example.

Ah, but we're not done yet...

The details of the cost of carbon credits have been left to Congress

Some proponents of the cap-and-trade system have called this a "free market" approach to pollution control. That would make sense if businesses generating carbon dioxide were permitted to set the price based on market forces. However, as noted above, Congress would be setting the price/value of carbon credits, which means another government intrusion into the marketplace. Of course this could be done on purpose, as it puts a great deal of power into the hands of Congress and makes them seem like the "good cop" to industry--better to deal with representatives or senators than the bureaucrats at EPA. Talk about a protection scheme! So your choices on the price of carbon credits are a bunch of unscientific lawyers in Congress or unelected bureaucrats at the EPA. This isn't a choice between good and bad, but bad and worse.

The impact of the EPA finding could be dramatic. Using the Clean Air Act, the EPA could raise fuel-efficiency standards for automobiles, such as by authorizing nationwide adoption of California's rules for greenhouse-gas tailpipe emissions.

That could require auto makers to produce more hybrid and electric vehicles, such as the Chevrolet Volt plug-in hybrid under development by General Motors Corp. The Volt, however, is expected to carry a sticker of about $40,000, or roughly twice the price of a conventional Chevrolet Malibu sedan.

This has already become an issue. With GM, Chrysler, and Ford taking bailout money from the government, Uncle Sam has seen that it can pretty much dictate to these companies whatever they want, from capping CEO salaries to picking what cars they can build to firing the CEO. The American public might not want the Chevy Volt, but that's what the government wants to give them. And what are our poorer citizens supposed to do if they can't afford the Volt?

Another side effect of the Volt and the other brands' hybrid vehicles is that new technologies are expensive, just like new pharmaceuticals on the market. Companies make the price of these vehicles more expensive to recoup their investment until such time as 1) the vehicles are a proven money-maker and 2) they've improved enough to be mass-produced and thereby reduced in price. Government doesn't think that way, because points 1) and 2) are private-sector ways of thinking. Government says, "This is the car you will be allowed to buy, and if you don't like it, you can't have another."

How did CO2 become a pollutant, anyway?

Carbon-dioxide levels in the Earth's atmosphere have fluctuated wildly for millennia; at one point billions of years ago, it was the dominant gas in the atmosphere.

However, the EPA ruled that today's higher concentrations are the "unambiguous result of human emissions." Concentrations of carbon dioxide and other gases "are well above the natural range of atmospheric concentrations compared to the last 650,000 years," the agency said.

A couple of questions come to mind here:

• If CO2 levels have fluctuated wildly (and naturally) in the environment over the last 650,000 years, how are we to determine what constitutes a "normal" level of the gas?
• And what is so special about the last 650,000 years as opposed to the last million years? Or 65 million years, for that matter?
• Who is setting the levels for what's deemed appropriate, and what guidelines are they using?

The WSJ notes:

In its decision, the EPA stressed that it considers CO2 and other so-called greenhouse gases to be pollutants because of their role in propagating climate change, not because of any direct health effects.

This is almost unbelievable arrogance on the part of the EPA. Instead of using an objective standard for harm, like "X parts per million of Y compound in the atmosphere has been determined to cause Z health consequences," they instead have opted to make CO2 a pollutant based on a theory that is still in debate. After all, just in the last 30 years, we have shifted from fears about global cooling (1970s) to global warming (1988-2007) to now global cooling again. Unable to decide which horse to bet on, environmental activists now use the ambiguous term "climate change" so as to hedge their bets and still get the regulations they want.

The EPA did acknowledge some positive impacts from higher CO2 concentrations.

What might those impacts be? And why aren't those impacts weighed against the potential downsides? What standards of "positive" and "negative" impacts are being used, and who is deciding and enforcing what side of the climate-shift debate should be considered most important?

This is the sort of situation that calls for a new arbiter. By all means, we should leave data collection and science to the scientists. However, when it comes to deciding what is to be done about scientific findings--especially on a federal government level--such decisions should be made in the open by elected officials. There is never only one solution to a technical problem. This is what separates engineering from science. Science might determine that, in fact, the Earth is warming due to human-based industrial activities, and said warming will produce negative effects on human civilization. Engineers and political decision makers have the obligation to come up with and decide upon the best solutions. For instance:

• If too much carbon in the atmosphere is the problem, are there newer, more efficient ways to sequester the carbon without regulating and taxing the productive economies of the West?
• If temperature increases are the problem, might we not place a large Fresnel lens at the Earth-Sun Lagrange (L2) point to reduce the amount of solar radiation the planet is receiving?
• If flooding from melting glaciers is the problem, how much would it cost to build more homes on stilts or more cities behind walls?
• If the Earth absorbing too much sunlight is the problem, mightn't we increase the albedo (reflectivity) of our cities by requiring white-tile roofs instead of gray or black?

Again, the science might be what it is--and the data are still coming in--but the decision about what to do with the findings should be debated in an open forum, not decided arbitrarily based on the personal political biases of some very partisan bureaucrats or self-appointed "experts." The OTA can provide the necessary buffer between information and decision-making that makes our society stronger than those that suffer from command-and-control economies. We'd best start now, before the EPA starts acting "for our own good," even if the results of their regulations turn out to be very, very bad.

Global Warming, Etc.

Despite the drop in sea ice this summer, it grew back in record time, up to 1979 levels: http://www.dailytech.com/Article.aspx?newsid=13834

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I’m going to meander through this mine field again, partially in reaction to my reading about the “science court.” The climate change is precisely the sort of thing that could stand a good, direct discussion in an objective forum. Of course I’ve already mentioned the difficulties there: one side says, "The issue is already settled! We need to do something NOW before it's too late!"; the other side is saying, “Hold on, all the data isn’t in yet.” This actually requires two separate discussions, neither of which has yet taken place, to my knowledge:

• What’s going on? What is the actual data concerning climate change? Are we getting warmer or colder, and how much of that is related to human activity? What can be done to ensure that we have all of the necessary data? What experiments, if any, can be performed to verify particular theories?
• What do we do about it? Once we are clear on what’s actually happening with the planet’s climate, we need to give serious thought to what should be done—if anything. The idea of doing nothing doesn’t appeal to folks who prefer an activist government (liberals, neo-cons). The idea of taking drastic, expensive action with vast economic consequences probably won’t appeal to large segments of the voting public in the U.S., and other nations (China, India) might not participate at all. And what will the cost/benefit statement look like? Environmental activists bristle when crass “economic arguments” like that are used. However, costs and benefits need not be just a matter of dollar and cents. Why should large segments of human civilization be slowed down drastically NOW, especially if the payoff isn’t that great. Bjorn Lobmorg’s recent book on this issue deserves further attention.

In any case, until a civil and conclusive discussion or debate can be held regarding point 1, point 2 will always be problematic. Will our new president take this sort of caution to heart when he starts modifying U.S. environmental policy? I’m not particularly hopeful on the score, but the idea of a discussion is at least preferable to an enforced mandate from above.

Book Review: Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming

I became aware of the idea of climate change when I saw (I think) an Analog science fiction magazine cover that depicted glaciers filling Manhattan. The concept seemed horrible to me then, as now.

I first got on the global warming band wagon when I was a junior in high school, when a different magazine cover caught my eye. Discovery magazine had a front-page picture of Manhattan (again), this time with boats cruising up and down the avenues as a result of the ice caps melting. I took that image, imposed it on Chicago, and wrote a drippingly bad science fiction story using the flooding premise. Then I moved my politics to the right, and someone reminded me of the global ice age fears of 30 years before. Mirable dieu! The solutions for addressing the problem were the same as for a global ice age: restrict fossil fuels, raise taxes, change our lifestyles, etc. This was an important issue, dammit, and who the hell was I to question SCIENCE?!?

Well, maybe. But since high school, the rhetoric has only gotten more heated, so to speak, and sometimes hysterical and scary. Bjorn Lomborg, a professor of statistics and environmental activist, decided to take a serious look at the claims of his fellow travelers, found their facts subject to question, and wrote The Skeptical Environmentalist, which took the enviro movement to task for their overreach and hysteria.

The environmental movement has become entrenched as a movement of the left, and the left reserves a special hatred for apostates. Consider Leon Trotsky or, closer to our own time, David Horowitz. By questioning the environmental orthodoxy, which stated that the world was going to heck in a handcart and it is all America's fault, he has been roundly questioned or denounced in environmentalist circles. Lomborg has not backed down. His latest book is Cool It: The Skeptical Environmentalist's Guide to Global Warming, which again takes on the environmentalists' orthodoxy by daring to suggest that global warming is, in fact, a problem, but not THE BIGGEST PROBLEM IN HISTORY! His attempt to moderate the language of the environmental debate ("cool it") is directed squarely at the enviros' new rock star, Al Gore. Lomborg has not made himself many more friends on the left, but his attempt at rational debate was welcomed by this gentleman of the right.

If you do not feel like reading the whole thing, here are some of his basic premises:

1. Global warming is real and man-made.
2. Statements about the strong, ominous, and immediate consequences of global warming are often wildly exaggerated, and this is unlikely to result in good policy.
3. We need simpler, smarter, and more efficient solutions for global warming rather than excessive, if well-intentioned efforts [e.g. Kyoto].
4. Many other issues are much more important than global warming.

...We need to remind ourselves that our ultimate goal is not to reduce greenhouse gases or global warming per se but to improve the quality of life and the environment.

Lomborg's biggest gripe with the Kyoto Protocol (also called the Kyoto Treaty) is that it imposes incredibly high costs--$180 billion a year--for very little improvement: just a .3 degree Fahrenheit drop in global average temperature. These figures are based on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's and the United Nations' own numbers, so Lomborg is not just spinning for the oil companies. He is, rather, trying to get people to take a serious look at what else we could do to improve life on Earth without some magic, trillion-dollar bullet that doesn't do much anyway.

What Lomborg is advocating is a serious discussion of the potential impacts of global warming--rising seas, increased damage from hurricanes, heat-related deaths, and so forth--and suggesting that we look for other, less expensive ways to address these concerns. For instance, he notes that oceanic rising is only likely to be one foot over the next century, about what we've had since the end of the Little Ice Age 150 years ago--did anyone notice that? Instead of trashing our economy, which is politically infeasible as Al Gore and Bill Clinton realized, we could spend fewer billions improving levees, protecting homes, and ending government subsidies of insurance companies in the event of major events, like Hurricanes Andrew or Katrina. This is a social change rather than a technological change, but it would go a long way toward changing behavior on a micro- instead of a macro-level.

Another project Lomborg has been party to is a group called the Copenhagen Consensus Center, which is essentially a think tank of economists that was originally established to evaluate and rank the biggest societal problems on Earth--both by impact and our ability to fix them. The biggest problems the group identified were:

1. Unsafe water and lack of sanitation
2. Hunger and malnutrition
3. Lack of education

Global warming came near the bottom of the list. Water issues and malnutrition are much more easily resolved, as is education, though it requires more Peace Corps types of initiatives. Still: they're doable. Hunger could be reduced, Lomborg suggests, by ending subsidies to First World agriculture, opening the markets for Third World products. And one thing Lomborg makes clear, which is bound to drive the Marxists in the enviro movement crazy: the greatest way to reduce hunger, ignorance, and disease in the developing world is to increase free trade and make the citizens of those nations richer. And he makes the further point that Kyoto would create a massive financial drain on the West while in some cases making matters in the developing world worse.

This is activism of a sort that people of moderate or conservative disposition can accept. It doesn't require a great deal of money, from a Beltway point of view. Most of the proposals Lomborg suggests in his conclusion cost less than the NASA budget, such as HIV/AIDS education and condoms, vitamins, drinking water and sanitation solutions, levee improvements, DDT-based mosquito extermination, and agricultural reform. And each of these, I might add, would be more politically feasible, one by one, than the single, massive Kyoto Protocol. The end result of a series of smaller, less expensive and less "sexy" activities could do wonders for improving the quality of human life worldwide than a single, massive tax on the United States. If the choice was an increase in the foreign aid budget to accomplish all this in exchange for the wiping out of the U.S. economy, I'm all for it.

Lomborg does also address the need for alternative energy. But whereas Kyoto does nothing to encourage or develop new technologies, Lomborg would propose an increase of research and development funding to .05% of the West's GDP. Again, to use the NASA example, our nation spends .13% of its GDP on federal spaceflight activities--and many people think that's too much. Others question if the government should be spending money on R&D. There is a solution for this problem. In the 19th century, most of the money spent on R&D was spent by private foundations. The U.S. allowed a 70% tax break for businesses's R&D expenditures to expire. That is easily fixed, especially if such a tax break was targeted toward alternative energies, including my favorites: space solar power and Helium-3, both of which are "carbon-neutral," to use the buzzword of the day.

What I appreciate about Lomborg's book is its desire to get to workable, affordable, and politically feasible solutions. And all of this is done in tones of rationalism (we need to follow the data and do reasonable cost-benefit analyses) and civility (no strident screaming or name-calling). What a shame that sanity and politeness don't sell in the current political climate. It's amazing what we could accomplish if they did. Lomborg's book deserves serious attention if they ever do.