An Email to Climatologist Roy Spencer on the Basis for Climate Change Concern

On March 6, I sent the following email to climatologist, and former NASA scientist Roy Spencer. It goes to a very common fallacy underlying the issue of climate change — one that seems to be widely held by the media, and by some scientists.

[Introduction]

I just briefly perused your website, and found it both interesting, and well presented. I do take issue with several of the assertions and assumptions, but I thought it more relevant here to take issue with one very significant, in fact central, statement which you make, and for which, you have some apparent support [Edit: The word support is a bit misleading here; what was meant was that the idea is held by others.] Namely, on this page here:

http://www.drroyspencer.com/research-articles/satellite-and-climate-model-evidence/

“Since computerized climate models are the main source of concern over manmade global warming.”

I don’t think that they are. The great science historian Naomi Oreski has correctly noted, for example, “Indeed, one could reject all climate models and still accept the consensus position because models are only one part of the argument—one line of evidence among many.”

For some people, they may be the main source of concern. There are a few reasons for this. Perhaps the most important is the overwrought desire to achieve a level of precision and exacting prescience, which makes it far easier to convey that this is a problem than does the more conceptually difficult idea of a range of risks in combination with a range of probabilities as to what those risks are based in turn then again upon a known set of factors.

Models also give a potentially powerful way to further our understanding, and begin to test certain ideas. (Unfortunately, however, models DO NOT give us a way to test the idea that our activities now will have a very strong effect on future climate, and I believe confusion over this is prevalent.) They give a way to further refine, and work with, data.

They provide a starting point rather than an ending point; namely, this is a problem, here are the ranges, we can update and possibly further refine with further observation, but there’s not much else without something approximating modeling. They hold out the ideal of that much else. They are obviously an invaluable aspect of the study of this phenomenon, and are heavily focused on for the reasons just stated (and perhaps others). This DOES NOT, however make them the basis for concern.

Some over-reliant statements by climate scientists upon models notwithstanding (and quite consistently I believe), I would strongly assert to all those who do claim that computerized models are the main source of concern over climate science, that this view is highly mistaken. I don’t believe that computerized models are even close to the main source of the most legitimate concern over manmade climate effect. I also believe there are plenty of leading scientists who, for the most part, agree. (Not that, as you I am sure are well aware, general agreement or disagreement proves or disproves the vitality of an assertion, but it is often relevant to note.)

Of course, we could now examine the actual causes for (for lack of a better word) “concern,” but then that would make this email untowardly long. But I wanted to emphasize to you that this idea that models form the basis and rationale for why our atmospheric greenhouse gas altering activities pose a robust long term problem, is highly mistaken.

Of course, to accept this, you might have to re work some of the approach you have taken to the issue. Thus you might not accept it. But I believe you would then be in grievous error on the issue.

[closing]

As of yet, I have not received a response; any responses received will be duly noted.

A Senate Letter on Huge Gains From Increased Efficiency Vehicles

This was shared during the ‘cash for clunkers’ debate last summer. It is posted here unedited, for reference, and because the analysis is increasingly relevant today.
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Here is the analysis that I referenced. Although it makes the case against both bills, you can also use almost any part of it to make the case against moving forward with the House version, or for positively altering it.  It is also reasonably brief, as, obviously, respect for your time is paramount. Therefore much was left out in terms of further example, support, analysis, and proscriptive remedies.  But please also do not hesitate to follow up, or have someone from your office, follow up, with respect to any and all questions and concerns.

Also please note that a big part of getting bills accomplished, as you obviously are probably having to deal with every day, is getting everybody on the same page, and putting forth the most pertinent points, in a broad based, and appealing way.  This point is also lightly touched on below, but it is worth noting here that I have shared this analysis with a broad spectrum of experts on the matter. Not one mainstream environmentalist has disagreed with it, and not one conservative analyst has taken great issue either, simply because of the large national security, oil reliance ramifications.   The economics has been backed up and supported, as well. And everyone, in terms of actual voters, that I have shared the basic ideas with, have been in agreement as well.

In ‘06, the U.S. was responsible for 6.17 billion metric tons of net greenhouse gas emissions.   Using this figure as the baseline, S. 1200 would, according to the press release, save an amount equal to .00745% — 75/1,000,000 — of our net greenhouse gas emissions over the House (and Stabenow) version,  and .031% — 31/100,000 — of our net greenhouse gas emissions in total. It would also save less than .035%  or 35/100,000 of our total passenger vehicle oil use (using 8 million barrels a day as the base figure), over the House version, and .14% — 14/10,000 — in total.

But even these figures may be overly optimistic.  They don’t appear to take into account that some of the subsidized transactions would occur anyway (and that there are energy costs involved in the production of each replacement vehicle, although that consideration can be exceedingly misleading).  [Editorial update: In hindsight, the bills had a slightly better effect, because a lot of people did choose to use them for  higher efficiency cars than the bills required for subsidy, most notably the now highly reputed Ford Fusion.]

More importantly, they also don’t consider that the subsidized vehicles, unlike those being targeted for replacement, can not otherwise, for all practical purposes, be scrapped a year or two down the road and replaced by far more efficient vehicles as these become available — but will instead perpetuate the status quo for years. These vehicles may also ultimately decrease our future fleet average, if we otherwise come close to achieving our new vehicle sales fleet mpg average target   (35.5 mpg for cars and light trucks combined by 2016, with smaller, incremental increases in earlier years.)

Here are the basics:  The ultimate goal of any pro-Detroit assistance is to create job opportunity and growth.  Other vehicle stimulus packages will have this same macro economic effect. If there is a concern, nevertheless, to help Detroit specifically, there is a way to do this and have this very same bill, with a little tweaking — have not just far more broad based appeal over the House version — but be far more effective.

It is also critical to keep in mind that properly framed — and I have already gotten feedback from people in both political parties outside of the beltway — almost everybody is on board with reducing gasoline usage for one or both of the following reasons:  Decreasing CO2 emissions and moving us toward the necessary greater international credibility on the issue (particularly with respect to nations such as India, and China), and improving our national security by mitigating our needless reliance upon foreign oil — here emphasized for framing purposes.

I will skip the lengthier analysis of vehicles on the market and the necessary restructuring of this legislation in order to meet the same expressed, and desired, ends, and yet at the same time meet them in a way that is more broadly appealing as well.  That needs to be done via separate inquiry and/or in person. But the follow-up proscription suggested below will also give some critical insight into how practical and effective such a measure can potentially be — even with respect to our Detroit based companies.

It may also be far more cost effective than many other subsidy, or technology study programs, to extend a properly constructed reward program with progressively, and aggressively, higher efficiency targets. (And at the same time, be more politically palatable than significantly raising oil based fuel taxes. Note also that at least some of this idea is not dissimilar from S. 247 introduced back on Jan. 14.  But the similarities and differences, and how some of that can be reintroduced while having even more appeal and at the same time more vigorously serve to prompt the market itself to develop, produce, and purchase far more and higher mpg and alternative fuel vehicles — the necessary requirement for us to effect these dual problems of oil and emissions — are subsequent points to make.)

This would not only prompt such vehicle replacements, but shift the development, production, and demand aspects of the market in this direction as well. This, in turn, would also have the critical, and underestimated effect, of altering market parameters in the proper direction and thus rendering further significant market movement and design improvement far more likely and easier to build upon.  This sounds somewhat conceptual, but it is a key requisite element for solving these challenges.

Consider two American candidates for significant cash for clunker type targeting, and compare them in stark contrast to the vehicles that we would nevertheless be subsidizing the purchase, and thus perpetuation (and even increase) of, under the current proposals:  The Chevy Volt, and Ford’s Fiesta ECOnetic diesel. (Note that diesels are not currently popular here merely because there has not yet been a reason for them to be, which as a basic truism of market capitalism, will change when the reasons change.  Emissions aside, they can now also easily be made as clean, or cleaner, than gasoline internal combustion engines. In fact, Volkswagen’s recently introduced Jetta TDi (diesel) has been extremely well received in the U.S. thus far.)

The Volt gets 100+ mpg equivalent its first forty miles after charge — enough to cover most routine commutes and trips — and 48-50 mpg when running via gasoline generator thereafter.  The Ford Fiesta ECOnetic gets 65 mpg. (There is also a Fiesta Van ECOnetic version due out in a few months, that gets in the 70s.  In fact, Fiesta’s full size transit van ECOnetic, which is not available in the U.S., but which requires the correct policies in order to be, gets 32.6 — an enormous improvement over what is on the road in terms of work vans today.)

Replace a vehicle that gets 18 mpg, with one that gets 65, and this would prompt the market to develop even better and more efficient versions of such vehicles; and we would save 482 gallons of gas, and 9352 lbs. of CO2, over a typical 12,000 mile driving year, for that one vehicle alone.  This is the energy and exhaust equivalent of driving a vehicle that gets 35.5 mpg — the new CAFE requirement average for the year 2016 — for 17,110 miles, using air as its fuel, and emitting nothing but air.

What if the vehicle to be replaced was one of the 24 mpg vehicles, say, one year from now; only it can’t, because it is almost brand new. What would the savings have been otherwise, by switching over to the 65 mpg vehicle?  315.4 gallons of gasoline, and 6118.67 lbs. of CO2, over 12,000 miles of driving distance.  Enough, again, in a net emissions and oil usage sense, to fuel that soon to be standard 35.5 mpg vehicle for 11,196 miles, on pure air.

Yet Ford is not currently planning to bring the ECOnetic to America. According to Mark Fields, Ford America President;

We just don’t think [Americans] would buy that many diesel cars.

Of course we wouldn’t, when we are considering the subsidization of replacement vehicles that get 24 mpg, instead.

Unblemished Risk Assessment on Climate Change Reduction.

Cornell economics Professor Robert Frank offers up a solid op-ed in today’s New York Times on the economics of climate change. (Calling it a big step up from this recent climate monstrosity in the Times is an understatement):

Organizers of the recent climate conference in Copenhagen sought, unsuccessfully, to forge agreements to limit global warming to 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit by the end of the century. But even an increase that small would cause deadly harm. And far greater damage is likely if we do nothing.

The numbers — and there are many to choose from — paint a grim picture. According to recent estimates from the Integrated Global Systems Model at [M.I.T.], the median forecast is for a climb of 9 degrees Fahrenheit by century’s end, in the absence of effective countermeasures.

The gist of the piece is that based upon non political, objective, logic based risk assessment, and basic economics, there really isn’t a decent case against immediate climate change redress. Summarizing, Frank notes:

In short, the cost of preventing catastrophic climate change is astonishingly small, and it involves just a few simple changes in behavior.

The real problem with the estimates is that the outcome may be worse than expected. And that’s the strongest possible argument for taking action. In a rational world, that should be an easy choice, but in this case we appear to be headed in the wrong direction.

(A few quick examples of how the market could be motivated to effect much of this change on its own, while preserving personal choice and promoting growth at the same time,  are here.) Ironically, the piece could have painted a stronger picture for action and been more objective and accurate at the same time.  For example, it concludes:

Most people would pay a substantial share of their wealth — much more, certainly, than the modest cost of a carbon tax — to avoid having someone pull the trigger on a gun pointed at their head with one bullet and nine empty chambers. Yet that’s the kind of risk that some people think we should take.

First, and more controversially, this follows the common and likely erroneous presumption that addressing climate change sensibly “costs” money rather than simply serves to shift what constitutes GDP.   But more pointedly, Frank’s assessment is based upon a probability of 10 percent of a rise of 12 degrees or more.  Yet the same M.I.T study Frank relies upon for this, as noted earlier in the piece, projects the median rise to be 9 degrees. (In other words, half of the projections come in above 9 degrees, half lower, if no remediation action is taken.)  Thus, to continue the analogy, the other chambers are not “empty.”

Frank notes this himself earlier:

Essentially, the risk is that if current estimates turn out to be wildly pessimistic, the money spent to curb greenhouse gases wouldn’t have been needed to save the planet. And yet that money would still have prevented substantial damage. (The M.I.T. model estimates a zero probability of the temperature rising by less than 3.6 degrees by 2100.)

Thus, NONE of the chambers are empty; and half of them are not that far off from the 12 degree “bullet.” But what was left out of this assessment is that if current estimates turn out to be wildly pessimistic, there are still other significant reasons why the expenditures would not have been a waste.

First off, as noted above, they won”t serve as “true” expenditures in the long run — but will shift what we do spend our GDP dollars on. So if they “do nothing,” we probably would have preferred having more flat screen TVs (metaphorically speaking) and instead we will have more historically stable CO2 levels.  But since in the long run happiness is not correlated with absolute levels of wealth, but rather an ongoing increase in growth and job opportunities, even this is fairly trivial, again, in the long run. (Implementing cleaner, less destructive fuels prompts jobs and GDP growth the same as building a few extra flat screen TVs does.)

But they won’t do nothing, even apart from the climate change issue.  Much of the climate change challenge stems from fossil fuel use.(The rest stems from deforestation, changing agricultural practices and grazing ruminant livestock, and other sundry causes.) We have to get off of these anyway. They are finite. Extremely so in the case of oil. We might as well get off of them now.

And in addition, fossil fuels also cause considerable harm in addition to being largely responsible for an increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels to levels that on a sustained basis may well be unprecedented in the past fifteen million years:

They are responsible for a large proportion of our atmospheric pollution, CO2 (which is not a “true” pollutant), aside.  In the case of coal, they are also responsible for a majority of the toxicological poison mercury that is bio-accumulating in our food chain. Also in the case of coal, they are responsible for a significant amount of degradation to the natural landscape and watersheds where coal is mined. (Sometimes even causing the irreversible destruction of entire mountain tops).  And in the case of oil, they are responsible for unnecessary national security vulnerabilities created by relying upon, and sending hundreds of billions of dollars to, foreign oil selling regimes overseas that we often view as hostile to our interests.

Another interesting aspect of the piece is when Frank notes that we may be “headed in the wrong direction.” Quoting Harvard psychologist Daniel Gilbert, Frank notes:

“Global warming is bad, but it doesn’t make us feel nauseated or angry or disgraced, and thus we don’t feel compelled to rail against it as we do against other momentous threats to our species, such as flag burning.”

But we’re also headed in the wrong direction for a few other reasons. Number one is an incessant parade of nonstop misinformation on the topic, along with poor media coverage of it.

Number two is that climate change is abstract. We can’t feel it, touch it, taste it, see it, or smell it. Sure, we see and feel the weather everyday, but climate change is a decades long process; the weather at any particular time is all but irrelevant, and of course, all over the board.

Number three is that, perhaps given a natural desire to believe such conclusions, people tend to confuse the lack of precision or absolute certainty on climate change with the certainty of the physics that underline the phenomenon; including the certainties that heat drives climate (ultimately through the oceans), heat trapping gases trap heat, and levels of heat trapping gases have ratcheted upward at geologically breakneck speed to extremely high levels — and are still climbing.

Number four may be the most infrequently mentioned, yet, after misinformation, perhaps the most important.  An increase in atmospheric trapped heat is ultimately going to warm or otherwise alter the planet, and produce some sort of radical change (likely warming) through the oceans.  It takes an extremely long time to heat up oceans. (And, as we would expect, oceans are slowly retaining more and more heat.) Decades, if not more.  For this reason, among others, there is a considerable lag in climate change between cause and effect.

That is, given natural variability, we won’t “know” the effects of climate change (as opposed to mere, bizarre, variability) for years. And even then we still won’t because there will be multiple decades of effect built up in the pipeline.

It’s abstract, it’s in the future, and there are considerable cause and effect, and potential variability lags on top of that.  Those things, however, do not make it any less real. We are, however, very counter productively, treating it as if they do.

If we purchase a stock at 100 dollars, and we knew it had an 80 percent probability of going to zero, and a 20 percent probability of going to 125, we would sell it in an instant. And at a steep discount from 100 dollars, also. We would never go “but we don’t know with certainty that it is going to go to zero” as a rationale for doing nothing.

But that is precisely what we are doing, with respect to climate change.  The precise number of the effect is all but irrelevant when it comes to future harm.  What matters is the range of likely outcomes, their expected probabilities, and likely, attendant harm for each.  Somehow — perhaps through natural confusion over the science, and the four reasons listed above along with the one posited by Gilbert and Frank — we are completely confusing this.

The suspicion here is that misinformation driven by ideology is in fact playing the leading role, with the other factors merely facilitating the process and allowing for easy and in many cases, perhaps even earnest, confusion and misinformation promulgation on the issue.

Creating Jobs, Spurring the Economy, Solving Energy Problems, and Lessening Government Dictate, with One Same Swift Strategic Approach

The best way to create jobs is to solve another problem at the exact same time.

Tax the crap out of gasoline. Yeah, unpopular; but Dems have the majority in Congress, and tend to support it (as do some moderate Republicans). Just do it, sell it, it’s about national security and getting off of sending billions to hostile foreign regimes.

Do it more as a value added tax in addition to just end user tax. Take all the funds from this tax and use thusly: Give hardship relief, but only on a well communicated sliding scale so that people begin AND CONTINUE to make adjustments themselves. All of this will go right back into the economy while encouraging the market itself to further adjust and create.

Next, bag the tax credit idea and instead do immediate credits for solar penal installation on roofs. Make it a big credit too, so that anyone living in a sunny area is getting some power from the sun, and almost no environmental cost, increasing further development and economies of scale in this industry, and transitioning us over to cleaner, more independent, fuels.

No tax credits; they are abstract, and the full value is never realized.

Tax electricity. That’s right. Electricity, generated from coal. Sounds politically bad? Right now we tax hard earned income. That’s bad. Instead, we will be shifting some of that burden onto a revenue raising program that at the same time inspires the market, and ends the undue non true capitalism penalization of industries and end uses that don’t rely upon excessive externality cost electrical use or production.

Same hardship remuneration applies, while people incrementally, with six month at a time decreases in hardship assistance, learn to adapt with positive change:

We can’t ask what is perceived to be sacrifice of industry (though we are de-facto subsidizing some industries now too, with other ones right now unduly penalized because their lack of harm is not integrated into their price) yet just give handouts to the economically disadvantaged without asking them to learn to adjust also — and there is PLENTY of adjustment that can be made short and, increasingly, longer term, when money is at stake — at the same time.

DON’T pour money into R & D. This is a common call by many, but it is a waste. Let the market do it. Then the money not only inspires the research, but concomitantly the development and implementation at the same time, for no additional cost. It’s a waste to simply give industry money for “research, if they do x or y or promise to look at z.”

Take the same money, and later use for deficit reduction. Right now, trying to bring jobs back, use it for reward. Not as efficient as economic discentive (e.g, a tax on coal fired electricity) but choose broad behavior parameters that are already established, and again, grant immediate purchase and investment credits.

Not for bicycles or stuff like that that also has other uses (cool and helpful as bicycles are), that’s another waste. But for stuff which only serves to produce or use far cleaner energy.

Use the rest for direct stimulus in the way of immediate construction, but smaller scale that also indirectly enriches communities, towns and cities, and DOES NOT further support more fossil fuel based uses or needs. Bike paths can be construction ready anywhere, and have the opposite effect, encouraging biking. Don’t put up electric lights unless they are solar powered. Install solar charging stations, wind or geothermal powered, for local electric vehicles, bike and walking paths, tennis courts, etc.

And those are just a few quick examples.  Everything in such a jobs or stimulus bill needs to be designed to either discourage fossil fuel based behavior while encouraging the opposite, while not regulating people and letting them and the market decide, while inspiring the market further at the same time, all while stimulating jobs and the economy rather than further dragging it down.

If Dems with a solid majority can’t sell that, what can they sell? (Oh, yeah, I forgot:  Apparently nothing. But that can change when they learn not necessarily how to do it, but that they must do it. Who might teach them that?)

Use the market to solve the climate change, pollution and energy security problems all at the same time, without increasing government encroachment, and while creating jobs and spurring economic growth all at the same time.

NY Times Tom Friedman: More Bills is the Stimulus and Image Rehabilitation America Needs!

Friedman, January 30:

It is a shame because here we are as a country scrounging around for a few billion more dollars of stimulus to help our unemployed and small businesses — when the biggest stimulus of all is hiding in plain sight. And that is ending our political paralysis and the pall of uncertainty it is casting over everything from the cost of my health care to the cost of my energy to the way our biggest banks can do business.

Are we really being held back because we don’t know what our health care is going to cost?  Because we don’t know the cost of energy? Who is being held back by this.  What legislation would change this.

Energy prices have fluctuated for decades. Setting a bill that helps motivate us toward better alternatives would certainly be good for the environment, good for national security, and probably, in the long run (despite constant presumption to the contrary) good for the economy. But it does not necessarily mean we will suddenly know any better what “energy” costs. This is the nature of the market.

Friedman is sometimes perceptive (and at other times, not so much). But his quoted paragraph above seems like pure babble, that otherwise sounds and “appears” clever; something that there is far too much of masquerading as informed commentary these days.

As for the paralysis that Friedman speaks of, paralysis is not necessarily bad, if it keeps bad legislation from being passed. But he blames both sides for this paralysis on the one hand, while calling the Republicans the party of “just say no” on the other.

He also says the two “sides” should meet in the “middle.”  Why should the two sides “meet in the middle.” What if the “middle”as defined in this fashion is not right? What if the Republicans are right on some things (though right now, it is hard to see what) and Democrats are right on some others (not much easier to see what).  Does “meet in the middle” mean we pass the best bills? Doesn’t articulate the best principles, and reasons why they apply, create the best bills?  And is it really a failure to “meet in the middle” that is prohibiting this?

Democrats have a solid majority of the House, 59 of the 100 seats in the Senate, and the support of the White House. If they put together a good bill, couldn’t they also sufficiently show why it is a good bill to the few Democrats or Republicans holding it up?  (And if Democrats are so worried about a filibuster, maybe they ought to stop letting themselves be bossed around constantly by the minority party. After all, it’s not like they could stop anything themselves when they were the minority party for most of this decade (with bad ramifications, too.))

If Democrats can not put together a good bill, then there is nothing to pass. If they can put together a good bill, and show why it is, and they are still blocked by a few recalcitrant Democrats and almost the entire Republican Party, then maybe the issue is not one of “two sides not being able” to “come together,” but others negatively paralyzing the system.  Others who then lose at the voting booth, if this is 1) the actual case, and 2) once again, effectively shown.

Of course, with Rahm Emanuel, who doesn’t seem to believe in showing anything, leading White House strategy,* it’s up to Democrats in Congress, or the DNC; or maybe once again we will have the “paralysis” that Friedman writes about until Republicans can come back in and start passing things again, just like most of this past decade.

In other words, it comes down to two things, particularly with a significant majority in both houses, and the support of the White House. Putting together a good bill or bills, and effectively showing this, both to the country, and to their fellow Congresspeople: Not, as Friedman says, simply “meeting in the middle” regardless of what the various parties are claiming they want. That leads to more of the same over burdensome special interest favoring legislation that people like Friedman are often complaining about (and often correctly), in the first place.

As for why the rest of the world is starting to view our country as more unstable — the concern driving Friedman’s article — it’s not because we are not passing bills, with possibly the small exception of energy. The reason for the energy exception is that the world knows climate change is a global problem and we are still the leader of the free world, and by far largest per capita contributor to the climate change problem. (A problem that almost half the country seems to have become convinced does not exist, by the way.) And we are not seeming to do much to lead on this issue.

But for the most part, the world is not viewing the U.S. as potentially less stable than normal because of a failure to pass health care or some derivative and market traders favoring cap and Trade system, whereby much of the money that should be going into productive growth and problem redress instead goes into traders pockets;** it is probably because of the massive run up in debt, the recent financial crisis, and all of the heavy rhetoric that continues to emanate out of this country, combined with, perhaps, to some very small degree, what Friedman references; A Congress that can’t seem to get anything done — despite the fact that many think that in general, a Congress not getting anything done is a good thing sometimes.***

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*Emanuel has been routinely credited with orchestrating a masterful Democratic victory in Congress in 2006.  There is little conventional wisdom in an America that is currently chock full of erroneous conventional political wisdom, that is as off base as this.  It is the equivalent of taking over a football game in the fourth quarter, leading 31-0, and squeaking out a 30-28 victory when the ball sails wide right on a field goal try in the waning seconds.   Most people will vehemently disagree with this — particularly those in a media which endlessly parroted this assessment as if unambiguous fact  – but that’s the nature of conventional wisdom that has become entrenched as gospel.  But in 2006 the Bush administration was becoming very unpopular, concern over Iraq and foreign policy strategy was becoming alarmingly high yet the Bush Administration unfortunately was not up for re-election, and there was more anti – incumbent Congressional fervor than at any point in modern history (only to be outdone, yet again, by 2008 of course), and second term majority parties typically lose almost what the Republicans lost in 2006 under normal circumstances.

**On the flip side of this, a cap and trade system does offer some efficiency advantages. By allowing the market to fully determine how it wants to meet certain targets, more effective measures can be accomplished at less cost to the initial polluter in the first place. But in the long run, all this system is doing is rewarding an inherent right to pollute to certain entities, above which threshold they can not go — or must purchase credits from someone else. If an inherent right to pollute does exist where such pollution is contributing to a potentially alarming (and still underestimated) global problem, then everyone should have the right equally. Yet such a system is fundamentally predicated on the opposite principle — past behavior.

In the long run, simply taxing the processes is more efficient and less costly.  (Former Bush economics advisor, Bruce Bartlett, in Forbes, agrees.)  Politically unpalatable as this sounds, it is the most efficient and most “market equalizing” approach to leveling the playing field between harmful and nonharmful production processes. There is no reason that a “tax” should be frowned upon until and unless this country has no taxes; which so long as we have government and not anarchy, is a bit far fetched.  And of the many taxes that are levied, this would probably be the fairest and by far the most productive. Not only does it raise revenue, it avoids having to simply prohibit behavior that destroys the environmental quality of the world for everyone, which behavior some people might otherwise be willing to pay for — which is everyone’s right, so long as that harm is somehow integrated into the marketplace, and marketplace decisions.

Cap and trade does not accomplish this nearly as efficiently in the long run, but instead creates an entire separate market that has no value in and of itself, other than to avoid this more straightforward approach and the politically unpalatable tax word.

Not that some haven’t tried to use the term  anyway, for cap and trade (and, creatively, there is some small truth to it).  But then these “some” — in this case ex half term Alaskan Gov. Sarah Palin, here also argue that the way to getting off of the energy sources that are compromising national security, polluting our environment, and contributing massive amounts of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere via the geologically instantaneous release of carbon that took millions of years to accumulate, is “the answer doesn’t lie in making energy scarcer and more expensive!.” And, of course, if there is one thing that is correctly known with certainty in the otherwise uncertain “art” of economics — and what, essentially, compromises “economics 101,” is that of course the answer, completely the opposite of what Palin insisted, does lie in making the behavior we want to move away from, scarcer and more expensive, relative to the behavior that we want to move toward.

Here, something that is not quite as efficient, but that can speed up the process, and add political appeal, is to take the funds derived from discouraging the energy reliance sources and processes that we need to move away from, and using part of it to encourage production and usage of the (cleaner, non finite) energy sources and processes that we need to move toward.

***The most recent incarnation of the health care bill in the Senate, to many — as much as this country probably needs health care reform to reign in rocketing public and private costs, extreme inefficiencies, and to provide better coverage and care for people — serves as an example of precisely this.

New York Times Searches Far and Wide for the Most Qualified Experts

Space on the prestigious NY Times opinion pages is extremely limited.  And most of that space is routinely taken up by the paper’s own editorials and columnists.

So one imagines that on the rare occasions when the Times ventures to outside sources from among the constant inundation of submissions it normally receives, it chooses its pieces carefully — to represent a particular point of view or perspective, with careful, reasoned and logical support.

Thus, in its search far and wide for someone to provide  a provocative, informative, non misleading and relevant opinion piece on the timely and global issue of climate change recently, the Times apparently scoured the entire globe itself, finally settling upon an expert from New Zealand. A professor of philosophy named Denis Dutton.

Just below is how Dutton’s fantastic work of reason, logic, and coherency might have made its way onto the famed and highly selective pages of the NY Times.

Note that the following conversation is merely a simulation (one supposes) of a conversation that could have occurred, illustrating both the value of Dutton’s piece, as well as how it might have ended up on the highly influential and venerable NY times opinion pages:

DUTTON: I think some may be overreacting on climate change here.

So far, notice, this is a short, one sentence, unsupported suggestion, not an oped.  So how does it turn into one?

NY TIMES:   Why may some be overreacting?

DUTTON: because sometimes people overreact.

NY TIMES:  We know sometimes people over react to things.  That’s like saying that we are under-reacting to climate change because “sometimes we under react.” What’s your reason why some are overreacting on this issue?

DUTTON: because people tend to find apocalypses intriguing!!

NY TIMES:  That’s not an argument for saying climate catastrophe is overreaction, catastrophes do happen; that’s an argument for saying the world is literally coming to an end due to climate changer alone – an argument that maybe all of four people are making – and three for intended hyperbole.

When sometimes we under react to things, and other times we over react to things, saying that we are “overeacting” to climage change by giving a reason why sometimes people over react to things, which otherwise has not specific applicability to this particular instance, is tautological,and logically nonsensical.

It is like saying “I think my neigbor’s wife is having an affair;” we ask why, you say “because sometimes wives have affairs,” we ask why her, and you give a  reason why sometimes wives in general have affairs, such as “because they are lonely or bored.” You have done nothing to support why you think your neigbor’s wife is having an affair;  and you have done nothing to support why our response to climate change is an over reaction rather than an under reaction.

So do you have anything else more than “we overreact sometimes,” we under react other times, this time we are over reacting, based upon the reasoning that “we overreact sometimes”?

DUTTON: Yes, yes, of course I do.  Here goes. Here is my reason.  Drumroll please: “It seems to me.”

NY TIMES: Hey, that’s pretty good. In other words, you are not just arguing “sometimes we over react to stuff, sometimes we under react to stuff, on climate change we are over reacting, the end,” you are saying that, but with “it seems to me” thrown in.  As they say on the Guinness commercials, “brilliant!”

But do  you have anything else?  That, would make it even better.

DUTTON: Yup.  I sure do. I have even more. Since this is a scientific issue, why should we bother with any actual science, when instead we can botger with stuff that is even better than science; namely, science fiction.   Ready?  Mary Shelley Created Frankenstein.

Thus, you see, people are fascinated with this stuff, like Frankenstein, so we are over reacting on climate change!  And no one will ever pick up that we also tend to overlook other stuff, like actual science, or scenarios where there is a big lag between cause and effect, so we are underestimating climate change.  Instead, here, we are over reacting, because of Frankenstein, and fascination with Frankenstein!

NY TIMES:  Absolutely brilliant.  This is great stuff. No one will eve see what a hoax this logic is (including us!).

But allthough we know it says so much more, it might appear as if your argument says nothing more than “We are over reacting, not under reacting, this time, because because Mary Shelley created Frankenstein.”

Brilliant and relevant as that argument is, can you fill this piece with an otherwise also completely irrelevant yet excruciatingly detailed example of a time when we over-reacted as opposed to under-reacted, overlooking how that also illustrates exactly nothing — yet allowing you to essentially, and wonderfully, wasted your entire piece on it!

Since we already know we sometimes over react, just like we know we sometimes under react, giving us an example of a time we overreacted tells us nothing.  But it will come across to readers as if it does! Particularly if you spend almost your entire piece on it.  And that is what we want to do here at the NY Times. Print logically nonsensical pieces of garbage that might masquerade as something of worth.

So, can you not only give us an example of an otherwise unrelated time that we over reacted, but spend most of your at this point otherwise two sentence piece on it?

DUTTON: Sure, absolutely. Like what?  Like, maybe, talk about how many people and countries way over reacted to Y2K?

(Editor of ELA, not of the NY Times here. Ahem, Dutton, “ahem.”  Not many people but those of us that did; since the editor of this website  thought the entire notion of an unavoidable enormous Y2k breakdown just because the years on many computers were in double rather than quadruple digits, was ridiculous, and said so repeatedly.)

NY TIMES:  Exactly.

DUTTON: Done. Check  your in box.

Hard to believe, right?

NY TIMES: If you don’t believe this speculated mockusation, come read our pages, December 31, and see for yourself.

Simply saying “We overreact to some things, perhaps we are to climate change, here are some reasons why we are over-reacting here,” flawed as the conclusion that we are overreacting likely is, is fine. Dutton does not come close to doing that, however.  He suggests that sometimes we over react to things; he explains why he thinks we over-react to things sometimes (fascination with the eschatological), and then suggests that “we are over-reacting here” for no reason other than the completely tautological explanation that sometimes we do, along with the completely irrelevant reason why we sometimes do.

If anything, there would be far more driving the idea that we are under-reacting here.  Likely results are many years in the future.  The implications to many, of this, are extremely negative, because of the (flawed) perception that sensibly addressing this means we have to sacrifice our economy. There is a general lack of general scientific understanding among the populace. And our expectations are grounded in what we have come to expect, and the difficulty we seem to have grasping the ideas that 1) there is an enormous time lag here between both cause and effect, and 2) effects are very likely to be non linear (that is, potentially accelerating with increased input).

Whether that last paragraph, was a good or bad (but short) opinion piece for the Times, at least it offered reasons. Dutton offers none. What he offered is like suggesting “remember how in medieval times the plague hit, and people did not take it seriously enough;” then spending most of the time writing about how bad the plague was and how wrong everybody was; then offering up a bunch of reasons why in general people often don’t take things seriously enough (and they tend to number far greater than “fascination with eschatology”) and then concluding “it seems to me climate change is the same. The end.”  That would be a truly inane piece.  And, analogously, it is exactly the logic — and all of it — that the NY Times chose to publish.

An Economics Challenge For “Freakonomics” Author and Economist Steven Levitt

Here is Steven Levitt’s December 23 NY Times blog column.  Notice that a central point he makes is that it might be far cheaper in the future to remove carbon from the air. Thus he argues that geo-engineering now to “stabilize,” with carbon capturing later to “remove” is wise; while lessening net atmospheric emissions of GHC is unwise.

Forget about the fact that Levitt makes this assertion upon the assumption that carbon reduction costs can be reduced by one thousandth to one millionth based upon the “outlier” that computing speed was increased by such magnitudes; forget about the fact that the effect of climate change lags up to many decades behind its cause (largely due to the time it takes to warm oceans, as well as the fact that as stable systems start to break down, change can progress in an increasingly non linear fashion), meaning we have already put into place what we will see decades from now; forget about the fact that CO2 is only one greenhouse gas (albeit right now, the predominant one); forget about the fact that geo-engineering is a big abstraction involving great uncertainty and heavy additional risk; and forget that any significant improvement in carbon capture technology costs, let alone improvement on the order of “one thousandth to one millionth,” is still somewhat speculative, whereas the fact that greenhouse gases trap heat, heat ultimately drives climate, and climate can change rapidly, and radically, are not.

Let’s accept all these things as inconsequential, thereby giving Levitt’s reasoning a chance.  Upon what does he base this idea of essentially doing nothing but rigging up some geo-engineered spraying of the skies now, and half a century later trying to tackle super high GHG concentration levels by atmospheric carbon removal?

Two things.  1) His presumption that to lessen GHG emissions now “costs” money; and 2) that this “cost,” however defined, somehow ransacks our GDP long term, rather than merely goes into changing the composite make up of it.

The comment below was posted on this same December 23 blog column by Levitt. It addresses both the  most fundamental underlying point of his column — the implicit, “excessive” costs of reducing our GHG emissions — and the central assertion from it.  There is nothing wildly inappropriate, or vulgar, in the comment.

The only thing that the comment does, apart from addressing the central premise of Levitt’s post, is put a direct challenge to Levitt regarding the conceptual economic thinking underlying it.  This is a challenge that seems fair, given that 1) a great many scientists say that failing to address climate change is likely to result in profound, catastrophic, and economically immeasurable costs, and the great majority say we will see significant negative impact at a minimum, with a good likelihood for a lot more; and 2) the main thing that is holding us up (aside from misinformation being spread, by those worried about this very same, main thing), is this perception of great “cost” to our GDP.

After you read through what was a simple comment on a blog, not a carefully crafted editorial for publication, say, on the NY Times pages – consider what Levitt’s response to it was. Also consider that Levitt published a book in large part on climate change, with extreme scientific errors in it, as noted (and supported) in a link to one of the links noted in the comment below.

Here is the comment, but for two comma adjustments, exactly how it was posted on Levitt’s blog on on December 23.

Steven,

What do you think about this idea? That you may have it somewhat backwards on the cost side of the equation — and may be overly attached to conventional, and quite possibly sadly mistaken “wisdom,” on the topic of what constitutes real long term economic “cost.”

I would love to discuss this with you at some point. Here is a link where the idea is further developed, and here is a shorter link where the practical implications of how to inspire the market to solve this greenhouse gas problem (now, when it needs to be, not half a century from now), without onerous, draconinan regulations,  are examined.

As for the idea you posit above:

If carbon capture will get cheap and scalable, then the current focus on reducing carbon dioxide emissions (as opposed to keeping the temperature of the earth stable via geoengineering in the short run until carbon capture becomes routine) looks misguided.

Think about that for a moment. Addressing the root of the problem, stopping what is causing the problem, is “misguided.” Hoping for a different solution way down the road (while we add to a problem which is not at all linear), on the other hand, is not.

Nevermind that on top of that, the predominant causes — fossil fuels — are finite and have to be moved off of anyway, and are otherwise quite polluting (particularly in the case of coal) and national security compromising (in the case of oil).

I propose, publicly, here, that for your next book you and I write it together, and we explore this presumption that “cost” in the long run is actually a real cost in the sense of lost value, rather than simply constituting a different composite makeup of GDP.

Or, if you are that stuck on the idea that measurable value is absolute, not relative, as if everything of value can be broken down into the same standard of measurement simply because we have to have one standard measure of currency from which we must make decisions with microeconomic implications — and thus can’t get off this notion that shifting over to smarter fuels hurts our production rather than redefines it — then debate me on it instead.

But I think, being a guy who has at least expressed willingness to take on new ideas and think outside of the box, that it is something that perhaps it is time to explore, no?

Apparently it is not, because not only did Levitt shrink from the challenge,; he blocked the entire comment. From a blog.

Although the chances of this are very remote, queries so far to ascertain whether in fact there was some sort of mix up, have been sent, and any responses will be posted accordingly, with updates to this post, and all due apologies to Levitt if the case warrants.

Also, note that two of the three links above that were included in the original comment, are to directly relevant and purely economic concepts. The third link is to a post on Levitt and Dubner’s book, Superfreakonomics, otherwise predominantly related to similar, GDP “cost” and “production” economic concepts. That link, then in turn links to yet another post (that is, two links removed from the NY Times blog), that paints a fairly critical — but accurate, and extremely well documented and supported – analysis of one of the fundamental errors in Levitt’s book, “Superfreakonomics”: Namely, the idea postulated therein that solar panels do more harm than good in terms of climate change because dark solar panels “absorb heat.”

Perhaps Levitt felt challenged by the Post. But that is the whole point. It was to challenge him on this point. No one is doing that. We instead keep taking for granted this “presumption” that using heavily market based incentives to switch over to sensible fuels kills our economy rather than simply redefines it. And Levitt, outside the box, creative economic thinker, according to conventional wisdom on “Freakonomics” that he is, could have ignored it. Or explained why he feels it is incorrect.

He did neither. Instead, unless he has someone monitoring comments for him so as to make him “look good” (which is just as bad), apparently prevented anybody else from seeing it as part of the discussion, notwithstanding that it went to the heart of that column, and even to other assertions by him (including in his book), arguing against net GHG emissions redress.

Again, any followup by Levitt regarding what happened (as well as his views on the economics assumptions, if he feels so inclined to share his responses to the argument that GDP is ultimately made up of “costs,” no matter what they are), will be duly posted.