Weather…or climate?
I’d been thinking about a blogpost yesterday and got distracted, but with more weather disaster news day by day, here it is. It’s actually a post to provide a link to an opinion piece, A link between climate change and Joplin tornadoes? Never! in the Washington Post yesterday by environmentalist and writer, Bill McKibben, our friend from Vermont and the Adirondacks, founder of the climate change campaign 350.org.
He wrote about the weather “events” of the last few days, tying in droughts and crop failures and weather elsewhere around the world…
But do not wonder if they’re somehow connected.
If you did wonder, you see, you would also have to wonder about whether this year’s record snowfalls and rainfalls across the Midwest — resulting in record flooding along the Mississippi — could somehow be related. And then you might find your thoughts wandering to, oh, global warming, and to the fact that climatologists have been predicting for years that as we flood the atmosphere with carbon we will also start both drying and flooding the planet, since warm air holds more water vapor than cold air.
I don’t know about you, but being a curious person, I’m always connecting dots like these. I do understand that weather is not climate, but, holy cow, there’s been a lot of disastrous weather in a lot of places. And just this morning, there’s news of tornadoes in Oklahoma overnight. The sirens sounded in Joplin again last night too. And there’s flooding in Montana now that the snow is melting…not to mention the Mississippi, still, or our own off the charts flooding. Better not to make those connections, McKibben writes,
Because if you asked yourself what it meant that the Amazon has just come through its second hundred-year drought in the past five years, or that the pine forests across the western part of this continent have been obliterated by a beetle in the past decade — well, you might have to ask other questions. Such as: Should President Obama really just have opened a huge swath of Wyoming to new coal mining? Should Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sign a permit this summer allowing a huge new pipeline to carry oil from the tar sands of Alberta? You might also have to ask yourself: Do we have a bigger problem than $4-a-gallon gasoline?
Tags: environment
hermit thrush:
“ozone depletion is another problem that has been successfully addressed by government regulation (or more precisely, ozone levels are now on track to make a full recovery).”
What in the world did the government do to cause this miracle?
“What in the world did the government do to cause this miracle?”
Banned the use of aerosol spray cans. http://www.epa.gov/history/topics/ozone/01.htm
Either you’re fairly young, JDM, or it has to be asked: What color is the sky in your world?
hermit,
I think we are essentially in agreement. The changes that need to be made will not be if it is left to individuals alone. There will be a few who will work very hard to minimize their impact on the environment, but that isn’t enough to effect the change we need.
My point is only that in order to effect the greater change we must create enough political momentum that we can override the voices of the profligate few.
If you notice even on this blog there have been something like 14 individuals who have posted. Two or three are very far on one side of the spectrum a couple in the middle but the majority clearly believe that we need to do something to minimize our impact on the environment. Still, it seems as if all it takes is one in every 6 people to stymie any discussion that will move things forward…
Okay, I’ve followed this chess match to the end. You’re right.
hermit thrush:
“ozone depletion is another problem that has been successfully addressed by government regulation”
Shazaam! Carbon emissions are still increasing world-wide, and the ozone problem is fixed.
http://co2now.org/
I guess there never was a correlation between the two, after all.
Okay guys, lets play the game. Lets say we go ahead and start cap and trade/tax. Lets say we make fossil fuels more expensive here. So gas is at $7.50 a gallon, diesel and $9.00 and electricity triples in cost. I don’t think those numbers are unreasonable. What do you think the results of that will be? And no, I’m not going to let you get away with looking at just the CO2 emission aspect. What will all that bring us?
Bret, don’t feel bad. I’m not trying to single you out for peeing in your well. We are ALL peeing in our wells — metaphorically speaking, of course. We always have, even primitive nomadic people made a real mess of the place they lived in. When it got too bad they moved on and their waste was converted into nutrients for plants and bugs and such. They problem is, there are too many of us and we create too much waste, much of it not natural waste that is normally a part of the ecosystem. We have burned unfathomable amounts of coal and oil and all that waste has gone into the air we breath. We have dumped unimaginable amounts of waste including household garbage, industrial chemicals, and pharmaceuticals into the ground, into our streams and rivers, and into our oceans.
WE ARE PEEING IN OUR WELL! And that is the polite way to say it.
The question is not IF we are peeing in our well. The question is do we try to do it less; do we defend peeing in our well or do we say “let’s not pee in our well in as much as that is possible.”
For a very long time people have thought that peeing in their well was free. It isn’t free. It costs us all money. So why shouldn’t the people who pee the most have to pay for the right to pee?
jdm,
are you joking? what are you talking about? i’m not an expert but i sure don’t believe co2 and ozone have anything to do with each other at all. the point is that one of these problems (ozone) has been successfully addressed by government intervention. the other (co2) hasn’t been addressed and remains a big problem. how is this even remotely complicated? are you punking me?
bret,
i don’t think it’s very persuasive or helpful for the discussion when you just pull scary numbers out of mid-air. remember the krugman bit i quoted above? the waxman-markey bill was projected to cost far far less than the kind of numbers you’re throwing around.
I think JDM probably right, we _are_ doomed.
I don’t have kids, so it doesn’t freak me out all that much. But you folks with kids ought to be taking these issues a whole lot more seriously. $9 gas is probably exactly what it’s going to take to get people to stop driving monster SUVs and building giant Mcmansions that they then have to heat and air condition.
I feel bad for my neices and nephews.
KHL- I agree to an extent. The problem is that “pee” flows down hill and sooner of later there’s going to be a well in the way. Once again it’s a matter of perspective. I use no chemical fertilizers on my farm, I use almost no herbicide, a little Roundup or 2-4-D on my fence lines sometimes. But I run tractors and use electricity. Now my Amish neighbor down the road uses some chemical fertilizers and lots of herbicides, but he uses very little diesel, kero, gas and no electricity. So which one of us is producing more “pee”? China has a billion people producing massive amounts of problems. The USA has 1/3 the people and we produce massive amounts of problems. They burn coal, we burn oil. They are growing and we’re not. Add in India and the other eastern developing nations that are also coming on line and consuming more fuels. NONE of them are using “clean” fuels. (Actually I have to modify that since China is building the worlds largest hydro electric power complex, but damming a river and creating massive hydro projects is politically incorrect here in the US, no matter how green it is.) So who’s peeing more in that respect? The US has higher auto emissions standards than any European country AFIK. We’re doing something IOW, even though or because we use the most. So we ARE paying for it. Like I mentioned the other day, my 14 year old truck has to pass the same emissions test as a new car. Do you think a 14 year old Chinese or Mexican truck has to pass ANY emissions tests?
Like I said, I’m all for workable solutions. Thing is, all I see is the rest of the world expecting us to do the work and pay for it while they “develop”. From where I sit that’s just more wealth redistribution, ie- take from the “rich” and laugh all the way to the bank.
HT- those numbers may be “scary” to you, but I thought a lot before using them and don’t think they are unreasonable. Gas here is just under $4.00 per gallon, diesel is about $4.70. I based my $7.50/$9.00 on taxes and trucking, that is if the cost of gasoline/diesel goes up to account for increased costs from cap and tax, then the taxes on that cost will also go up, and so will delivery charges with diesel costing so much more. You simply can’t expect costs to rise and those costs not to be passed onto consumers. It just doesn’t work that way. If you don’t want to deal with it then call it $6 and 7.00 per gal gas/diesel and play the game. What happens when everyone has to pay significantly more for fuel/electricity? What is the overall effect? If you want to support the idea then at least think it all the way through.
Local GM dealer has been advertising the Volt on the radio. Can anyone comment on their experience with these vehicles in the North Country?
How much feed can they haul? How are they at towing trailers or hay wagons?
I would be willing to try one, but would like to know how they’re going to handle with a load or in the snow.
ABF- a quick google search says that “towing is not allowed” with the Volt. It has 10.6 cubic feet of storage room, about the same as a pick up cross bed tool box or large garbage can.
“my point is that just relying on people to do the right thing out of a sense of communal goodwill, or a sense of duty to adjust consumption patterns to protect the environment, or whatever have you, none of it is going to be sufficient to solve the problem.”
This is worth repeating.
The environmental movement needs to learn this lesson.
Just like you won’t get results asking corporations to voluntarily stop polluting, you simply will not solve major environmental problems by asking citizens to voluntarily do things that inconvenience them, or affect their bank accounts.
It just won’t be enough. Furthermore, what you end up doing by creating this false culture of individuals “helping the environment” is provide a wedge for people to use when discussing the issues. Some people will claim the high ground because they feel they are doing more than others, and some people will be unable to resist using these actions as some sort of logically flawed litmus test. The ole “since you still drive a car, you can’t talk to me about global warming” argument.
Global warming – like many other environmental situations before it, acid rain, ozone, clean water and air, etc etc – is a very complex, and very important problem. It is not something an individual can solve on their own, or that we can expect a large enough group of individuals to solve voluntarily.
The solution has to come from public policies and our economic markets – those are the only two forces in our culture strong enough to affect change on the level that is needed here.
… which is why i actually linked to something about cost estimates earlier in this thread, instead of just guessing at numbers. and let me repeat them: the cbo estimated the waxman-markey bill to be a drag on the economy by 18 cents per person per day.
i don’t doubt for a second that cap and trade is going to cost us money (at least in the short-to-medium term). energy consumption taxes are obviously going to get passed on to some extent. my objection is that i think you’re using unreasonably high numbers to make things sound much scarier than they actually are.
Dave, you’re may well be right that it won’t work asking citizens to voluntarily do things that inconvenience them, or affect their bank accounts. But people do exactly that while raising their children, jumping through many expensive and inconvenient hoops to try to prepare their kids to get into a good college. So why wouldn’t they do inconvenient and expensive things to make the world their kids will inherit safer and more liveable?
I know that the steps individuals can take are not going to solve the whole problem. But at least they help. And once you start taking those steps, it makes it more likely that you will vote for candidates who support taking more important steps. Conversely, adopting an “It’s hopeless, why bother” attitude all but guarantees disaster that will affect your children and grandchildren.
Arguing that we should do nothing because China and India aren’t doing enough, so we shouldn’t either… Jeez, I can’t even begin to dignify that with a response.
Bret, I applaud your care of your property. I expected no less, actually, because I believe almost everyone wants to do the right thing.
The thing about developing nations is a tough nut, they are on the beginning of a steep curve of rapid use of natural resources in order to meet the standard of living they see in the developed world. But we, in the US, are still the biggest consumers in the world per capita. And we are very wealthy compared to almost everyone else. If we don’t set an example of trying to be more careful of how we live then everyone else just dismisses us as hypocrites.
But there is another way. We can try to be leaders in efficiency, technology and knowledge. We can build our economy by providing the technology for developing countries to improve their own standard of living while at the same time using fewer resources per capita.
The additional benefit is that developed nations are less likely to be military threats to us.
Bush’s fault: many years ago, maybe 6or 7, I read that Chevrolet was developing a hybrid pickup truck. The great advantage was that you could drive it to a jobsite and use it as a generator. Also, in the event of a power outage you could run a lead cord out to your truck and plug in your refrigerator or TV or whatever. Seems like a good idea. Where the hell is it? Give me 6 years and I could design it all by myself. Why can’t GM get it done?
“But people do exactly that while raising their children, jumping through many expensive and inconvenient hoops to try to prepare their kids to get into a good college.”
There does seem to be a disconnect there. Maybe it is because future climate and environment conditions are a bit harder to grasp and conceive than education and a future job. One could say we are equally short sighted about political, social, and economic environments for our kids too.
However, in addition to my point that we won’t get enough people to make sacrifices voluntarily, I’d also say that the types of things that need to be done to combat some of these environmental problems are beyond the scope of individuals anyway.
The things we need to do that are going to help in these large, complex environmental situations are not along the lines of individuals flushing the toilet a few less times, or throwing out one less bag of trash, or composting last night’s dinner scraps.
The things that will help are things like alternative fuels, green building codes, MPG requirements, policy that limits corporate pollution, policies that require sustainable manufacturing, etc etc. These are the heavy hitters so to speak. These are what need our attention. And none of them can be done by an individual.
Focusing on inflating your tires to the proper level to save a minuscule amount of gas (in the grand scheme of things) distracts from the real discussions if you ask me.
The only thing one citizen can do to help make these large, heavy hitting solutions a reality is vote for the right representatives.
Of course the problem here is that, as it turns out, these things are simply not a priority for American voters. Turns out things like jobs, and religious based social concerns are far more important to us as a people.
“Focusing on inflating your tires to the proper level to save a minuscule amount of gas (in the grand scheme of things) distracts from the real discussions if you ask me.”
I disagree. I think that if we can get people to take seriously the idea that they can do little, slightly inconvenient things to reduce climate change (and save money), they’ll think harder about the government failing to do the big things. (Incidentally, not speeding saves pretty significantly– every five mph over the speed limit costs the equivalent of an extra 25 cents per gallon)
If you’re right that things like lower taxes and religious based social concerns are more important to us than saving our children from catastrophe… well, as Darryl Hannah says in Blade Runner: “Then we’re stupid, and we’ll die!”
HT- here’s my problem with your figures as layed out in National Review- “Costs vs. Benefits of Waxman-Markey
Let’s start with the costs. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has done the first cost estimate for Waxman-Markey. It finds (page 17) that by 2020 Waxman-Markey would cause a typical U.S. household to consume about $160 less per year than it otherwise would, and about $1,100 less per year by 2050 (before any potential benefits from avoiding warming). That doesn’t sound like the end of the world, but this cost estimate is based on a number of assumptions that seem pretty unrealistic, to put it mildly.
First, it assumes that every dollar collected by selling the right to emit carbon dioxide will be returned to taxpayers through rebates or lowered taxes. Waxman-Markey establishes this intention but doesn’t (as of the time I’m writing this) describe how it would be achieved, which reflects the political difficulty of achieving it. Second, it assumes no costs for enforcement and other compliance measures, which would be awfully nice. Third, it assumes that large numbers of foreign offsets will be available for purchase; without these, costs would be far higher. Fourth, it assumes that the rest of the world will begin similar carbon-reduction programs. Lack of such foreign action would either increase U.S. costs or risk a trade war if we tried to compensate for lack of international cooperation with targeted tariffs. Fifth, it assumes that there will be no exemptions or other side deals — that is, no economic drag created by the kind of complexity that has attached to every large, long-term revenue-collection program in history. And so on.”
I have ZERO faith that any gov’t program will ever work as designed or cost as little as believed. All our gov’t programs are touted as being fiscally responsible at the start, and very few if any ever come in under budget in the long run. You may wish to believe and limit your opinion based on the fanciful figures you picked, I’ll go with my experience based on a review of 230+ years of US gov’t programs.
Since you won’t play the game, I’ll lay it out for you- every cost added to a producers overhead will end up being passed on to the consumer. Start with food for instance- Lets say diesel goes to $6.00 per gallon. Farmers use diesel in their tractors, plowing, discing, planting, spraying/cultivating, harvesting all cost more with higher fuel. The fertilizers and sprays are often petro based and cast more, the cost of trucking the fertilizer and spray to the supplier is more, trucking EVERYTHING costs more. The veggies need refrigeration which means using more of that doubled or tripled in cost electricity, the milk needs to be cooled, the cheese requires heat and cooling, the vet charges more to make up for his increased fuel and supply costs, etc, etc, etc, ad infitum. Every penny gets passed onto the consumer, what can’t be passed on becomes a loss of income for the producer/farmer/etc. If they can’t handle the costs they go out of business which means a greater drain on unemployment or social services, a loss to the tax base, etc.
Look, this is simple- everything has an effect. Those effects tend to grow in a damaged economy. I know I’m probably wasting my breath because you don’t listen to reason, but there are no free lunches and your 18 cents a day may well be many, many times that number. we should move very, very carefully when playing with what could be fire.
“I think that if we can get people to take seriously the idea that they can do little, slightly inconvenient things”
It is tempting to think that lots of people doing very minor things can add up to a solution to a very large, complex problem.
I understand the notion. And I especially understand the desire to believe that we are all basically decent and will come together for a common good.
But reality is slamming up against this issue. If we could snap our fingers tomorrow and make everyone understand the problem and become good citizens willing to make voluntary sacrifices… then yeah, I’d be all on board with it.
However, even IF you got majority buy-in, I am still not convinced the tools available to average citizens will help all that much.
Just as an example, driving a little slower to save some gas (and some money for yourself) is not going to produce the break throughs in alternative energy technologies that we need. Research and development will, and the only two sources in our society that can fund that are the government and the markets.
KHL, I didn’t know it myself, but a quick internet search shows that Chevrolet has been selling a hybrid pickup truck for a couple of years now. I don’t drive a pickup truck, but the hybrid truck sounds really cool and even picks up Wi-fi.
Dave, I have to side with Walker here. Individuals can do a lot to make a difference. We proved that in several decades ago when we had an energy crisis and there was government help to make heating homes more energy efficient (as one example).
I’m in the process of looking at converting from oil heat to a pellet burning furnace. I can buy a New York produced pellet burning furnace and NY produced pellets rather than foreign produced oil.
Locally, both the Wild Center in TL and the Saranac Lake Central School district have, or are in the process, of converting their heating systems to pellet based fuel.
Also, I commuted to a distant work site a couple times a week during the last few months. I the compared fuel economy I got speeding vs going the speed limit. I was amazed. I increased my mileage by 15% doing the speed limit and only added 15-20 minutes to my trip.
bret,
first, i’m glad to see that you’re appealing to thoughtful, serious analysis; i’m not one to automatically discount everything the national review puts out, and in particular i believe jim manzi, who wrote the piece you cited from, is one of their best, most intellectually honest writers. i think the points he raises are all totally valid concerns. note however that he’s talking about the epa’s cost analysis, not the cbo’s, which is where the numbers in my krugman link come from. and indeed the cbo’s cost estimate per family is a little higher, about $175 per family per year in 2020, vs. the $160 in the epa estimate. i don’t have the time or patience to wade through the cbo analysis right now, so i don’t know if it takes any of manzi’s objections into account. the krugman post links to it if you want to have a look.
medicare part d has come in cheaper than forecast. especially relevant is the 1990 clean air act which instituted a cap-and-trade model to combat acid rain. this is, broadly speaking, the sort of thing we’re talking about using to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. it has cost about one fourth of what was originally predicted. that’s spectacularly cheaper than the forecasts, and sets an excellent precedent for the success of proposed climate change legislation.
seriously, go blow your nose, bret. this “game” you’re talking about playing — well yes that’s all very well and good, but the point is that all this kind of stuff is already baked into the cbo cake. no one doubts for a second that costs will get passed on to consumers. that’s all part of the cbo analysis. that’s why i haven’t been saying the costs will be zero, but will instead be modest. whatever number the cbo comes out with, that’s the estimate of how all the costs will filter down to consumers. it’s the sum total effect. and so the question becomes, how big of an effect is it? and well, the cbo estimated an answer of $175/household/year in 2020. it’s modest. the precedent of acid rain legislation suggests that it could be a lot cheaper than that. if the cbo’s analysis fails to incorporate some of manzi’s points, then it could be more than that. either way i think it’s probably a reasonable ballpark number.
as a final point for anyone else who’s actually still reading things this far down the thread, i’d like to point out how absurd these fantasy claims of doubled or tripled electricity rates are. these are exactly the sort of scary numbers i was objecting to earlier, and they’re obviously just made up. conjured out of thin air, with no basis in reality. doubling or tripling rates would, all by themselves, cost an average household’s electric bill alone well more than $175 per year. there’s no expectation for rates to raise anywhere near that much.
Bret writes: “but there are no free lunches and your 18 cents a day may well be many, many times that number. we should move very, very carefully when playing with what could be fire.”
Bret, you think there are free lunches with the environment. And “many times” 18 cents a day still sounds cheap for avoiding climate catastrophe.
Don’t you think moving very, very carefully when mucking up our environment makes sense too? After all, we’ve lived through plenty of economic downturns of various sizes. We’ve never lived through a world-wide environmental disaster.
PNElba, I wonder why those dopes at GM had to be bailed out? They have a product that may be of interest but nobody knows they’ve got it?
Hermit Thrush has the patience of a saint.
HT. I got the doubled electric from the lips of Saint Obama. That what he said he wants to do with cap and trade.
As for the rest, why is it CBO has to be correct here, but is full of hot air when talking about how expensive Obama care will be? Are they wrong or right?
Guys, this is a touchy subject. I’m sorry you apparently think I am for playing fast and loose with the environment, I’m not. I’m also not for playing fast and loose with handing more of our future and a lot of power and money to more faceless bureaucrats and pols that promise the moon, but it seems all we get is a Moon Pie. Experience tells me that even with the best of intentions (The Bay of Pigs or Row v Wade for example) there’s going to be collateral damage. I don’t know about you all, but we’re not exactly rolling in unimaginable wealth around here. Any more costs are going to have a big impact and I believe you under estimate what leaping into some of this can do to us. What I say won’t matter in the end, your side WILL win. I’m just too stubborn to go down without at least telling you to be careful.
BTW- my average electric bill now is over $250 a month. My dairyman neighbor s is over $3K. Anything will hurt.
for crying out loud, bret. we’ve been talking about waxman-markey. the bill that actually passed the house of representatives. the bill that was actually scored by the cbo.
you, on the other hand, wittingly or not, have chosen to talk about something else entirely. i did a quick google search and didn’t find anything about obama saying he wanted to double electricity rates. if you’ve got a link, then i’d be very happy to see it. i did find that obama said in january 2008, before he was inaugurated, that his plan would cause electricity rates to “skyrocket.” and just so there’s no confusion, he was talking about the climate change proposal he made during the election campaign.
now, the kicker is that obama’s proposal isn’t the bill that passed the house. that was the waxman-markey bill. and obama’s proposal isn’t the bill that was scored by the cbo. that was the waxman-markey bill. so it’s nice and all that obama said that, but you’ve got a lot of explaining to do if you want to convince anyone why it’s the least bit relevant to waxman-markey, especially in light of the cbo’s own detailed analysis of the bill.
before i go on, a request: please try harder. if you’re going to say that obama said he’d double electricity rates, then give us a link. find the quote. if you can’t, then maybe he didn’t actually say that and you’re just confused about what he did really say. either way, do the work. it’s the responsible way to carry yourself in a forum like this. when people read my comments, i want them to know that they can trust me, that there’s always a level of research and rigor they can count on. the alternative is to try to convince people that you’re a crackpot.
now, as for the cbo scoring of the affordable care act, well again, what are you talking about? this is a completely bogus accusation. i’ve never said anything remotely along the lines of what you’re implying. sorry.
Hermit Thrush just ran out of patience.