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The goal of the 10:10 Project is to cut carbon emissions by 10 percent per year. Sony, which supported the 10:10 Project until a promotional video featuring exploding global warming skeptics offended a lot of people, has its own project called the “Road to Zero.”

While they mean well, supporters of the two initiatives seem to have forgotten Zeno’s paradox. Suppose that people are particularly zealous about their carbon-cutting and cut 50 percent per year, not 10 percent. Not only does that make the math easier, it biases the numbers against the argument I’m making.

Their emissions would go from 1 to 1/2 to 1/4 to 1/18 to 1/16, and so on. Emissions move asymptotically towards zero, which is a fancy way of saying they never actually get there.

As with most campaigns of this sort, 10:10 and Road to Zero may succeed in making people feel good about themselves. And there is some value in that. But the schemes, especially taken together, are too clever by half. Or, more likely, the opposite.

A video by a group called 10:10, shows the environmental wackos for exactly who they are: environmental wackos.  The group has just apologized (kind of) for the video.

The video is graphic, so don’t watch it if you think you won’t like seeing exploding bodies.

The video shows three scenarios where individuals are asked to cut their carbon emissions.  When some of the individuals refuse, they are blown up (including children).

At first, I thought this was a satire of extreme environmental pressure groups–then I realized this actually is a video by environmental wackos showing their true colors (and spoofing themselves without realizing it).

More troubling though, it is a message consistent with many of the enviros who believe in population control–get rid of the humans who won’t do their part to reduce carbon or who use too many precious resources.  It makes it very difficult to just say it was a “joke” when the message about population control is consistent with the environmental extremist message.

There appear to be many businesses, educational institutions, and individuals associated with this group, such as Sony.  They may want to reconsider this support.

If approved by the California electorate this November, Proposition 23 will suspend the implementation of AB 32, the California Global Warming Solutions Act, until the State’s unemployment rate declines to 5.5% or less for four consecutive quarters. AB 32 requires a reduction in the State’s greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020 — about 25-30% below the baseline projection.

In a just-published study for the Pacific Research Institute, Dr. Benjamin Zycher estimates that adoption of Proposition 23 will increase aggregate employment in the State by a bit less than 150,000 in 2011, about half a million in 2012, and 1.3 million in 2020, relative to the case in which AB 32 goes into effect.

The California Air Resources Board projects that AB 32 will decrease State-wide energy consumption by 4.5% in 2012 and 9.4% in 2020. Energy, of course, is used to support economic activity: “workers use energy to accomplish their tasks.”

Zycher derives AB 32’s employment impacts from CARB’s energy-consumption projections during 2010-2020 and data on the historical relationship between energy consumption and employment in California.

Late last month, Washington, D.C. launched its Capital Bikeshare (”CaBi” to its groupies) program to much acclaim from the usual suspects — New Urbanists and bicycle imperialists. For those uninitiated, contemporary bike-sharing programs involve the placement of controlled bicycle racks (usually by government or through large government-financed private operators) around a city so that residents, tourists, and commuters can rent bikes for a fixed period of time and then return them to other racks around the city. All for a nominal, generally subsidized fee.

New Urbanists and Greens love these programs because, for them, any government intervention that puts more people on bikes is a good one. After all, they’ve already spent a lot of political capital zoning out parking and narrowing car lanes to construct special bicycle lanes. They might as well try to get people to use their “livability” boondoggles — or at least provide the illusion thereof.

Oh, the hopes were high on September 20. On a blog run by MetroBike, a pro-bikeshare lobbying/consulting outfit, the owner declared the launch of CaBi to be “a dream come true.” He goes on to cite other programs in Copenhagen, Paris, and Amsterdam as great models for D.C. to emulate. Of course, these fawning portrayals rarely mention the costs. As someone who doesn’t own a car, rarely uses public transit, and who uses a bicycle for the vast majority of excursions in Washington, D.C., let me explain why I’m not thrilled with bike-sharing and why you shouldn’t be either.

First, every one of these systems operates at a loss. Just like transit fares, bike-share user fees do not generate enough revenue to maintain existing capital, let alone provide for expansion (or even cover the initial public investment). For example, Paris’ oft-lauded Vélib program experienced a stock loss rate of nearly 80 percent after launch. That is to say, of the initial 20,600 Vélib bikes  — with an average cost of $3,500 per bike when initial investment and maintenance are included — 16,000 were either stolen or damaged beyond repair. Tourists love ‘em, but they’re not the ones subsidizing most of the cost to the public. Another example is Montreal’s BIXI program, which is currently more than $30 million in debt.

Second, proponents claim externalities from increased bike-share use — less congestion, less pollution — provide benefits not shown by simple fiscal accounting. This appears at first glance to be a valid point. However, when looking at experiences with similar programs in other cities, the positive externalities argument falls flat. Law professor and bike-share skeptic Steve Clowney points to this report on BIXI. Researchers at McGill University released a study with the following key findings:

• Eighty-six percent of BIXI trips replaced rides on personal bikes (25 percent), walking (28 percent), or public transit (33 percent).
• Eight percent of BIXI trips replaced cab rides.
• Two percent of BIXI trips replaced private car rides.
• Four percent of BIXI trips add trips that otherwise would not have been made.

So, assuming for a moment that transit, walking, and cycling (using your own bike) are all desired “green” forms of urban mobility, only 10 percent of BIXI trips replaced car trips. Even under the most alarmist global warming scenarios, the positive public health and environmental externalities cannot justify this fiscal black hole.

Third, bike-share programs are administrative nightmares. As some starry eyed proponents are starting to discover, land-use regulations, politically entrenched NIMBY interests, and odd government management regimes present big hurdles for new transportation models. D.C. transportation junkies are shocked to learn that the National Park Service, which manages a decent chunk of parkland in D.C., is an inept, opaque government bureaucracy. They’re also flabbergasted that politically connected resident groups might adamantly oppose this little scheme. Color me unsurprised by any of this. Land-use regulations have been twisted to benefit specific entrenched constituencies and the government is generally incompetent when it comes to any issue related to mobility (or virtually everything, for that matter).

Let me make it clear that I’m hardly anti-bicycle (although, I am strongly opposed to subsidized mass transit and highways). What I’m opposed to is misguided utopianism and spending taxpayer dollars on programs where there is significant risk of failure. We’ve already had one failed bike-share program in D.C., and it looks like we’re going to have two.

Since cap and trade legislation looks like it is dead, many in Congress are still adamant about imposing an energy tax on Americans.

Senator Bingaman (D-NM), along with a bipartisan group of Senators, is pushing a renewable energy standard (RES).  This particular RES mandates that utility companies generate 11 percent of their electricity from high-cost and unreliable renewable sources such as solar and wind power.

Consumers, of course, pay for these higher energy costs on their electricity bills.

Since the massive subsidies for solar and wind power haven’t been enough to generate demand for renewable energy, Congress wants to mandate that Americans buy renewable electricity, not unlike individual health care mandates.

It is a bit troubling that Republicans, who for the most part, have been opposed to cap and trade, don’t seem to get that this also is a massive energy tax.

Some of the legislators may actually think that forcing Americans to buy renewable energy will help with energy independence.  However, this is a major fallacy and demonstrates an unfortunate lack of understanding regarding energy.

In 2008, electricity generation accounted for only about 1 percent of all petroleum consumption in the United States (Calculation: Petroleum used for electricity generation/total petroleum consumption in the U.S.).  In other words, changing our electricity mix will have no impact on energy independence.

The RES in many ways is like a cap and trade bill and the ObamaCare bill rolled into one.  There is an energy tax.  There are mandates to purchase a service.  Finally, the federal government is ignoring state rights and imposing its wishes on the states.

This issue needs to get on everyone’s radar screen who is interested in freedom.

Bob Barr, the 2008 Libertarian Party presidential nominee, had a piece in yesterday’s Huffington Post titled Extending Ethanol Tax Credit Makes Sense. It’s depressing to see such a high-profile libertarian completely sell out, and I hope he receives flack over this return to special interest politics, as just over a year ago he said “How about the still-active ethanol subsidy scam?“ Thankfully, the online comments from the left-leaning Huffington Post suggest few are buying into his spiel. If this was some ploy by the ethanol industry to gain support from free-marketers, let me suggest that will not succeed. The entire article is full of misinformation.

Barr attributes a “lack of public awareness,” and the tax credit’s apparent complexity to the trouble ethanol proponents are having in re-securing the tax credits.

I would think a lack of public awareness, if anything, would help the ethanol industry. If the public was even remotely aware of the extent to which government support for ethanol is bad policy, more people would be against it. Right now, all they’re seeing is the occasional advertisement featuring a bright yellow corn-stalk or blabber about how ethanol can’t spill in the gulf (unless we import it from Brazil, then of course the likelihood of a spill approaches 100%). I’d suggest that the ethanol industry get in touch with the sugar lobby for a few pointers on how to maintain horrendous policy.

Barr cites a 2010 CBO report, “Using Biofuel Tax Credits to Achieve Energy and Environmental Policy Goals“ and concludes that evaluating the benefits of ethanol is daunting and un-objective. Confident that no one will actually find the report and read even the summary, Barr is able to completely misconstrue the conclusions of the report (and he talks of ethanol opponents being disingenuous).

At the risk of repeating myself for the 10th time, let’s look at relevant quotes from the CBO report:

From the conclusions section of their summary:

The costs to taxpayers of using a biofuel to reduce gasoline consumption by one gallon are $1.78 for ethanol made from corn and $3.00 for cellulosic ethanol.

Taxpayers spend $1.78 to reduce consumption of one gallon of gasoline; approximately 66% of current gas prices. Sounds like a great deal to me.

Similarly, the costs to taxpayers of reducing greenhouse gas emissions through the biofuel tax credits vary by fuel: about $750 per metric ton of CO2e (that is, per metric ton of greenhouse gases measured in terms of an equivalent amount of carbon dioxide) for ethanol, about $275 per metric ton of CO2e for cellulosic ethanol, and about $300 per metric ton of CO2e for biodiesel. Those estimates do not reflect any emissions of carbon dioxide that occur when the production of biofuels causes forests or grasslands to be converted to farmland for growing the fuels’ feedstocks. If those emissions were taken into account, such changes in land use would raise the cost of reducing emissions and change the relative costs of reducing emissions through the use of different biofuels—in some cases, by a substantial amount.

Not cost effective at lowering emissions. The Waxman Markley cap-and-trade bill had permits set to be traded at $32. Equivalent carbon permits in the EU are selling for approximately $20. This means that other industries are capable of reducing their GHG emissions at a cost of 23-27 times less.

“In the future, the scheduled rise in mandated volumes would require the production of biofuels in amounts that are probably beyond what the market would produce even if the effects of the tax credits were included. To the extent that the mandates determine levels of production in the future, the biofuel tax credits would no longer be increasing production, but they would still be reducing the costs borne by producers and consumers of biofuels and shifting some of those costs to taxpayers.”

Given the Renewable Fuels Standard, the tax credit doesn’t do much other than secure (little) excess profit for the ethanol industry at taxpayer expense.

Continuing on, Barr discusses subsidies for the oil-companies and job losses. The oil company subsidies are mostly in the form of tax write-offs available to a wide sector of U.S. industry (good summary here) rather than just the oil companies. To the extent to which the oil companies do receive subsidies, they are larger on an absolute level but are dwarfed by all sectors of “renewable energy” (let us not forget that the ethanol industry relies on fossil fuels to produce ethanol) on a per unit of energy produced basis.

Job losses of over 100,000 are a complete falsehood perpetuated by the ethanol industry. See a study here; which explains that job losses are likely to be under 1,000 because of the RFS mandating ethanol production.

Finally, Barr requests a fair and comprehensive debate including the “philosophical pros and cons” of federal tax policy. Then sneaks in the fact that despite the VEETC the ethanol industry is a net contributor to tax revenue. This is probably true, though it ignores the numerous state level subsidies and the years and year of subsidies when net tax revenues were likely negative. Furthermore, the net tax revenue of the ethanol industry would likely be higher under a scenario where the U.S. taxpayers didn’t write a $6 billion check each year supporting them.

Cognitive dissonance is an uncomfortable feeling caused by holding conflicting ideas simultaneously. Let’s hope its not hurting Mr. Barr too much this week as he recovers from a disgraceful opinion piece.

Mr. “Ecomagination” — GE’s CEO Jeffrey Immelt — called on the U.S. to put a long-term price on carbon so this country could compete with China in being “green, green, green, green – four greens,” according to a news article today in Bloomberg.

In his speech, the article notes, Immelt said that a carbon pricing scheme would create jobs:

The U.S. needs to establish a “long-term price signal” on carbon emissions, in order for companies to provide “appropriate funding for innovation” regardless of fuel, as well as revive nuclear energy. Such moves would create jobs rather than shift them overseas, Immelt said.

So taxing energy use — raising the price of energy — will be a job stimulator.  Doesn’t sound like it, if he has in mind a cap-and-tax scheme. (Here’s also a useful primer on costs of global warming policies.)

Immelt seems to be emulating the fictional “thought bullet” leader Martin Lukes, who plunged to his death recently in the Financial Times. Lukes’ most notable contribution to corporate management was “creovation”-combining creativity and innovation, which, according to Lukes’ obituary (registration required) was the basis for GE’s “ecomagination” emphasis. (Satire, of course.)

According to some reports, Immelt may be a candidate to replace Larry Summers as chief economic advisor to President Obama (not a satire).  If so, expect lots of “thought bullets” a la Lukes.