October 2007

After speaking with some erstwhile skeptics of the environmentalists' agenda it appears that it is quite important that the education of policymakers improve regarding Europe's actual experience with Kyoto-style global warming regulation. I say this after sitting in on a meeting between a European lawmaker and a pivotal congressional leader on the matter. This involved an individual bringing a message of the EU experience that the U.S. lawmaker quite plainly did not wish to hear. Further, the latter’s deflections of the European’s message were verbatim what, e.g., Greenpeace says publicly: “it’s just too early to state that the EU Emissions Trading Scheme has been unsuccessful.”

Indeed, (now paraphrasing), “the ETS's problems were an expected result of a ‘learning-by-doing’ exercise which – in addition to it being too immature to declare as not having worked – will have its problems fixed, and the U.S. will also avoid with its own very clever cap-and-trade scheme.”

Here are some key truths, therefore, for anyone interested in and involved with this debate:

The EU did not expect, but was in fact deeply surprised by, the ETS's problems. Neither have they figured out how to fix these problems. This is largely because the pitfalls are inherent to such an effort to apply the gentle ministrations of bureaucrats to rationing not a pollutant, like sulphur dioxide from 400 facilities, but to the most ubiquitous, intended product of industrial society (the more efficiently one combusts hydrocarbons, the more CO2 one produces).

Here’s what Europe has identified so far as tweaks of two self-inflicted wounds, that it will attempt to correct and which U.S. policymakers tout the U.S. will avoid (though congressional proposals to date belie that claim):

– governments over-allocated quotas such that more were given out (for free, which is Point 2) than emissions that are actually expected, and

– they will auction some percentage of the quotas as opposed to giving them all away for free.

First, no one seriously suggests that avoiding these two pitfalls will avert the problems inherent in trying to ration CO2. Second, no one – either in Europe or the U.S. – has manifested anything close to the political will needed to require covered industry to buy any appreciable portion of their quotas instead; industry is pressuring lawmakers already skittish about transparently increasing consumers’ costs into promoting schemes that allow covered parties to sell or write down assets that the state gave them for free (hence the furor over “windfall profits” for EU utilities arising from the ETS). Europe was allowed to auction a small percentage the first time around, too…some tried to make that happen; all failed.

About this canard that it is too early to tell if the ETS has succeeded, let us admit for these purposes that if EU emissions had gone down over the three-year period for which there has been an ETS, as opposed to up, there is no doubt we would hear of its rousing success. Instead, EU economy-wide and, critically, ETS-covered sector emissions have gone up over that period, and much faster than U.S. emissions. Further, there has been a price spike on an order of several magnitudes of what EUrocrats promised would result, and a market collapse when the predictions of gaming the system proved true (with a swing from about €33 to €0.20).

There are two obvious benchmarks by which to gauge the ETS’s success, and both of them leave one wondering, if this isn’t failure, what would be?

First, compare what the EUrocrats promised vs. what came true: they promised that emissions would be down — they're up; they promised that emissions would be dropping — they're rising; they promised the price wouldn't go above about 5 euros…see above. One Eurocrat, Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas, even had the temerity to claim that because the EU promised the price would never go high as it did, the collapse didn’t really occur (!).

Second, although Brussels doesn't possess "competence" to tax, it is trying to find a way to impose a pan-European Kyoto tax (because leaving it to the member states means that select actors, if any, would find themselves having committed to something that most others ultimately hedged on). The simple reason for this is that not only did ETS not deliver but they can see it will not. To paraphrase Churchill, you were given a choice between taxation and cap-and-trade; you chose cap-and-trade, and now you shall have taxation. Expect the same here.

Again, other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, is this not a spectacular success?

t would be very useful for some European(s) to begin wondering aloud if Congress would share with Europe their magic insight to fix/avoid ETS's many, expensive problems, since Europe has no idea but only throws out superficialities like "won't give all quotas away" and "won't overallocate". Here's one: they won't succeed.

In 1988, the surgeon general, C. Everett Koop, proclaimed ice cream to a be public-health menace right up there with cigarettes. Alluding to his office’s famous 1964 report on the perils of smoking, Dr. Koop announced that the American diet was a problem of “comparable” magnitude, chiefly because of the high-fat foods that were causing coronary heart disease and other deadly ailments.

Al Gore’s award-winning climate change documentary was littered with nine inconvenient untruths, a judge ruled yesterday.

Al Gore's Oscar-winning documentary on global warming, An Inconvenient Truth, was yesterday criticised by a high court judge who highlighted what he said were "nine scientific errors" in the film.

A controversial documentary on climate change which has been sent to thousands of schools has been criticised by a High Court judge for being 'alarmist' and 'exaggerated'.

Senator Barack Obama (D-Ill.) along with Senator Hilary Clinton (D-N.Y.) is a co-sponsor of the Lieberman-McCain cap-and-trade bill.  As a presidential candidate, Obama has now pledged to do more.  In a speech in Portsmouth, New Hampshire on October 8, Senator Obama laid out a comprehensive program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions dramatically.  Obama’s goal is to reduce emissions 80% below 1990 levels by 2050.  This is in line with the prescription of former Vice President Al Gore and many radical environmental pressure groups of what is necessary to save the planet.

Obama’s plan includes a cap-and-trade program covering all sectors of the economy.  Unlike most other similar proposals, Obama would not allocate any of the emissions credits or permits for free.  Instead, permits would be auctioned to emitters.  The powerful special interests that believe that when a cap-and-trade program is enacted they will be able to push to the front of the trough and get more credits than less powerful special interests are not going to be pleased by Obama’s auction approach.    

Another refreshing aspect of Obama’s speech was that he recognized that global warming policies have costs.  According to a story in the Washington Times, “Mr. Obama said the transition would be costly in the short run for U.S. consumers, taxpayers and businesses, requiring the expenditure of hundreds of billions of dollars.  ‘It will not come without cost or without sacrifice,’ he said.

Michael Schrage’s comment on politics and science (September 26) struck a raw nerve: and provoked an extended response from the president of the UK’s Royal Society. Lord Rees advocates that we should base policy on something called “the scientific consensus”, while acknowledging that such consensus may be provisional.

Jurists of the world, unite?

Maybe considering the opinions of other courts of the world isn’t such a bad idea after all.  Or, is that penchant a selective one?

The British government decided that it would be a good idea to send copies of Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth to all schools, with then Environment Secretary (now Foreign Secretary) David Miliband declaring that “the debate over science is over.” Well, it may be, but not in the way Gore portrays it. A truck driver and school governor, Stuart Dimmock, took the government to court, alleging that the film portrays “partisan political views,” the promotion of which is illegal in schools under the Education Act 1996.

The judge has decided that this is indeed the case and that the Government’s guidance notes that accompanied the film exacerbated the problem. For the film to be shown in schools, therefore, several facts would have to be drawn to students’ attention:

In order for the film to be shown, the Government must first amend their Guidance Notes to Teachers to make clear that 1.) The Film is a political work and promotes only one side of the argument. 2.) If teachers present the Film without making this plain they may be in breach of section 406 of the Education Act 1996 and guilty of political indoctrination. 3.) Eleven inaccuracies have to be specifically drawn to the attention of school children.

The inaccuracies are:

* The film claims that melting snows on Mount Kilimanjaro evidence global warming. The Government’s expert was forced to concede that this is not correct.
* The film suggests that evidence from ice cores proves that rising CO2 causes temperature increases over 650,000 years. The Court found that the film was misleading: over that period the rises in CO2 lagged behind the temperature rises by 800-2000 years.
* The film uses emotive images of Hurricane Katrina and suggests that this has been caused by global warming. The Government’s expert had to accept that it was “not possible” to attribute one-off events to global warming.
* The film shows the drying up of Lake Chad and claims that this was caused by global warming. The Government’s expert had to accept that this was not the case.
* The film claims that a study showed that polar bears had drowned due to disappearing arctic ice. It turned out that Mr Gore had misread the study: in fact four polar bears drowned and this was because of a particularly violent storm.
* The film threatens that global warming could stop the Gulf Stream throwing Europe into an ice age: the Claimant’s evidence was that this was a scientific impossibility.
* The film blames global warming for species losses including coral reef bleaching. The Government could not find any evidence to support this claim.
* The film suggests that the Greenland ice covering could melt causing sea levels to rise dangerously. The evidence is that Greenland will not melt for millennia.
* The film suggests that the Antarctic ice covering is melting, the evidence was that it is in fact increasing.
* The film suggests that sea levels could rise by 7m causing the displacement of millions of people. In fact the evidence is that sea levels are expected to rise by about 40cm over the next hundred years and that there is no such threat of massive migration.
* The film claims that rising sea levels has caused the evacuation of certain Pacific islands to New Zealand. The Government are unable to substantiate this and the Court observed that this appears to be a false claim.

This is a far better result than refusing to allow the film to be shown at all. It requires that students be told by teachers that Al Gore is factually inaccurate, misleading and – in one case – making things up. These inconvenient truths for the former Vice President have been covered up or obscured by the hype surrounding his film. Students will now realize that there are significant shortcomings and inaccuracies in the way the global warming scare has been presented to them. This is a victory for honest debate, a victory for science and a victory for education.

The comprehensive guide to Gore's innacuracies is, of course, Marlo Lewis' "Al Gore's Science Fiction."