2007

In his National Review Online piece yesterday, Dow Chemical’s Andrew Liveris paints a near-tipping-point picture of the U.S. manufacturing sector to support his call for Carteresque restraints on energy consumption. But there are two problems with Mr. Liveris’s argument: the predicate and the proposition.

I love the UNFCCC's decision to "rethink" the list of haves and have-nots for a post-2012 agreement, such that Russia is preemptively given the nod that it need not fear about pressure to stay in the game.  Bulgaria, which was recently bribed in (a la Russia) on the promise of selling 60 MMT to Europe — Heaven knows, they'll need them — has no business being among the "haves" and we thank them for playing, here's a lovely parting gift.  Romania, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland certainly no longer need apply, either, but make way for Bermuda, the Channel Islands, San Marino…who knows, maybe the Savoy will seize the moment to make a comeback (don't forget Qatar, UAE, Kuwait and Singapore, all of whom are far richer than many of the Kyoto Parties).  EU-member and Kyoto free-rider Cyprus is as wealthy as South Korea; surely we should expect them to pony up now?

Obviously this isn't a coherent argument to reshuffle the lineup.  What changed?  Nothing, except Russia made clear what others have known and predicted for years: they had no intention of being in the agreement should it require them to do anything other than receive wealth transfers.  What a lovely, face-saving way to preemptively deal with that: naturally, being among the 155 recipient nations is precisely where they belong.  But consider the thinking behind this step-down by the UNFCCC.  Apparently the agreement, whose original aim was to slowly include all countries (or certainly most) is really just for a rotating bunch of about 34. 

That'll teach you to grow.

The front-line of industrial nations fighting climate change needs shaking up to reflect that outsiders such as South Korea are now richer than insiders like Russia, the U.N.'s climate chief said on Monday.

Antarctic Sea Ice Undergoes Massive Meltdown In Less Than Two Weeks

According to New York Times reporter Andrew Revkin, that is.  In today’s Science section, Revkin writes that “there has been a slight increase in sea-ice area around Antarctica in recent decades.”  But in a Sept. 21 article, “Scientists Report Severe Retreat of Arctic Ice”, he reported that “sea ice around Antarctica has seen unusual winter expansions recently, and this week is near a record high.”

So if in the space of eleven days Antarctic sea ice has gone from a near-record high to only a slight increase, that indicates massive recent melting, doesn’t it?

How did Revkin miss this?  Perhaps because he’s been focusing on the melting of Arctic sea ice. 

In fact, he’s been so focused on the Arctic that his Sept. 21 article devoted one photo, one headline, and about 500 words to the Arctic melting, while the near-record high in the Antarctic was mentioned only in the very last sentence.

Well, we may not be getting much journalistic balance from the New York Times, but I guess you could say we are, technically, getting both sides of the story. 

"With climate change, we are looking at sharing the resources of the world and we are looking at bringing some justice in the way they are distributed — so the rich world has to reduce its emissions so that the poor world can increase theirs.”

Green activist Sunita Narain,

“Rich Must Reduce Emissions for Poor to Develop”, Reuters, 2 October 2007

DC outpaces other nations in "pollution," Washington Post reports

By "pollution," the Post means carbon dioxide (CO2)–plant food, the first link of the planetary food chain. But let that pass. The article affords many good yuks. Aside from the UN and the EU Environment Agency, where do we find the most self-righteous blather about the alleged "planetary emergency of global warming"? In Washington, D.C., of course. But, the Post reports, the D.C.-metropolitan area's CO2 emissions exceed those of several countries.

Specifically, because of all those people driving all those cars and consuming all that electricity from coal-fired power plants, D.C. produced 65.6 million metric tons of CO2 in 2005–"more than in all of Hungary, Finland, Sweden, Denmark or Switzerland, each of which has more people."

The area's governments talk green and even try to be green. Arlington, Fairfax and Montgomery counties have joined a "cool counties" program that calls for such changes as more "green" buildings and more hybrid cars in county fleets. The District has
mandated energy-saving features in some new buildings. A new Maryland law aims to cut auto emissions, and the state has joined a regional pact to reduce emissions from power plants. Virginia recently announced an energy plan that includes a goal to cut emissions by 30 percent by 2025.

However, a report by the Washington Metropolitan Area Council of Governments shows that CO2 emissions are "actually going the other way: up. At the current pace, it forecasts, emissions will increase 35 percent by 2030."

A modest proposal leaps to mind, inspired by California utility public service ads telling people to turn off their air conditioners during hot summer days to "conserve" power. This curious notion of energy "efficiency" is a good way to get heat stroke. But, hey, states are supposed to be "laboratories of democracy," and California is a world leader in the fight against global warming, right? So if cutting the juice is good enough for Arnold, then it should be good enough for George, Nancy, and Harry.

Imagine the benefits of turning off air conditioners in federal, congressional, and local government buildings during July and August. First, coal-fired power plants would emit less CO2. Second, fewer federal workers and congressional staff would commute, again reducing emissions. Over the long-run, millions of government workers and their families would move out of the D.C. area, real estate values would plummet, and the local economy would contract. This all adds up to real, certifiable, permanent emission reductions!

From a libertarian perspective, the good thing about the plan is that it will put government on an energy diet. Lacking today's abundant supplies of affordable energy, future Congresses and EPAs won't be able to enact as many laws and regulations. At last, a "win-win" climate policy!

As I’ve talked with other industrial and business leaders in the U.S. over the past several years, I’ve come to one inescapable conclusion: This country is in the middle of what could be a long and painful energy crisis.

I have noted previously the outrageous moralizing by (particularly, but by no means exclusively) Denmark’s Environment Minister last week, when she claimed to be an increasingly impatient emissary on behalf of “the planet”, demanding that the U.S. make the same promise as Europe to reduce its greenhouse gas (principally CO2) emissions.

That same week, I now see, Denmark released figures showing that it increased its 2006 CO2 emissions by 16.1% over 2005 levels, citing their growing economy (which relied on coal-fired power, it seems).

U.S. emissions dropped 1.3% over the same time, while the economy grew by 3.3%.

CA Senator Barbara Boxer maintains that greenhouse gas emissions regulations would create “millions” of green jobs. And MN Governor Tim Pawlenty claims that compulsory emissions reductions would be a “boost” to the economy.

But are these assertions true? Not according to AEI’s Kenneth Green, who told the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works that the laws of market economics contradict claims that green is gold:

Now, to the question of the day: do global warming initiatives “create” “new green” jobs? The short answer, I would say, is that they might do so, but only at the expense of other jobs that would otherwise have been produced by the free market. Further, I’d suggest that the end result would be significantly less jobs on net, less overall economic growth on net, and most likely, the loss of existing capital as a by-product.

The fallacious idea that one can make jobs by destroying others is a variation of Bastiat’s Broken Window fallacy. As Bastiat explained, imagine some shopkeepers get their windows broken by a rock-throwing child. At first, people sympathize with the shopkeepers, until someone suggests that the broken windows really aren’t that bad. After all, they “create work” for the glazier, who might buy food, benefiting the grocer, or clothes, benefiting the tailor. If enough windows are broken, the glazier might even hire an assistant, creating a new job.

Did the child then do a public service by breaking the windows? Would it be good public policy to simply break windows at random? No, because what’s not seen in this scenario is what the shopkeepers would have done with the money that they’ve had to use to fix their windows. If they hadn’t needed to fix the windows, the shopkeepers would have put the money to work in their shops, buying more stock from their suppliers, or perhaps adding a coffee-bar, or hiring new stock-people.

So jobs created in the wind energy sector means less jobs in the coal sector. At best, Congress’s climate initiatives would be a wash, not a “boom,” nor a “boost.”  But even breaking even is unlikely, because government would be choosing which sectors benefited and which sectors suffered, and Uncle Sam has never been an efficient arbiter of winners and losers (anyone remember Carter’s synfuels?).  

Green jobs are a myth!