Great Britain is a decade ahead of Canada in the global warming debate and what's happening there today is instructive for us.
2008
From Planet Gore, National Review Online
The NRDC has a full-page ad in the New York Times today hailing "The Economic Stimulus Plan that can Save the World." This miracle piece of legislation is none other than the Lieberman-Warner global warming bill. NRDC's premise is put quite simply in the ad — Jobs! Jobs! Jobs! In other words, shifting over from old-energy technology to new-energy technology will create jobs aplenty.
This is hooey, of course. Don't take my word for it, here's resource economist Billy Pizer:
"As an economist, I am skeptical that [dealing with climate change] is going to make money. You'll have new industries, but they'll be doing what old industries did but a higher net cost…. You'll be depleting other industries."
As James Pethokoukis points out in the surrounding commentary, the Jobs! Jobs! Jobs! hype is just a re-run of Bastiat's obviously-not-famous-enough Broken Windows Fallacy — by breaking a window, I am contributing to the economy by providing work for a glazier! (Of course, all you've done is cost the economy one window). By this reasoning, the devastation in Myanmar is a boon for its economy. Note furthermore this interpretation of the parable:
Austrian economists, and Bastiat himself, apply the parable of the broken window in a more subtle way. If we consider the parable again, we notice that the little boy is seen as a public benefactor. Suppose it was discovered that the little boy was actually hired by the glazier, and paid a franc for every window he broke. Suddenly the same act would be regarded as theft: the glazier was breaking windows in order to force people to hire his services. Yet the facts observed by the onlookers remain true: the glazier benefits from the business at the expense of the baker, the cobbler, and so on. Bastiat demonstrates that people actually do endorse activities which are morally equivalent to the glazier hiring a boy to break windows for him.
This is close to what NRDC is lobbying for. They are urging Congress to break windows to advance their own policy goals.
At least they don't go quite as far along this line of argument as Barack Obama:
Barack Obama also believes the transition to a clean energy economy holds special promise for low-income communities and families, which are poised to shoulder a disproportionate share of the burden of global climate change. To combat this problem, Obama will create an energy-focused youth jobs program to invest in disconnected and disadvantaged youth. This program will provide youth participants with energy efficiency and environmental service opportunities to improve the energy efficiency of homes and buildings in their communities, while also providing them with practical skills and experience in important career fields of expected high-growth employment.
Yes, he's going to train disaffected youngsters who could have gone into the steel mills or auto plants to change twisty lightbulbs for people.
From The Locker Room:
If the same category four cyclone (or "hurricane" in the Atlantic) hit an industrialized country, the storm would have been harmful but not even remotely close to the devastation that exists today in Myanmar.
This tragedy doesn't provide ammunition for global warming (category four cyclones aren't unique), but for the need for countries and their citizens to develop better infrastructure, build better buildings, have better emergency services, etc.
The only way these changes will happen is if poor countries are able to generate the wealth necessary to make the changes. The only way for the U.S. to better protect itself against hurricanes is to ensure that we continue to be a wealthy country.
Al and friends instead want to tell third world countries that the single most critical factor to develop wealth, low-cost energy, should be prohibited. They want to adopt policies that would keep the poor countries poor and put wealthy countries on a path to poverty.
The Beacon Hill Institute examined the impact that policies being considered by the Legislative Commission on Global Climate Change would have on North Carolina. Please recognize that these policies wouldn't even come close to what the zealots want in terms of reductions in carbon dioxide. Policies include a cap and trade program, taxes on driving, taxes on electricity use, etc.
From the press release: “By 2011, the state would shed more than 33,000 jobs,” according to the report from the Beacon Hill Institute, the research arm of the economics department at Boston’s Suffolk University. “Annual investment would drop by about $502.4 million, real disposable income by more than $2.2 billion, and real state Gross Domestic Product by about $4.5 billion.”
When the Beacon Hill Instutute presented this data to the Commission, there wasn't a dispute about the numbers. Those trying to argue weren't concerned with the actual loss of jobs and the devastation on the economy, but instead were pointing out that this is a price that needs to be paid.
North Carolina, the U.S. and for that matter the entire globe have to make choices. We can choose to adopt policies that would have no effect (PDF) on temperature and have devastating effects on our economy and our ability to prepare for major storms or we can choose to be sensible and do all we can to ensure that public policy doesn't undermine countries from having the wealth necessary to protect themselves from natural disasters.
I'm inclined to favor the latter option, but that's just me.
Paul Chesser, Climate Strategies Watch
You know your state is in trouble when the chairman of your commission to address the global warming crisis cites one of the newsweaklies as grounds for established scientific fact. That is the case with the University of Iowa's Jerald Schnoor, who chairs the Iowa Climate Change Advisory Council. He wrote in his environmental science journal in 2006:
In its April 3 special edition, Time magazine has declared it. The debate on global warming is over. And humans are causing it (at least, most of it). Meanwhile, according to a recent poll, 71% of Americans already believe that global warming is occurring. So what has taken the Bush Administration so long? The lack of leadership on climate change and energy policy by President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and their cadre of oil executive cronies borders on malfeasance.
This, again, is from the leader of a so-called study commission that is supposed to be objective in its look at global warming issues — except that, of course, they are not allowed to discuss the science of climate change.
On second thought, I guess that makes him a perfect fit.
Martin Watcher, the marvelous mysterious blogger in Maryland, does the math today on the Public Service Commission's compact fluorescent light bulb program. The upshot is that the major utilities, Baltimore Gas & Electric and Allegany Power, have reaped nearly $1 million per month from the program thanks to surcharges on their customers' bills. From O'Malley Watch:
I need you to follow me on some math.
Average BGE monthly energy usage: 1386 kWh
Charge per 1000 kWh for light bulb program: $.67
Monthly Charge per customer: 1.386*.67 = $.92
Number of BGE customers: 1.2 million
Monthly income on program for BGE: 1.2 million * .92 = $1,114,316
Number of light bulbs sold per month: 1 million/ 9 months = 111,111 CFLs
Cost of each CFL rebate for BGE = $1.50
Cost per month of the program: 111,111 * $1.50 = $166,666
Overcharge by BGE each month: $1,114,316 – $166,666 = $947,649
Total overcharge of BGE customers: $947649 * 9 months = $8.5 millionThat’s right, Martin O’Malley’s handpicked PSC has overcharged BGE customers $8.5 million over the last 9 months because they are pushed this forced participation in a light bulb scam that folks might not even get the rewards of. Western Maryland residents at least got light bulbs out of the deal, but unless someone goes and buys a light bulb, they don’t get anything out of this program. And each month the PSC allows this program to continue unchecked, BGE brings in almost $950,000 more from ratepayers.
Read the whole post if you're at that outrage point in your day.
Hat tip: Mark Newgent.
Paul Chesser, Climate Strategies Watch
Every Chesser deserves his five minutes of glory in the blogosphere, so here's Uncle Wes with his celebration of Earth Day, Al Gore, and windmills in his best Dave Barry-esque form.
Reporting from his beat in Fredericksburg, Va.
Paul Chesser, Climate Strategies Watch
…now it's the koalas that are threatened. Global warming indiscriminately attacks the cute and cuddly!
A climate change bill headed for the US Senate floor in early June could greatly reduce domestic natural gas production and send refining production and jobs overseas, according to a new report commissioned by the American Petroleum Institute.
Biofuels are one of the major reasons you and I are paying more for groceries these days. For most of us, it is just an inconvenience. For many around the world, however, it is a catastrophe. Last week, United Nations Special Investigator Jean Ziegler called the use of biofuels, such as ethanol, a “crime against a great part of humanity.”
With national security on everyone's mind and the average retail price of gasoline nearing an inflation-adjusted high of $3.40 a gallon, analysts have touted Brazil as an example the United States should follow on the path to "energy independence."
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