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Lindzen: dishonest; News anchors: stupid
Update [2006-6-26 15:10:1 by David Roberts]: Tim Lambert has more debunking here.
I'm not really sure if stuff like this is worth mentioning any more, but climate dead-ender Richard Lindzen had an insipid op-ed in The Wall Street Journal this weekend titled "There Is No 'Consensus'
On Global Warming." It's sprinkled with all the bogus factoids typically deployed in these ventures. The only substantive argument for the headline is this: -
You keep me hangin’ on: Supremes to take up global warming
Today the Supreme Court agreed to hear a case filed by 12 states against the Environemental Protection Agency for failing to regulate carbon dioxide under the Clean Air Act. This case has already sparked controversy and will be closely scrutinized when it is finally argued this October.
What the Supremes will decide in a nutshell: Is CO2 "life" or a "pollutant"?
Their recent Clean Water Act ruling is not giving me much cause for hope. As the Washington Post editorial said today:
The bloc favoring a harder-line approach to environmental enforcement could be among the more dangerous features of the new Roberts Court.
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Green bubbles rising
I was reading the magazine section of the same Sunday NYT that David noted for its coverage of all things green, when I came across a six-page advertising section for "green properties" that left me shaking my head. (Sorry, not available online.)
The title is prefaced by "luxury homes and estates," so I already know we're going to a place I'm not comfortable with. The tendency for green building coverage is to focus on lifestyle choices of the affluent or the extreme (examples here, here, and here), but that tendency is already well-trod, if painful, territory. What got me in this piece was something else.
These high-rise condominiums, town homes and vacation houses are capturing the interest of luxury buyers and renters who seek to lower energy consumption and make more earth conscious choices.
Now keep in mind that phrase: "earth conscious choices."
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Ed Wilson, Earthwatch CEO, answers Grist’s questions
Ed Wilson. What’s your job title? President and CEO of Earthwatch Institute. What does your organization do? First, we help gather objective science-based information that allows us all to understand […]
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The Gates Foundation and global warming
The news that Bill Gates is stepping down from Microsoft to spend more time on his foundation, and that mega-financier Warren Buffet will be giving up to $31 billion of his personal fortune to said foundation, reminded me of something I saw in an interview with Gates last week, namely:
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Fuel tax magic, part two
The following is part two of a guest essay from Charles Komanoff, an economist and environmental activist in New York City. For more on taxing carbon fuels, go to http://www.komanoff.net/fossil/.
For part one of this essay, go here.
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Now another question arises: so what? At the end of the day, what's the practical difference between the actual price-elasticity of 20% and the popular conception of zero elasticity if the effect of higher gas prices is only going to be offset by economic growth?
I offer two answers. Combined, they just might hold a solution to our era's twin overriding crises: the oil-dependence crisis and the climate crisis.
The first answer is that as we extend our time horizon, gasoline's price-elasticity, or price sensitivity to break free of the jargon, gets larger -- a lot larger. Going out several years or more, individuals have greater scope to take actions that economize on gasoline. They can junk the gas-guzzler, or at least not replace it with another one when the old one gives out. They might calculate the dollar tradeoffs between density (high rents but less need to drive) and sprawl (the reverse) and pick up stakes for a less car-dependent area. They may gravitate toward job opportunities closer to home. And they can make more durable commitments to behavioral changes that reduce the need to drive, like forming a carpool or buying a roadworthy bicycle or selling the far-away vacation home.
The consensus of economists who have studied gasoline use is that the "long-term" price elasticity -- the effect on demand eight or ten years hence -- is between 50% and 70%, or roughly triple the 20% "short-term" elasticity I'm seeing in my spreadsheet. That is, over the long haul, rises in the price of gas are likely to dampen demand several times as much as the modest changes we've seen in the past year or two.
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Too graphic for TV
From peta2.com, PETA's youth-oriented site, we learn of a new music video by Rise Against intended to "[show] everyone what goes on in the world and what people are doing to this planet and to animals."According to band member Tim McIlrath:
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Speak it
"A sustainable energy future is possible, but only if we act urgently and decisively to promote, develop and deploy a full mix of energy technologies... We have the means, now we need the will," said Claude Mandil, executive director of the International Energy Agency (IEA).
(via EB)
