Articles by Gar Lipow

Short, medium, and long-term solutions to phase out oil

As opposed to emission or energy, what can we do about oil? As I've said in the past: not a lot. But "not a lot" is not equal to zero.

Here are some pretty immediate things we can do:

1. There have been some real drops in oil use in response to increased prices. I think Charles Komanoff once suggested that various types of conservation and efficiency measures could reduce oil use 10 percent more or less overnight [PDF]. Many of his suggestions are not exactly pain-free, but neither are the reductions we are making anyway in response $100 plus per barrel oil.
2. Alan Blinder's proposal to buy oil guzzling clunkers back from owner at a premium -- old, fairly cheap cars only. These tend not to be the cars driven the most miles. Still, there would be real savings.
3. Increased telecommuting. We are not going to switch everyone with an office job to 100 percent work-from-home mode. But putting in place some modest incentives, along with public education that help rebut some of the most common myths about telecommuting could get some modest immediate increases.
4. Increased subsidies to existing rapid transit. Existing buses and trains should not have to cut services right when more people want to use them.
5. Increased support for car pooling and van pooling. More incentives for companies to set up such pools, plus funding for services (such as the ones we already see) will make it easy for people interested in pooling private vehicles across companies to do so.

Below the fold you will find some things we can do that are not immediate, but can be done pretty quickly.

EDF’s support for self-cooling cans got deservedly chilly reception

Ken Ward posted an intelligent critique of the Environmental Defense Fund (EDF). I want to anticipate a response. EDF always says something along the lines of "We are getting the absolute best deal available. Go with us, or you will end up settling for something worse, probably nothing." Let's set the wayback machine to 1997 and look at a case where the mainstream environmental community did not go along with EDF.

Briefly: The Joseph Company wanted to market soda in a self-chilling can, cooling produced via HFC R-134a, a greenhouse gas many times more potent than CO2. The HFC in one of these cans would have produced a greenhouse forcing equivalent to driving a car 200 miles. EDF saw this as a perfect opportunity for emissions trading. This product is going to come to market regardless of what we do, they intoned solemnly. The Joseph Company is willing to offset their emissions -- a win-win situation.

Over the objections of EDF, the rest of the environmental community, including grassroots EDF members, stepped up and stopped this stupid project. Eventually a new version that uses CO2 was developed instead; this improved product is as bad as for the environment as canned soda normally is, but at least is not several thousand times worse. If EDF had succeeded in helping to push it through, they would be offering it today as an example of practical politics to win environmental goals, rather than an absolutely unnecessary cave. Read the long version at Nonprofit Watch.

Busted: Majority of emissions cuts can come from public spending

A common rap by environmental economists is "any means of cutting emissions raises prices." Though it is used in defense of a valid point (in the long run we will have to institute either a carbon tax or a permit system), it is simply not true.

The vast majority of emissions cuts can come via public spending that won't raise prices. We can subsidize efficiency improvements to buildings, fund a conversion of most long-haul trucking to rail, and in the long run electrify all transit and decarbonize electricity generation.

But doesn't the money for these subsidies have to come from somewhere? Yup, but a lot these are areas where the private (as opposed to social) gains exceed the subsidy -- meaning even if the people receiving the subsidy end up paying for most of it from taxes, they come out ahead. However, there is no reason the people receiving the subsidies have to pay for most of them. Most of our military budget is devoted to aggression rather than protecting us. We have had enormous tax cuts for the rich from Jimmy Carter forward. We have wasteful existing subsidies for fossil fuel and various unsustainable practices. There is an old liberal-mocking slogan I'd like to turn around and adapt: "Don't tax you, don't tax me, tax the fellow behind that tree."

Public investment can stop emissions faster than relying on private sector

David Roberts comments ruefully on the lack of a clean energy coalition for progressives to join, and on the lack of common talking points on clean energy -- which allows the right eat our lunch on drilling.

I've argued in the past that links between greens and progressive are more effective than trying to win the conservative movement over (though individual conservatives should be welcomed). The truth is, there is no solution that will lower oil prices below $100 a barrel: not drilling, not nuclear, not solar or wind, and not even massive efficiency. We have to replace oil, and anything that will do this (which does not include more drilling or nuclear) will take time to implement.

What we can offer are programs that help people's pocketbooks in other areas. We can't lower the cost of oil, but we can lower the cost of living in the short run -- and get the oil monkey and the greenhouse gas monkey off our nation's back in the long run. We won't come up with slogans as pithy as "drill everywhere" -- the disadvantage of basing a campaign on workable solutions is you can't just make stuff up. Our slogan would have to be along the lines of: "Nobody can make more oil; but we can put money in your pocket." (Someone better than I am at slogans please condense this.) What actual policies could lie behind this slogan?

If environmentalism was really a movement and tied to a larger progressive movement, we could support universal health care. I would favor single-payer, but at least something that would provide decent coverage to everybody and lower costs. (This, umm, comes back to single-payer, since incremental reforms tend not to actually control costs.) Health care reform would not lower the price of a single tank of gas or drop one utility bill, but it would save enough money that higher gas prices and utility bills would not hurt so much until the problem is solved.