Conservative touts gas tax as cure to all ills, alternative to other climate/energy policies

The Weekly Standard cover story last week was by Charles Krauthammer: "The Case for a Net-Zero Gas Tax." Joe Klein calls it "an absolutely compelling, and completely unexpected, argument" and the tax itself "without doubt, the most elegant way to lower carbon emissions and dependence on foreign oil."

Your honor, I object.

First off, it isn't unexpected -- Krauthammer has argued for a gas tax before. And you'll notice that more and more conservatives are popping up in favor of refunded gas or carbon taxes. (See, e.g., here.)

Second of all, it isn't particularly compelling. In fact, it's full of howlers. More on that later.

Third of all, re: "elegant," I can't speak to its aesthetic appeal, but a gas tax is most certainly not the fastest or cheapest way to lower carbon emissions and dependence on foreign oil.

Fourth of all, if you find yourself agreeing with Charles Krauthammer, one of the most vicious, mendacious soldiers in the right-wing chickenhawk brigade (see, e.g., here for his argument for torture), it's time for some soul searching.

After all, Krauthammer is quite clear that he views a gas tax as an alternative, not a compliment, to government investments or regulations. Indeed, he seems to think a $1 gas tax would single-handedly drop U.S. oil use, cut world oil prices, cripple hostile regimes, and make the U.S. energy independent. And maybe increase your sex appeal. And it could do all this while obviating or eliminating other environmental policies.

On regulation:

Gore urges Congress to quickly pass stimulus package and climate bill

 

Speaking before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday, VP-turned-climate-guru Al Gore urged lawmakers to move quickly on both the economic-stimulus package and a cap-and-trade climate bill. His testimony -- which included an updated version of his Inconvenient Truth slide show, now with even scarier data -- was warmly received by Republicans as well as Democrats.

"I urge this Congress to quickly pass the entirety of President Obama's recovery package," Gore said. "The plan's unprecedented and critical investments in four key areas -- energy efficiency, renewables, a unified national energy grid, and the move to clean cars -- represent an important down payment and are long overdue." He said he favors the House version of the bill (passed Wednesday afternoon), which includes more funding for efficiency, renewable energy, and mass transit.

This was the first major hearing of the 111th Congress for the Foreign Relations Committee, whose new chair is Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.). By shining a spotlight on Gore and climate change at the hearing, Kerry sent a clear message about his priorities.

"Frankly, the science is screaming at us," Kerry said. He cited a recent study from the University of Pennsylvania, MIT, and the Heinz Center that found that even if the world aims for the highest goals currently on the table -- including Obama's call for an 80 percent reduction in greenhouse-gas emissions from 1990 levels by 2050 -- carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would still far exceed safe levels. "If every nation were to make good on its existing promises, we would still see atmospheric carbon dioxide levels well above 600 parts per million -- 50 percent above where we are now. ... And no one in the scientific community disputes that this would be catastrophic."

"Some may argue that we cannot afford to address this issue in the midst of an economic crisis," Kerry continued. "Those who pose that question have it fundamentally wrong. This is a moment of enormous opportunity for new technology, new jobs, and the greening and transformation of our economy."

Gore echoed that point, emphasizing that we can't wait to act on climate change, which is intertwined with other key national challenges. "We must face up to this urgent and unprecedented threat to the existence of our civilization at a time when our country must simultaneously solve two other worsening crises. Our economy is in its deepest recession since the 1930s. And our national security is endangered by a vicious terrorist network and the complex challenge of ending the war in Iraq honorably while winning the military and political struggle in Afghanistan," said Gore. "As we search for solutions to all three of these challenges, it is becoming clearer that they are linked by a common thread -- our dangerous over-reliance on carbon-based fuels."

Newsweek considers an Obama baby boom

Newsweek gets the headline of the week award as it ponders the possibility of an post-election baby boom: Hope and...

On the verge of revolutionizing the U.S. power grid

Rachel Maddow, a kindred spirit whose heart beats a little faster at the word "infrastructure," has been campaigning recently for more infrastructure spending in the stimulus package. Pointing to the mass blackouts caused by Midwest storms, she asked the other day on her MSNBC show, "Can I put in a request for a grid that works, even in the snow?"

Yes, Rachel, you can! What you want is a smart grid rich in distributed energy resources.

First, it is important to be clear that we have two power grids: a transmission grid, which consists of the big lines carrying power from distant generating stations, and a distribution grid, which carries power in the local area to homes, businesses, etc. Failures on the transmission grid, that's T to us geeks, lead to the really big blackouts like that in the Northeast in August 2003. But most failures -- around 90 percent -- happen on the distribution, or D grid, and they are usually not well publicized.

Electric Power Research Institute estimates that, overall, blackouts and other power disturbances cost the U.S. economy in the range of $119-188 billion (see p. ES-3 [PDF].) By comparison U.S. power customers paid a total of $343.7 billion for electricity in 2007.

The shocking fact is that the costs of an aging and technologically backward power grid adds something like one-third to one-half to our annual electricity costs. Ghost Town Louisville is a poster child, but most power problems do not receive national publicity.

Why large future warming is very likely

A friend of mine from college emailed me the other day and expressed some skepticism about the connection between carbon dioxide emissions and global warming. It occurred to me that it would make a good topic for my next post.

So here is the reasoning that has led me to conclude that business-as-usual carbon dioxide emissions will lead to temperature increases over the next century of around 3 degrees C.

First, it has been known for over 150 years that adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere will increase the temperature of the planet. In fact, the very small number of credible skeptics out there, such as Dick Lindzen and Pat Michaels, are on record agreeing that adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere will warm the planet. What they argue is that the warming will be very small. More on that later.

The conclusion that emitting greenhouse gases will result in warming does not rest on the output of climate models, but is a simple physical argument that predates the invention of the computer. And if you don't believe in physics, take a look at Venus. That planet features a thick carbon dioxide atmosphere and consequently a surface temperature hot enough to melt lead.

So we know that adding carbon dioxide is going to warm the planet. This leads us to the real question: How much warming are we going to get?

Semiletov tells AGU that, if released, 1 percent of ESAS methane could cause runaway warming

At a press conference Tuesday at the American Geophysical Union in San Francisco, a Russian scientist who has spent the...

Senators prod DOE pick Chu for his thoughts on various energy sources

Barack Obama's pick to head the Energy Department, Steven Chu, got his turn in the confirmation spotlight this morning, with senators asking him to clarify some of his previous statements on contentious energy issues like coal and nuclear power.

The hearing before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee was, for the most part, amiable, with the lawmakers warmly welcoming the Nobel Laureate physicist. But when the subject turned to Chu's previous assertion that "Coal is my worst nightmare," some coal-state senators got a little touchy. Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.) inquired directly about the remark that's been "ricocheting around the internet," while others asked more in-depth questions about what coal-related policies Chu supports.

By equating coal to a nightmare, Chu said his point was, "If the world continues to use coal the way we are using it today, and the world -- I mean in particular not only the United States but China, India and Russia -- then it is a pretty bad dream." He continued, "That is to say in China, for example, they have not yet begun to even trap the sulfur dioxide, nitrous oxides. There's mercury. There's particulate matter, as well as carbon dioxide."

If anything, though, Chu's remarks at the hearing likely eased the lawmakers' fears, as he asserted that nuclear and coal will remain crucial components in the energy mix. On coal, Chu had previously said, "It's not guaranteed that we have a solution for coal" -- meaning that there is currently no proven technology to offset the C02 emissions resulting from burning coal. In today's hearing, he softened, saying he's "very hopeful" that carbon capture and sequester (CCS) technology is possible on a commercial scale. "I am optimistic we can figure out how to use those resources in a clean way. I'm very hopeful that this will occur and I think that we will be using that great natural resource."

Lessons from cognitive dissonance theory for U.S. environmentalists

If we accept the worst, or precautionary assessment, then U.S. environmentalists have perhaps a year to avert cataclysm, and nothing we are doing now will work. We are dealing with this terrible situation in a very ordinary and human way: by denying it.

Our denial comes in a variety of forms: we believe that President Obama can and will solve the problem; we ignore Jim Hansen's assessment and timeline; we concentrate on our jobs and organization agendas and pass over the big picture; we focus on the molehill of climate policy rather than tackle the mountain of climate politics; we assess our efforts by looking back on how far we have come and do not measure the distance still to be traveled; we scrupulously avoid criticizing each other, lacking conviction in our own courses of action and not wishing to invite criticism in turn; and we are irrationally committed to antique approaches that are self-evidently inadequate.

In our hearts we know that what we are doing is futile, but we do not know what else we should or could be doing. The constraints within which we work feel so intractable and out of human scale that we cannot imagine how to break them. Despite our best efforts, Americans just don't seem to get it or they don't care, and we are at a loss to explain this. Unable to influence our own nation, we are further dismayed by the far vaster challenge of altering the trajectory of China, India, Brazil, and the rest of the world.

Nothing we now confront should be a surprise. We have known for more than thirty years that the world was bound to reach this state (with twenty years specific warning on climate). The purpose of environmentalism was to alter the self-destructive parabola of growth by introducing new values and sensibilities, which, as has been clear for some time, we have manifestly failed to do.

We are the ones who warned the world what was to come and we are the custodians of the only true solution, yet our current best ideas amount to no more than fiddling with the dials of corporate capitalism (cap-and-trade) and gussying up environmental policy as one item on the domestic progressive agenda (green jobs).

We do not seem capable of taking even the most elementary steps to extricate ourselves from the trap in which we find ourselves. Why, for example, have we never convened a general conference of environmental leadership to consider what to do, or formed an association bigger than the sum of our parts? Why do we not spend some of the billions in our control to experiment with new approaches and campaigning (or support those already doing so)? Why is there no internal debate or discussion other than a quarrelsome wrangling over the minutia of policy?

Umbra on eco-friendly detergents

Dear Umbra, Like a good guilt-ridden liberal, I’ve switched to supposed earth-friendly dish detergent. And, on the basis of previous...