Just take a quick look at a website devoted to the science of temperature monitoring and temperature data analysis. (http://www.climateaudit.org/) This stuff gets complicated very quickly. That’s why we tend, as a society to look at the experts, to try to ascertain what the consensus is about a certain subject.

With GHG it appears to be fairly straightforward. There are tons of scientist, politicians, and personalities telling us that humans are killing our planet quickly and that if something isn’t done there will be massive societal problems. For me its hard to weight the evidence. Some of the arguments I have heard form the various perspectives are compelling. For now I haven’t come to a decisive decision, as I hope to read more on the subject, but it seems that there is some contention on to what degree the changes in temperature are atmospheric versus land, man-made or natural cycles, and the degree that temperature changes will negatively affect our livelihood. There is much more uncertainty in the professional climate studies subculture than leaders, politicians, and personalities want us to think.

I do think that an effective GHG cap-and-trade program will increase costs in the U.S. suppressing manufacturing even further and negatively affecting our disposable income and thus most peoples standard of living (at least perceived standard of living, which is all that matters). This is my professional economist perspective, from reading several studies and analysis by various economist and think-tanks. So I suggest we weigh some of the uncertainties about GHG science with some of the known costs of reducing emissions. The conversation is too often heated with groups and individuals biases and ignores the uncertainty of the science and risks of limiting emissions.

I did find an interesting petition, signed by 31,478 American scientists, including 9,029 with PhDs, stating that the science which backs the claims of greenhouse gas legislation is flawed. (See for yourself)

My buddy Kenny pointed me to a good link on the discussion surrounding global warming. Still a lot of opinion (he mentioned that climataudit.org, “is a crap pseudoscience blog. It’s use is only to reaffirm what people want to believe, using the guise of doubt.”)

ARS Technica

A good quote from the discussion:

[Global Warming trends is] not an easy demonstration to make, at least in the forward looking sense (the backward looking version is just a bunch of dull, daily temperature readings, albeit lots of them in lots of places — the forward predictions are models). I’d say demonstrating evolution is actually easier. There’s hard rock geology behind it. Most of those who aren’t persuaded don’t want to be.

Global warming, however, is all about extracting a pretty small signal (the increasing average temperature) out of a whole bunch of noise (day to day fluctuations, actual natural changes that are always going on, etc.).

Unless you’re a specialist reading the literature, you’re basically going to end up taking this one on trust.

I came across the group ‘The Cap Solution‘ through a few different avenues, energy industry related research, at the public library as an advertisement in the front hall, and at the local farmers market on a bulletin board. The Cap Solution is consortium of the Environmental Defense Fund, the Blue/Green Alliance, and the United Steel Workers.

Here’s what they stand for:

The cap solution in a nutshell

Capping carbon pollution encourages the growth of renewable energy and energy-efficient industries. It brings customers to these businesses, which in turn will create good jobs and help revitalize American towns.

They are correct that it will encourage the growth of renewable energy as a GHG cap will increase the costs of traditional generation (e.g., coal and natural gas). I’m not sure if it will create jobs, as that assumes the jobs lost from the coal and natrual gas generation sector will be more than replaced by jobs associated with ‘green energy’. Their logic does fully fall apart with the comment that a GHG cap will, “revitalize American towns.”

Let’s explore this logic a bit further:

New jobs americans can do tomorrow

Take the wind turbine. It’s a machine. Americans are good at machines. A typical wind turbine has 8,000 parts and is made of 250 tons of steel. Somebody’s got to make that steel, fabricate those parts, assemble those parts, deliver the assembled turbine to a wind farm, erect the turbine and manage the wind farm. That’s a lot of jobs right in the American workers’ sweet spot. And this is just one example. A Carbon Cap will create demand for energy efficient windows, LED lighting, ball bearings for turbines and thousands of other products.

So here is where I strongly disagree with their logic. If we implement a GHG cap we increase the price of manufacturing in the US, particularly the cost of manufacturing energy intensive products. Steel is energy intensive. So while we increase the costs of doing business and producing steel and India and China do not increase the costs, they become more competitive in the market and thus will be most likely the producers of the new wind turbines. In fact this article, claims that China will be the biggest producer of wind turbines in 2009. So why, in particular, is the United Steelworkers supporting this legislation. Well as an economist I tend to think of incentives, what is it that the United Steelworkers like, what reward would they possibly seek…protectionism.

This can be seen by the Cap Solution’s simple sentence:

And by starting now, we’ll make sure these products are made here and exported all over the world. Instead of becoming more products we have to import.

In fact the United Steelworkers couldn’t get any trade complaints passed through the Bush administration so their hoping for some traction with Obama (particular since he pledged to increase trade enforcement). They are currently trying to get ‘trade enforcement’ considerations by Obama on imported Chinese tires (see article).

Its unfortunate that the environmental leadership in our country can’t make the connection between increased costs of production and the health of our economy, and how the health of our economy allows us to purchase environmental services (e.g., pollution control and preservation). I also find that most people forget that the reason we get to even consider worrying about GHG is that we have a high standard of living. I fear that our ability to worry about GHG, our high standard of living, will erode as we start to turn our worries into policies. Policies that increase the costs of doing business in the U.S., while not simultaneously increasing the cost of doing business in other countries, putting all of us at a competitive disadvantage.

This group, waiting in line for free food for unemployed, aren’t waiting in line to volunteer for a non-profit, or learn about environmental degradation, they’re unemployed and employment and security definitely come before environmental protection.

Now don’t get me wrong I fully support renewable energy, but why should I pay for someone else’s moral preference. If someone wants to pay more for their electricity, since renewables cost more, then I fully support that choice. Or better yet, they can pay for energy saving technologies or simply turn off their lights and electronics. We all make certain choices in our life that reflect our moral preferences. The issue I take up with, is someone enforcing their morals on me, by requiring that I pay for renewable energy by federally supported subsidies, which get paid for by the taxes taken from me.

If someone wants to support renewable technologies, then send a few bucks to a company developing those technologies. Or ,in some states you have the ability to select on your bill that your energy comes from renewables, so do that and pay the premium associated with such a choice. Do this instead of calling your representative to request that they pass the a national Renewable Portfolio Standard. Let others create their own morals and make their own decisions. And if you don’t like the decisions that make then convince them of why a different decision is better, don’t force them to do so through subsidies paid with taxes.

Technorati Tags: U.S. House of Representatives, Renewable Portfolio Standard, Federal Government, energy saving technologies, subsidies

Article.

The Energy Ant

Technorati Tags: The Energy Ant, nuclear power, Energy Policy Act

China has a long way to go, as does the U.S., them with development us with management of our wealth, but as the world becomes more rich, there are more resources to spend on increasing on our quality of life. And the way wealth is created is through trade. I do what I am best at and you do what you are best at (or comparatively better at), we then trade and both benefit. China is good at manufacturing consumer goods at low prices, the US is good at providing the infrastructure for trade and innovation to occur (the knowledge economy).

If we want to continue enjoying our standard of living we need to keep up what we are good at accomplishing. So support your local schools and get involved in doing something you enjoy so you can help provide not only our country with a higher standard of living, but other countries as well. If we become better at scientific research we can teach other people in other countries to do research well. They then will not only be used for sewing shows together, they will do research and build the machines that produce shoes, a more profitable position. We as the US will not stay the richest country for ever, but all of us should at sometime become so rich that even if we are the 20th richest, we have no complaints.

Two ways to become rich and remain so is to invest in ourselves and trade with other countries. And becoming rich doesn’t just mean new cars and bigger houses. It means we have more money to reduce pollution, help in our communities, pay for medical care, increase recreation, and generally live better lives. We already have a lot of money to provide for some of these increases in our standard of living, but people may not choose to follow the ‘best’ actions. Over time I am confident that we as a society will realize what provides for a happy life. Its not a nicer car or a bigger house. Its being mentally rewarded with our work, involved with our community, close to friends and family, and physically healthy.

I think one can look at my generation and see that we are demanding a more rewarding life. Knowledge workers in general are not satisfied with subsistence wages, they desire a mentally rewarding work environment. And I am confident they will realize that the fancy houses and cars will not fully satisfy them. Desire more out of life. Desire to make a change in at least your own life. Desire to make a change in your community. Simply put desire to act. And realize that these actions are ends in themselves, not means to more income and thus means to better things.

That to me, is what we can show the rest of the world. We at one time were leaders in associations and ‘civil society,’ non-profits and community groups. We helped and interacted within our community, assisted in making a better world. Unfortunately, we often think of the governments’ job to make change to do what is best for our society. Government is nothing but individuals; we can expect nothing more from them then to act as individuals, self-interest and more concerned with re-election than providing for their constituency.

We as individuals need to pick up where they have failed. We need to become more involved in our communities to provide for those in need. It is not the duty of government to provide for us, it is the duty of us as a collection of people to help create what we desire. Churchill once stated that people want peace so badly that eventually they will not allow the government to get in their way. We should realize that the government is not the proper way to accomplish many of our social goals. The proper method is through the use of civil society, church groups, non-profits, fraternities, collections of people.

The power of the government is not needed, in deed the only true power they have is to tax. What is needed is the power of the people, the strength of argument, the strength of truth. If you truly believe that people are better off with little to no pollution, then teach others to value what you value. Teach them to support your cause and require not of government but of themselves to reduce pollution, to conserve energy, to support companies with similar social goals, in this case the goal of lower pollution.

This is direct. It keeps the government out of the process. Often one will hear that it is necessary to mandate action because people are too stupid to understand. There are two responses to this point. First, if people are too stupid and government is made of people, elected by people, then wouldn’t they also be too stupid to know what’s best. Secondly, who are you too judge someone else’s value system? How do you know that your value system is correct and everyone else’s is incorrect? (more on this idea later, existentialism)

Anyways, this is a bit of a rant and more disorganized than I hoped, but it is at minimum an insight into the process of what I call my brain. As always comments and a discussion of these ideas is more than welcome.