Climate change conspiracy

David Levinson and I chatted via Facebook yesterday about something I posted on scientific illiteracy. I think he and I basically argued the same thing. He argued, succinctly, that scientists often overstate the certainty of their findings and should be questioned. I don’t actually disagree, but I’d argue that pretty much no one group can be trusted, not singly, and that’s why deliberation matters to both knowledge formation and policy. The goals of academic success are not necessarily social goals or even institutional goals, for one. However, I’d argue that mistrust of professional scientists should lead us to a different point than where we are: it should lead us to demand higher levels of personal literacy on math and science than the attrition to where I think we are: full-blown, hands-up-in-the-air, no-bloody-clue what’s going on or how to evaluate claims at a level more sophisticated than relating to personal experience.

Anyway, the interwebs are abuzz with hacked emails from the University of East Anglia’s Climate Change Research Unit that supposedly prove a worldwide conspiracy to promote anthropogenic climate theories and downplay evidence to the contrary. I’ll link you to BoingBoing, as they have a lot of links you can follow. I urge particularly to read the material from Science Insider and the New York Times.

I read through bits and honestly…tempest in a pot of tea. The takeaway lesson:

1. High-profile, successful scientists try to present their findings in a way that has maximum impact; and

2. People are sloppy with what they put in emails.

3. Scholars form camps around theories and methods and thus disagree with scholars from other camps.

4. Scholars debate things. Seriously, nothing I’ve happened on–yet–in the these emails gets as heated as mine with Peter Gordon do. And I believe that Peter and I are cheerful colleagues who like and respect each other but who simply disagree about what the same data mean.

5. This is type of thing makes you look like even bigger jerks when you refuse to release models and information, which they should have done prior to this, period, the end.

Here are all of the emails if you have a lot of time on your hands. When you start reading, you’ll wish this conspiracy had Elvis because the reading gets dull pretty fast.

Polar Bear Simulacra

The St. Louis Zoo is putting electronic proxy bears in their exhibit now that their live bears have passed away.

One of my favorite colleagues, Martin Krieger, discussed the idea of simulated nature in piece he published in Science in 1973. He talks, however, about rare natural environments, not zoo environments–the latter being inherently constructed. In a short, concise piece, he develops this notion of “proxy” nature.

It all brings up the question: what is the role of the zoo in the sustainable city? Is there one? Are they destined to become Disneyland natura?

Krieger, M. 1973. “What’s wrong with plastic trees: rationals for preserving rare natural environments involve economic, societal, and political factors.” Science. 179 (4072): 446-455.

Luke, T.  2002. Museum Pieces: Power Plays at the Exhibition. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. 298 pp.

Climate change practices and religion

The Telegraph has this story about an executive who took his company to court because they did not accommodate his desire to live a low-carbon lifestyle. The writers say the story is interesting because it suggests a precedent for how employers will be expected to accommodate environmental “beliefs”–such as providing low-carbon transport. That seems to be a pretty big stretch; it is easier to envision a company not requiring air travel than actually providing more for transport than most already do. But it is notable how this exec was able to argue he was a victim based on his environmental principles.

Ian Parry and policies to reduce climate change emissions from vehicles

In the “papers I wish I had written” department, there’s:

Parry, I. 2007. “Are the Costs of Reducing Greenhouse Gases from Passenger Vehicles Negative?” Journal of Urban Economics. 62: (2): 273-293.

You can find it here.

From the abstract:

Energy models suggest that the costs of reducing carbon emissions from transportation are high relative to those for other sectors. This paper discusses why taxes (or equivalent permit systems) to reduce passenger vehicle emissions produce large net benefits, rather than costs, when account is taken of (a) their impact on reducing other highway externalities besides carbon and (b) interactions with the broader fiscal system. Both of these considerations also strengthen the case for a tax-based approach over fuel economy regulation, while fiscal considerations strengthen the case for taxes over grandfathered emissions permits. The paper also comments on the practical relevance of automobile fuel taxes, or their policy equivalents, to broader legislation intended to mitigate climate change.

High Speed Rail on the Freakonomics Blog

Eric Morris on the Freakonomics blog takes up the issue of high-speed rail and offers a reasoned, and unique to the public debate, focus on the limitations of the mode’s promised environmental benefits.

There are so many things to think about here, it’s hard to know where to begin. First, the very fact that we have consultants even doing lifeline environmental analysis of rail is a step forward for the discourse around rail. Yes, it has environmental costs, too, especially something like high-speed rail which fragments habitats, for instance. Back in the day, this is something that was never raised surrounding rail, much to my irritation.

What’s my expert opinion on high-speed rail? From my perspective, changing intra-regional travel to lower impact modes, like walking, is a much more pressing and cost-effective climate change strategy.

While I do not deny the very real evidence of climate change, I am terrified when I look at the data for actually intervening in climate change. It is the elephant in the room for those worried about climate change: if we admit it looks futile, then nothing will get done and it will, in fact, be futile. But all our hoping for best and advising for the best does not mean that changing things still won’t be futile. The power of positive thinking here has to meet reality. Maybe the economic downtown will dampen population growth a bit, but still. Given population figures, I tend to favor strategies that have high potential co-benefits and lower costs. HSR has some of the former and just way too much for the latter.

David Levinson’s estimate for HSR comes in at $80 million. Last year, I had my students cost out the HSR, and the estimates ran from $110 billion to $81 billion. That’s more than Obama has set aside for foster kids for the entire country. Do you know what we could do for foster kids with $80 billion? Bus riders? Schools? No, these are not separate issues no matter how various sector advocates and institutions would have us think of them. Fiscal capacity is finite.

If we are really talking about saving car trips, the bigger potential markets are likely to be intra-regional, not inter-regional, like HSR. To be metaphorical for a second, HSR is a gold-plated response to climate change when we should perhaps be thinking about stainless steel. It’s like insisting that we have a $2K tiara when we can’t afford pants.

HSR is being sold on environmental benefits, as usual with rail, but the reasons why its backers love it so much because they see dollar signs. Federal capital subsidies, right now, and more subsequent growth in inter-regional tourism and economic activity, particularly for Central Valley communities. All good things. But worth the money not spent on other things, like schools or inter-city transit? Ehhhhh. The assumption among its environmental proponents is that HSR will cut out air travel and auto trips. It may do so, in the short term, but in the end it will, like most new supply, provide capacity for additional travel between SF and southern California. These additional trips will be in a mode that has fewer emissions than the other two, great, but the other two are not going to reduce appreciably in the long term with growth in overall demand. There is a difference between disciplining demand for dirtier modes entirely and simply providing extra capacity in a cleaner (and jollier) mode. The first is a stick; the second is a carrot with no stick. In transport policy, we are addicted to the latter.

If we are worried about carbon emissions and we want HSR because we want the travel option, the way to get this system built is to apply a carbon tax to fuel consumption across all modes and then use the money to juice up transit provision in general, as quickly as possible. But instead, we continue to do what we have always done: throw money at big systems up front, taking the money from everywhere else to pay off bond obligations rather than presenting travelers with the real prices of their travel consumption choices. Then we ply them with carrot after carrot. This strategy means politicians get to stand in front of big projects and say they have Struck A Blow for the environment, environmental NGOs get to to do the same, and the cost is carried by socially devalued services (like education–3.1 billion in cuts, any one?) and unpopular minorities (like poor people who rely on public education.)

We can talk about whether fuel taxes “tax the poor off the road” another day. As for predictions, this is going to be California’s Big Dig. It will set records for costs and over-runs. It will be a beautiful and wonderful service when it is done. And I (and a whole bunch of other people) will get a book out of it.

The climate change bill and low income families

The climate change bill is, like most Federal legislation, an amalgam of good and lousy policy. For the most part, it’s
a decent attempt, except for the part where we are supposed to prompt consumers to save energy without raising their energy costs appreciably.

However, there are protections for low-income energy users. Double however, from the limited research on current usage of lifeline pricing mechanisms, it looks like only a fraction of the households eligible for coupons based on income actually use them. Given how little we are willing to raise costs, this perhaps shouldn’t surprise me. In climate change policy, we should get a lot more aggressive here and suck up a carbon tax and provide lifeline options–and keep our distributional focus on the fact that impoverished Americans, while we want to protect them, have obligations as well to the much more dangerously impoverished and imperiled groups internationally. People need to be sent a price signal, even if that price signal is discounted, to help them understand the costs of their choices.

New fuel economy standards

Keith Hennessey (former economic advisor) has some economic analysis of the costs and benefits of the fuel economy policy change, in between all his grumbling about how the EPA (US Environmental Protection Agency) is ‘in charge’ rather that the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration (NHSTA).

This last comment–about who is in charge–is designed to generate comment. He’s been around long enough to know that NHTSA and the EPA are coming out of the Bush Era positioned differently and that the EPA has some strategic agenda-setting to do early on in the new administration. That said, EPA is a cabinet-level agency and these proposed rule changes have been in circulation for a bit. For public policy, we engage both agencies because we are trying to optimize across goals here, ones that are, like many, in tension with each other. Nonetheless, environmental rationales have a lot of currency, and perhaps more than they should here. Given the dominant discourse about sustainability and green-ness–i.e., that we are not supposed to be in our cars anyway–it should not surprise us that crash safety is an undeservedly low visibility issue relative to climate change or that NHTSA is a low-visibility agency, despite the considerable public service it provides.

The tension here–between fuel economy and crash safety–has been in dispute since the original 1975 law that provided for CAFE. The late Charles Lave and his brother, Lester, really helped to clarify the issues. One of their most accessible discussions appears in:

Lave, Charles and Lester Lave, “Fuel Economy and Auto Safety Regulation: Is the Cure Worse than the Disease?” Pages 257-290 in Essays in Transportation Economics and Policy: A Handbook in Honor of John R. Meyer, edited by Jose Gomez-Ibanez, William B. Tye, and Cliffor Winston, Brookings Institution Press, Washington D.C., 1999

There’s always just raising the gas tax, which over time might induce changes in fuel economy similar to the standards, but it allows consumers some flexibility in that they can still opt simply to drive less with their bigger, safer car if that is what they prefer–and driving less would have expected crash safety gains, too. Or what about raising the driving age–something that would lower crash costs considerably–at the same time we encourage fuel efficiency through differentiated vehicle registration fees? There are options here that address both the environment/safety trades. I haven’t looked at any data, so I don’t have any real conclusions here.

One last link: NHTSA’s CAFE page .