The Peacock at Grist
November 27, 2007 |
In defense of his call for Nazi war crime tribunals for people who deny the reality of global warming, David Roberts now claims, "I was not 'calling for war crimes tribunals for [all] global warming deniers.'"
Roberts claims I "distorted" his words. Actually, all I did was quote them. Here they are again so that readers can make their own judgment:
When we've finally gotten serious about global warming, when the impacts are really hitting us and we're in a full worldwide scramble to minimize the damage, we should have war crimes trials for these bastards -- some sort of climate Nuremberg.
It should probably go without saying that the effect of Roberts' histrionics is not to frighten guys like John Christy, William Gray and Richard Lindzen. Rather, the effect is to enforce ideological orthodoxy among environmentalists and to give global warming deniers a new way to paint environmentalists as extremists, as Sen. Inhofe did with Roberts' blog posting last year.
1.
Imagine for a moment that one of those deniers had used a Nazi or Holocaust metaphor. Roberts would have denounced them up and down to anyone who would listen. (It is an argument to which Roberts doesn't even bother responding because he knows it's true).
Now exposed, Roberts wants to change the subject.
To me, the least interesting thing about Hansen's allusion to the Holocaust is whether you, I, Revkin, Shellenberger, whoever, "approves" of it. Approval or disapproval in this case is just posturing, displaying your peacock feathers, defining your tribal affiliations. It's boring.
Ah yes, all of this is a boring matter. That's why there are 64 comments about it at Andy Revkin's blog, and 25 comments about it here at Grist (which is about 10 times as many comments on Grist's other, apparently more exciting posts).
Roberts wants to have it both ways. He wants to be able to serve up apocalyptic red meat for his followers on Grist and then claim to the New York Times that the environmental movement is beyond all that apocalypse and sacrifice stuff. Just days ago he claimed on the Times blog that, "Many people (including me) have argued that the conventional environmental narrative of fear and guilt will never build a popular base of support for the fight against climate change. My sense, though, is that this has become conventional wisdom, if not common practice."
3.
It sometimes seems that at least half of what Roberts writes -- especially when exposed on the facts -- is unadulterated psychological projection. It is Roberts, not Revkin, who enforces orthodoxy and "tribal affiliations" among Gristians.
This goes way beyond comparing deniers to Nazis. Witness his name-calling against thinkers who happen to disagree with him on questions of coal, adaptation, and the need for massive federal clean energy investment.
And unable to back up his claim that I "distorted" his words, Roberts resorts to what he does whenever he trips over his peacock feathers, he calls people names (in this case, "Rush Limbaugh").
Roberts should seek to discipline his own language and thought before seeking to discipline others.
Comments
This "Cap-and-Steal"legislation is the worst tax increase (Hidden) on the American people that has ever been perpetrated by our so called "Representatives." It's fostered on junk science and only the man and woman on the streets and roads of our great land will suffer the consequences of this irrational thinking.
By Ray on 2009 06 27
Good post!!! Thanks....
By Solar Energy on 2009 05 13
Who pays for government investment? Taxpayers pay for government investment and the useage of electricity. The USA budget is way out of control and must be reduced before disaster strikes. Full effort on development of offshore oil and gas should be a part of any government policy.
By rdk on 2009 04 08
I wonder if part of the problem is that many of these groups are primarily lead by attorneys. I don't mean the usual criticism of too many lawyers, but simply the fact that without other professions in the leadership, the proposals will focus on new laws and regulations rather than on spurring new technologies.
By R Margolis on 2009 04 07
Pelosi seems admit that cap-n-trade's purpose is revenue for renewables and "energy independence" (whatever that is). It's a hidden, volatile, regressive tax to fund... well she's not really saying, is she? Ethanol? Nukes? "Clean Coal?"
Contrast that to a revenue-neutral carbon tax whose main point is to more accurately reflect the climate cost of carbon pollution in its price so we use less, and we develop and implement renewables.
Pelosi's more honest than cap-and-trade proponents who call it a way to "price carbon." They're really after a way to fund subsidies. Let the Senate Republicans have fun with that.
More on revenue-neutral carbon taxes at www.pricecarbon.org.
By James Handley on 2009 02 09
When the largest environmental groups are controlled by Chlorox bleachmen and PG&E, what chance? The environmental focus needs to be on environmental sustainability policy, regardless of who is chosen.
See the discussion at www.onebiosphere.com If the environmental "activists" are controlled by big business, where is the hope?
By Charles Warren on 2008 11 10
Zach, I agree that it would be a bit of work, but I don't think it would be infeasible by any means. The requirement doesn't have to be perfect, it has to be a reasonable enough approximation that it doesn't undershoot and preserve the incentive to go overseas, or overshoot and be overly protectionist (and so open to WTO challenge). I'd start off by just saying that I think the main reason China/India flatly reject mandated emissions cuts is the same reason its political dynamite here - they're afraid its incompatible with economic growth. So if we were able to overcome that obstacle and achieve reductions and growth simultaneously, which I think is very achievable with a sensible cap/trade policy, I bank on that changing their willingness to come on board. Also, the international reserve requirement is a stick for their not signing onto comparable reductions (they get out of it if they do, as determined by the Climate Change Commission), but the bill also explicitly mandates negotiations to try to bring these countries on board. Presumably these negotiations would include less rigid targets, as well as 'carrots' like tech assistance. So all considering I'm fairly optimistic the world can be brought under this umbrella with strong American leadership; carrots and sticks and a demonstration that reductions do not necessarily interfere with growth.
I'll try and address some of the specific concerns you mentioned with implementing the international program.
You question a fair way of determining the "de minimis" percentage of emissions for foreign countries. The bill is pretty straightforward and I think its fair enough, though you can certainly still disagree:
A country would qualify if its "percentage of total global greenhouse gas emissions [is] not more than 0.5, as determined by the Commission
By Max Epstein on 2008 06 23
Max -
Thanks for your thoughtful comment!
The Lieberman-Warner international reserve system is indeed clever, and does address the problem somewhat. However, I'm not as optimistic about its effectiveness as you are. First of all, establishing an EPA-authored list of imports and their respective carbon content seems like it could be a very large and complicated process indeed, especially if more and more industries migrate overseas given rising energy prices (due to a carbon cap affecting immobile electricity producers). "Emissions-intensive" is also a loaded term, one whose definition could bog the system down in disputes (even if the carbon impact of adding or dropping a product to the category is minimal).
More important, though, are the problems inherent in establishing where the "de minimis threshold" lies. Is it based on countries below a certain numerical level of emissions? (If so, per-capita or absolute?) Or on countries who have committed to certain reductions? And in either case, there are tricky procedural and moral questions involved in comparing other countries' emissions commitments to our own. For example, the Boxer addenda to Lieberman-Warner created an International Climate Change Commission, tasked with determining which countries have taken "comparable action" to the US in reducing CO2 emissions (and thus would be exempt from import tariffs). Aside from the fact that this commission could be affected as much by international and domestic political influence as by the numbers, how do we determine what "comparable action" would be for China or India? And is it right (or WTO-legal) to expect "comparable action" from them, given their largely impoverished populations? I'm not saying the answer is necessarily "no," only that the problem is complex, and could complicate or even halt the implementation process.
Finally, even if the system worked perfectly, it's important to maintain perspective - American emissions are only a piece of the whole puzzle, and although you and many others hope that "if America leads, China/India/etc. will follow," I feel that this idea, although alluring, is probably wrong. These developing nations have already made it clear that they are not likely to curb emissions (see here, for example), no matter what the US and EU are doing. So even if the US managed to cover its emissions perfectly under cap-and-trade (which, as the failure of Lieberman-Warner showed, is not close to happening), the prospect of leveraging our efforts into a global carbon regime (much less one with an adequate price level to stimulate significant innovation and emissions reductions) is a dim and distant one at best. In my opinion, we should probably focus on investment-based solutions that promise quicker and greater change.
Thanks again -Zach
By Zach Arnold on 2008 06 23
"One add-on might be a carbon import tariff, . . . But such a system would be nightmarishly complicated to administer - how do you audit the carbon content of every item you import?"
NOT so hard to administer- here is how it works. Take the # of each countries fossil fuel power plants, multiply by GHG, multiply by GHG price per ton (& tack on penalty for nukes). Each country is then required to drop that electric power GHG into a worldwide kitty which is then distributed back to the countries for ghg mitigation and sustainable power projects. Any country not putting its fair share in kitty has its power plants bombed, since bombing is what us does best, anyway, and it will stimulate us economy even more! Problem solved.
Anyhow, cap and trade, carbon import tax, sustainable investment, all go hand in hand, no need to get pissy about it.
By ids on 2008 06 22
Zach, the problem of leakage is a concern but is not as intractable as you make it out to be. Consider Lieberman-Warner, because it actually dealt with this quite well (though it had plenty of other faults). The sectors covered are transportation, electric power, and industry. Transportation is covered by upstream allowance requirements on petroleum importers (or 'first seller' for domestic reserves I believe), so moving abroad does no good. Electric power is similarly not vulnerable because you can't ship kilowatts from China or India. Might a few power plants spring up on Canada/Mexico side of the borders? Sure, maybe, but its really minor considering the limited area they could serve compared to the vast rest of the country. So right off the bat you know this leakage issue applies to a particular corner of the economy - industry.
You mention Lieberman-Warner gave away credits to keep those plants in the US. Those credits were given away more as a bribe for political support than to achieve anything - since they're not tied to production levels a plant could seriously ramp down production (shifting new production overseas) and still keep collecting. But L-W did have quite a clever method of dealing with the risk of leakage. In short it was a carbon tariff designed to be WTO compliant.
Title VI (and Title XIII in Boxer substitute) creates an "International Reserve" of allowances. This reserve would be unlimited, but the price would be pegged to the price of a domestic allowance (by day to day closing price on the spot market). Foreign importers would have to purchase carbon allowances from this reserve just like domestic producers have to. Since its a different pot, there's no competition for limited permits driving up the price. And since it's pegged to the price of domestic permits, there's the equality of treatment between domestic and imported goods crucial for WTO compliance. They had lawyers working on this, and apparently pretty good ones.
So how do you decide how many allowances need to be submitted for which goods? The EPA has to create a list of emissions intensive (covered) goods from importing countries whose national emissions are above a de minimis threshold. It sounds like it would be a bureaucratic nightmare, but really it wouldn't. A lot of emissions are from chemical processes where amounts are known and pretty standard. A lot can be traced to the heat or electricity used in production, and in combination with the power or fuel portfolio of a country/region you can get a pretty good estimate. And they'd have until 2015 (it was 2020 in the original) before the International Reserve requirement goes into effect to put this together. Perfect or not it clearly is more than enough to eliminate the incentive to ship factories overseas, especially considering (though it wasn't specified in the bill, but could be in administrative rulemaking) an extra Carbon premium could be assessed for international shipping as well.
Remember everyone wants access to the American market, because we make a lot of money and we don't save much of it (i.e. we like to spend). So if moving abroad doesn't improve the ability to cater to the American market at lower costs, it won't happen. Would it be better to have a global system? Of course. But this inertia of US saying we want a global system and developing countries insisting the US lead first must be broken. Since there's no way China/India will be convinced to adopt hard targets without our leading (nor should they), that means the ball is in our court.
By Max Epstein on 2008 06 21