No Impact, Man
January 22, 2008 |
A few weeks back a New York City writer named Colin Beavan blogged about our book, and we began an email exchange.
Colin is "No Impact Man," made famous through a profile in the New York Times and appearances on television. Colin, his wife, and his young daughter are doing their best to have as small of an impact on Nature as possible, in particular, by reducing their consumption of energy. They turn down the lights, buy very little, and have even given up toilet paper.
Colin praised and agreed with our point in Break Through that action on global warming need not be motivated either by fear of climate change or love of Nature. It could be motivated, for example, by concerns over national security, or the desire for a new kind of economic development.
This was nice praise to hear, but I was surprised to hear it from No Impact Man. The first half of Break Through is a critique of the environmentalist "politics of limits," I was a bit incredulous that Colin had either a) read the book or b) agreed with it, given his focus on the need to limiting consumption to deal with the climate crisis.
So I pushed on this point and others over email, and we got into a nice little debate. We decided we'd post the exchange on our web sites over the next few days, and then continue the conversation in person after Ted and I speak at our Focus the Nation talk at NYU on January 31. You can read Colin's take on our exchange here.
Michael: It's great when we meet people who understand the very important point that action on global warming need not be about Nature or global warming, but could instead be about economic development, energy independence or something else.
I would also be interested in your take on a) our argument against the sacrifice framework in chapter 6, and b) our contention that we can't reduce our way to 80 percent emissions reductions in the U.S. (and 50 percent worldwide) by 2050, by reducing our carbon footprint.
Colin: Well thanks for saying nice blog! I'll get back to you on your questions, but to clarify, by question b) do you mean your contention that we need to institute new technologies and need massive federal funding to get them going?
Michael: Let me put it in a more pointed way. I don't think we can convince very many Americans or Chinese to do what you're doing. And I don't think we should try because we'll only alienate them. Instead I think we need to find ways to allow people to keep on consuming without generating emissions or depleting resources. Technically, renewable energy and infinite materials recycling should make this possible. Both, however, remain expensive. Hence, the need for breakthroughs in performance and price.
Also, to be even more pointed, I don't think you are a "no impact man," as you claim. I think you're probably a "lower impact man." But that's been made possible by living in a high impact society. You've been able to reduce your emissions drastically because a) your ancestors, grandparents, and parents prospered thanks to coal and oil; b) you received a good education (judged by your writing) that required fossil fuels consumption; c) you live in an astonishingly modern city built and sustained by fossil fuels so that even if you don't directly consume fossil fuels, the garbage men, police officers, and school teachers who make your life and the life of your family possible, do consume fossil fuels; d) you pay taxes, and the government takes a portion and subsidies fossil fuels with it; and on and on.
Don't get me wrong. I try to reduce my emissions as much as the next guy. But I believe my biggest contribution to overcoming eco crises will come neither from convincing others to do the same but rather from convincing Americans that a major investment in new technologies and infrastructures, here and abroad, will make their lives better and safer, and restore America's founding purpose: greatness. That's a fairly different project than asceticism, which I think can be creative and fulfilling but not a solution to the crises we face.
Comments
It sounds like something we need right now, jobs and clean energy.
By chris on 2009 10 02
After some simulation, I think the real problem with the reserve is not that it violates the cap, but that it fails to address volatility. It turns out to be hard to generate price trajectories that release many allowances, and those that are released are self-defeating because they compete with open-market stabilizing operations. See http://blog.metasd.com/2009/07/07/strategic-excess-breakthroughs-nightmare/ and preceding entries.
By Tom Fiddaman on 2009 07 08
Big emitters of CO2 (e.g. coal-fired power plants) pretend in public that they really want to do something. But the economic reality is that pollution control costs money, and doesn't increase profits, therefore shareholders don't like it. The last thing the big emitters want to see is new technology that solves the problem they create, because the EPA might compel them to buy it.
Knowing that the potential customers are so reluctant, private sector technology developers are not willing to spend money on R&D for clean tech no one will buy. So the "free market innovation" that policy makers count on to address the CO2 problem faces a strong headwind.
If there were a realistically high price on CO2 emissions, something near what it would actually cost per ton, with no bogus Nigerian tree offsets, then there might be an economic incentive for a breakthrough. But after ACES it is clear that this will not happen.
So that leaves government research as the only hope. But ACES killed that hope too. Even if there were adequate money available for a serious research effort, it would probably go into the usual DOE dry holes: chemical capture, sequestration, hot fusion, particle physics, etc. That's the inertia to be overcome by Secretary Chu, who seems to have been appointed to be the fall guy for Congress and the Obama Administration, with all of the responsibility and none of the resources for doing the job.
By Wilmot McCutchen on 2009 07 04
There is already a solution for CO2. It is called Nuclear Power. The French already get 90% of their electricity from Nuclear Power and Hydroelectricity.
The trouble is the Greens would rather melt the icecaps than admit that Nuclear Power is part of the solution.
By Joel Upchurch on 2009 07 04
Exactly our point, R... Browner's legislation based approach may work for something like the banning of BPA in plastics, but just yesterday I was at the store looking for a sports bottle and saw that manufacturers are already taking it out voluntarily--in response to public pressure and the threat of bad PR!!! When legislation can only accomplish things that good PR pressure can do much quicker-- a BPA ban is right now stalled in the Senate!-- what we need is an innovator at the head of our energy and climate task forces, someone who's not afraid to break some of the old paradigms. Unfortunately, Browner just isn't it.
By Tyler Burton on 2009 07 01
To get rid of CO2 the way we got rid of lead and asbestos would require a much more massive substitution. There are simply not that many existing ways to make energy without using carbon and many of those require energy storage technologies that do not exist currently. Maybe that is why so many politicians seem to bury their heads in the sand on the climate issue.
By R Margolis on 2009 07 01
Looks like vestes in the UK laid off more than half it's workforce building wind turbines. This of course is a product that is reliant on government mandates and subsidies.
By seven on 2009 06 03
David Mathews -- Saving the polluters from regulation is what Waxman-Markey does, and BTI is a leading voice critical of this legislative end run around regulation under the Clean Air Act, which the Supreme Court upheld for the EPA. Reducing CO2 emissions will not be done by cap-and-trade, as we know from its record in Europe. If you want less CO2 emissions, and effective regulation, BTI is not your enemy.
By Wilmot McCutchen on 2009 05 28
Another motive behind Waxman-Markey may have been to strip the EPA of jurisdiction to regulate CO2 under the Clean Air Act, so big emitters like coal-fired power plants can continue business as usual without being hassled by the EPA. Even for the paltry fraction of CO2 emissions not covered by free indulgences, tree offsets are allowed to substitute for actual emission cuts.
The US Supreme Court recently upheld the jurisdiction of the EPA over CO2 emissions under the Clean Air Act. Rulemaking is underway. This major victory for climate protection will be surrendered by Waxman-Markey, which is a legislative end run around regulation. Depending on this new law, instead of the Clean Air Act, means another round of time-consuming challenges by the polluters, resulting in more time with no curtailment of emissions as the appeals drag on.
Given what we saw in the recent Wall Street crash, where risk packages spun out of fantasy enriched a few and bankrupted America, the green offset market will be another orgy of greed and fraud. I agree with Bill Hansen�s opinion that the guys in alligator shoes wrote this bill. Does anyone seriously believe, given our experience with regulation of Wall Street, that green offsets will be understood and effectively controlled? Round Two of the decline and fall, coming up.
By Wilmot McCutchen on 2009 05 28
Here is a quote from Patrick McCully published in the San Francisco Chronicle op-ed page A13 from Tuesday May 26, 2009:
"The bill's offset component ... is modeled after the world's largest carbon credit system, the Kyoto Protocol's Clean Development Mechanism. The Kyoto mechanism has allowed polluters in Europe and Japan to avoid cutting off their own emissions by buying offsets from project developers elsewhere, mainly in China and India. Many of the Waxman-Markey credits are likely to come from this or whatever global offsetting scheme replaces it after Kyoto expires in 2012. After a decade of closely monitoring the mechanism, I have found it to be ineffective in combatting climate change, and at worst, to have aided increased carbon emissions."
It is general knowledge that cap-and-trade has failed to reduce emissions. So I don't think it is unfair to speculate on the real motives behind Waxman-Markey.
Maybe it's another Wall Street bailout, creating a market in a junk commodity: tree offsets. Power companies will be forced to speculate in forestry futures or the like, since there will be little support for making a transition to clean power. The coal states and utility customers will take a hit so the subprime swindlers can get back in business with an imaginary commodity.
Of course, to fool the credulous Democrats, the pitch is dressed in pious posturing about saving the environment and funding clean tech development, but these pretexts are not well-grounded in fact, as your careful examination of W-M proves. The size of the bill now (1000 pages and counting) means few who will vote on it will read it, so your summary and questions about the "trade" part are more important than ever. Good work.
By Wilmot McCutchen on 2009 05 28
Without wishing to sound like some sort of born-again Stalinist, I would say the failure to make progress of any sort whatsoever is a failure of democratic capitalism. How can politicians make any sort of effective climate policy stick when they know they will get voted out in an instant by a population that cares far more about the price of the next tank of gas that what the climate will be doing in 100 years?
Whether you obsess over targets or technology is currently making no difference - neither has been able to boast any discernable effect on CO2, so at the moment it is all theory.
Personally I will vote for any party that promises drastic action in either, or both, directions. I fear I'm in the minority.
By Robert on 2009 05 27
Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus do not want to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, do they? Someone must save the precious economy from environmental regulation! The polluting industries of this world really want to make money and Breakthrough Insitute will protect them.
By David Mathews on 2009 05 27
Ultimately, the issue is that many people have lost sight of our natures as omnivorous animals.
By libhomo on 2009 04 12
Excellent points. There is greater support for environmental protection once communities feel they have something to lose.
By R Margolis on 2008 05 07