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Taxation ArchivesWhy We Can Disagree to Agree
In a debate at the Cato Institute, Shellenberger and Nordhaus argue that liberals and conservatives don't need to agree about the seriousness of global warming. We can all embrace investment in energy infrastructure, technology, and education for reasons that have nothing to do with climate change.
For 20 years, liberals and conservatives have been locked in a debate about the relative seriousness of climate change. Conservatives have either denied that it was happening or played down its significance, while liberals and environmentalists have tended to see it as ecological apocalypse meriting either extreme personal sacrifice or a supposed cost-free regulatory fix. That debate is now undergoing a major shift. Conservatives like Jim Manzi, Newt Gingrich and others recognize that humans are affecting the climate and that something should be done about it. Liberals and environmentalists, like Joe Romm and most recently Al Gore, are beginning to recognize the political futility of peddling sacrifice, and have started emphasizing the need to make clean energy cheap. To be sure, both camps are still far apart in their view of global warming, with Romm seeing it as a future hell on earth and Manzi viewing it as little more than a rounding error. But if we fixate on these radically divergent views of the problem we risk missing some signs of agreement over what should be done about it. Breakthrough Responds: Why Carbon Pricing Won't Cut It
In the real world, the American polity and the American market are not ready for a tough carbon price. The best way to respond to the climate challenge right now is to massively expand the role of the federal government in researching, developing, and deploying clean technology.
This is a response to Max Epstein's guest post, "In Defense of Carbon Pricing: Why Clean Energy RD&D Isn't Enough." Our response is written by Breakthrough Generation fellow Zach Arnold. Before anything else, I want to thank Max for his thoughtful post. His arguments have been a big help in clarifying our own thinking. In my response, I'm going to try to define the problem we're trying to solve, and clarify the differences I see between a carbon price driven regime (as Max advocates) and an investment-led regime (as we're more fond of at Breakthrough). I'm then going to explore the political feasibility of a carbon price, and what a politically sustainable carbon price can and can't do to address climate change. In doing so, I hope to show that, for now, we can't rely on carbon pricing to drive the shift to a clean energy economy. Continue reading "Breakthrough Responds: Why Carbon Pricing Won't Cut It" » Guest Post: In Defense of Carbon Pricing: Why Clean RD&D Isn't Enough
If we don't price the externality cost of carbon, we won't need breakthroughs, we'll need miracles.
We've asked our friend, UMD student, and occasional Washington Post editorialist Max Epstein to contribute his thoughts on carbon pricing to the blog. Our response, by Breakthrough Generation Fellow Zach Arnold, is here. In the wake of the failed Lieberman-Warner Climate Security Act, there has been a widespread reevaluation of whether Cap & Trade is the most effective strategy to avert catastrophic climate change. At first many promoted a carbon tax instead, but recently there has been a call to reconsider the central focus on pricing carbon itself. Following Lieberman-Warner's abrupt death in the Senate, Michael Shellenberger wrote that the new way forward should focus on making renewable energy cheap, not polluting sources expensive. In "Scrap Kyoto," Shellenberger and Nordhaus call for a massive public investment in clean technology research and deployment. Joseph Romm in Nature calls for massive subsidized deployment of existing renewable technology, relegating R&D to the "longer-term effort aimed at a new generation of technologies for the emissions reduction effort after 2040." However, such efforts would be insufficient without a price on carbon as well. Continue reading "Guest Post: In Defense of Carbon Pricing: Why Clean RD&D Isn't Enough" » Will Google Gore Overcome Gaia Gore?
Al Gore has finally embraced large public investments in clean energy, after years of insisting on a paradigm focused centrally on pollution regulation. Unfortunately, he doesn't address how to deal with the energy tech (and price) gap between dirty energy sources like coal and clean energy sources like solar. The question is: will the Google Gore be able to trump the Gaia Gore?
In his first major speech on global warming since he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize, Al Gore today finally acknowledged the need for major public investments to make clean energy cheap, rather than simply increase the cost of dirty energy through pollution regulation. This represents a major step forward in his own thinking, and a break from the dominant environmental approach to global warming. At the same time, Gore failed to address the central concern of policymakers in Washington: what to do about rising energy prices. |
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