April 9, 2007
From the desk of Jane Galt:Belle Waring goes off on the silly "In your face!" gotcha style of the right. Take heart, Belle--the biting rejoinders to straw men existing only in the arguers head are every bit as common, and as stupid, on the left; you're not uniquely beleaguered. Indeed, I've been bemused in exchanges with Belle's very co-bloggers as they delivered what they apparently thought was some astounding stumper--like "Do you think the surge will work?"--which would have stumped only the imaginary radio talk show host with whom they were apparently conducting their side of the argument. Arguments over, for example, the Stern Report and the Lancet study keep getting sidetracked by an apparent inability to conceive of anyone who might criticise these things for any reason other than the instrumental goal of justifying previously held positions. But I'm in favour of large carbon taxes and other global warming abatement, and I've already admitted I was wrong about the Iraq war; neither report does anything to my prior beliefs. Let's say the Lancet study is right, and the number is closer to 600,000 dead than 100,000. Since approximately 200 million Americans supported the war, this would move my incremental dead Iraqi responsibility from .0005 Iraqis to .003, not exactly reason for ideologically driven debunking.
On one question, nuclear power, I'm afraid I think Belle is dead wrong.
It’s a standard move in global warming denial rhetoric to say, “if they were really serious about CO2 production, those crazy hippies would support the construction of nuclear power plants. Bwa ha ha ha, in your face, Al Gore!” Now, I never see anyone actually go on to advocate new nuclear power plants. But guess what? If, after the implementation of a reasonable, revenue-neutral carbon tax, nuclear power would be competitive without subsidies, then I would be happy to support nuclear power. If government subsidies would still be required, I think we would be better off subsidising something like wind or solar power, because nuclear power plants do have a wee negative externality problem, what with all the extra security needed, and that whole “radioactive” issue. Oh, now that I’m here, I might as well just offer up a few other responses to various right-wing Morrisette-ironic talking points.
The environmental movement has so far utterly failed to develop a coherent approach to replacing carbon producing power sources. Wind and solar are not such a coherent response without a massive breakthrough in battery technology, because variable sources are inadequate to provide base-load power. Also, they too have negative externalities: wind kills birds and destroys views, and many solar panels are loaded with gallium arsenide, a highly toxic substance that is apparently rather tricky to dispose of.
All this wouldn't be so bothersome if the environmental movement merely failed to provide realistic alternatives, but in fact, many environmentalists actively move to block new wind installations (I'm looking at you, Robert jr.) and nuclear power plants, spread hysteria over nuclear waste, and otherwise actively work against the cause they are trying to advance. As such, it is perfectly legitimate to demand why they are blocking the only things that have any realistic chance of replacing carbon-emitting power plants.
The answer, in my opinion, is that too many environmentalists flunk basic and economic knowlege, which is why so many people believe it is practical to replace a coal-fired turbine that pumps out 1,000 megawatts with a solar installation that will, in peak sun conditions, produce about 1 kilowatt per 150 feet of space, twelve hours a day; or wind farms, which average less than 1 megawatt per turbine in prime spots. In addition, the core of the environmental movement are people with a whole host of linked views about things like capitalism, consumer culture, and so forth; they find solutions that support, rather than changing, the existing system much less emotionally interesting than radical conservation strategies. Unfortunately, the latter are a thoroughgoing political failure, but the environmental movement has strenuously resisted adjusting to this reality. (Some leaders have, God bless them). As long as this attitude persists, the environmental movement is blocking change that could and should happen; it is perfectly legitimate, nay necessary, to tax them on this.
Posted by Jane Galt at April 9, 2007 10:25 AM | TrackBack | Technorati inbound linksThere's a wonderful passage in Evelyn Waugh's "Robbery Under Law" that captures the modern left perfectly: "the intellectual communists of today have irrelevant personal reasons for their antagonism to society, which they are trying to exploit." That was written in 1939, but if you substitute "environmentalists" for "communists," you'll find the same sentiment applies.
You'll also find that it often applies to the same person. It's no accident (as Pravda used to say) that a lot of environmentalists are also hardcore leftists, in part because environmentalism is simply the latest stick they can use to beat capitalism and all of its agents. A lot of the environmentalism I see is driven by that same desire to force a set of views on other people (who, for the most part, don't want to suffer them) that I remember seeing and hearing from university Marxists. Global warming is simply the latest attempt to contrive the unanswerable argument - a goal that, by itself, ought to concern us all. A good test: go back and read the last chapter of Orwell's "The Road to Wigan Pier." The socialist attitudes he mocks are still with us, as are the aesthetics, and they're still not very appealing.
"The answer, in my opinion, is that too many environmentalists flunk basic and economic knowlege"
I'm sorry if this huts some people's feelings, but this really is the only reasonably sane conclusion that a reasonably sane person can draw based on some things that spew out of some circles of environmentalists.
Jane,
I'm sympathetic to your remarks. As somebody who works for a public utility company, I can say it's absolutely absurd to think it's feasible to replace our base load coal plants with wind and solar energy any time soon. No doubt there are many well meaning souls who don't understand this.
But to be fair, I think many large, mainstream environmental groups have started to understand that the field of Economics is not a form of financial witchcraft practiced by evil Capitalists, but rather the study of the incentives that drive the allocation of scare resources by society. Groups like Environmental Defense and the Sierra Club are starting to understand that the tools of Economics are uniquely suited to addressing their member's concerns and now have professional economists on staff.
Environmentalists decreasingly fit the stereotype of tree worshiping hippies that are long on emotion and short on knowledge. More and more, Environmentalists are regular people like you and me… young professionals, factory workers, service employees, etc… united by a common interest in maintaining a healthy environment. More and more Environmentalists “get it” every day. Or at least that’s my optimistic belief.
I have no hard evidence, just general impressions, but I get the sense that many environmentalists are utopian, yearning for a return to a simpler, less carbon expensive time; perhaps even agrarian. This isn't true really - at least I have no facts to say it is - but I find it tough to avoid when these folks fail to offer alternatives that take into account that most people are not going to give up their standard of living to reduce their carbon footprint. Al Gore being a convenient example of same.
I'm on the right and I'm all for expanded use of nuclear energy. However, it seems very imprudent to do so until we have international terrorism under control. That may mean "never."
We run into similar issues with other environmentally friendly things, like mass transit. The DC metro is marvelous (as are its sisters in major cities around the globe), but public transportation has been singled out by terrorists around the globe, in Israel, Moscow, Spain, London, etc. It may not be risky for an individual to use mass transit, but the small risk of terrorism does mean that a city that depends mostly on mass transit is much easier to shut down. Furthermore, as we saw with Hurricane Katrina, it is very difficult to adequately evacuate an area where many people lack cars. A mass transit mass evacuation is a humanitarian disaster.
"...and many solar panels are loaded with gallium arsenide, a highly toxic substance that is apparently rather tricky to dispose of. "
Nobody is using GaAs solar cells en masse. They are extremely expensive. They are only used when efficiency is paramount - satellites, lightweight vehivles etc.
Solar panels used for mass power generation are either silicon or cadmium telluride. While the cadmium is very toxic, very little of it escapes in a way that is environmentally problematic.
Although terrorism-related concerns re nuclear power are important, my understanding is that the risks are pretty manageable and under decent control. Note that even in Europe, particularly nuke-dependent France, there have been zero incidents.
My chief concern with nuclear power is cost issues at the development and construction end. To what extent can they be reduced by economies of scale -- eg, stamping out a few hundred pebble-bed reactors? How much is regulatory and could be reduced by cutting red tape? Just how much is nuclear power subsidized, and how does that compare with other large-scale power sources such as coal and natural gas?
From a carbon-emissions standpoint the most important issue is the development of China and India. Can nuclear plants be safely and cost-effectively built there to reduce reliance on coal?
I think Too Many Steves hits something that makes me distrust the mainstream environmental movement - it's the obvious desire to indulge in a little social engineering. The whole point of it seems to be that we should all do things the environmentalists want us to do. Because I'm skeptical about their command of science, I tend to assume that the real propellant of this is not some deeper understanding of the problem that I lack as much as it is a desire to make me live and act in ways that they approve of. The paucity of active (i.e., let's do X to decrease the threat of global warming, rather than ceasing to do Y) solutions (and indeed, the hostility to them) seems to be a tell tale. It's not about global warming, as much as it is about making me behave in a manner activists approve of.
And frankly, that kind of an implicitly authoritarian program makes me very, very nervous.
"Now, I never see anyone actually go on to advocate new nuclear power plants."
Really? Because I see people advocating nuclear power plants all the time. Glenn Reynolds, for one, regularly does so, and he's not exactly a fringe character.
And oddly, when I simply typed "advocate nuclear power" into Google (which, as a slow typer, took me perhaps three seconds), I got 1,180,000 hits. Let's say a quarter of those references actually pertain to those criticizing advocates of nuclear power--that still substantiates that there are, indeed, many such advocates.
Ms. Waring really needs to work on her research skills. You can lead a horse to Google, but apparently you can't make her type in three words before making a lazy assertion.
Too Many Steves: I concur. I can't say it's a majority, but there is a current, and a significant once, in the environmentalist movement, that thinks everything would be better if we just went pre-industrial.
(One of the other strains wants magic technology to save us by providing cheap, clean power that isn't icky nuclear. Well, that'd be great if it happened, but it's not a realistic expectation.)
Of course, most of them don't appear to have any idea how farkin' awful that would be, in terms of quality and length of life.
(Hope you don't like out of season foods, because you won't ever get any. And heating is going to be a problem; no electric power. Burning coal or wood is a no-no, plus deforestation from the extant population would make it impossible... and if you think air quality is bad now, try living in a house where you cook and heat over an open fire.
Which brings us to the other common line of argument, which is for simply getting rid of most of the world's population to "save" the Earth. At that point, however, the divergence of their valuations from mine makes argument literally impossible. No common assumptions remain, especially the un-arguable ethical/moral ones..
Fortunately those advocating mass-depopulation are relatively less common, though oddly more common than one would expect.)
On the other hand, there are people like Jane, who while I completely disagree with her on carbon taxes and The Menace Of Global Warming, I have full confidence that she's using logical thought and can argue her assumptions and the steps that follow from them.
We just disagree about a few of the factual assumptions; not the ethical ones.
IMO, the real problem may not be so much a failure of economic knowledge as an inability to grasp the scope of bulk power generation, starting from ignorance of one's own household use.
How many people actually spend 20 minutes analyzing their electric bill, instead of 2 minutes paying it? How many people correctly understand what the billing unit (kiloWatt-hour, kW/h) actually means? How many people realize just how many of those are required to run an average-sized household at normal lighting and consumer appliance loads for one day, let alone commercial spaces and industry?
Most people on western-world utility grids simply have no clue what is involved in power transmission other than 'electricity comes from a utility and travels on wires'. They pay their bill and expect reliable, uninterrupted service in return. If they get alternative energy ideas in their head, they still expect the above to continue, except with magic.
To pile onto the green ignorance of utility issues, I suggest the "distributed" power generation theory that people have. Works for Wikipedia, probably does not work for power generation.
Anony-mouse hits it on the head. Many people in the environmental movement have ZERO clue who power is generated. I have been a big advocate of nuclear power for a long time. There are ton of old hippies in the environmental movement who have no idea how power is actually generated. I recently ran the numbers on installing a wind turbine and it's reasonably good (my home uses about 550 KW and the turbine would generate 500 KW monthly. I live in an area where wind is more than feasible)) and so I might take the plunge. But quite frankly the number of people that don't undestand the issue in the environmental movement is astounding.
Jane: The environmental movement has so far utterly failed to develop a coherent approach to replacing carbon producing power sources.
Carbon capture and storage looks very promising: CO2 injection is already being used in oil production. The IEA estimates that carbon capture and storage would cost an extra 2-3 cents per kilowatt-hour today, and 1-2 cents per kilowatt-hour in 2030.
For a very detailed discussion, see Mark Jaccard's Sustainable Fossil Fuels: The Unlikely Suspect in the Quest for Clean and Enduring Energy. Jaccard is an environmental economist at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver.
So addressing the CO2 problem wouldn't mean trying to impose massive cutbacks in energy usage, it would just mean requiring coal-burning electricity plants to deploy carbon capture and storage.
One of the first questions I ask these days when someone pauses from his or her lecture about how things need to change is, "So tell me - how much do you fly?"
I never have received an intellectually honest answer to that question, or the followups. But it's a very uncomfortable one, because most of the global warming bores I meet are middle class types who think nothing of flying anywhere they want to go - and who, when offered the choice of cleaner transportation (like, say, a domestic train) almost invariably wriggle out on grounds of personal convenience.
Fortunately, they're not going to start a revolution that way. But they may manage to legislate the hell out of the economy before we stop them.
And Nanonymous, the unfortunate truth is many of those in power calling for caps and legislation will not be affected. Al Gore has already told us he is carbon neutral since he can afford to buy so-called carbon offsets to maintain his lifestyle.
What he and his ilk are really just saying is that only the extremely, and currently wealthy should be able to enjoy his kind of lifestyle. Once the massive taxing occurs it will become increasingly harder to build wealth to support that kind of lifestyle, in effect creating a barrier to entry. Reminds me of those idiots in Venezuela who elected a leader who is now transforming the laws to turn their democracy into his own personal dictatorship.
And to think, our founding fathers went to war over some taxes on their tea and soldiers sleeping in their barns. How much will we put up with?
'...I'm all for expanded use of nuclear energy. However, it seems very imprudent to do so until we have international terrorism under control. That may mean "never."
We run into similar issues with other environmentally friendly things, like mass transit. '
Turning that around...
If terrorists from oil producing nations engaged in acts designed to make us use more oil, would you give in? It is essentially what you are advocating.
In any event, the danger would be lessened by reducing our need to interfere in unstable nations to protect our oil supply.
"Arguments over, for example, the [...] the Lancet study keep getting sidetracked by an apparent inability to conceive of anyone who might criticise these things for any reason other than the instrumental goal of justifying previously held positions."
Jane, come on. People disagreed with you on Lancet for substantive reasons. You argued that Lancet must be wrong, because if it were right there would be millions of refugees. But of course there are indeed millions of refugees, as a minute on Google would have shown you.
Maybe this kind of strange slip on your part is indicative of the very human goal of "justifying previously held positions". Or maybe not. But the bottom line is you made weak arguments on the substance and got called on it. That's not a cause for complaint.
Yesterday, I was informed that a friend of a friend (who is also a friend that I just don't see too often) had just read Al Gore's book and was convinced it was truth. He's a lawyer, if that matters. So my first reaction was, "well tell him to get rid of his car and ride his bike 80 miles to come see you", but my second reaction was just "he better hope this crap doesn't become policy, because they can take my SUV from my cold, dead hands".
I used to have faith that $4/gallon gas would make most Dems and libs angry enough to put the kibosh on this garbage, but I'm becoming more convinced that they'll see it as a way to screw the Republicans for good and get proud and patriotic about it.
I'm a staunch environmentalist, a libertarian, and a very strong proponent of nuclear power. I see it as the only real non-carbon solution to our energy needs. In addition, it's pretty much the only non-carbon way to get a good supply of hydrogen (if hydrogen fuel is ever to be a reality). I certainly don't want an "agrarian" society, and it's simply absurd to say that's what environmentalists want. None of my environmentalist friend want that. We want to preserve our current lifestyle while at the same time protect the world around us. With technology, science, and American willpower, those are perfectly compatible goals. Just wanted to comment to point out that not all environmentalist are nuts or clueless about economics!
" Wind and solar are not such a coherent response without a massive breakthrough in battery technology, "
There have been many breakthroughs in energy storage recently. Batteries will never be the answer for large scale powerplants though. Hydrogen generation is the more likely route. New breakthroughs in sealed fuel cells and solid hydrogen storage are promising.
Also, solar cells are not really limited by the day/night cycle. Energy use is vastly larger during the day. It is only if you planned on going 100% solar that you'd need to worry about it. Anyone advocating going 100% solar is probably a fool. It is wind power that has an energy storage problem. The power generated at night is largely wasted at present.
sciene and will power will get us there! Horray for science and will power!
On the other side, if we've got 10 years to fix this before its too late, we should either: stop driving and flying right now, or invent time travel (using our staple ingredients from the cupboard...1 cup science, 3/4cup will power, mix and bake at 325) so we can go back in time and build 30 or so nuclear power plants.
Coal is much cleaner than the alternative...which is firewood to heat your house and cook your food. I live in a town where we actually heat with firewood. I never turn on the furnace unless we go out of town for a few days to keep the pipes from freezing in winter. There is a lot of ash put in the air. It's a small town so its ok, but I can't imagine if we actually cooked or lighted our house with fire. Coal electricity plants are about as efficient as you can get. Nuclear may be better, but if thats the case let's get started making some because it will take at least 10 years to get one up and running.
Crust, this is a perfect example of the bizarre kind of tu quoque I have been treated to. Yes, there are loads of refugees. That was the point of what I said. I wasn't questioning that there were millions of refugees. My point is that if there are millions of refugees, the odds that the Lancet got a good sample shrink considerably--to, like, zero. And even if we didn't have other ways of knowing that there were loads of refugees, the study itself would indicate that there were, because with that level of violence, it's inconceivable that many more wouldn't be fleeing the violent area. The reports seems to be, in some Bayseian sense, self-refuting; if its numbers are right, it is nearly impossible that it could have gotten a sufficiently representative sample to get correct numbers, because for example the census population figures it used to extrapolate its results would be way off.
Based on my interaction with enviromentalists on-line, I think you can break the movement down into the following groups in regards to global-warming:
In camp 1, we find people, like Jennifer above, who are completely realistic about the scope of the problem involved in scrapping one energy-production infrastructure in favor of another. In addition, they will readily acknowledge the actual costs involved in doing so, recognize that nuclear is the only power-generation option that can replace fossil fuels, and are completely cognizant that human beings will not voluntarily accept a lower standard of living.
In camp 2, we find the economic regressionists. This group believes an Amish type of lifestyle is optimal. Why they believe this can vary- some are purely anti-capitalistic, while others believe it is the only way to save the planet. I fear this group since they seem the most despotic.
In camp 3, we find the ignorant, magical-thinking crowd. This is the group that promises wind and solar will replace all fossil fuel use, and that the change-over will create wealth- the, there-are-no-costs-involved crowd. In this group, I often find people who have literally no clue about energy consumption levels, or the capacities of the various alternatives. I have often suspected that a good number of this camp are camp 2 wolves in camp 3 sheep's clothing.
"Everybody knows" that nuclear power is subsidized ... just like everybody knows that emergency rooms at hospitals are full of violence against women victoms on super bowl sunday. Could someone show me the evidence? Exactly how are they subsidized?
I get it that there's the Price Anderson governmental catostrophic insurance over I believe $540 million, but nuclear power companies collectively stand ready to pay premiums if an accident above the limit occurs [which has never happened; Three Mile Island was within the reach of commercial insurance]. Economists have looked into the situation and described the implicit Price Anderson subsidy as minimal: http://siepr.stanford.edu/papers/briefs/policybrief_jan02.pdf . See the wikipedia page on the Price Anderson Act.
I get it that there were substantial government inputs into the research. While that's true, that's a sunk cost, and in any event a lot of it was to develop technology for nuclear submarines and aircraft carriers; a politically incorrect expenditure in some circles, but a large percentage of this research should be charged to the defense budget.
I get it that the government is spending money to work the nuclear waste problem. Aside from this problem being largely artificial [the French seem to deal with their nuclear waste at small expense] the nuclear power industry pays significantly into the fund that does that, 0.1 cents per Kwh, if I remember correctly.
"Groups like Environmental Defense and the Sierra Club are starting to understand that the tools of Economics are uniquely suited to addressing their member's concerns and now have professional economists on staff." OK ... but in a recent issue* of Sierra Magazine the Sierra Club showed itself to still steadfastly oppose nuclear power.
-dk
* Sierra Magazine of February 2007, if I remember correctly, but I'm not sure. It was around then.
Jane, thanks for the reply. As you presumably now know, the (much less disputed) estimates for refugees leaving Iraq are about 2 million or about 7% of the population. Yes, that will have some impact on the study, but that doesn't imply that the results are "way off". Can you make an even vaguely plausible case in which that introduced an upward bias to the excess fatality estimate of even as much as 7%? If anything, it is likely to have caused a downward bias in estimates as families who lost a family member to violence would be more likely to leave.
Yes, there are loads of refugees. That was the point of what I said.
Really? At the time you wrote that Need I point out that if Davies is right, and Burnham et. al. are right, then we should be seeing massive floods of refugees? In the comments you added If there have been so many killed, there should be even more refugees than a few hundred thousand. That sure sounds to me like you thought that only a few hundred thousand refugees (or fewer) had left Iraq.
The gallium arsenide comment, as noted previously, is not a good one. If these cells are to be used on earth, it will be in high concentration systems, in which mirrors or lenses focus direct sunlight by a factor of 500 or so onto a costly, high efficiency cell. The environmental impact will be dominated by the sheer mass of the non-semiconductor part of the system; this will also be the case with lower efficiency flat panel systems.
Having said that, I too am perplexed by people who simultaneously describe global warming as a huge global crisis, yet implicitly say it isn't enough of a crisis to allow nuclear energy to be an option for addressing it. Doublethink is alive and well.
I find this thread freakishly weird, because Waring's point of view seems like the most libertarian one--use revenue-neutral carbon taxes to make everyone internalize their carbon externalities, and eliminating subsidies on a possibly inefficient source of energy.
I get it that the government is spending money to work the nuclear waste problem.
This is less of a subsidy than it is a boondoggle. It would be cheaper and easier to just seal the spent fuel in armored casks and let it sit on the surface. The miracle of nonzero interest rates means the net present cost of doing this, guarding it into the indefinite future, is less than the cost of unnecessarily burying the stuff in Nevada or performing complex chemical reprocessing.
If, at some point in the future, our descendants would want to bury or reprocess the stuff, there's nothing stopping them from doing so, and in the meantime we will have avoided spending part of their inheritance.
What Consumatopia said. The best approach is to make the externalities part of the price through carbon taxes and let the market sort it out.
Does anyone know what levels of carbon taxes have been proposed to equal "the externalities"?
Shelby,
Does it matter? Has our government ever created a tax program that it did not increase in size and scope overtime? Whatever rate "they" decide on will almost certainly be increased over time. Out of necessity of course...
I'll sign on to taxing emitted CO2 at a very high level if it done via a Constitutional Amendment which prohibits all other forms of Federal taxes. If those most alarmed by the prospect of man-made global warming really believe their rhetoric, they should be wiling to accept this, given what they contend the stakes are. It'd be interesting to see if they actually mean it.
Wind can achieve higher availability even without storage. However, the non-storage approach requires the installation of multiple wind turbines, in multiple carefully selected and matched locations. For example, the claimed availability of modern 3 mW wind turbines is 35% (except last summer in southern California, when it got very hot and very still and availability dropped to ~4%). The availability of current nuclear plants is ~90%. Achieving 90% availability with 35% available wind turbines requires the installation of 6 turbines at selected locations. Therefore, it would take ~2000 3 mW wind turbines to reliably equal the output of a 1 gW nuclear generator. Reliable wind power is possible, but it ain't cheap!
Njori,
I'm not advocating anything, I'm just pointing out some difficulties of our situation. Even if the whole world were to stop using all oil tomorrow and went 50% nuclear, there would still be hundreds of billions of dollars of old oil profits available to finance an American Chernobyl. It would take a while for those funds to dry up.
Njori,
I'm not advocating anything, I'm just pointing out some difficulties of our situation. Even if the whole world were to stop using all oil tomorrow and went 50% nuclear, there would still be hundreds of billions of dollars of old oil profits available to finance an American Chernobyl. It would take a while for those funds to dry up.
Jane,
I sent this email to John Locke over at National Review in response to his "Fusion on Fission" remarks in the Corner.
(John) "Nuclear power seems part of what I see as an emerging Left-Right-Center "deal" on climate change."
(Me) This statement makes the assumption that the left isn’t being disingenuous about Global Warming and CO2 emissions. I conclude that that they are disingenuous.
I don’t know about you, but all the people on the “left” that I have talked to who are seriously worried about Global Warming and fossil fuel consumption, they never concede the construction of nuclear power plants to compensate for our power needs. NEVER. And why? Because at the inner-most core of left politics, there is a natural distaste (and disgust) with all things nuclear. This goes all the way back to the 70s when Carly Simon and James Taylor did their “No Nukes” tour. The actual platform for what you and I would call the “left” was being built from the ground up, and part of that platform was a natural (and irrational) fear and hatred of splitting atoms. To ask the “left” to get on board in the support of nuclear power plant construction (by lowering the restrictions and cost disincentives imposed by the NRC which makes nuclear power much less competitive with fossil fuel power) in an attempt to cease further CO2 creation, is the equivalent of an Evangelical asking Mitt Romney to disavow Joseph Smith as a prophet of God in order to secure the Bible Belt South.
I conclude that to those on the “left”, the Global Warming hysteria is not at all about stopping CO2 creation. If that were the case, the left would be all over China for burning everything in sight to power their economy. They aren’t at all pointing fingers at China. No, the “left” is using Global Warming as a logical position with which they can make an argument to slow down/financially penalize the US economy because (in their minds) the average US citizen consumes more of the Earth’s resources than they are entitled.
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It is not that they don't understand basic economics. I think those on the "left" that are pushing hard for energy reform due to Global Warming understand it perfectly. I contend, that they are doing this just to hurt the economy of a country that they line in but also "spite" in order to gain satisfaction on the cheap.
cdub:
Yes, it matters. Cynical takes on the tax system aside, it's important for figuring out how the changed costs for carbon-emitting power sources (eg coal) stack up against predicted costs for solar, wind, nuclear, etc. Higher taxes will make non-carbon power sources more competitive. HOW competitive is important in figuring out how energy policy will, and should, change.
Jane, I think you are unreasonably hard on Belle. In fact, I think his argument is more coherent--and libertarian--than your own. Getting rid of subsidies, taxing the negative externality of carbon emissions, and letting the market sort out the best solution is certainly the best approach. Your idea that environmentalists need to pick the right winners ahead of time just doesn't make sense. Picking and choosing is exactly the wrong approach, and yet by endorsing nuclear power with so few reservations, you appear to be doing just that. Belle's argument makes more sense, recognizing that he did fail to mention the externalities associated with wind and solar.
Not saying nuclear is a bad idea...just saying that we can't know until the energy market is free to decide within the constraints of an international nuclear non-proliferation strategy.
And also, your generalizations about the left are just plain wrong. Many environmentalists fail to understand basic economics, but outside of the most hippified universities in the country, I doubt this ignorance is more prevalent among environmentalists than among, say, political science majors. Your description of an entire belief system predominant among environmentalists comes from the gut, and is therefore bound to be wrong. Any failure to understand economics could be just that, and need not imply deeper flaws in outlook.
I know many students these days specifically take courses on environmental economics, that focus on teaching the reasons why carbon taxes or cap and trade systems make more sense than pure regulatory limits, or how to think about externalities, public goods, etc. Take ethanol for example...I think most environmentalists would tell you that burning corn fuel in place of gasoline makes little sense because it is not all that energy efficient when you consider all the energy input into growing the corn. But most politicians (on the right just as much as the left) would tell you that the corn growers need their subsidies. That's the real problem right there.
Jane, I think you are unreasonably hard on Belle. In fact, I think his argument is more coherent--and libertarian--than your own.
I think Belle Waring would be a bit amused to learn that you have assigned Belle a masculine pronoun. A certain Mr. John Waring might also be interested in learning about this.
I hope you don't mind an off-topic comment, but I think this is important: There is a great post on The Carpetbagger Report from a few days ago about the mainstream media's (specifically Time magazine's) ignoring the prosecutor purge scandal.
What explains the failure of the mainstream media to cover the purge scandal for so long, and so many other scandals? Do you think somebody just set up newspaper editors to cheat on their wives, and threatened to tell if the editors wouldn’t play ball when they come back some day and ask for something?
It wouldn’t be that hard to do, when you think about it. People wouldn’t talk about it.
Why is everyone cavalierly assuming that the optimal carbon tax is greater than zero?
"I conclude that to those on the “left”, the Global Warming hysteria is not at all about stopping CO2 creation. If that were the case, the left would be all over China for burning everything in sight to power their economy."
My God, He's right! I, for one, will immediately write to my Chinese congressman and demand that we stop burning everything in sight.
Sheesh. It's a shame these people can't write in crayon on fragments of brown-paper-bags when they post. It would be more appropriate.
"the biting rejoinders to straw men existing only in the arguers head" are what this blog is all about. Witness the scathing rejoinders to "environmentalists" and "leftists" (neo-Amish, magical thinkers, dirty hippies, whatever) by the courageous and iconoclastic free thinkers that grace these pages with their intelligence.
I think many in this blog do not understand the importance of the "fringe" (which should be remarkable given the number of Libertarians here). While the fringe causes great hair pulling among many (do they not understand how the economy/people/etc. works?), they are also the force that often ends up compelling change. Never enough to make them happy, but change in their direction. Change that wouldn't have occurred at all if all the proponents were calm and rational. Not surprising, given that the fringe elements are usually the most energetic component of any movement.
Basically, unless you're holding placards and threatenting a storm, you'll be ignored. However, if you can't be ignored, *then* those in change will look at the whole breadth of the platform and (hopefully) choose rational parts of it.
It's been true for the left, right, libertarian, and animal-treatment front, and it's true for the fact we've made *any* movement on the environmentalism front.
No, I quite respect the fringes, even as they frustrate me. Doomed to disappointment, it's their efforts that will eventually allow others to enjoy the fruits of a more rational policy from their end of the spectrum.
"and many solar panels are loaded with gallium arsenide, a highly toxic substance that is apparently rather tricky to dispose of."
As Norl says above, GaAs is rarely used in solar panels.
It's also not tricky to dispose of at all. As Ga is currently around the $400 per kg level there's a good profit to be made by recycling the material.
Not tough to dispose of it at all (might also be worth noting that some 70% of the Ga market is in fact supplied from recycled material).
The degeneration of environmentalism has been a tragedy. What is, at bottom, a rational movement that recognizes that markets cannot solve the problem where there are negative externalities has been perverted by socialists who have lost the battle of ideas and now wish to claok themselves in green. They pursue the same tired old statist policies they always did, but now they have a new rationale--a new excuse.
A carbon emissions tax combined with a cut in the corporate income tax would make a lot of sense. Unfortunately, most greens would oppose this, because their chief aim is not to correct a market failure but to scrap the market system altogether.
Even though the nuclear industry has contributed $28 Billion (mid-2006 figure) to deal with the nuclear waste that has been generated, the waste is still sitting at the plants, waiting for a solution. For its money, the industry has received a mountain of paper, a hurricane of hot air, and a hole in the ground that will never be used to "dispose of the waste". Instead, the hole will be used for "retrievable storage". DOE plans envision that it will not be closed for at least 200 years after the first waste is emplaced, and the fuel will be fully retrievable during that time frame.
It is clear that the fuel is never intended to be disposed of - rather, it is in temporary storage until there is a need for the considerable amount of energy that remains in the "spent" fuel. Instead, the fuel will be reprocessed, and the remaining fissionable material will be recycled back into the reactors. DOE is starting to gear up a number of programs to support this plan, and at some point they will likely just abandon the Yucca mountain project for a simpler storage facility - a concrete pad somewhere in the middle of nowhere.
Just wait till the lights start to go out during rolling blackouts, and women have to have their husbands home all day because their offices/factories are partially shut. We will then start to hear all sort of calls for more generating capacity.
The people who support wind/solar should be required to turn off their power when the wind is not blowing, or at nite, or during cloudy days. This is the only thing that will teach them what life is like in an "environmentally-friendly" manner.
The AGW "acclaimers" have only recently begun to "open the kimono" on the real endpoint of the "Kyoto Process". Former US vice president Albert A. Gore, Jr., in his recent "testimony" to Congress, stated that the US must reduce anthropogenic carbon emissions by 90% by 2050 to avoid climate catastrophe. This is the US piece of a global 70% reduction in anthropogenic carbon emissions. (We must do more because we emit more.)
It is important to note that no technology for permanent fixation/sequestration of CO2 has been successfully demonstrated at anything approaching commercial scale, so both efficacy and cost are yet to be determined. It is highly unlikely that CO2 fixation/sequestration technology will ever be practical at residential/commercial/small-medium industrial scale; and, even more unlikely that it will ever be applicable to mobile sources.
It is also important to note that no technology for diurnal storage of large quantities of electricity has been successfully demonstrated at anything approaching commercial scale, so both efficacy and cost are yet to be determined. This technology is crucial to the broader use of both solar- and wind-generated electricity.
So here's the picture: no more coal, oil, or natural gas for very large stationary sources without permanent fixation/sequestration; no more coal, fuel oil, natural gas, propane or kerosene for small to large stationery sources; no more gasoline or diesel, natural gas or propane for mobile sources; solar power when the sun shines; wind power when the wind blows; and, nuclear to fill in the blanks, at least for the near future.
Eventually, dry hot rock geothermal, OTEC, wave energy, or some other as yet undiscovered technology may become technologically and economically practical. The rising costs of energy for all applications resulting from our 90% reduction in carbon emissions may well hasten the economic practicality of alternative technologies. Otherwise, those of us who remain may truly become "noble savages", for lack of alternative choices.
"I conclude that to those on the “left”, the Global Warming hysteria is not at all about stopping CO2 creation. If that were the case, the left would be all over China for burning everything in sight to power their economy."
My God, He's right! I, for one, will immediately write to my Chinese congressman and demand that we stop burning everything in sight.
It's a fair point that people residing in the United States don't have a lot of leverage re chinese CO2 emissions.
However, such people should be willing to see a CO2 emission reduction treaty that does not call for control of Chinese emissions as deeply flawed and not worthy of ratification. Do we know any treaties like that?
-dk
Waring's point of view seems like the most libertarian one--use revenue-neutral carbon taxes to make everyone internalize their carbon externalities...
How is this libertarian?
"It's a fair point that people residing in the United States don't have a lot of leverage re chinese CO2 emissions."
Fine. But that doesn't mean that the most vocal Global Warming alarmists dont have the right to identify China as a big part of the problem. I don't see that happening. The only nation that draws their ire, is their own, the United States of America.
No one other than China can control China's willingness to burn. But we can call a spade a spade.
Here's a question for the Kyoto treaty fans: suppose that the United Kingdom were to shut down all of its natural-gas and coal fired electrical generation plants. All of them, every single one. Would this have any measurable effect on the world CO2 "budget"?
The answer is no, for the simple reason that China will put online in the next 18 months coal and gas fired powerplants equal to or greater than the total generating baseload of the UK. Then they'll do the same thing again in the next 18 months, and again. India is doing the same thing to a lesser extent.
The Njori's of the world have not realized that in a rather short time, China will become the number one C02 "polluter" on the planet; instead of evilwhitemales dominating the issue, it will be people of color served by a Glorious Socialist State. By 2020 or so, given current trends, even shutting down all fossil fuel combustion in North America and Europe combined will be of essentially no significance, due to the whopping big use of such fuels by "Chindia". What's more, that estimate may be conservative...
The cognitive dissonance this will cause should result in some interesting doublespeak.
If China proceeds with its coal-fired generation plans, using its current technology, CO2 won't be the only "pollutant" to be concerned about. Remember SOx, NOx, particulates and mercury?
Every few years, I look at the feasibility of taking my house off the grid, via photovoltaics and a battery bank. The inflation adjusted answer slowly, slowly, becomes less impossible. Absurd, but less impossible, due to steady improvement in cell efficiency thanks to the process engineers mainly.
However, it's feasible only because of my latitude and location. For a lot of North America, either the array of cells has to be bigger than any suburban lot, or energy consumption has to go way, way, way back. Spend some time on the various solar websites to see just how far back. There's been some pretty good engineering done on the propane fridge/freezers, but they are still burning a fossil fuel. Running a compressor off of a battery bank/inverter requires a lot of excess capacity to start the compressor motor, which means a bigger battery bank, and since you size the solar array to the battery bank, having a fridge/freezer can be rather expensive. Add even the smallest air conditioner, or a modest sized evaporative cooler (which only works in dry locales) and your array gets quite large, quite fast. The instant-on TV/DVD/VCR, computer, ceiling fans, ventilation fan, etc. just add to the fun. Then there's the oven and stovetop; nobody off the grid uses electrical appliances to create heat, as far as I can tell, they are all gas/propane. Oopsy, fossil fuels again, better buy a carbon indulgence from the CO2 Pope, eh?
See, it takes more than just replacing all the light bulbs to ready a house for off-the-grid, a lot more. To test this yourself, you don't even have to analyze your electric bill, just add up all the circuit breakers & contemplate the total number of amperes your house needs worst case. Multiply that by 120, as Power = I (Amps) X Volts. Be sure you are sitting down for this exercise. Yeah, it's worst case, and you can easily bring in the house below this number by cutting back on a lot of stuff (how many TV's do you need?) but it ain't as easy as a lot of greenies claim.
Baseload nuclear electric generation is going to expand in the US; there are plants in the planning stage right now. I doubt that the US electric industry will totally follow the French model (take a Westinghouse design, tweak it a bit & us it as the one and only standard baseload unit), but we won't see the "one off, each one a unique unit" approach ever again either. Perhaps the DOE's current research into a standardized, modular, stand-alone pebble bed unit that is entirely removed from the site at the end of service life will bear fruit. But as others have pointed out, the only credible alternative to coalfired baseload electricity is nuclear.
One of the dirty little secrets of wind power in several locations is this: a fossil-fueled plant is backing up the windmills. When the wind drops off, in order to maintain baseload, the fossil plant kicks in...and since you don't just turn the key on a coalfired plant, either there's already a fire burning, or the backup is a big diesel generator burning kerosene. So the savings are often pure illusion.
Longer term, I suspect that nuclear baseload will be a reality in stable states, while large photovoltaic arrays augmented by some other systems including coal, will be the only acceptable generating systems for a lot of other places. Even self-contained pebblebed reactors will be vulnerable to some group cutting them open, so in time nobody's going to sell nuclear plants to some countries. Even the Chinese and Russians will figure this out, eventually...
If China aborts girl babies should we?
I think the whole think is a joke. But that doesn't stop the envrios from telling us we should take one for the team...or at least take one for the rest of the world.
I for one like to think that any problems resulting from our overuse of a resource can be overcome by us. Sorry for not buying into the philosphy that we have to be responsible for the world and making sure the climate in India or Ethiopia is ideal for production or growth.
"How much do you fly?"
Now, I don't have the time, but I used to do a trip to Europe every year for about 3 years.
I do a long weekend in NYC 2+ times a years
For work I did a round trip to the mideast last year.
I took a quick look at flying vs driving to NYC:
Ed Reid: It is important to note that no technology for permanent fixation/sequestration of CO2 has been successfully demonstrated at anything approaching commercial scale, so both efficacy and cost are yet to be determined. It is highly unlikely that CO2 fixation/sequestration technology will ever be practical at residential/commercial/small-medium industrial scale--
Saskatchewan is currently planning a full-scale "clean coal" plant using carbon sequestration. Alberta's planning a $5B CO2 pipeline. So there should be some real-world experience Real Soon Now.
Jaccard notes that sweeping innovations aren't required here. "...conventional technologies and industry practices are associated with each step in the production chain: the manufacture of hydrogen; the separation of pure CO2; the pipeline transport and geological sequestration of CO2, and the pipeline transport of hydrogen."
Ed Reid: and, even more unlikely that it will ever be applicable to mobile sources.
Sure. But with advances in battery technology, plug-in hybrid vehicles appear to be feasible now. If you have zero-emission electricity generation from large-scale fixed sources, you don't need to capture carbon from small-scale mobile sources--you just run most vehicles on electricity instead of fossil fuels. (Or you could use hydrogen as a clean form of secondary energy, although it seems like it'd be a lot easier to use the existing electricity infrastructure than to build up a new hydrogen infrastructure.)
This isn't to say that carbon sequestration is The Answer to carbon-free energy--nuclear power, renewables, and conservation all have their own strengths and weaknesses. But carbon sequestration looks very promising, and combining carbon sequestration with our existing fossil fuel supply looks like the easiest way to get to a clean energy system.
"The Njori's of the world have not realized that in a rather short time, China will become the number one C02 "polluter" on the planet;"
The "Njori's" might not, but this "Njorl" has.
Ellipsis is a perfect example of the anti-environmentalist's habit of projecting ignorance onto environmentalists. Those anti-American, socialist, Luddite hippies you love to argue against are virtually non-existant. I am very much a pro-American capitalist.
I am also very aware that China is likely to become the biggest polluter in the world fairly soon. The negotiations on what nations will be allowed to freely emit will be very complicated. The G7 will not want historical emissions to matter. Small nations will not want exact per capita proportionality. Nations with large forests will want credit for not deforesting. I fully expect every nation to aggressively fight for its own best interest regardless of what might be considered fair or just. That's the way the world works. But
The undertaking will be more complicated than the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, and will certainly have more cheating. That doesn't mean it isn't worth doing.
This, however:
' By 2020 or so, given current trends, even shutting down all fossil fuel combustion in North America and Europe combined will be of essentially no significance, due to the whopping big use of such fuels by "Chindia". What's more, that estimate may be conservative...'
is absurd. By 2020 India will still have less than half the emissions of the EU, and China will have about 50% more CO2 emission than the US. That is assuming a constant rate of growth in China's emissions, which are actually growing at a declining rate. Even those prognostications are based on continuing record growth in China, which is probably impossible.
False dilemma, Aaron - you could take the train. Or a bus.
There's a very neat bit of technology called a geothermal loop that seems to be popular in newer homes in Texas. The idea is that while we on the surface are baking during the summer at over 100 or so degrees, several hundred feet under the surface, the temperature is pleasantly cool. So if you run fluid deep underground and then bring it back up, you can cool your house down nicely, without having to sell your soul to the oil or the electric company. And you can use the same principle to warm your home in the winter when the below-ground temperatures are warmer than the above-ground temperatures. I haven't really studied the details, but it sounds really neat.
Remember SOx, NOx, particulates and mercury?
SOx and NOx
Quicksilver, Smog, sir!
Even if we were to stop fossil fuel use tomorrow, the risk of catastrophic climate change would not diminish by any significant or even measurable amount. Makes it kind of hard to justify policies than increase costs (that'd include nuclear from what I hear). From a risk managment perspective, the proper policy is investing in growth, research, and technological development. Transitioning from an income tax policy to a consumption based tax policy is justified, so long as it doesn't involve an increase in taxes.
As for the subsidized vs unsubsidised, that's an almost unworkable problem. You need to compare the nuclear subsidies to subsidies of both fossil and other alternatives. Then there is the issue of disguised subsidies, mainly protectionist regulation. It'd be very difficult to identify which regs are just protectionist and which are good. Plus regs sometimes have benefits, eventhough they usually aren't anything like they were sold as.
A small and highly progressive income tax paired with a high carbon tax seems like potentially a very workable idea. A potential problem, wouldn't a consumption tax shift most of the tax burden onto businesses and industry (which has small margins) which make up the vast majority of our fuel consumption and emissions?
Who refuses(or refused) to recycle because it isn't (wasn't) economical w/o subsidies?
Sure. But with advances in battery technology, plug-in hybrid vehicles appear to be feasible now.
They've been "feasible" for 20 years if you've got all day to let the thing charge and a very narrow commuter usage profile. However they're not practical for most people's usage patterns, even now.
A plug-in hybrid that relies a bit more on its battery pack might bear more promise in the near term, but delete the ICE from the equation and Pandora becomes your consulting engineer.
I wrote:
"The Njori's of the world have not realized that in a rather short time, China will become the number one C02 "polluter" on the planet;"
The "Njori's" might not, but this "Njorl" has.
Really? This is the first time I've seen any evidence of that.
Ellipsis is a perfect example of the anti-environmentalist's habit of projecting ignorance onto environmentalists.
Maybe so, but in this case I'm merely observing based on what I see. Absent an efficient mind-reading cap, all I know about Njori is what I read on this site. What I see is, well, ignorance and a tendency to substitute snark for thought.
Those anti-American, socialist, Luddite hippies you love to argue against are virtually non-existant.
Really? So people that I've personally met, people I've read the writings of for decades, people I've known in some cases for 30 years, are virtually nonexistent? How remarkable that is, and can you please be more speficic? Tell me exactly which ones exist, and which ones are only virtual?
I am very much a pro-American capitalist.
Really? When did this happen?
I am also very aware that China is likely to become the biggest polluter in the world fairly soon. The negotiations on what nations will be allowed to freely emit will be very complicated.
The negotiations so far have been quite simple: China and India are exempt from Kyoto, exempt from every other environmental law that you hold dear.
The G7 will not want historical emissions to matter. Small nations will not want exact per capita proportionality. Nations with large forests will want credit for not deforesting. I fully expect every nation to aggressively fight for its own best interest regardless of what might be considered fair or just. That's the way the world works.
That's not how Kyoto worked, is it?
The undertaking will be more complicated than the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, and will certainly have more cheating. That doesn't mean it isn't worth doing.
But this isn't what you've been saying. From what I read on this weblog, your thought on this topic has been little more than "US BAD! US BAD, BAD! EUROPE GOOD! CHINA IRRELEVENT!". Perhaps I've missed some postings...
This, however:
' By 2020 or so, given current trends, even shutting down all fossil fuel combustion in North America and Europe combined will be of essentially no significance, due to the whopping big use of such fuels by "Chindia". What's more, that estimate may be conservative...'
is absurd. By 2020 India will still have less than half the emissions of the EU, and China will have about 50% more CO2 emission than the US.
Er, looking at your numbers, they seem to support me and not you. That is, if China is 1.5 times the CO2 emitter than the US is, and India is about .5 the emitter that the EU is, and we add those numbers up...what is the result?
That is assuming a constant rate of growth in China's emissions, which are actually growing at a declining rate.
How do you know that China's rate of growth of CO2 emissions is declining, please?
Even those prognostications are based on continuing record growth in China, which is probably impossible.
The Chinese government doesn't seem to regard continuing its current growth rate as impossible. In fact, it seems to regard that as a good thing, and a necessary thing.
Thanks for admitting that China will surpass the US in pollution, finally. I don't recall you have ever done that before.
Bus is about the same as a car (just under 3500 btu per passanger mile).
Train is possible, but I don't think logistically practical. Probably end up traveling more miles too.
The cost and time don't work out for either. Especially for the train. In addition to the cost of time, I'd have to take two more days off of work.
The "inconvenience to me" portion of your argument feeds my initial point - that environmentalists are unwilling to make concessions in their own lifestyles in the service of their cause.
Where do your figures come from, incidentally?
Aaron, thanks for the funniest posting so far in this thread.
Flight costs, NWA.com. Cab/Bus are an estimate, taking the bus into the city is $12, usually take a cab out for convenience at about $27 to get to LGA. Parking, I figure I'd need 2-3 days at $17-$24.
For cost of time: Median personal income was just from the bar graph at the top of a wikipedia page, (I think it was $32,140 or $33,140). Divided that by a full-time work schedule of 2080 hours a year for an hourly rate.
Gas, I just assumed $2.85 a gallon. My car gets about 27mpg.
501 mi flying from NWA.com. 614 mi driving from google maps.
Consumption data is from bts.gov (2004 data). Found it again.
Parking at DTW is $8 a day. Round trip drive is about 80 miles for me. (didn't add this into the energy consumption of flying though, oops).
"Er, looking at your numbers, they seem to support me and not you. That is, if China is 1.5 times the CO2 emitter than the US is, and India is about .5 the emitter that the EU is, and we add those numbers up...what is the result?"
That in the future, China and India will combine for marginally more emissions than the US and EU. Your absurd contention was that "even shutting down all fossil fuel combustion in North America and Europe combined will be of essentially no significance". You clearly are completely uninformed on the topic.
"How do you know that China's rate of growth of CO2 emissions is declining, please?"
China emission data:
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/ftp/trends/emissions/prc.dat
From:
63-73 ~120% increase
73-83 ~ 75% increase
83-93 ~ 65% increase
93-2003 ~50% increase
China's increase in energy production is significantly outpacing its emissions because they are getting a smaller fration of their power from extremely inefficient plants built in Mao's day.
"The Chinese government doesn't seem to regard continuing its current growth rate as impossible."
I wouldn't believe everything the Chinese government tells me.
It is fine to analyse claims of global warming for hype. Do the same for those denying it, and for those arguing against doing anything about it.
OK - fair enough. I followed your link to Blair's page - I was just interested in the power outputs, and the way you computed them. That, and the comments below, are sidebar stuff.
As far as the energy efficiency of transportation types, these are national averages, and it should probably be borne in mind that an average for total national miles of any form of transportation is a big generalization - Amtrak, for instance, uses different types of power generation in different areas; auto miles over mountain require significantly greater power output than miles over prairie, elevation matters for efficiency, etc. There's also not a simple, direct relationship between power consumed and pollution generated, either - and the unstated premise of my original argument was the belief that we were appraising travel in terms of pollutants, rather than personal cost or energy consumption. Either as a polluter or for energy consumption, I think the Amtrak/bus trip is the best - but of course, it's both less convenient and more expensive.
Il faut soufrir pour etre vert, I suppose.
Jane, if you ever get this far down in the comments. it's not just environmental people who are lacking in basic knowledge of natural science and economics. There are plenty of people who just "know" that the government/oil companies/carmakers/Illuminati/etc. have the secret of the "200 MPG carburetor" but have deep-sixed it for nefarious reasons. Do a search on the "oglemobile" to see what I mean. Ogle was an inventor who did indeed modify a standard Detroit car to get about 100 MPG. He did this by running his engine off of gasoline vapor; the vapor was generated in a pressure vessel by heating gasoline to the boiling point.
Of course, this made his car into something a whole lot like a rolling bomb...hence the reluctance of Detroit, or any other automaker, to adopt his "secret" carburetor. Back when I took undergrad physics, the professor in charge of that class took great pains to teach us exactly what the maximum efficiency of a Carnot engine is, and why it cannot be exceeded. Going by what I've read and heard since then, a lot of people didn't take that class, or anything like it, because there's still quite a bit of "200 MPG carb" conspiracy thinking all over the place.
My point is that no group has a special lock on ignorance. We notice it in groups we disagree with moreso than in those that are our allies, because of human nature. As someone who tends toward an Austrian view of economics, for example, I found the "free money!" dropped by the GW Bush Treasury into my mailbox (but not from a helicopter...not yet...) to be a thunderingly stupid idea, but plenty of conservatives took me to task for my disloyalty, and insisted that "jump starting" the
economy was a necessity. "Free money" was just something to "get America moving", although nobody used the term "priming the pump" to me, drat the luck.
There's also the "all my friends" effect; the NYC Upper West Side person who allegedly didn't understand how Nixon got elected n 1972, because "no one I know voted for him". Belle Waring, going by her photo, is not likely to personally remember the late 1970's and what became common knowledge about nuclear power (see "China Syndrome") after the Three Mile Island incident. But even she ought to be able to realize that supporters for nuclear power are few and far between on the left, or in the environmental movement (which has a high overlap), so it's kind of a silly for her to make the opening statement. In fact, I dare her to wear that classic T-shirt she has to a Sierra Club meeting...
But I'm rather amused that anyone on the left, or progressive, or feminist side of things can't seem to notice that there's still a pretty big constituency in the US that supports Fidel Castro. Oddly enough, the Viva Fidel types tend to be "progressive", "left" and even "feminist", so I think that she's being just a leetle bit disingenuous here...
anony-mouse: A plug-in hybrid that relies a bit more on its battery pack might bear more promise in the near term, but delete the ICE from the equation and Pandora becomes your consulting engineer.
So why not leave the internal combustion engine in? If you're not using it most of the time, it's not emitting any CO2.
According to this 2005 article, a modified Prius can get a range of 50-60 miles. You don't need to charge during the day, just overnight.
As more and more hybrid vehicles are sold, I'd expect continuing improvements in battery technology.
Thanks, ellipsis. Nice to be appreciated.
You'll like conservation this post I did a while back, which I linked to in the CrookedTimber thread.
Njori wrote:
"Er, looking at your numbers, they seem to support me and not you. That is, if China is 1.5 times the CO2 emitter than the US is, and India is about .5 the emitter that the EU is, and we add those numbers up...what is the result?"
That in the future, China and India will combine for marginally more emissions than the US and EU.
Good, good, you got that the second time through at least.
Your absurd contention was that "even shutting down all fossil fuel combustion in North America and Europe combined will be of essentially no significance".
That was and is my contention, and it is not absurd. If the current level of CO2 emissions is dooming Gaia to a horrible death, and if by 2020 Chindia is emitting as much or more as all of the EU and the US, then clearly shutting down the latter sources of CO2 won't stave off the Horrible Hocky Stick of Heating. Therefore, following the current claims on AGW to the logical conclusion, my statement is accurate.
You clearly are completely uninformed on the topic.
Thanks for sharing that. I'm sure it was important for you to do so.
"How do you know that China's rate of growth of CO2 emissions is declining, please?"
China emission data:
http://cdiac.ornl.gov/ftp/trends/emissions/prc.dat
From:
63-73 ~120% increase
73-83 ~ 75% increase
83-93 ~ 65% increase
93-2003 ~50% increase
China's increase in energy production is significantly outpacing its emissions because they are getting a smaller fration of their power from extremely inefficient plants built in Mao's day.
First of all, thanks for posting a cite. It is very helpful to see that.
But in other words, China is getting a one-time bonus just like the EU got from shutting down the extremely inefficient plants built by the Soviets and their Warsaw Pact allies. Since the supply of Mao-era plants is finite, it is obvious that this trend will end and in fact will level off, and may even reverse. For evidence of this, consider how the EU in general and the Federal Republic of Germany in particular are doing at meeting Kyoto. As I'm sure you are aware, fully implementing Kyoto won't do much more than reduce the slope of the Horrible Hockey Stick of Heating by a fraction of a degree...
"The Chinese government doesn't seem to regard continuing its current growth rate as impossible."
I wouldn't believe everything the Chinese government tells me.
Er, the numbers above have to have come at least in part from that government. So it would seem that you are willing to believe things the Chinese goverment says when they are convenient to your arguments...
It is fine to analyse claims of global warming for hype.
Do the same for those denying it, and for those arguing against doing anything about it.
How about if I just stick to science and verifiable facts? Is that ok with you?
How much energy/emissions would be saved if everyone drove their car to 200,000 miles rather than trading them out every few years? Surely an enomorous amount of pollution/emissions were created just to get that car to the car lot for you to buy it.
And here we are talking about how to save a little here and a little there by using batteries sometimes, and hybrid tech another time while we're driving.
The fact is, we consume a lot, that's the problem. If you consume a lot, it certainly hurts worse that what you're consuming is "ineffcient" but if you don't consume as often you nip the problem in the bud.
I rarely drive to go out to eat or go to the movies. Work from home. My wife and I probably put about 30-50 miles a week on the car on average. We grow our own garden, go out to eat maybe 3 times a month and prepare the rest of our meals mostly from scratch.
Instead of changing their own lifestyles, some would rather take my money and continue doing what their doing anyway simply because they can afford the costs.
Here's a test. Tell everyone in Hollywood and all the "C02 will be the death of us all" crowds and take 99% of their wealth. Force a completely drastic lifestyle change on them and ask them if this is acceptible. Then those advocates for taxing the rest of us will be forced to live exactly like the rest of us. Once they do that, then I can be content in knowning their are at least intellectually honest in their positions. Until that happens I consider them chicken-enviros.
I still don't get how large carbon taxes do anything to help the environment, beyond creating incomes for a bureaucracy that didn't exist before, which result is a bad social environment.
Oh sure, the idea is that we'll lower our consumption to lower our costs, but can't we do that without creating an interest group that would continue demanding the revenue even should the environmental aims be achieved.
Your eally need to re-think this political tactic. It's only sure result is crime that pays.
A badly worn engine is less efficient and dirtier than a new one - so I'm not sure running your car until it dies is the strategy you want to advocate for pollution reduction.
Just a quick question because I'm too laz..er...busy to search it up myself.
How much nickel goes into the battery pack of a typical hybrid? I'm curious because nickel smelting is a pretty dirty business in Sudbury, Ontario, although it's much less so than 30 years ago, and who knows what it looks like in China. That nickel generally is mined, transported, smelted, made into batteries somewhere, then fitted to the vehicle. Perhaps once enough hybrids are on the road, recovering nickel from their battery packs at the end of useful life will be feasible, but for now it all comes out of the ground.
It would be ironic if the total lifetime "environmental footprint" of a Pious is higher than that of a HummVee...
Actually, you don't get more wear with that kind of use. It's negligible. Engineers are very cautious when provided you with a red-line that tells you when your get into that area where you risk additional wear.
Ellipsis,
Thank you for the best laugh of the day, and the best pun I have read in a while.
The two real drawbacks are:
It would require an unknown (and probably very high) level of buy-in. Practicing faster acceleration alone, you'd see a very slight increase in fuel consumption (not very significant). Since your fellow travelers will keep still cause backup at lights and intersection, you aren't likely to reduce your drive time.
Safety. People are too dumb for that level of focus.
"How about if I just stick to science and verifiable facts? Is that ok with you?"
Great! When are you going to start?
That was and is my contention, and it is not absurd.
Yes, it is.
If the current level of CO2 emissions is dooming Gaia to a horrible death, and if by 2020 Chindia is emitting as much or more as all of the EU and the US, then clearly shutting down the latter sources of CO2 won't stave off the Horrible Hocky Stick of Heating. Therefore, following the current claims on AGW to the logical conclusion, my statement is accurate. "
First, unlike you, I do not agree with the most extreme AGW predictions. I believe we have time to set things straight even if they get worse before they get better. I must say that I am quite surprised that you are basing all your opinions on the most extreme AGW predictions. It seems out of character.
Second, I have never been an adherent of Kyoto. Very few people are. There is a reason ZERO senators voted to ratify it. Leaving developing country's emissions unregulated in perpetuity is nuts. If we are cutting our emissions then we damn well should get limits on China's emissions too.
"Er, the numbers above have to have come at least in part from that government. So it would seem that you are willing to believe things the Chinese goverment says when they are convenient to your arguments..."
Somehow I find less cause to doubt independently verifiable statistics from the past than I do propaganda boasts about the future.
Nanonymous,
The primary factors affecting internal combustion engine efficiency over time (assuming consistent maintenance and operation) are decreasing internal friction as the components of the engine wear in and increasing internal leakage as gas-side clearances in the engine increase. From a sample of one (mine), at 138,000 miles the fuel economy of the engine in my vehicle is still improving and is now 10% higher than the EPA highway mileage estimate for the vehicle, which it barely achieved when it was new. This engine has been scrupulously maintained. Its emissions are still in compliance with the emissions requirements in place for its year of manufacture. At this point, I have no idea at what total mileage the adverse effects of internal leakage will begin to exceed the positive effects of reduced friction, no less at what point the losses will return the vehicle fuel economy to its "brand new" level. However, I do not expect that to occur before 200,000 miles.
Nanonymous, you completely miss the point. A new car may be more efficient, but overall, the cost of producing that car, advertising the car, etc. etc. etc. are costs that ultimately get paid for with some kind of energy...ie more emissions.
I would also guess that a 2000 corolla would be better for the environment if we drive it to the grave rather than buying an newer model just because we wanted it.
Everyone keeps thinking about the marginal effects on efficiency as though replacing an entire infrastructure with new cars, etc. would involve massive amounts of pollution in itself. How will the plastic in the car be made? How will the tires be made? How will the bolts be made? How will the computers that design the car be made? Every minute aspect of our economy is wrapped up in the production whether or not you like to think of it. And getting a new car to save X% on emissions is fine and dandy until you think about all the resources that went into producing that car.
I'm not suggesting we all drive around in old cars, but people seem to be playing this "if everything switches over and becomes more efficient tomorrow" game. How much energy is expended to make something more efficient?
John Kerry said we should replace all our escalators with escalators that have sensors that detect a person near by and turns itself on, rather than just running all the time. This may be good for newer machines, but how much energy will we waste in the process of producing and replacing all those escalators?
It reminds me of all the goofballs who spend 6 or 10,000 more on a Hybrid car to save money on gas, when all they've really done is paid up front 10,000 in cash (plus interest over the life of the loan) so they can fill up a 3 times instead of 5 times a month. You're welcome to buy your $10k worth of gas in advance, but I've got better things to do with my money and resources.
I wrote:
"How about if I just stick to science and verifiable facts? Is that ok with you?"
Njori replied:
Great! When are you going to start?
Oh, around 1980 or so, maybe a couple of years earlier. Can you answer the same question?
I wrote:
That was and is my contention, and it is not absurd.
Yes, it is.
Is not!
Look, you are the person who has true belief in AGW. Ok, fine and dandy, I'm pointing out where your belief leads, if you don't like it, don't whine to me, take it up with Al Gore or whomever you regard as an infallible source of your beliefs...
I wrote:
If the current level of CO2 emissions is dooming Gaia to a horrible death, and if by 2020 Chindia is emitting as much or more as all of the EU and the US, then clearly shutting down the latter sources of CO2 won't stave off the Horrible Hocky Stick of Heating. Therefore, following the current claims on AGW to the logical conclusion, my statement is accurate. "
Njori:
First, unlike you, I do not agree with the most extreme AGW predictions.
It's pretty clear that you don't have much of an idea whether I agree with the mainstream AGW claims or not. Maybe if you read for meaning, instead of for debating points, you'd be able to figure out my position...
I believe we have time to set things straight even if they get worse before they get better. I must say that I am quite surprised that you are basing all your opinions on the most extreme AGW predictions. It seems out of character.
Gosh, I'm not taking a position on AGW, I'm debating someone who is clearly a true believer in it...and, ok, I'm asking a few questions and revealing some inconvenient truths...
Second, I have never been an adherent of Kyoto.
Then you're not serious about AGW, because Kyoto is our last, best and only chance to stop the Horrible Hockey Stick of Heating. I read it on the Internet, at several environmental webistes, so it must be true...
Very few people are.
Yup. Which means that very few people are really serious about AGW. Oh, they may like to pose on websites, because it is a fasionable concern, like freeing Tibet or saving the whales. But you won't find anyone who truly, truly, believes what they are saying, for the simple reason that anyone who really buys into the mainstream AGW argument would be demanding a lot of changes far more extreme than Kyoto.
If someone really, truly believed in the current AGW models, they'd be out demanding that all air travel be stopped ASAP, that all petroleum products be tightly rationed, that massive investment in nuclear plants be started, that huge photovoltaic arrays be constructed in places like the Arizona desert, and that's just for a start. But, of course, very few people do that. Instead they dab at the issue with compact fluro bulbs, and various mechanisms for extending governmental power over the economy via such silliness as Carbon Dispensations. Which tells me that either they don't understand what they claim to believe in, or there's an agenda that's not being discussed.
So which is it with you?
There is a reason ZERO senators voted to ratify it.
Of course there is; Kyoto would throw the US into a multi-decade long depression, while leaving Chindia to develop as much as it wants. But, of course if you were serious about AGW, you'd regard Kyoto as too little and too late...
Leaving developing country's emissions unregulated in perpetuity is nuts. If we are cutting our emissions then we damn well should get limits on China's emissions too.
Well, that's the first time I've seen you post that there should be any limits on Chinese industry. Thanks for posting that, it is very interesting.
I wrote:
"Er, the numbers above have to have come at least in part from that government. So it would seem that you are willing to believe things the Chinese goverment says when they are convenient to your arguments..."
Somehow I find less cause to doubt independently verifiable statistics from the past than I do propaganda boasts about the future.
Y'know, that's downright funny. The current version of China has a 50+ year record of inaccurate, misleading and downright wrong statistics for every phase of industrial production; the Great Leap Forward is but one stunning example. The current regime can't even get a handle on how many nonperforming loans are out there, and there's no real reason to believe that they are totally forthcoming about some of their industrial capacity for strategic reasons. But you believe them.
On the other hand, the last 4,000 years or so of Chinese history teach a few things about how regimes remain stable, and how they fall. Mass discontent in the countryside, whether it be from famine in the old days or unemployment nowadays, is A Bad Thing if you're in charge of that country. The only way to deal with it is urbanization, which means a lot of economic expansion, which means a lot of industrial expansion, which means keeping the Great Ball of China rolling forward no matter what. History, combined with simple logic, tells me that. But you don't believe it.
In other words, you believe emission numbers that may well be quite "cooked", but don't believe in demographic / economic pressure. That's really fascinating.
Okay, I'm late to this party too, but I'm very pleased to see that our gracious hostess is now discussing what so many people seem unable to grasp: the facts that: (a) in the USA coal-fired electrical generation emits more "greenhouse gasses" than all transportation-related emissions combined; and (b) the only ready way we have to reduce US greenhouse-gas emissions significantly is to replace coal-fired electrical generation with nuclear generation.
(I posted the relevant numbers, with references, on this in a comment here last year: http://www.janegalt.net/archives/005763.html#63542 .)
We face no technical impediment to replacing coal-fired with nuclear generation; indeed, electricity consumers wouldn't even notice the change--except in somewhat higher bills (I say "somewhat" because where I live, rates would likely go down if the Federal government forced our utilities to build nuclear plants).
By contrast, we do not have any reasonable substitute for fossil-fueled transportation (without which life would be grim).
Normally I oppose "technology mandates," because most of them are inefficient (even counter-productive, as in the case of CAFE) or they are just "non-tariff trade barriers" (see CAFE again). But here we have a case in which a technology mandate would make more sense than a broad tax. To reduce greenhouse emissions, we could mandate a transition away from fossil-fueled bulk generation. The costs would fall on everyone (via electric rates) just as with a tax, but without the social disruption, distributional problems, and severe deadweight losses of a general fuel ("carbon") tax.
(You might ask, "Wouldn't a carbon tax be more efficient? Wouldn't fuel consumption go to the highest-valued use, so in the end we'd get both our fossil-fueled transportation and our nuclear generating plants anyway?"
(The answer is, "you're neglecting time and politics. Transportation fuel users, very flexible at the margin, could (and would!) cut back immediately (albeit by depriving midwesterners of winter vegetables), but electricity suppliers facing large capital costs to replace plants and political opposition to plant construction would just raise rates and keep on burning coal. So your carbon tax would give you higher electric rates without the offsetting benefit of fewer emissions from coal. You would get fewer emissions from transportation fuel users, but you'd pay for that in quality of life. (I assume, as you should, that the government would waste much of the revenue from your carbon tax.)
(A technology mandate (to stop burning carbon to generate electricity) would supersede NIMBY opposition to new power plants. It would ensure that higher electric rates would actually pay to reduce CO2 emissions, without messing up every sector of the economy.)
Only the ignorant, or those who actually want to immiserate everyone, could think that taxing the heck out of transportation is a smart way to improve the country.
(Of course, I don't think we need to do anything about so-called anthropogenic global warming, since we now know that the models which purport to show either than man is responsible for global warming, or that the climate is likely to "run away" until we're all sweating like Panamanians, are fraudulent. Be that as it may, if you think "anthropogenic global warming" is something to get excited about, and you wish to preserve or improve the American standard of living, you would do better to attack US coal consumption than transportation-fuel consumption.)
Yancey Ward, thanks, but I have a confession to make: it's from "South Park". Watch out for the Smug...
They oppose nuclear and oppose coal and don't have alternatives not because they're ignorant, but because they want capitalism to fail.
The only way they've come up with is to strangle energy production. That will cause the capitalist system to seize up, causing widespread misery, which will cause the proletariat to rise in revolution and establish the socialist utopia prophesied by the sainted Marx.
They know full well there are no practical alternatives to coal -- which is why they want to get rid of coal as a power source.
Here is a speculative timeline of energy technology adoption.
Also, when China's GH gas emissions surpass that of the US, as they will in 2008, will there be outrage towards China? Of course not. 'Environmentalism' is just a mask for anti-Americanism.
Ellipsis said: "One of the dirty little secrets of wind power in several locations is this: a fossil-fueled plant is backing up the windmills. When the wind drops off, in order to maintain baseload, the fossil plant kicks in...and since you don't just turn the key on a coalfired plant, either there's already a fire burning, or the backup is a big diesel generator burning kerosene. So the savings are often pure illusion."
Keep in mind, too, that those fossil plants are not running at peak efficiency when they are idling and, that makes it even worse.
There are those who want capitalism to fail, but they're really few and far between (though very loud and influential among policy wonks). What many seem to want is to slow the leaders, not destroy them. And policy will slow growth and can increase the likelihood and intensity of recessions (depression is highly unlikely, we'd scrap the policies quickly), but they won't make it happen. Regulation and slower growth (less volatility) make it less likely that new players will usurp the current established elites.
I don't think anyone is seriously advocating stopping the use of coal or development of new coal tech. The ones who are are just blustering. It's not a serious proposition, just a mechanism for motivating exploration of other ideas and cleaner new infrastructure.
Some AGW advocates pointed me to a book I read that I like to call Dianetics for Climatologists. It really drives home how tainted and dysfunctional the whole climate change industry is, and how weak the case for anti-AGW policy really is. It's not very informative (not at all technical), but gives a good history of the "movement" and insight into how they spin things (portraying common sense as New and Exciting news such as that "catastrophe is possible, as it never was considered in the past," and glossing over that these discoveries weaken the case for policy). It really seems to be aimed at junior high kids who may one day become climate scientists, or at least encourage their politicians to listen to them. It's a political tech manual.
Ms McCardle,
I am requesting that you strike the section in your piece about how wind turbines cause the death of birds.
If you bothered to fact check your assumption for 5 seconds via Google, you would find this Danish study: http://www.ens.dk/graphics/Publikationer/Havvindmoeller/havvindmoellebog_nov_2006_skrm.pdf and this heavily referenced article on bird deaths: http://www.awea.org/faq/sagrillo/swbirds.html
There are many other links I could provide. How much more evidence and studies do you need?
Environmentalists have the answer, which for some reason you don't seem to 'get': They want YOU to consume less. If you would downsize your car, your house, your life, things would be peachy. But YOU are too selfish. YOU don't care about the planet, they way they do. YOU cannot handle the truth, which they live and breathe. YOU are the problem. WHy can't you see it clearly, as they can?
As the Goreacle said in his documentary: "Are YOU ready to change your lifestyle?" Well? Are YOU?
I wish I could agree with you Aaron, but my experience with environmentalists is obviously very different from yours. Or maybe not; even the language you choose in explaining your views on growth alarms me. I see economic growth as a Red Queen's Race against population growth - which is something I see as both likely and desirable. It may or may not be the case that we'll face catastrophic consequences of global warming, but it will certainly be the case that we're going to lower our standard of living if there's less growth, and the growth of the population compounds that effect. You, for your part, talk about wanting to limit growth and possibly endure a "minor" recession as if it's a bullet we'll just have to bite, but even for the sake of argument, you're unwilling to concede so much as two extra days off for the sake of reducing pollutants - because you apparently don't want to lose the income/benefit. Your views on personal economic growth and national economic growth appear to diverge - and that tells me, at some level, that you either a) don't really believe the things you're advocating or b) anticipate the consequences will be felt elsewhere. Those are precisely the points I made at the beginning of this thread, and your arguments are not convincing me that I was mistaken.
So, thanks, I guess.
As a nuclear engineer, I don't want "environmentalists" to endorse nuclear power.
Why? Most of them have already shown poor judgment and hypocritical behavior. Friends like this I don't need.
Remember "Too cheap to meter"? That came out of the mouth of a New Deal socialist. We're still living it down.
What stupid policy would they want? I'm sure whatever they come up with would make the production of real electricity from safe, clean nuclear power practically impossible.
The source of "too cheap to meter" appears to be one Lewis Lichtenstein Strauss:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lewis_Lichtenstein_Strauss
This page suggests a way to do exactly that:
http://www.atomicinsights.com/AI_03-09-05.html
There is one sixties environmentalist who has come around on nuclear power: Stewart Brand, founder of the The Whole Earth Catalog.
Over the next ten years, I predict, the mainstream of the environmental movement will reverse its opinion and activism in four major areas: population growth, urbanization, genetically engineered organisms, and nuclear power.--Stewert Brand, Environmental Heresies
I hope he's right.
Cats kill way more birds than windmills. Tall buildings are especially bad for birds.
A well sited wind machine produces about 33% of its name plate rating over a years time. They can deliver 20% of nameplate rating as base load if the turbines are well distributed. BTW since most wind turbines will be built on farmland who will be complaining about wreckage of the view?
If we had sufficient grid capacity North Dakota could provide 50% of America's electrical use. That translates into 30% of America's base load.
If we did things like generate hydrogen or distilled alcohol when the wind output was excessive the intermittancy of wind would not be a problem.
The last time Bad Science was used by the Greens to justify a policy it killed/maimed and continues to kill/maime millions of people (DDT ban and malaria)
1940 -1970 CO2 went up sharply and temperatures went down ... 30 out of the last 100 years we have seen global cooling with INCREASING CO2 ...
It is simply more bad science to believe that man made CO2 effects global temperatures in EITHER direction.
You folks are arranging the Titanic deck chairs. Be sure of your science before debating solutions ...
Current batteries (excepting lithium) have one minor problem.
Chicago winters.
Lithium batteries? Very expensive. If they open up in a crash very dangerous.
In any event, the danger would be lessened by reducing our need to interfere in unstable nations to protect our oil supply.
Posted by: Njorl on April 9, 2007 3:20 PM
Suppose their real beef is not our interference in their countries but our godless lifestyle and its proliferation in their countries due to technological advances.
Then what?
If the whole world switched to nuclear power there would be sufficient uranium to keep the world powered for 50 to 100 years.
Then what?
Of course if we went to a uranium/plutonium cycle we could extend that considerably.
Who is advocating fast breeder reactors?
The whole argument here is based on the assumption that CO2 is the cause of global warming.
OK.
NASA says that 80% of the "excess" CO2 comes from mother nature. What do we have to do to prevent volcanic eruptions and the like?
In addition solar output is at a several thousand year peak. How will reducing CO2 output fix that?
CO2 below 200 ppm impairs photosynthesis considerably. Below 90ppm it stops all together.
Then consider indoor pot growers who enhance growth (for a given amout of light input) by adding CO2 to their grow rooms. What do those dope smoking hippies know that the rest of us are ignorant of? Significantly more CO2 in the atmosphere enhances plant growth.
So let me ask: what do the anti CO2 folks have against trees?
I do have an answer to global warming.
Reflect more sunlight into space.
I propose mandatory tin foil hats.
Njorl: My God, He's right! I, for one