I was really moved by the global warming article in yesterday’s Week in Review. The article said that though there may be some debate about the cause of the warming, there is one thing that is agreed upon. Things are heating up.
The article spoke about a submerged Manhattan and drowned polar bears. It also discussed how difficult it is politically to bring about change, which will only be felt two generations from now.
What can I do to make a difference? Recycle, sure. But that’s nothing. Maybe buy a Prius. Certainly donate to environmental groups and vote for politicians who do the right thing.
But I can also make a difference by blogging about John Tierney’s stupid op ed entitled “Cheer up. Earth Day is Over”.
Tierney writes that Americans are understandably dubious about global warming. After all, they have been scared with false prophesies in the past. There’s no need to give up our SUVs. Just relax. Some new technology will come along to make it all better.
The Magic Fossil Fuel Fairy will wave her magic wand over all the land, and we’ll be able to consume to our heart’s desire. No nasty emissions to heat up the earth. The Magic Fossil Fuel Fairy will make more oil fields after the old ones dry up. And the Magic Fossil Fuel Fairy will do it all without disrupting the natural habitats. The Magic Fossil Fuel Fairy will make sure that those fuel supplies will be found in happy, little democratic countries without religious extremists.
There can be no environmental change without sacrifice. No Magic Fairies at the door. Tierney writes that our rivers and air are cleaner than they were in the past because industry adopted new technology. No asceticism needed.
Yes, but that technology was very expensive. Industry did not want to absorb those costs. They had to be forced by legislation to put air purifiers on their smoke stacks. They had to be forced to stop dumping crap in our rivers and streams and to dispose of their trash in a much more costly manner. Those costs were forced on industry that later imposed the costs onto the consumers. There was a lot whole of sacrifice that went into making the Hudson River cleaner, and there will have to be much more in the future if we have any hope of saving the polar bears and downtown Manhattan.
Apt. 11d 
$3 or $4 gas is going to change people’s consumption habits more than any amount of drowning polar bears.
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My husband is an environmental engineer who has worked for the (state) government and is currently back in industry. It is not cheap to reduce/minimize the effects of industry on the environment. And you’re right that industries did not (and still don’t want) to pay. In so far as we do have cleaner air and water it’s been because state and federal governments have enacted and enforced legislation in addition to creating financial incentives for compliance (stick and carrot method!). As for Americans being dubious about global warming, that speaks more to Americans’ ignorance of science than to what we know about global warming.
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Why wait for “someone” to do something? People need to take responsibility for themselves. For example, I have been living fossil fuel free for eight months now… I converted my car to run on waste vegetable oil that I get for FREE from the back of restaurants. This is a domestic renewable resource that is “Carbon Neutral”.
Veggie oil! No war required. (And, no money to the oil barons!)
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The Magic Fossil Fuel Fairy
Here’s a great post and certainly a model for other bloggers to follow: “What Can We Do? Ask Tierney” on Blog 11D
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Right, Greg. Because if *everyone* started driving cars fueled by vegetable oil, we wouldn’t have any supply problems. We could all just drive up to restaurants and get our fuel for free.
How much fossil fuel were used to grow those veggies and press the oil out of them?
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What to do? Trip chaining is good – combining errands so you start the car less often. Order books from mail order instead of driving the car to Borders. It’s good if all the used fry-o-lator oil goes into Greg’s car, but that won’t amount to much overall. A $2.50 a gallon tax on gasoline would concentrate the mind some, as would smart cards on our cars which got us a toll charge for using roads at prime time.
But these effects are all pretty small next to 200 million Indians and 300 million Chinese joining the middle class and buying cars. AND these are the countries which were left out of the Kyoto accords. Moving towards virtue on the part of the US is a good thing, but the Poles will melt regardless unless, yes, as Tierney suggests, we work towards improved technologies which makes virtue attractive to China and India.
There’s a nice FDA story about regulation – baby food was too salty, bad for the babies’ kidneys. But no single producer could take it out, because salty food tasted better to mothers, and the mothers all tasted the food they were giving their kids.. So FDA got all the producers into a room and promised regulation and very bad publicity unless all of them reformulated. And they were happy to, as long as they werent’t going to get creamed by the competition leaving the salt in. A lot of the time, companies are just as pleased to do the right thing, as long as they aren’t forced to compete with somebody whose costs don’t include doing the right thing.
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Fossil fuel depletion is a different issue from global warming. Indeed, some analysts think there won’t be much global warming because Peak Oil means we’ll run out of fuel before the Earth heats up too much.
I have been living fossil fuel free for eight months now
The electricity for your home and office is generated by renewable energy sources? You have bought nothing made of plastic? You have eaten no food made with fossil fuel fertilizer, or transported by a vehicle that runs on fossil fuel?
A $2.50 a gallon tax on gasoline would concentrate the mind some
Politicians are allergic to this.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/25/AR2006042500964.html
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I love that FDA story, dave s. Never heard that one before. But again that isn’t an example of technology leading to change. It was an example of political effort used to overcome a collective action problem. It may not have cost any money, but it took effort and smarts. I think it is the rare problem environmental problem that is cured with no costs — political or actual.
Sure, India and China are the big problems, and the poles might melt even if we do our share, but that isn’t a reason for us to not do our share. One, it might make things a little better. Two, the only way to come up with the smart technology and smart ways to overcome collective action problems is to start worrying about things now. Signing the treaty might lead to technological improvements tomorrow.
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I’m gonna stubbornly contend that a lot of these are collective action problems and that jaw-jaw is able to work on a lot of them. One of the things my agency has learned from the way regulation works in Japan is the persuasive power of government. We used to do everything by regulation, and we have made a lot of progress more recently by persuasion – and the notion that if they don’t come around ‘voluntarily’, regulation will follow.
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I am an atmospheric scientist and I am always amazed by the claim that “there may be some debate about the cause of the warming”.
The debate is over as far as scientists are concerned. The main debate now is whether we can do anything about it.
There is a side debate about the radiative impact of clouds, but that appears to be spiraling toward a consensus that some types of clouds will warm and other types will cool, but the net global effect will be slightly warming.
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