A more convenient turth

By now you all know that our former Vice President, Al Gore, has received the Nobel Peace Prize for raising public awareness of the dangers posed by increasing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and global warming. Private citizen Gore is best known for his illustrated lecture, turned into a movie, called “An Inconvenient Truth” --- although an earlier book called: “A World in Balance” has also received popular attention.

Environmentalists and most scientists have rallied around Mr. Gore’s message to persuade Americans to amend their fossil fuel burning ways – fossil fuels being our major source energy and also the principle source of carbon dioxide emissions to the atmosphere. Interestingly, this has turned out to be a difficult task. While many of us express concerns about the environment, few of us, in fact, are ready to make radical changes in our lifestyles. Various polls have shown that in terms of public concerns and private priorities, “saving the planet” is well down on our to-do lists.

Today, coal, oil, and natural gas provide some 86% of our energy needs and are the basis for our industrial economy. Most scientists are convinced that some climate change is already inevitable but will become increasingly extreme, the longer we wait to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions.

I sense that, while acknowledging the possibility of sea level rise, increasing hurricanes, droughts, summer heat waves, and violent weather, few of us here in Michigan, are rushing to mothball our SUVs or turn our thermostats down by 10 degrees. Indeed, as long as abundant energy is available at the gas pump or by throwing a switch, we’re just not going to abstain from those things we’ve always done – even at somewhat higher prices.

Bottom line: former VP Gore and the environmentalists have failed! Even after a dozen years with all the scientific evidence on their side, we’re not changing their energy consuming ways! Economist’s project American energy consumption will continue to grow by 2% annually for the foreseeable future—even as our population grows at less than half this rate. What‘s wrong here?

It seems to me, it has to do with how the message is being delivered rather than with its validity. The message is one of gloom and doom… one that offers little hope for a good outcome…for a future to look forward to.

If you believe the environmentalists, climate change is unmitigated disaster with no upside; no positive elements, no ray of hope; nothing good can come of it. These prophets have decided to frighten us into changing our ways: massive coastal inundations, crop-destroying droughts, migrations of populations, and irreparable losses to the earth’s biogenetic heritage. The lone, bewildered Polar Bear standing on a rapidly melting iceberg is the poster child for this cause.

Why, in spite of the scientific consensus, are so few of us willing to change – including, I might add, most of scientists and policymakers themselves? It’s because climate change is occurring slowly (in terms of people’s lives) and instinctively we realize “it’s an ill wind that blows no good”. While all change, including climate change, involves costs, there are benefits – especially for us living in places with long, cold winters. Instinctive, we know we’re being given only part of the story. So here, as Paul Harvey used to say, “is the rest of the story”.

Climates have always been changing: mostly for the better, but sometimes for the worse. Consider that 12 thousand years ago, where we’re sitting today was covered by a mile of ice and later by tundra and boreal forests. You’ll appreciate how much our climate has changed in the blink of a geological eye.

That’s not to say the changes we’re seeing today aren’t important or without consequence, but it is to say that so far the changes in Michigan have not been bad. True, lake levels are down a bit, making shipping less profitable, but the fact that 8 of the last 10 years have been the warmest on record, seems not to have inconvenienced us greatly. Indeed, longer growing seasons are promoting record harvests and extending lake shipping and constructions seasons. There’s been welcome reductions in demands for heating fuels and snow plowing.

I suspect that warmer weather makes Michigan more attractive for summer recreation and fewer “snowbirds” retreat to Florida in the winter. While naysayers may complain that longer outdoor recreation seasons result in more environmental stresses, I’m inclined to think that shorter winters lead to fewer flues, falls, heart attacks, power outages, and auto accidents.

People of my vintage, appreciate longer springs, summers, and falls, and shorter winters. Last year saw the retirement of the 1^st Baby Boomer – the start of a wave of 78 million people with mobile pensions, some of whom will make Michigan a destination for travel and retirement. With ample fresh water, beautiful coastlines (longer than the entire Eastern Seaboard), and shorter winters, Michigan should prosper.

So, I greet Mr. Gore's peace prize with a certain ambivalence. Mind you, I have no quarrel with the facts. Global warming is a reality, but it would be wise if environmentalists would paint a more balanced picture. They would be more credible by mentioning those positive things that are inevitable that allow us to be a bit optimistic in spite of the gloom. Clearly we need to make the changes to reduce the likelihood of extreme events but here in Michigan, let’s also consider a more convenient truth.

Touching the 3rd rail of American environmentalism

Many schemes and schemers purport to help solve our growing concerns about climate change and, particularly, global warming. The major, although not exclusive, culprit of projected rising global temperatures and, therefore, perturbations to the geophysical and geochemical systems of the planet, is CO2 – a major byproduct of our carbon fueled economy. Clearly, any plan to lower carbon dioxide emissions to the atmosphere, and our concomitant dependence on foreign oil, should be of interest – and many new, untried technologies are lining up for attention and public funding.

However, one proven approach not being vetted by even the most daring environmentalist is that of the Europeans. According to The Economist’s 2008 “Pocket World in Figures”, the average American emits 19.9 tons of carbon per year, in contrast to 10.3 for each Russian, 9.8 for each German, and 6.2 for each Frenchman. If you’re a Swede, Swiss, or eastern European, your carbon footprint is even less. How is it that Europeans, some with qualities of life that rival our own, have per capita carbon emissions half to a third of ours?

The European approach is the “third rail” – one so threatening to our cherished American values that no one here would propose it: conservation and compact, energy-efficient urban systems.

We love our sprawl, our rambling suburban houses, our SUVs, our shopping malls. Woe to he who might suggest that this energy luxuriant lifestyle should be amended to reduce its CO2 emissions. Indeed, we’re heavily invested in vast, low-density metropolitan areas with expansive green spaces, low-rise buildings, and high-speed highways. This publicly-subsidized outward thrust of Americana propels our construction and auto industries, retail and consumer markets, financial institutions, property ownership and tax policies. In one way or another, all but those of old cities are invested in this approach. But take away the prop of cheap, subsidized energy and the whole system collapses.

While Americans recoil at the idea of adopting heavy handed, European-style, land use controls that invest city centers with good government, efficient public transit, strict building codes, cultural amenities and policing, much of the energy inefficient patterns of American urbanization would changed if we simply phased out those public policies that privilege urban sprawl.

What are those policies? There are many: tax right offs for new building construction and debt (residential and commercial), under-funding of actual highway and road costs, unsustainable municipal subsidies to attract new businesses, and public services that subsidize big energy and inequitably allocated resources.

Without adopting stringent, top-down European land use controls, America could reduce its egregious carbon footprint by allowing markets to more efficiently allocate energy within our urban systems. For example, we could reduce subsidies to utility companies, outlaw below-cost highway and land taxes, and promote uniform region-wide urban development policies. We could phase out subsidies for new construction and provide incentives to maintain and upgrade existing structures. Sadly no politician or environmentalist would risk touching this, the 3^rd rail of American environmentalism.

Tell me a story

In their rambling romp through postmoderist literature in "Break Through" [Houghton Mifflin, 2007], Nordhaus and Shellenberger end up in the right church but wrong pew. They correctly highlight the failure of the environmental community, especially that portion of the community exorcised about our impending doom from global climate change, but offer the wrong story for going forward. They rightly castigate the negativity and narrow-mindedness of environmentalists in pitting "man against nature" but advocate a continuation of that public losing story with their "let's prepare for disasters" message. It's like they didn't hear themselves: people respond to immediate, positive images of the possible -- stories that offer hope while all about is gloom.
Gloom we have from the environmentalists: our unrelenting assault on nature by an over-populated earth; drought, disease, floods, rising sea levels, hurricanes and torrential storms; disappearing forests and species, blistering hot cities and unsustainable energy supplies; melting icecaps and nature in full retreat... all inevitable. Who wants to hear this stuff? No wonder the public tunes these people out!
Well, let's talk about the good stuff. Good stuff; what good stuff? As long as environmentalist define "good" as a story of returning to a mythical past, say 1990, there can be no "good stuff". Time is the one linear thing that moves forward; we can selectively remember, but we can't go back.
Unlike environmentalists, economists know all change brings winners and losers. A "just society" seeks to compensate the losers with some of the winnings of the winners. Who and where are the winners in climate change -- an inconceivable question to environmentalists?
The reality is there may be many winners... those living in northern climes long limited by long, cold winters and short summers (Canada, Russia, the Nordic countries); those with access to dependable supplies of freshwater (Great Lakes); those that will control the new coastlines and build new cities. Perhaps warmer climates will result in new waves of natural productivity and speciation as flora and fauna come together in new ways.
Even in the depths of the Great Depression, stories of hope and communal self-reliance resonated with the population, e.g. "It's a wonderful Life". Where are our stories of hope and positive objectives amid the gloom of the environmentalists message -- the messages that not only offer hope, but propel people forward in creating a different, more just society and world where evolving Man and Nature are seen as one.