Half-Baked Alaska: Palin's Confused Vision of Energy & Environment

Now that Sarah Palin has announced her resignation as Governor of Alaska, you may wonder: What has she been doing? How will she fill her time? In an Op-Ed piece for The Washington Post, Palin kindly provided an answer. She's committed herself to a single task: confusing the American public on energy and the environment.

On Tuesday, Palin's Op-Ed criticized Obama's cap and trade bill -- known as the American Clean Energy & Security Act, or ACES -- and refused to acknowledge the existence of climate change. The article so fully muddles the issues that the best thing one can hope for is that someone else wrote the article, and the Governor simply signed her name.

Behind all the bluster -- and the exclamations! that neatly turn fact into fiction -- are familiar phrases. She appeals to national independence, rising unemployment, taxes, supply side economics and God's creation. In so doing, she positions Democrats as enervating technocrats opposed to prosperity, and herself as rooted in a history of economic growth, rugged independence and faith.

To use talking points is one thing, to rely on them another. This isn't a partisan issue; candidates from both parties have lines they work through. But Palin's argument is so dependent on established Republican strategy that is reads like a grab bag of worn-out phrases.

This is where Palin's argument veers from the path of denial. In making her argument, she ignores mounting, if not overwhelming evidence on energy and environment. She also strays from mainstream public opinion.

The Nobel Prize awarded to the IPCC was an acknowledgment that the fundamental science of climate change is firmly established. Furthermore, a recent survey of American opinion on climate change revealed that 72% find climate change to be personally important, while 90% believe the US should act to reduce climate change.

In her Op-Ed, Palin ignores both science and public opinion. If David Brooks was right in describing the Republican party as intellectually bankrupt, Palin's Op-Ed positions herself as both lender and borrower of Republican subprime arguments. After articles like this, I would hope she's flush out of capital.

Let's take a few moments, then, to review Palin's major points in the article, and trace where she goes astray.

Palin: "There is no denying that as the world becomes more industrialized, we need to reform our energy policy and become less dependent on foreign energy sources."

Palin's argument is afflicted as much by what is not there as what is not. Note here how she discusses the need to reform energy policy without mentioning why - that we live in a world of increasing resources scarcity facing and that we face uncertain risks from a climate that promises to change in the short and long-term, with potentially sever damages.

Palin engages in a critique of ACES without discussing why it's being implemented in the first place. It's like arguing against throwing water on a house fire, by avoiding all mention of the fire.

This shouldn't be surprising. Palin has argued that man is not responsible for climate change. Or, rather, she said:

"I'm not one to attribute every man -- activity of man to the changes in the climate. There is something to be said also for man's activities, but also for the cyclical temperature changes on our planet."

Again, she seems confused, and is trying to confuse the American public.

Palin: "I believe [the cap-and-trade energy plan] is an enormous threat to our economy. It would undermine our recovery over the short term and would inflict permanent damage."

Contrary to this argument, ACES will help to grow the economy. Palin distorts the picture by overstating the costs and ignoring the benefits.

For instance, any costs to the economy as a result of cap-and-trade largely nominal. Aluminum and chemical businesses will see an increase in costs of about 2% by 2030, while the steel industry would see a rise in costs of between 4% and 11%. Similarly, the cost to each American family would be about $174. These costs are real, but not huge.

Far from the crippling burden Paling describes, the cap-and-trade program would create market for carbon, spur investment and expand an already rapidly growing sector of the economy.

For instance, ACES would help spur $150 billion in clean energy investments, help to create 1.7 million jobs throughout the United States. ACES would help to unleash billions of dollars of investment in energy efficiency, renewable energy and clean-car technology. According to Andy Stevenson's excellent piece over on NRDC's Switchboard blog, the result of these improvements in fuel efficiency would be "1.4mln barrels a day by the year 2020...providing a cumulative savings to American households around $1,900 through the year 2020." Those are real savings for American families.

Moreover, Palin seems to ignore that in the clean energy economy, jobs have grown by nearly two and a half times faster than over overall job growth since 1998. It is a field that is already growing. This will help accelerate growth in an already growing field.

For an economy in decline, job creation and the accelerated expansion of markets with demonstrated potential is exactly what this country needs.

Palin: "But the answer doesn't lie in making energy scarcer and more expensive!"

Scarcity isn't the answer. But putting a price on carbon is.

One of the challenges in creating substantive reductions in carbon emissions is generating the capital needed to develop and deploy clean energy technology at scale.

Cap-and-trade helps to provide this capital not by making energy scarce, but to create a market of perceived scarcity that drives up market prices for carbon. That market then provides a revenue stream to be invested in R&D measures for clean energy technology. It's one of the best, and only, ways to generate the kind of revenue needed.

But this move is cute. It's the rhetorical equivalent of Palin winking her way through the presidential debate. Too bad an exclamation point doesn't magically convert fiction into fact.

Palin: "Those who understand the issue know we can meet our energy needs and environmental challenges without destroying America's economy."

To judge from all of the above, we know Palin is describing someone else. She clearly doesn't understand the issues.

Palin: "We are ripe for economic growth and energy independence if we responsibly tap the resources that God created right underfoot on American soil."

This is not only offensive, but reflects a shockingly limited theological vision.

In the first place, it is offensive to claim a responsible use of God's creation is to limit our economy activity to only those fuels which are dirtiest and which therefore degrade the world we're meant to protect. In fact, if you look at the position of many religious environmental groups, you'll find Palin to be dramatically out of sync.

Furthermore, did God create only the resources beneath the surface of the earth? Did he not also create the sun? Did he not also create the wind and rain?

Palin: "Can America produce more of its own energy through strategic investments that protect the environment, revive our economy and secure our nation?"

Yes, we can. The Waxman-Markey Bill is a first step. It's not perfect, but it's not a stake to the heart, as Palin describes it. Much to the contrary, it's a much-needed shot in the arm.

(This post was originally published on Ben Carmichael's On Earth blog.)

Follow Ben Carmichael on Twitter: www.twitter.com/bhcarmichael

Comments

[o4tuna]

I think it is useless to speak to those you associate themselves with the conservative image in terms of "us". They abhor terms like village, planet, diversity, inclusiveness, anything that groups them into a larger group equals. The only way to make them understand is to make it personal, how it will affect them on a personal level. What it will cost them. And how it threatens THEIR existence, Their life, their future.

[Ben Carmichael - Huffpost Blogger]

Jeff: Thanks for your comment, and your encouragement. I agree with you. I receive a lot of comments full of sound and fury. Trouble is -- well, you know the rest of the phrase.

It's not that I dislike informed debate. In fact, I welcome and encourage it. But some of the comments above prefer combat to debate.

RomeoMD25: By following your comments on other blogs, you seem to be intent on not simply discrediting well-established climate science, but liberals in general. Unfortunately, climate change disrupts traditional political alliances.

It's not about liberals versus conservatives, Democrats versus Republicans. As some Republic Senators demonstrate, such as my two Senators Snowe and Collins, climate change should not be considered through the polarizing lens of politics, but through the now overwhelming body of evidence in favor of climate change. It is not the explanation for every weather event, for every natural problem, but it is a growing, imminent threat whose risks are real, if of uncertain magnitude over the long-term. Its effects will be felt unevenly, but there is no doubt it is a collective problem that requires collective action.

As such, I would urge a careful consideration. Skepticism is fine, so long as it involves an open, engaged mind. Arguments should not be accepted. They should be investigated.

To that end -- I have another post coming soon on US public opinion and climate change. I hope you'll all read and respond then.

Thanks all for reading.

Best as ever,
Ben

[Mary Ellen Harte and John Harte - Huffpost Blogger]

Check out the free online book, "Cool the Earth, Save the Economy". Written in simple, engaging English, it covers global warming, its consequences, the policies and technologies to solve it, and much more. Over 2,000 people have downloaded it free at:

www.CoolTheEarth.US

Tweet it up! Education is the first step towards harnessing the citizenry to solve the climate crisis.

Perhaps the most straightforward and efficient way to cut emissions legislatively is through other manipulations of market forces. Shift subsides away from fossil fuel and towards the promotion of energy efficiency, automotive efficiency, and clean alternative energy sources. Reward the market winners by giving a capital gains tax break to those industries that succeed best at promoting energy efficiency and providing sources of clean, renewable energy. Provide government land towards developing a smart grid and sources and clean renewable energy sources. Establish a national and international policy towards preserving some of the most effective carbon storage systems existing on earth: old growth forests and peat bogs. [Towards this latter goal, unfortunately, the Obama administration just took a step backwards by allowing roadless logging in the one remaining temperate rainforest left in North America, the Alaskan Tongass forest.]

Placing a price on carbon can be a good idea, but there is much more that our government can and should be doing.

[RomeoMD25]

2009: The Year Man-Made Global Warming Hysteria Was Sunk by an Iceberg

This is truly the new Dark Ages. In the year 2009 we have the most mind-blowing technologies. The activities of everyday life are made easier than in our predecessors’ day because of virtually every imaginable convenience. Yet, many on this tiny spinning ball are just as uninformed, anti-intellectual, paranoid, and blinded by false ideologies and conventional wisdom as in the days of witch burnings.

Predictions of melting ice caps? Didn’t happen. On the contrary, by the end of 2008 ice increased at both tips of the planet.

Predictions of warmer temperatures? Didn’t happen. Cold temperatures broke records worldwide in 2008.

Predictions of more/stronger hurricanes and other catastrophic weather events? Didn’t happen. Not even close.

You have nothing to go on, people. Nothing. No facts. No data. No trends. No science. Yet, whole governments, including our own, can’t wait to take your money away and send your lifestyle back to the 1800’s because they have bought into the hoax that your car, your lightbulbs, your farts, your breathing, your very existence are killing our planet.

But it really doesn’t matter to the alarmists. There’s too much money, power, and control that go along with AGW hysteria.

[Dynamohum]

Seriously out of touch!! These arguments prove how idiotic the claims are. They are bald faced lies. I am not surprised in the least. The standard "canned" answer from the party of NOPE.

[mychagal]

Wonderful article. Thank you. It's very gratifying to watch Palin just fail at saying anything remarkable, productive and coherent. She obviously has no understanding of the Waxman-Markey Bill.. I think in the 90's there was a word people used, "poser" to describe a wannabe. Palin is a poser as demonstrated by her desire to be much more than she actually is.

The funny thing is. When she lost in 2008, she had the opportunity to come back to Alaska to study and learn what she didn't know and do the best job as governor. Even people who hate her would have acknowledged her for doing so. Instead she's taken the deceitful coward's way out and quit, which is like hanging a noose around her own neck. The funny thing is, the former would have been so much easier than what she's doing now.

[ReaganTMan]

It's good to see that opponents of Sarah Palin are now recognizing the need to take to the arena of ideas to rebut her Op Ed piece. Having finally settled on the reality that she actually did write the piece (that it wasn't written by Bill Kristol or a ghost writer as the astroturfers in the comment section of her piece on WaPo inferred), it's encoraging to see those on the left "grow up" and join the political game without the nonsense of flaming, smearing or lying.

The fact that John Kerry would also pen a well thought out rebuttal to Sarah Palin's op-ed piece makes me feel good as a guy with a political science degree and one who considers himself intellectually honest, even honest enough to admit my bias toward Sarah Palin.

The fact of the matter is Palin stimulated debate. Kerry and now Carmichael responded to that debate in the arena of ideas, an area so infrequently visited by liberals who are more into the Alinsky rules and the smear campaign.

While I disagree with Kerry and Carmichael on the issue, I commend them for entering the arena of ideas with Sarah Palin and participating in an important discussion.

It's a far cry from joking about her kids or her wardrobe. It's also a big step back up to where a U.S. Senator and a professional writer ought to be in the political discourse.

[KayJay90]

"Kerry and now Carmichael responded to that debate in the arena of ideas, an area so infrequently visited by liberals who are more into the Alinsky rules and the smear campaign."

Oh, stop it with the constant references to "the Alinsky rules". I had to read Wikipedia to find out what that was even about, but once I did, I realized that there was a lot more "Rules for Radicals" being followed by the neocon obfuscators than by liberals.

-----

Anyway, to my main point: I just wanted to point out that Senator Barbara Boxer (D-Calif) joined Senator Kerry in refuting every point in Palin's "opinion piece" in WaPo.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sen-barbara-boxer/clean-energy-action-will_b_235382.html

[o4tuna]

Am I to understand that when republicans engage in "the political game", they do so "without the nonsense of flaming, smearing or lying?"

Is that what your saying here?

If you were truly "a guy with a political science degree and one who considers himself intellectually honest", you would have to be aware that those who brought up climate and environmental issues in the first place were and have always been branded as liberals. It's not that liberals have not had ideas. It is that conservatives have refused to accept them.

As someone who has been both liberal and conservative, and can be intellectually honest about both, I hereby give you permission to actively engage your considerable mental powers in a personal investigation to learn and understand why conservatives believe they are right, good, and superior and everyone else is wrong, bad, and inferior.

And after you have completed this investigation, you can publish your findings and open up a debate!

[Jeff Goldstein - Huffpost Blogger]

Ben-

The fight needs to continue at the fundamental level. Republicans deny the existence of AGW. John Boehner's comical interview with George S. on the Republican climate plan shows he needs to go back and get a high school science education, e.g., indicating the opposition is labeling carbon dioxide as a carcinogen; that it comes out of the rear of cows; that it is totally benign. We've got to keep fighting these absurd points of view for the sake of those that are willing to listen, and for the sake of our children and countless other species.

This was my attempt a couple of days ago:
"Understanding Why Climate Change is Human-Induced", with a comment by Jim Hansen, NASA/GISS
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeff-goldstein/understanding-why-climate_b_225309.html

Jeff