Newt Gingrich may have finally gotten it partly right, but on the biggest issue of our time he is totally wrong -- again. His partially right position is in encouraging his fellow Republicans to embrace the effort against global warming, a noble quest indeed. We should be appreciative of any such movement. But he then turns around and rejects the very measures that are necessary to tame that beast -- a limitation on carbon emissions, common sense efficiency standards that would radically reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and federal research and development on par with the original Apollo moon shot project.
The enormity of the challenge, the need to reduce our emissions by 80 percent in the next several decades, clearly does demand the creation and implementation of a suite of new technologies. The good news is that a whole host of new emerging technologies have the promise of being able to reduce emissions dramatically while growing our economy. Bracken Hendricks and I found a slew of brilliant Americans developing those technologies in the course of writing our book, Apollo's Fire: Igniting America's Clean Energy Economy. From the new solar thermal technology of the Ausra Company, to the cellulosic ethanol enzymes of the Mascoma company and the first cellulosic ethanol plant of the Range company, to the plug-in hybrid cars enabled by the lithium ion batteries from the A123 Battery Company, cutting edge technology is brewing across the country.
But Gingrich's phobia against any governmental action would strangle these nascent, and promising, technologies in their cribs. The simple fact is that as long as these new businesses have to compete against old, mature, fossil fuel industries they will be at a disadvantage because the old industries currently have the right to dump megatons of their waste product, global-warming gases, into the atmosphere in unlimited amounts at zero cost. The Gingrich vision of continuing to allow coal plants to spew an infinite amount of carbon dioxide into the air, without governmental limitation whatsoever, will not only doom the planet, it will seriously retard the infusion of investment capitol into the new clean energy technologies. A crystal clean solar thermal plant cannot compete with a dirty coal plant, which uses the giant loophole in our clean air laws to pollute our atmosphere willy nilly, to their hearts content.
The private sector is going to be responsible for the vast majority of the breakthroughs we need in the clean-energy revolution. But the market is dysfunctional right now because the costs imposed by dirty fossil fuels currently are not internalized by the industries causing massive damage to the environment, a massive dysfunction in the market. When that externality is repaired, clean energy companies will then be on a level playing field with old fossil fuels companies, and the tidal wave of investment that is ready to flow into these new technologies that is awaiting this governmental fix, will boost them to commercial application.
Gingrich's hypothesis, that the unfettered market will fix this problem by some magic wand, has been tested in the auto industry in the last three decades -- and found wanting. Look at how our failure to require fuel efficient cars has seriously wounded the domestic auto industry. When we've had vigorous Corporate Average Fuel Efficiency Standards in the late 1970s, mileage of our cars rose 60 percent. Since then, the standards were removed, and even though we have invented the Internet and mapped the human genome, the mileage of the cars produced by Detroit has actually gone down. That is a powerful statement that the Gingrich phobia against any governmental action anytime, anywhere, will fail miserably in this sphere.
We present a different vision. In that vision, Congress dramatically boosts Federal research and development funding, passes a cap and trade system, a renewable portfolio standard, improvements in auto efficiency standards, and efficiency standards in lighting. It finances these efforts with the payments made by polluting industries for their discharge permits and creates a large fund that can help homeowners and businesses to purchase advanced technology cars and energy efficient housing improvements. Under this plan, investment will flow into new industries, they will fulfill America's destiny of designing and building the best clean energy technology in the world, we will start selling it around the world, millions of jobs will be created and the planet will be saved. Under Gingrich's vision the Heritage Foundation will be happy, and none of the other events will come to pass.
So let's applaud Mr. Gingrich for helping our Republican friends get over their fear of failure that blinds them to the clear science of global warming. Now let's get on with the job of revolutionizing our clean-energy economy, a job that will entail helping Mr. Gingrich and his tribe get over their second phobia, the one preventing us from really winning this battle.
Without leadership in the form of funding from the US Government, alternative energy technologies will take DECADES to evolve. In that time, the free market will in fact work it's magic in obsoleting fossil fuels in one of two ways:
1. Subsidized technologies from Europe will replace carbon based energy sources and we will switch one dependency for another
2. The planet will become so polluted and carbon energy so expensive that the various "worst-case" scenarios come to pass with the levels of death and chaos that come with them.
or all of the above.
If America wants to play in this race we need government investment. ALL of our key competitors in this space are being subsidized by other governments.
Our rich guys have had it their way so long that they feel entitled rather than challenged. In Texas, an Irish company came in and built hundreds of wind generators to power 250,000 homes. The company pays royalties to 400 land owners. Our companies are commonly run by over-privileged scions of old money, but even when they allow technocrats into management, it's because they agree to a narrow, bottom-line, short term mentality.
We need government to encourage our business to be more creative and expand into businesses that other countries will support with their capital. Government has given too many breaks to the wrong sorts of people-cronies and crony capitalists.
Time for change.
All of this with, an estimated INCREASE of 1% annual energy demand.
Failure to do this prudent, intelligent, and economically beneficial plan (or others very similar) is a plan to fail. We can essentially generate enough clean, reliable, and environmentally beneficial energy to last us forever, and do it in ways that will strongly enhance the US economy, and ultimately the entire world's.
We've been running a 35 year experiment with the UM and here's what its delvered so far:
$100 barrel oil;
The most expensive, leaast effective health care system in the developed world;
A pharmaceutical industry that puts more money into marketing than R&D, that's more expensive than anywhere else in the world and that spends most of their R&D money on knock off pills for hard ons or SSRIs (thank god for the "bumbling" Feds at NIH, or we'd have very little in the way of breakthorugh meds.)
Global warming --
The world's most inefficient eneryg system;
A mortgage meltdown, predatory loans;
the highest disparity in income in our nation's history;
Loss of manufacturing jobs;
etc. etc.
I could, in fact, go on. Yes, sir, that's some great thing, that unfettered free market.
What will we get from the morons if they're wrong? "It's Clinton's fault".
http://www.bobcesca.com/blog-archives/2008/01/this_is_awesome.html
A carbon tax is much more economically efficient and provides a ready source for the research and devlopment funds you seek (in addition to infrastructure and other needed investments). It would be a clear, market-based reaction to the pollution externalities you describe.
The only problem is that instituting an across the board carbon tax would require political courage -- and that can be a pretty rare commodity in Washington.
I like your free market analysis of the problem. Very good. Very rare on these message boards. Government has a legitimate role in ensuring a clean environment as this crosses property lines. Most libertarians acknowledge this.
However, I have one thing to bring into the arguement. I think the debate is in fact not over. I think there are many variables in this equation that have been glossed over by the press and the pols. I would be a convert if this addtional debate was to take place. I think there is possible a rush to judgement here that is making me queasy and suspicious of agendas. And I think many feel this way. I feel like this whole manmade global warming thing is being crammed down my throat and I want to know why before I jump on the bandwagon that is GW.
Irritable Bowel Syndrome named Government can't and must not do anything.
They still believe that Government is inherantly a very dirty and nasty thing.
I believe that all of us have the solemn duty to remind them that here in America, government is Of THE PEOPLE, BY THE PEOPLE and FOR THE PEOPLE.
And if they don't like it, they SHOULD NEVER RUN FOR PUBLIC OFFICE!
P.S. When you inherantly pick those who do not believe in Government, you get a government that doesn't do anything and you get the government that you deserve.
Don't get me wrong, I believe that clean air and clean water are a good thing. I am all for conservation and recycling. We should always try to take care of the enviroment. Just don't tell me that my SUV's is causing the earth to warm. It has been proven that Co2 levels rise AFTER temperatures warm. Sometimes by hundreds of years.
Reducing Co2 emmisions by 80% will only hurt our economy. Raising taxes on Co2 will also hurt the economy.
I know letting the government do everything is the liberal way of thinking, but like everything else liberal, it will generate the exact opposite of it's stated intent.
Global warming is part of a natural cycle that will happen in spite of our activity. Stop trying to make it political. We are not buying it.
Congressman Inslee,
HOW are you supporting and defending the Constitution of the USA when you have tolerated and excused the violation of that Constitution?
SINCE WHEN has warrantless ever been legal?
SINCE WHEN has torture been legal?
SINCE WHEN has outing a CIA agent been legal?
SINCE WHEN has invading a sovereign nation that posed no threat, resulting in the MURDER of over a million people, legal?
WHY DID YOU OBSTRUCT WASHINGTON STATES ATTEMPT TO PASS IMPEACHMENT?
What do you support and defend if NOT the Constitution of the USA?
REMEMBER...
The terrorists didn’t suspend Habeas Corpus, nor did the president or V.P…
… CONGRESS DID!
The terrorists didn’t refuse council, redress and due process…
… CONGRESS DID!
The terrorists haven’t been briefed about WARRANTLESS WIRE TAPS OF AMEIRCANS or TORTURE, pledging to remain silent…
… CONGRESS HAS!
T R E A S O N!
.