Woah! I felt as if I was revisiting Jared Diamond’s book: Collapse! How Societies Choose to Succeed or Fail.

To quote the immortal words of IANVS: ” Keep chuggin’” We’ll get there if we persevere. “It’s always darkest before the dawn”…

Ahem. You’ve missed their point.

The point of S&N here is that with no alternative to replace carbon fuels, nothing will happen. Thus, alternatives are important for action.

The vast majority of the general public can’t be expected to ‘undergo privations’ to reduce our carbon footprint. It simply won’t happen (welcome to humanity) unless there’s a replacement for energy. Once that’s started, carbon can go.

That’s all. They want the same things you do, but want a slightly different way to get there and a different way of saying it to the public (your way doesn’t resonate, which is why they are articulating their way).

Best,

D

I haven’t missed their point — I just think their point is dead wrong. We have all the technologies we need (either in existence today or in the pipeline) to make deep cuts in emissions over the next few decades — if we have a real price for carbon. Absent pollution limits, all the technology in the world won’t displace coal.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/ pages/ live/ articles/ news/ worldnews.html?in_article_id=485336&in_page_id=1811

I’m glad you took S&N on — I was thinking of doing myself, but you’ve dispatched them nicely.

A couple of observations, Dano — there are all kinds of alternatives available now, starting with efficiency. Most studies show we could reduce energy use by 30% in buildings at a savings. Hybrids are 50% more efficient than the fleet average, and smoke notwithstanding, they are cost-competetive with conventional cars on a life-cycle basis.

If S&N had done their homework, they would have seen that regs and limits have done more to stimulate R&D than all the good wishes and crossed fingers in the world.

GM came up with the catalytic convertor in response to SOx limits no one knew how to meet (they were making more money off the licensing fees for CCs than they were off their cars at one point, reportedly).

The SOx trading program for utilites under Title IV of the CAA remains one of the stunning successes of the environmental movement, leading to low cost reduction of SOx through several innovations no one had anticipated.

The key to this is that both regs set agressive performance standards, but did not specifiy technologies.

The record is clear: appropriately designed regulations will stimulate innovation more than anything else we can do. Period.

Next, I frequently cite in my work that the payoff from the cost of regulation of just the Clean Air Act is seven times the cost, and I’m nearing the end of a LEED-ND greenfield development plan. So I may “get” it.

And while it’s great that all the regulation is going through, there is a substantial fraction of the Murrican population that doesn’t give a rip for you or your policies or regalayshuns or your alarmist propaganda. Seemingly every week in the Denver papers here, there is some nut job wailing about the lib’rull green conspiracy. Now they may just be projecting their envirohate, but it’s not going away.

Recently, I gave a talk about future water projections in my area of the Front Range to a group of large business owners. As soon as I brought up that climate change has changed the hydrological cycle around here, I heard the equivalent of “Algore is fat”. Fortunately his peers gave him the cold shoulder, but I was escorted out of the room when done, because these folk were all large water users and I unwittingly threw cold water on the proceedings. Regular folks can’t or don’t want to think that far out.

In a nutshell: this isn’t just a lack of regulation problem or just a business problem or just an efficiency problem. This is a fundamental societal structure problem, where the members of society are divorced from cause and effect.

S&N argue that the current way we go about things is insufficient to break through the barriers that prolong the separation between cause & effect. They advocate a different approach. They state that we have to think differently about how we as a society discuss how we are going to radically change direction, in such a way that people are engaged, not just accepting. Because being engaged will change behavior. And behavior changes are needed to reduce vehicle miles traveled and vehicle trips per day, all the way down the line to radically reduce consumption.

I=PAT The equation tells the tale. If we aren’t going to reduce P, then we have to reduce the effects of A and T, and T is a fundamental consumer good that requires energy. Think about it.

Best,

D

It’s about Paradigm thinking. Paradigm thinking is our thougth patterns, things we think about and do without considering alternatives.

I think there is one important thought pattern with the carbon-noncarbon fuel question.

That is tax money for government services should come from sales, property, income, social security taxes and others and not from taxing fossil fuels or carbon dioxide release.

We tax 4 trillion dollars from Federal, State and Local taxes in a 13 trillion dollar economy. Almost none of this comes directly from carbon and fossil fuels itself. And yet fossil fuels is the thing that is depleatable. As an example, farmland, who’s owner pays property taxes, will be here 50, 100, 500 and a million years from now. But the fossil fuels used to plant and harvest crops will be gone in a few decades. Yet we tax the thing that will be here forever instead of taxing the depleatable resource so as conserve it for future generations.

The problem is the idea of not taxing fossil fuels and only taxing property, sales, income, social security and others, is such a strong paradigm, we can’t make the change. Let’s change the taxes that states have on sales taxes and move that to a fossil fuel sales tax. Don’t pay it at the sales tax at the restautant or store product, but on fossil fuels burned. We should do a tax trade.

The mistake S&N makes is nothing can change, even our thinking. Well, they are wrong. Things can change, expecially our thinking. And it is the thing that has to change. Are there forces against it? Sure. But changing our thinking is the most important thing in the world.

(For reference, the Mojave desert is 57,000 km^2, and the Sonoran desert is 310,800 km^2, so 12,000 km^2 is 3.3%)

Good comment.

But there are already real alternatives to carbon fuels. Why do S&N not see that? For example, being very brief: first, efficiency (the most important step), and then for electricity there are solar thermal and wind, and for petroleum there are plug-in vehicles and algae biodiesel. Tilman’s carbon-negative LIHD biomass might be interesting too, but I haven’t seen a cost estimate.

The point is that they have to be economical to the masses and the masses want to have them for the right reasons. Sally Soccermom isn’t going to pony up $4500 to install solar to be efficient; Sara Stepford might because its trendy.

But let’s step back. S&N’s original points in DOE were hammered. Same today. They argue for radical rethinking, and the entrenched fighters have invested a lot in that old way, and perhaps some take their identity from that old way (hence their identity is being ‘attacked’ by S&N).

I suggest reading their original essay, and then contemplating the knowledge that they are now giving specific policy prescriptions arising out of the projects they were working on.

Remember: they want to get to the same place as most of the commenters here. It’s just a different direction. The author of this blog wants to steer a course at 130, S&N are saying 145. It’s still southeast, but the author is vilifying S&N for wanting to steer a slightly different course to get to the same place.

Why?

I = PAT

We must reduce some combination of P, A, and T. If not P, then there is pain (economist’s “hard landing”) ahead if we continue to require the same energy as today. This requires radical rethinking on society’s part, and we need to start.

Best,

D

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The entire landscape in which politics plays out has changed radically in the last 30 years, yet the environmental movement acts as though proposals based on “sound science” will be sufficient to overcome ideological and industry opposition. Environmentalists are in a culture war whether we like it or not. It’s a war over our core values as Americans and over our vision for the future, and it won’t be won by appealing to the rational consideration of our collective self-interest.

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So long as the siren call of denial is met with the drone of policy expertise — and the fantasy of technical fixes is left unchallenged — the public is not just being misled, it’s also being misread. Until we address Americans honestly, and with the respect they deserve, they can be expected to remain largely disengaged from the global transformation we need them to be a part of.

1. Your response to Nordhaus and Shellenberger in large part supports their argument by responding with a level of technical detail an assumption that it’s about acting on “the facts” properly. Clearly science, technical analyses and prudent action are important but N & S are saying that to reach the masses, not enviro wonks like us, we need something with broader reach. Falling into debate about the timetable and deployment of technology is a discussion worth having but it’s about the implementation of the idea (importance of technological innovation not just regulation/conservation) that you largely overlook.

2. This sure reads like the work of someone who is cranky that their own book isn’t getting the same level of attention as Break Through. You seem quite invested in shooting down the work of others. I’d like to see you promote more books, not just find ones to attack. You might also consider that the impact of S & N’s work sort of proves the point that the broad and aspirational gets more uptake whereas the literal and technical is less broadly resonant. Let me be clear: I admire you and your work so it’s worrisome that you seem to have a personal axe to grind here.