Reconciling the Planet's Needs with Humanity's
Andrew Sullivan is convinced that global warming is real, but he also belongs to the reality-based community, so he poses this dilemma:
Should we bear the heavy economic and social costs of trying to mitigate it in the teeth of a global depression? Or should we find creative ways to adjust to and live with it and hope that the faster growth of a less green world might be the long-term key to developing the new energy resources and technologies to restrain it?
Some orthodox climate advocates would surely berate Sullivan for even thinking like this aloud. Yet given the cratering economic landscape, this either/or prism may well become the preferred viewing lens for politicians.
Read Sullivan’s entire piece in the UK’s Sunday Times to see how he thinks through the dilemma and where he ends up.
It’s worth noting that Sullivan, at one point, says that “a lack of certainty does not seem to me to be a crippling disadvantage in this debate.”
Only someone with as nimble a mind as Sullivan’s can make a statement like that and then offer a plausible argument that follows from it.
Pay attention, Keith. Jim Hansen has been pushing the same concept for the last year.
A critical point that Sullivan misses in his rather muddled column is that cap-and-trade is preferred by politicians because it’s seen as less painful politically that a carbon tax of equal weight. Of course many such people are likely to ultimately find cap-and-trade unacceptable, as we seem to be seeing in Washington just now.
So the third option (unmentioned by Sullivan), straight-up regulation, is starting to look more likely. The Obama administration appears to be wasting no time getting the needed legal basis in place, and it won’t be long before we see whether they’re serious. The early indicators with respect to coal power plants, mountaintop removal and California’s vehicle GHG regulations are positive. Sullivan should be happy about this prospect since the existing EPA can handle the job nicely, obviating the need for a new bureaucracy.
Steve,
Okay, that (straight-up-regulation) takes care of us. What about the rest of the world?
That’s an issue with all three options. My guess is that if Obama is really serious about this we’ll see a deal where China will agree to major steps in exchange for a U.S. package of regulations. Adding other countries to that base would arguably be a lot easier than trying to negotiate a global treaty directly. A potential big sweetener for the Chinese would be a U.S. commitment to intensive R+D on specific GHG reduction technologies suited to China.
One could argue that this is all wishful thinking, except that the U.S. and China are known to have begun intensive talks on climate issues right after Obama took office. That Obama scheduled those two climate summits is also cause for hope.