Robert Samuelson joins the ranks of those unimpressed with the analysis presented by the Stern Review.
Stern's headlined conclusions are intellectual fictions. They're essentially fabrications to justify an aggressive anti-global-warming agenda. The danger of that is we'd end up with the worst of both worlds: a program that harms the economy without much cutting of greenhouse gases.
Let me throw some messy realities onto Stern's tidy picture. In the global-warming debate, there's a big gap between public rhetoric (which verges on hysteria) and public behavior (which indicates indifference). People say they're worried but don't act that way.
Even many nations that signed on to binding targets under the Kyoto Protocol have failed to make signficiant progress in curtailing their emissions. Samuelson offers three reasons for this:
1) "With today's technologies, we don't know how to cut greenhouse gases in politically and economically acceptable ways."
2) "In rich democracies, policies that might curb greenhouse gases require politicians and the public to act in exceptionally "enlightened" (read: "unrealistic") ways."
3) "Even if rich countries cut emissions, it won't make much difference unless poor countries do likewise—and so far, they've refused because that might jeopardize their economic growth and poverty-reduction efforts."
What then are we to do? Samuelson calls for "more candor" and a greater focus on technology.
Unless we develop cost-effective technologies that break the link between carbon-dioxide emissions and energy use, we can't do much. Anyone serious about global warming must focus on technology—and not just assume it. Otherwise, our practical choices are all bad: costly mandates and controls that harm the economy; or costly mandates and controls that barely affect greenhouse gases. Or, possibly, both.
The problem of generating enough energy to meet the world's future energy needs in an environmentally acceptable manner is a real problem. And, as Ron Bailey points out, one that will not be easily solved. One thing we should resist, however, is a naive faith that government mandarins can guide our way to a "clean" energy future. The history of federal efforts to spur technological advance is totally uninspiring. As Bailey concludes:
history teaches us to scrap the Apollo Project model for technology R&D. Federal bureaucrats are simply not smart enough to pick winning energy technologies. Instead, eliminate all energy subsidies, set a price for carbon, and then let tens of thousands of energy researchers and entrepreneurs develop and test various new technologies in the market. No one knows now how humanity will fuel the 21st century, but Apollo and Manhattan Project-style Federal energy research projects will prove to be a huge waste of time, money and talent.
The problem with this, however, is that there are sizable constituencies for Apollo-style federal spending programs, and a much smaller constituency for sound public policy.
I guess by the time I've got grandkids, we'll know.
Reasonable minds can differ as to whether Apollo was worth the cost or whether Apollo is the sort of endeavor that governments should engage in. Reasonable minds can also differ about the extent to which Apollo had positive collateral effects on American technological development; for example, I would argue that it was far more important than Bailey admits to the dawn of the computer age.
But those reasonable minds should not forget that Apollo succeeded in its goal: "before this decade is out . . . landing a man on the Moon and returning him safely to Earth."
Thus far, the EU's carbon-trading scheme has not operated as planned. For a variety of reasons (some political, some economic) it has not produced the efficiencies many had hoped, most of Europe is falling behind in meeting Kyoto's targets, and it looks like few European nations are willing (as of yet) to adopt costly measures to fix these flaws.
JHA
It's not often that you find someone who believes that govts are consistent over time.
People who take the time to understand nuclear power know the risks, and compared to going for a ride in your gas powered car, they are trivial (both from an environmental and a personal safety standpoint).
Gee, since it's so wonderful, I guess Administration policy would encourage all nations to build more plants right away. Starting with, say, Iran.
Yeah. Radar, transistors, nuclear power, the Internet, countless advances in medicine and other fields stimulated by government funded research , etc.
Uninspiring.
Huh?! This has got to be the most stupid, anti-historical ignorant statement that has ever come out of a ideologically blind libertarian that I have ever heard. You just make statements that have absolutely no basis in fact and expect us to swallow us as though they are indisputable.
How about the atomic bomb and nuclear power? In three and half years we went from an unproven theory to a working weapon (not to mention the delivery system). That was probably the most staggering achievement in the history of mankind--completely funded, and kept secret by the U.S. government.
Then there is the early history of computers. Private industry was so uninterested in them the military undertook the task of writing the first practical business oriented programming language.
And that crazy man Kennedy said we were going to the moon within nine years, and the promise was kept, when we couldn't even get our rockets off the launch pad.
Except for the skyscraper, I doubt you can name a civil engineering advance that wasn't at least partially funded by a Federal or national government somewhere. Heck, cement was invented by the Romans, lost to mankind and was rediscovered until the 19th century.
And how about civil aviation? Without military aviation, it would be nothing but a plaything of the ultra rich. Again, jet engines were invented for military use.
And if you just want to focus on energy, ponder this. Europeans, with a similar income, use 25% less energy than us on a per capita basis. That is because of conscious decisions they made about land use, public transportation, taxation of fuel, and a whole bunch of other policy decisions that encourage efficient use of resources. To say we can't positively influence technology through government action is just ridiculous.
Yes, but the private sector would've had it built in *3* years, and then marketed it all over the world! As compared to its taking 60 years for countries like Pakistan and Iran to finally get the Bomb!
When there is an urgent military need (or a quasi-military propaganda objective like Apollo), then it is possible to maintain discipline on objectives and timelines and get things to work. Absent such conditions, government-directed applied tech projects tend to trip up on the usual pathologies of the public sector. (Note that this has little to do with basic research.)
Business-based applied tech projects fail all the time, but they tend to do so more quickly and with less waste, because of competition for the resources they consume and because of the incentives of their funders. When you get a situation where a tech project in business gets separated from these pressures, bad things can happen in ways very similar to what goes on in public projects.
Isn't this one of the criticisms of Kyoto? That it's just a thinly disguised wealth-transfer scheme?
- Alaska Jack
Whoosh! That sound you heard was the goalposts being moved sideways. Libertarians are the people who tell you we need government only to provide the framework through which contracts can be enforced and to defend borders. That means a vital branch of the state is the one dealing with coercion and legitimate force. If in the pursuit of these tasks it has beneficial side-effects like technological innovation (see numerous examples above) then that's what happens. You don't get to rule them out as irrelevant.
Moreover, something like the Apollo project is somewhat unusual in that it had a well-defined goal that the technological developments were all in the service of that goal, more or less. The most interesting cases are where the apparent goal (the "urgent military need" as you say) gives rise to genuine innovation -- i.e., unforseen discoveries with unexpected benefits.
because of competition for the resources they consume and because of the incentives of their funders. When you get a situation where a tech project in business gets separated from these pressures, bad things can happen
I wouldn't disagree for common-or-garden innovations, but again many of the most successful R&D shops in the private sector (the ones that produced game-changing innovations) worked specifically because they could insulate themselves from these market pressures, whether by heavily buffering them within the organization (e.g., Bell Labs, or IBM's research division) or by initially grounding themselves in a commons-based hobby culture (e.g., early software/computing startups in the 70s). Just look what happened to innovation at Bell Labs when it was exposed to market discipline as Lucent Technologies.
Easy Low Cost No Radiation Fusion.
Unfortunately the government has suppressed this technology for reasons of politics. Look at the video at the above link to find out why. The guy who gives the talk was once Deputy Director of the AEC.
Not enough uranium.
The technology mentioned in the above link could use Boron as its fuel. There is lots of boron in the world and therefor it is cheap. Using it as an energy source would have a very small effect on supply and demand.
What is puzzling is that you can't see the flaw in Samuelsons's logic, or the reasons why the EU ETS program is struggling. Isn't this rather obvious - in the context of a global commons no government has an incentive to really stick it to its own citizens/firms when others like the US are thumbing their noses at collective action. Rather, it's in the incentive for everyone to drag their heels until common rules applicable to the chief grazers can be agreed and enforced. The US needs to join, and to bring China, India and a few others along. It seems like Samuelson is very unfamiliar with the incentive problems that make solutions to open-access resources difficult.
The Stern reports should be seen as part of the jockeying between nations (and domestically) for the purposes of getting the US on board. Those in the UK and EU feel the need to gird their loins, and to let the US know they are doing so. In part, it is also an appeal to citizens in the US to push US policy makers towars constructive engagement.
I have no problem in principle with the government performing (or paying for) tech development necessary to its legitimate functions. The military is the leading example, of course, and any spinoffs that come from that are all to the good. Yea ARPA!
The point about Bell Labs proves the point I tried to make earlier. Bell Labs did great basic research but generated surprisingly little in the way of advanced technology development. Basic research often does work best in a "playing around" mode, and public vs. private sources of funding don't seem to matter much there (modulo political interference with unpopular stuff and private attempts to hype results). But applied technology innovation is a whole other thing, and the civilian public sector is really bad at it. Look at the national labs and read all the things the "competitiveness" people said about them back in the 1980s and early 1990s when we were running in fear of Japan.
We can and will switch over to renewables and it will happen a lot faster than you think. It will go even quicker if our politicians help out, but it might be best if they start small. Perhaps ending oil and coal subsidies would be a good start.
The problem of global warming seems nearly insurmountable because it requires changes in almost every business sector and every aspect of life. It can happen, but it must go in small steps. A government contract here, a subsidy there, small taxes on non-renewable goods, tax relief for citizens who invest in renewables, raising CAFE standards, etc. There's literally thousands of things the government can do to help out and they will help the economy more they they will hurt it.
Trillions of our dollars are exported to foreign countries for the purchase of oil. The whole point of renewables and the "green revolution" is to buy local, buy organic, and more importantly, buy buy buy environmentally-friendly goods! That is going to need some serious in-U.S. manufacturing and that means more jobs, a more stable economy, and a stronger dollar.
-Riskable
http://riskable.com
"If you elect leaders that act irresponsibly towards nature, you'll find that irresponsibility is the nature of your leaders."