Questioned yesterday at an AEI-sponsored discussion of green jobs, Smith admitted that her modeling actually shows that even with the climate policy in place:

“When you look out to 2050 there’s a doubling of the GDP.”

Wow. I’m not sure how “a doubling of GDP” amounts to the suicide-bombing induced economic meltdown the Chamber likes to portray. Was this a momentary aberration on Smith’s part?

I’ll answer this one.  A doubling of GDP over the next 40 years would correspond to an annual average growth rate of about 1.75%.  Over the past 40 years, the annual average growth rate has been about 2.93%.  Using that as a baseline, a doubling of GDP by 2050  would correspond to a complete failure– the cost of climate action would, on average, subtract almost 1.2 percentage point from annual growth, year after year.  

Fortunately, there’s good reason to believe that this wildly overestimates the actual cost.  So why not just refute Smith’s claims?  Doing so would avoid this:

Apparently not, since Smith went on to say that:

“The real issue isn’t whether we’re going to tank the economy. Its, is this something we’re willing to spend for? You’ve got to look at what are we getting for that and is it worth doing?”

In other words, all of Smith’s research and damning presentations aren’t about saying we shouldn’t do a climate policy, or that it will kill the economy. Rather, that we should make sure we get the best value we can.

Hmmm…I’d have to say that if the cost of getting the US to fight global warming is that we double the GDP, well, that sounds like a pretty good value to me.

No.  She’s saying that maybe action on climate change isn’t worth doing.  She’s probably wrong– but address that, don’t distort her words– and don’t try to spin a dismal growth rate as a positive, especially when you  have good reason to believe that the real cost of action on climate change would be far lower.

Why the Science Journal is Cool

The piece explains the argument that the sun’s variability could be the cause of much of the rise in global temperatures, then offers the evidence for why this argument is flawed: if the sun were the cause of warming, the stratosphere should warm along with the troposphere, but instead, the stratosphere has cooled while the troposphere warmed– exactly what would happen if greenhouse gases trapped more heat in the troposphere. Additionally, the article notes that the change in heat energy in the oceans is far greater than what could be explained by the variability in the sun’s output.

It goes on to note the basic thermodynamic concept that many people seem to miss– in the absence of global warming, heating and cooling in one ocean basin would have to be matched by the opposite in other basins. Instead, a warming in all basins has been observed, a fact that can only be explained by global warming. It then notes that if the extra heat were the result of an increase in geothermal output on the ocean floor, as some have suggested, the warming would be greater near the floor– which it is not.

Why the WSJ’s Op-Ed Section is Not Cool

Meanwhile, the Opinion Journal publishes pieces like this, which are convenient for those who wish to ignore a problem, but offer nothing but misinformation to the reader. The author of the piece, Pete Du Pont, promotes his own think tank’s “study”, while ignoring the massive body of peer-reviewed scientific research on climate change.

The sophistry at the beginning of Mr. Du Pont’s piece is amusing. He talks about the dire warnings of environmentalists in the 1970s and how many measures of environmental quality have improved since then as the economy has expanded– as though these improvements aren’t the result of environmental legislation. In mentioning our economic growth, Mr. Du Pont actually almost manages to make a good case for environmental protections– after all the screaming about how much damage pollution controls, endangered species protections, and other measures would do to the domestic economy, the economy has grown nicely as environmental quality has improved. Does this say anything about claims that regulating CO2 emissions would destroy our economy? [The answer, I think, is that the reality of the economic impact of CO2 regulations is unknown and dependent on the nature of the regulations-- but certainly less than whatever industry groups claim.]

The meat of Mr. Du Pont’s editorial, however, is in what he claims to be “the reality about global warming and its impact on the world”. It’s an ideal opportunity to look at how misinformation about climate change and other issues is generated and propagated. What follows is fairly long; this is a reflection of why climate “skeptics” have so much staying power– a bogus claim can be made in a sentence, but takes time and effort to effectively rebut.

I’m feeling saucy today, though, so here we go with a rebuttal:

Misleading, Cherry-Picking, and Lying: From Whence the Claims in the WSJ Op-Ed Come

There are substantial differences in climate models–some 30 of them looked at by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change–but the Climate Science study concludes that “computer models consistently project a rise in temperatures over the past century that is more than twice as high as the measured increase.” The National Center for Atmospheric Research’s prediction of 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit warming is more accurate. In short, the world is not warming as much as environmentalists think it is.

This is a confusing paragraph, given that the author speaks of a rise over the past century and then suggests that the National Center for Atmospheric Resarch (NCAR) predicts a warming of 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit. He can’t possibly be referring to the rise in average temperatures over the past century, as the observed rise during the 20th century was about 0.6 degrees Celsius, or about 1.1 degrees Fahrenheit.

We can, at least, gather from it that he rejects the IPCC’s analysis in favor of NCAR’s. The author must, then, love this paper, which is featured on NCAR’s Climate and Global Dynamics Division web page on global warming. The paper, entitled “How Much More Global Warming and Sea Level Rise?” begins:

Two global coupled climate models show that even if the concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere had been stabilized in the year 2000, we are already committed to further global warming of about another half degree and an additional 320% sea level rise caused by thermal expansion by the end of the 21st century. Projected weakening of the meridional overturning circulation in the North Atlantic Ocean does not lead to a net cooling in Europe. At any given point in time, even if concentrations are stabilized, there is a commitment to future climate changes that will be greater than those we have already observed. 

The authors were even nice enough to provide us with a figure illustrating their predictions:

If we throw out the high-end estimate (derived from extrapolating the rate of increase of greenhouse gas emissions) and the low-end estimate (derived by assuming that humans ceased all greenhouse gas emissions from industrial activity) and take the average of the other two models under both remaining scenarios, we arrive at approximately a 3.6 degree Celsius rise in temperature by the year 2100, and a 7-inch increase in sea levels by the same time. Dropping NCAR’s name to increase his credibility was a cute ploy, but if Mr. Du Pont were serious about debating climate change, he’d honestly represent their findings.

Next, he (quoting his own think tank’s “study”) comes into direct conflict with the Science Journal piece:

What warming there is turns out to be caused by solar radiation rather than human pollution. The Climate Change study concluded “half the observed 20th century warming occurred before 1940 and cannot be attributed to human causes,” and changes in solar radiation can “account for 71 percent of the variation in global surface air temperature from 1880 to 1993.” 

The National Center for Policy Analysis study derives this conclusion from a single paper that has been shown to rely on an incomplete, flawed data set. That paper, incorrectly cited as “Inference of Solar Radiance Variability from Terrestrial Temperature Changes, 1880-1993: An Astrophysical Application of the Sun-Climate Connection” (the correct title uses the word “irradiance”, not “radiance”) has been surpassed by advances in data collection and analysis during the past ten years, and the author’s choice to rely on this paper alone is telling. With respect to the correlation between solar irradiance and warming trends, if one considers the satellite data (versions combining the different observations, with discussion, are available here) on solar irradiance, then compares this to the trend in global average temperature, the claim that 71% of the temperature variation can be explained by solar irradiance becomes obviously false.

He continues:

As for hurricanes, 2005 saw several severe ones–Katrina and Rita both had winds of 150 knots–hitting New Orleans, the Gulf Coast and Florida. But there is little evidence linking them to global warming. A team of National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientists concluded that the increased Atlantic hurricane activity since 1995 “is not related to greenhouse warming” but instead to natural tropical climate cycles. 

Of course, it’s impossible to conclusively link the small sample representing hurricane activity during the past ten years to the larger phenomenon of global warming. However, it’s not even hurricane activity that is the relevant question– it’s hurricane strength:

Although we cannot say at present whether more or fewer hurricane will occur in the future with global warming, the hurricanes that do occur near the end of the 21st century are expected to be stronger and have significantly more intense rainfall than under present day climate conditions. 

This is from– who else?– NOAA scientists. The name-dropping-for-credibility game really is a dangerous one, isn’t it?

After the aforementioned misdirection play, he tries another:

Regarding Arctic temperature changes, the Study found the coastal stations in Greenland had actually experienced a cooling trend: The “average summer air temperatures at the summit of the Greenland Ice Sheet, have decreased at the rate of 4 degrees F per decade since measurements began in 1987.” Add in Russian and Alaskan temperature data and “Arctic air temperatures were warmest in the 1930s and near the coolest for the period of recorded observations (since at least 1920) in the late 1980s.” 

So, there’s a cooling trend in the arctic, right? Well… no. The “Study” got this information from a paper that tracked data from 1951-1990 (where the 1930s came from, I cannot say, as I do not have a copy of the paper). What happens when we look at the picture out to the year 2005? Again, NASA provides truth, this time in the form of an animation (quicktime, MP4) . It’s worth watching once or twice, then scrolling through– you’ll see the anomalies, get a feel for the long-term warming trend, and have the opportunity to decide for yourself whether you think, based on the evidence at hand, that the arctic is warming.

Mr. Du Pont then misrepresents the conclusions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and demonstrates a willful ignorance of the dynamics of sea level rise:

As for sea ice, it is not melting excessively. Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans concluded that “global warming appears to play a minor role in changes to Arctic sea ice.” The U.N.’s IPCC Third Assessment Report concluded that the rate of sea level rise has not accelerated during the last century, which is supported by U.S. coastal sea level experience. In California sea levels have risen between zero and seven millimeters a year and between 2.1 and 2.8 millimeters a year in North and South Carolina. 

First, note that sea level rise and sea ice are related, but that sea level rise is not the product of melting sea ice. To prove this, try an experiment– fill a glass with water, float a few ice cubes in it, and see if, when the ice melts, the level of water in the glass rises. It won’t. Melting ice only affects sea level if the melting ice is on land. The two major components of sea level rise are melting ice on land and thermal expansion; the latter being simply the slight expansion of the water in the seas as it warms– which is subtle, difficult to observe with the small volumes of water we use at home, but a relevant factor when dealing with approximately 361.2 quintillion (3.612 x 10^20) gallons of water.

Second, Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans did not “[conclude] that ‘global warming appears to play a minor role in changes to Arctic sea ice.’” This claim is derived from a study by Greg Holloway and Tessa Sou that was funded in part by Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans, but does not represent the official position of the department. It’s also worth nothing that, in addition to misrepresenting the role that Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans played in the study, the quoted text stating that “global warming appears to play a minor role in changes to Arctic sea ice” does not exist in the paper (a note: the link in the footnote included in the “Climate Change Study” cited by Mr. Du Pont does not even lead to the paper, so it is possible that this text does exist in a different version of Holloway’s paper than the one available online).

It’s worth understanding what Holloway’s paper states, because doing so provides some insight into how those with agendas attempt to twist scientific evidence. Holloway’s paper does not conclude that arctic sea ice is not thinning, nor does it conclude that global warming is not one of the primary causes of this thinning. It concludes that the extent of thinning between 1970 could be overstated due to the role that certain conditions (changes in arctic wind patterns) could potentially play in biasing measurements. He arrives at this conclusion by running what amounts to a monte carlo simulation (the irony of climate change skeptics who reject computer simulation as valid relying on papers that employ computer simulations to support their claims is rich indeed) that produced sea ice thickness results for randomly generated virtual survey tours through a reconstructed arctic environment (the reconstruction being based on a series of assumptions that we can simply accept for the time being). It’s a valid scientific method for determining potential bias, if interpreted properly. The result of this, assuming that the underlying assumptions are accurate, shows that the observations made in the real world (showing a 45% reduction in ice volume) could be seen when ice volume actually fell by only 12 to 34 percent. That’s right– even when cherry-picking their data, Mr. Du Pont’s staff at NCPA choose papers that show that arctic sea ice may have fallen by “only” 12 to 34 percent over three decades. All of this, of course, is ignoring the impact of the anomalous cool arctic temperatures during the late 80s that we already discussed, and the significant warming that has occurred since the sample period– the loss of arctic sea ice volume has accelerated since the publication of this paper.

For an interesting simulation of where the situation with arctic sea ice may be headed, check out the results from a series of simulations at NOAA’s Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory.

Third, the UN IPCC’s Third Assessment Report (TAR) did not “[conclude] that the rate of sea level rise has not accelerated during the last century”, and this isn’t entirely relevant anyway, given that the observed rate of sea level rise during the past century is consistent with models and that the IPCC report also notes that:

The large heat capacity of the ocean means that there will be considerable delay before the full effects of surface warming are felt throughout the depth of the ocean. As a result, the ocean will not be in equilibrium and global average sea level will continue to rise for centuries after atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations have stabilised. 

Yes, Virginia, there’s a delay before the effects are seen. Further, the TAR’s conclusion was that

Comparison of the rate of sea level rise over the last 100 years (1.0 to 2.0 mm/yr) with the geological rate over the last two millennia (0.1 to 0.2 mm/yr; Section 11.3.1) implies a comparatively recent acceleration in the rate of sea level rise. 

So, given that sea level has been rising during the past century at an order of magnitude faster than it has in the past, why is Mr. Du Pont unsatisfied? Because, of course, he’s set the bar at a level where statistical significance is particularly difficult to establish:

There is no evidence for any acceleration of sea level rise in data from the 20th century data alone… Models of ocean thermal expansion indicate an acceleration through the 20th century but when the model is subsampled at the locations of the tide gauges no significant acceleration can be detected because of the greater level of variability (Gregory et al., 2001). Thus the absence of an acceleration in the observations is not necessarily inconsistent with the model results. [Emphasis mine] 

The final claim made in Mr. Du Pont’s op-ed is perhaps the most ridiculous:

Finally come the polar bears–a species thought by global warming proponents to be seriously at risk from the increasing temperature. According to the World Wildlife Fund, among the distinct polar bear populations, two are growing–and in areas where temperatures have risen; ten are stable; and two are decreasing. But those two are in areas such as Baffin Bay where air temperatures have actually fallen. 

We’re supposed to believe that the crazy environmentalists think that polar bears are threatened because they’re going to get too warm and die of heat stroke or something? The threat to polar bears is a product of the amount of their lives that Ursus martimus spends out on sea ice, fishing and mating. Their range is determined by the extent of sea ice– which, as we already discussed, is receding.

A Conclusion, of Sorts

It’s easy to see how intelligent people, especially those of a contrarian nature, could be taken in by the arguments that climate change “skeptics” present. Without a good background understanding of the dynamics of climate change, combined with some basic research into the sourcing of the claims, they seem to be valid arguments. Unfortunately, most people don’t have the time or inclination to read skeptically into the skeptics’ claims, or the background understanding necessary to evaluate claims on either side. As a result, groups like the NCPA can pollute the flow of information to the extent that the public at large believes that there is honest disagreement about climate change, and some are even willing to sign on to the belief that it doesn’t exist.

This takes us back to where we were before– Individuals who don’t want to believe that climate change is occurring will seize on the claims made by groups who have a vested interest in perpetuating the belief that it’s not happening. They won’t seek to challenge their beliefs, and even if they do encounter information that challenges their beliefs, they will set a different standard for the rebuttals than for the initial claims. Thus, studies like the NCPA’s “Climate Change Study” and op-eds written about them like Mr. Du Pont’s can create enough fodder to feed individuals’ desire to ignore objective reality.

To conclude, a question: Let us suppose for a moment that the effects of climate change will in fact be devastating for some significant fraction of the world’s population. If this were the case, and action that could have mitigated some of these effects were prevented by a campaign of disinformation, how morally culpable would be the agents of this campaign?

The story has all the elements of a classic environmental tale: the David-versus-Goliath nature of the interaction between the student and a representative of Ford; the evil corporation ignoring environmental concerns; the notion that if we just did this, or this, then our problems would be solved; and so on. Unfortunately, one of the elements is that it shares with many other streams of thought in the environmental community is that the speaker hadn’t bothered to understand the underlying forces at work. He seemed to impress the person who related the story to me, but had the executive been on his toes at all, a far more valuable conversation could have ensued.

The problem with hybrids is threefold: the demand is still more for power than fuel economy, there’s a bit of an elasticity effect that reduces the amount of fuel saved from hybrids being on the road, and hybrids “cover” for gas guzzlers under the Corporate Average Fuel Economy (CAFE) standards.The first problem with hybrids is exactly what the Ford executive should have pointed out to the young man asking the question. Simply put, customers want faster cars more than they want cars with better fuel economy. Given their other desires (wanting a relatively large car, etc) and the fact that they have a limited amount of money to spend, fuel economy takes a back seat. This has two implications. First, the lack of demand for high-efficiency automobiles up until this point is exactly why Ford shouldn’t have been building them. Asking a struggling automaker why it isn’t making even more cars that nobody wants is like asking a man bleeding from a gunshot wound why he doesn’t feel like hunting today. Second, hybrid technology increases the efficiency of a car– it allows the car to produce more useful power from a gallon of fuel. This can be used in one of two ways: it can be used to raise the car’s gas mileage, or it can be used to make the car more powerful. There’s reason to believe that those hybrid tax credits might not all be going toward reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Consider the 2007 Lexus GS 450h. It’s not out yet, but notice that the advertising isn’t as concerned with the fuel economy as it is with the 300hp engine/motor combination.

The second problem with hybrids is a much less important one, but one that is still worth mentioning. Demand elasticity exists, and it matters. Just as people tend to drive less when gas is more expensive, they tend to drive more when it’s cheaper. The same phenomenon applies when a car gets better fuel economy. Because the incremental cost of driving an extra mile is lower with a hybrid, that mile gets driven more often. This doesn’t negate the clean-air benefits of hybrids, but it does reduce it to less than what one might expect.

The third problem received a mention in the New York Times recently. Namely, for every super-efficient hybrid sold, an extra gas guzzler can be produced and sold without penalty. CAFE works based on fleet averages– so, for example, that Ford Escape hybrid you bought just lowered the fleet average just enough for an extra Navigator to be produced without any concessions to efficiency. Or, to put it more dramatically, the hybrids are subsidizing the Hummers.

These aren’t problems with hybrids per se, they’re rather problems with the incentive structure that’s currently in place. Watch what happens when, instead of placing our faith in technology and railing against corporate giants, we play economist and adjust the incentives by replacing CAFE with a gas tax… The first problem disappears, as the cost of a gallon of gasoline has increased substantially. Sure, everyone wants power, but they also want a flat-screen TV, and they can’t afford both. The second problem is no longer really a problem– it’s the phenomenon we’re using to our advantage. An individual with a more efficient car can certainly afford to drive a little more than one without, but this is occuring in a situation in which everyone– including the hybrid owners– is driving less. Finally, since CAFE doesn’t even exist, and it’s been replaced with Hummer owners paying the real cost of driving those vehicles, the third problem vanishes as well.

I don’t know who the student was who asked the question of the Ford executive, but I hope he learns the power of incentives, and how important the economics of environmental issues can be. New technologies can be great, but they exist in a larger context, one that is defined by market forces and politicans who set the rules of the game. That Ford executive didn’t deserve a grilling for his company’s decision not to bring hybrids to market sooner, he and his company are just playing the game as best they can. In other words…

Don’t hate the player, hate the game.

Interestingly, the poachers seem to like the idea of a free-market system for manatee protection:

“‘It works like this: If we could farm manatees — ya’know, catch moms and pops and let them mate, then breed their kids, the population would get bigger, right?’

‘In captivity, you mean?’

‘Yep. You farm them in warm-water springs — they migrate down here in winter to avoid the cold. And once they build up, people can eat manatees, just like God intended. Anyway, there will be more manatees than there are now too, so everybody wins. It’s exactly like buffalo.’”

Well, not exactly. With bison the ranchers hold private property rights to individual bison. I don’t see anything in there about private property rights being assigned to individual manatees (or government-set quotas), and there are obvious problems with declaring equivalence between a captive population and a wild one, so I can’t say it’s a good (or fully-formed) idea. What I’d really like to see is someone who can bridge the gap– who can actually communicate with people like this and explain that if it weren’t for the “tree-huggers and manatee-humpers”, as they call them, the manatees wouldn’t be there today for their poaching. By a rough estimate using the numbers in the article, the 12-15 manatees a year that they poach means that they’re responsible for killing a number equivalent to about 10% of the manatees that are found dead in an average year (their kills aren’t included in the count because they’re not found, they’re eaten).

It’s pretty much a truism that any time there’s a major event, two things will occur immediately afterwards: people with an agenda will find some way, however logically flawed, to argue that the event supports their view; and people (some of them being in the former group, some not) will offer up some pretty ludicrous suggestions. Apparently, Tyler enjoys being a conduit for both phenomena.The problems with the argument posited by Mr. O’Toole are numerous, not least of which being that the conclusion is a complete non sequitur.

Let’s consider a few of his statements, starting with this:

“Economists commonly attribute such declines to increasing wealth. Wealth differences are also credited with the large number of disaster-related deaths in developing nations vs. developed nations. But what makes wealthier societies less vulnerable to natural disaster? There are several factors, but the most important is mobility.

Number of Deaths Caused by Hurricanes in the U.S.
1900-1919 10,000
1920-1939 3,751
1940-1959 1,119
1960-1979 453
1980-1999 57″

Of course, improvements in dwellings, levees and other protective structures, and most importantly, weather forecasting and communications couldn’t be more important than mobility. If we weren’t totally stupid, we could test this assertion by comparing the data to other weather phenomena that aren’t affected by mobility– like tornadoes. We’d throw out the 1900-1919 data, because those 10,000 deaths were based on a single catastrophe that was unanticipated, with no attempt at evacuation being considered. Then, given the downward trend from the 1920s until today, we’d compare that to the trend in tornado deaths [second graph]. We’d then reject Mr. O’Toole’s analysis.

He makes this further argument:

“In the late 1980s and 1990s, New Orleans spent at least $15 million converting an abandoned rail line into the 1.5-mile Riverfront Streetcar line. In 2004, New Orleans opened the 3.6-mile Canal Street streetcar line at a cost of nearly $150 million. New Orleans was planning to spend another $120 million on a Desire Street streetcar line.These tourist lines do nothing to help any local residents except for those who happen to own property along the line. The city was not deterred by its own analysis of the Desire line showing that each new rider on this line would cost taxpayers more than $20. About 26,000 low-income families in New Orleans don’t own a car. If all the money spent on New Orleans streetcars from 1985 to the present had been spent instead on helping autoless low-income families achieve mobility, the city would have had more than $6,000 for each such family, enough to buy good used cars for all of them. Add the money the city wanted to spend on the Desire Street streetcar and you have enough to buy a brand-new car for every single autoless low-income family — not a Lexus or BMW, certainly, but a functional source of transportation that would have allowed them to escape the current disaster.” [references deleted]

This argument is flawed on two counts.

First, it undermines Mr. O’Toole’s own assertion that the experience of Katrina provides evidence against car-free cities. He acknowledges that New Orleans didn’t have an effective mass transit system, it had a tourist novelty. If an effective transit network had actually existed, including rail links between cities, it would have been as effective as the extra 26,000 automobiles he calls for. In fact, considering how awful the recent automotive evacuation from Houston was, it may in fact have been more effective– trains can move large numbers of people very, very efficiently. So what, exactly, is his argument? That we shouldn’t rely on government planners? That’s fair, especially given that FEMA turned down an offer from AMTRAK to transport thousands of people out by train. Fine– we won’t ban the automobile, no argument here. But that doesn’t mean that developing good alternatives in the form of mass transit isn’t something we should pursue. Had such a system existed, it would have served the same purpose as, and potentially been more effective than, Mr. O’Toole’s suggestion. And once such alternatives exist, people will be able to freely and rationally choose those alternatives. Mr. O’Toole hasn’t advanced his argument at all yet.

Second, he casually throws out the number of a $6,000 automobile for each of the 26,000 low-income families who lack one. He does this without considering the total costs of automobile ownership– gas, maintenance, insurance, et cetera (assuming we waive vehicle taxes for these families). Good discussions of these costs can be found here and elsewhere– suffice it to say, most poor families can’t afford to maintain and drive a vehicle, even if it is provided free of charge. The per-mile costs of mass transit are significantly lower than those associated with automobiles, so in comparison to $6,000 cars given away once, a real mass transit system rather than an assortment of tourist toys would have been a gift that kept on giving. Add to this the fact that the automotive infrastructure probably cannot support another 26,000 vehicles on the road in New Orleans and that significant additional expenditures would have to be made to accomodate them, and suddenly the Great Automobile Giveaway doesn’t seem so cheap compared to the streetcars anymore. This is, by the way, before considering the negative externalities, like increased smog, associated with every additional car on the road.

The problem in New Orleans wasn’t a lack of cars, it was an abundance of poverty that cars alone would have done little to solve– and that an effective mass transit system would help address far more cheaply than a car giveaway could. It should be said, though, that the solution to such widespread poverty goes far beyond transit alone.

Of course, Mr. O’Toole isn’t interested in addressing poverty. When he states that bad transit networks offer fewer earnings opportunities to workers than autos, he offers a good reason to build better transit networks, which would be accessible at lower cost to the poor than an automobile. Of course, Mr. O’Toole doesn’t acknowledge this, because when someone’s mind is already made up, anything he encounters either doesn’t exist or is a confirmation of his beliefs. It’s a little disappointing, though, to read arguments that are so disingenuous– to argue for cars on behalf of the poor is a step away from “build mass transit and the terrorists win”.

Finally, it’s worth going all the way back to Tyler’s posts for a moment. His second post, which was a little ill-conceived, in that classic economist-ignoring-moral-sentiment sort of way, suggested paying car owners to remain behind, in the path of an oncoming hurricane. This, of course, is exactly what we’re trying to avoid when we order evacuations, but hey, whatever. We’ll ignore the implementation problems with the idea, because it’s bunk to begin with (and I think, or at least hope, that he wasn’t all that serious about it).

If we followed the advice of both posts, there would be every bit as many dead poor people in New Orleans. Why, you ask? If we gave the poor cars, but then paid anyone owning a car who was willing to stay behind (which would represent a larger relative incentive to the poor than anyone else), the poor would have stayed behind (with their cars). We’d be in the same situation as before we spent all that money, except we’d have less money and there would be about 26,000 additional flooded cars in the streets. Genius!

“‘The consensus among hurricane researchers and forecasters is that the hurricane landfalls of 2004 resulted from the AMO, a natural cycle of hurricane activity, combined with a lapse in the incredibly good fortune of the previous 35 years,’ Hugh Willoughby, a hurricane researcher at Miami’s Florida International University, wrote in an essay last fall.

‘The effect of global warming was at most second order,’ he wrote, ‘and probably not present at all.’”

Having not read his work, I have questions as to how he came to this conclusion, as it appears that he was only using data from the North Atlantic. I’d think it prudent to look at the global satellite data of ocean temperatures used in James Hansen’s recent publications, or at very least to look at records of typhoons in the Pacific, before dimissing global waming as a cause. Willoughby’s explanation should however serve as a warning to those who are making broad statements about the effects of global warming on hurricane activity that the science on this particular matter is less settled than the science behind the phenomenon of global warming at large.

Although no trend has been found between global warming and hurricane frequency, a link with increasing hurricane intensity has been seen. An article on this correlation, produced by MIT professor Kerry Emanuel, was recently published in the scientific journal Nature. Also, work over the years by NOAA scientists at the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory has produced increasing robust studies predicting that as atmospheric carbon dioxide levels rise, so too will hurricane intensity rise. (A GFDL webpage on global warming and hurricanes has a readable overview with excellent graphical content that summarizes their work.) Thus, we’ll be seeing more storms classified as category-5 (the most intense rating) but not more storms in general.

He argues:

“Of course, American consumers can already purchase vehicles that ‘get more miles to the gallon, requiring fewer stops at the gas station, and ultimately saving them money at the pump,’ and I suspect recent price increases are increasingly leading consumers to make such selections. If gasoline prices stay high, the proposal will be easy for manufacturers of SUVs, pickup trucks, and minivans to meet, largely because it will be irrelevant. If gasoline prices drop back to more typical levels, then manufacturers will have to become creative. In any case, the effects of CAFE on overall fuel consumption are likely to be miniscule.

However, just because the effects on fuel consumption are likely to be small, doesn’t mean that CAFE standards have no effects. Think ‘unintended consequences.’

I am amused that social critics of ‘gas-guzzling SUVs and minivans’ are so often supporters of CAFE standards, since it seems to me that CAFE standards drove auto manufacturers to produce such vehicles in the first place. Is it any suprise that Chrysler Corporation developed the minivan in the early 1980s? As gasoline prices declined from their 1979/1980 highs, consumers were buying bigger cars again. Good news for Chrysler, but for the CAFE standards which began to be a serious constraint for the company.”

Emphasis mine.

There are a number of issues with this suggestion, not least among them the contradiction implied by the emphasized text.CAFE has in fact been effective in raising average fuel economy, even despite the slide towards “light trucks”, due in part to the looser standards applied to the light truck portion of a company’s fleet. According to a 2002 study by the National Academies, gasoline consumption would be about 14% higher than current levels were it not for CAFE. However, if Michael is referring to the Bush plan, he’s probably right that the additional effects of that particular plan would be miniscule– that’s not the same as the overall effect of CAFE on fuel consumption being miniscule, however.

The problem with the Bush plan is actually that it breaks the synergy between high gas prices and current CAFE standards. As it is right now, a passenger vehicle fleet that consists of many large, low-fuel-economy light trucks will suffer from extra fines. It’s therefore advantageous to offer a number of smaller, more efficient trucks to lower the fleet average; add in high gas prices, and the purchase of a gas guzzler from a corporation with poor average fuel economy looks a bit less attractive. A remarkably cute and agile example of this phenomenon, from a car rather than a truck fleet, is the Mini Cooper. The Mini only exists in the United States to raise BMW’s average fuel economy, which had been suffering due to its habit of providing cars with powerful engines, especially following the company’s discontinuation of the smaller-displacement 1.8 liter E36 cars in the States. By dividing the light truck category into six smaller categories based on size, the administration removes any penalty for automakers who sell mostly larger, more powerful trucks. Meanwhile, its plan fails to actually require any significant improvements in fuel economy and still excludes the largest trucks, like the infamous wanna-be off-road vehicle, the Hummer H2 (I say wanna-be because unlike its big brother the H1, it’s based off a Chevrolet Tahoe platform and lacks serious off-road capabilities). “Why the six categories of light truck and the exclusion of the very largest trucks,” one might ask? Forbes knows how to follow the money. As they put it, the plan “was clearly designed to help out the automakers most thirsty for profits, the struggling General Motors and Ford Motor.” These firms, which sell larger trucks than their fast-growing competitors at Honda and Toyota, are hit harder by current CAFE standards, and the new standards would actually ease the penalty for selling such inefficient vehicles.

Due to this dynamic, Michael is actually probably wrong when he states,

“Of course, American consumers can already purchase vehicles that “get more miles to the gallon, requiring fewer stops at the gas station, and ultimately saving them money at the pump,” and I suspect recent price increases are increasingly leading consumers to make such selections. If gasoline prices stay high, the proposal will be easy for manufacturers of SUVs, pickup trucks, and minivans to meet, largely because it will be irrelevant. If gasoline prices drop back to more typical levels, then manufacturers will have to become creative.”

This is due to the fact that any consumer currently driving a truck who chooses a smaller light truck for his next purchase will just be moving into a different bracket, and will thus have no effect on the ability of manufacturers to meet the new standards. This, coupled with the fact that consumers aren’t likely to alter their habits based on the higher gasoline prices (the prices just don’t seem to faze consumers, in part because they comprise a smaller proportion of household income than in the past, and in part because they’re simply not high enough to make hybrid technologies cost-effective), should be sufficient reason to find Michael’s analysis wanting on this particular topic (of course, he does disclaim it as speculation, so it’s fair).

This isn’t to say that there aren’t any problems with CAFE. Michael is dead-on in his statement that the car/light-truck distinction and lighter standards applied to light trucks has led to an increase in the number of SUVs on the road. In fact, these rather arbitrary distinctions have served as quite perverse incentives. The abominable PT Cruiser, in addition to being ugly and of poor quality, is somehow classified as a light truck, even though it is built off the Neon platform. Similarly, a number of SUVs have been specifically designed to weigh in just over 6000 lbs, to avoid CAFE standards entirely. More brackets certainly won’t solve the problem. Fuel economy standards based on a formula using weight as the sole input variable could solve this problem by eliminating the advantage to adding a few pounds to a vehicle, and actually requiring significant fuel economy increases for light trucks would be particularly helpful.

The definition problem aside, CAFE is probably responsible for a small increase in fatalities, particularly as manufacturers have a strong incentive to build cars, but not trucks, lighter. This makes car v. truck accidents more dangerous, as one might imagine. Newton never rests. CAFE has also failed to adapt with technologies, hence the fall-off in its effects after the initial years following its enactment– this is a common problem with this type of government regulation. Likewise, CAFE is simply an inefficient way to accomplish the goal of reducing gasoline consumption. Does this mean that we should do away with CAFE altogether, though?

In a perfect (economist’s) world, yes. In the real world, probably not. Ideally, CAFE would be scrapped, and more taxes placed on the sale of gasoline. For each gallon of gasoline consumed, there are significant costs imposed upon society by the consumer that aren’t currently reflected in the price: greenhouse gas, smog precursor, and carbon monoxide emissions; national security issues, including a dependence on a resource provided by regimes like those in Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Venezuela; a contribution to the nation’s current account deficit; and many others. The easiest way to cause consumers to internalize these external costs is to levy a tax proportional to the total of these costs per gallon. The revenues from such a tax could then be divided equally among taxpayers and provided as a rebate come April 15th. Of course, there are problems created by the shock to the economy this would create, particularly from the amount of money that would be sitting in government coffers all year rather than in consumer hands, but even these problems can be handled, for the most part. The real problems with such a tax are a distrust by the citizenry that the government would actually honor the rebate in coming years, and a general dislike of taxes and love of cars that would make such a plan political suicide.

The point of this idea, though, is that it’s fundamentally equitable, which the current system is not. It makes no special exceptions and creates no special penalties for any individual or class– each person pays for the costs his choices impose upon others, and each person receives his share of compensation for the costs imposed on him by everyone’s actions (well, it would be more equitable if those exposed to more pollution were compensated more greatly, etc, but such a plan would be overly complicated).

It’s actually this idea of internalizing negative externalities that is behind the use of the world “punish” several paragraphs back. The point behind CAFE isn’t really to punish auto manufacturers for producing inefficient cars, rather, it’s just a clumsy way of trying to see that these costs are at some point reflected in consumer decision-making. Under CAFE, a company can totally ignore fuel economy standards– they’re just hit with fines that end up making the cars more expensive. Unfortunately, this makes the car more expensive up-front, but it doesn’t provide any extra incentive for the consumer to drive less. Thus, why CAFE sucks.

Under the taxation system, if an individual “needs” or just wants an SUV, fine– he can have it, hopefully without receiving grief from others, and he’ll pay for the costs they impose upon others. And if he wants to drive a fuel-efficient vehicle down to the corner (while his SUV-owning friend bicycles when he doesn’t have to use his SUV for towing his trailer full of tools for habitat restoration), he’ll pay for that, too. While some would complain, for example, that they really do need SUVs for business (not just soccer-child hauling), or that they need to live in the middle of nowhere, they’d be wrong in claiming that they were unfairly burdened– rather, they’d be paying for the extra burden they were imposing on others.

Of course, given that this plan has as much chance of flying as swine, we’re stuck with CAFE for now. It’s far from perfect, but it’s better than nothing, and could be made much better if it were updated properly. Real increases in fuel economy for both cars and light trucks, an entirely different system of definition that did not encourage cheating, and a removal of the upper weight limit on the vehicles to which CAFE applies would be a good start. If we agree that the amount of oil imported and its effects on the environment once it’s used are problematic, it would be wise to take serious measures to address it as efficiently as possible. CAFE, while laden with problems, is probably the most efficient solution that is politically viable.