There are many things we can all do to reduce our contributions to global warming. Here are ten things politians can do now to make a difference:
1. Tax energy supply that adds extra heat to global warming and use the money to subsidize energy supply that doesn't.
2. Stop supporting conventional power plants. Don't give them research grants or subsidies. Don't give them regulatory privileges or allow them to monopolize a market. If they go broke under the new regime of taxes, then good riddance. Instead, support renewables such as wind farms, solar power, hydro-electricity and wave power.
3. Sign the Kyoto Treaty and make a firm commitment to reduce emissions by a lot more. Work on a new global Treaty beyond Kyoto, using these ten points as a basis.
4. Support lifestyles that are more environmentally-friendly. Encourage use of the Internet as an alternative to travel and commuting. Encourage homeschooling and working from home. Deregulate taxi services.
5. Ban incandescent light bulbs. Set a date for a national ban. Actively promote a global ban.
6. Support energy that doesn't add extra heat more actively in regulations and government policy. Encourage competition and diversity among suppliers of such energy. Encourage interconnection and overlap of electricity grids, so that households can choose which grid to sell electricity to, if they generate a surplus in their backyard.
7. Plan communities without roads and with footpaths and bikepaths instead. Plan houses close together, around a local center of shops and restaurants. Redesign existing cities so that people have to travel less.
8. Tax the sale of meat and use the money to support vegetarian restaurants, bicycle shops and other environmentally-friendly outlets in communities without roads.
9. Make government act more environmentally responsible. Ask for ideas. Have more staff work from home. Look at ways to offer services over the phone, over the Net, etc.
10. Disclosure. Make that government departments and large companies publicly disclose their emissions of greenhouse gases. Make products display on their packaging the amounts of greenhouse gases needed to produce it.
Sam Carana
PS: For more on taxing supply of energy, see: Global Warming - cap and trade or tax?
As to what constitutes extra heat, see: Global Warming and the impact of Extra Heat
Why risk catastrophe? See the: Ten Dangers of Global Warming
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Comments: 27
I think there are some very good Ideas here, but I'm not sure the world is ready for a few of them, yet.......
#2 - I'd rather allow present power plants the same tax breaks for clean energy programs they deploy. I have no need to write anyone off if they are making an effort to change. For example, coal companies could still burn coal, capture the CO2 emissions, use those emissions to grow algae, which produces hydrogen and biofuel. So, with new technology, you could double the energy output of coal, while cutting CO2 emissions in half.
#3 - The Kyoto treaty will expire in 2012. Gore suggested during his testimony before congress that it would be better to drop Kyoto and move up negotiations for a post-Kyoto agreement to 2010. Such an agreement would need to involve China and India, and the U.S. may be more in a position, politically, to actually take the lead in developing an international strategy.
4. Environmental Defense is already working with corporations to use telecommuting. I was on vacation last year in Canada, and was very impressed that in one city, at least, the taxis were Toyota Priuses. I don't know if there are tax breaks for that. Additionally, all government vehicles should be hybrids or hydrogen vehicles.
5. I don't know about completely banning incandescent bulbs. Tax them at a higher rate. I use an incandescent bulb to heat my water filter during the winter. This is not a huge use of energy, and is better than putting a small heater in the filter box. So I think there may still be some uses for the incandescent bulb.
6 - sounds like you're talking about a distributed energy grid and zero net metering. These are superb suggestions!
7 - smart growth. Also a superb suggestion that would cut down on travel generally, as well as build communities.
8 - I think I understand the benefits of taxing meat products, with re: to CAFOs and the general environmental nightmares they create. I'm not sure, though, how you're equating this to reducing CO2 emissions. I wouldn't be opposed to this.
9 - ok
10 - not only government, but corporations should disclose their emissions to stockholders. CO2 emissions are being increasingly recognized as a liability, and stockholders should be made aware of the risks emissions represent to their investments.
This is an excellent article. Thanks for thinking through solutions. As I have been saying, this is where the real debate is these days. You rate a 10 from me.
They have yet to pay a nickel.
The principle stated in point 1. is: Tax heavy polluters most and give that money to supply that doesn't add extra heat. It's a market-oriented solution in the sense that it leaves it to a large extent up to the market to choose what to do, as opposed to government regulation, prohibition, nationalisation and subsidising political friends. By taxing polluters and giving that money to supply that doesn't add extra heat, it works both ways and becomes doubly effective, minimising risks that the money is spent on the wrong purposes. Since we're talking about investments that span over decades, there should be bi-partisan support to firmly stick to this principle, without making compromises to advance one ideology or another or to assist political friends. All sides in politics should accept this as an emergency plan, to be given as much (or more) urgency as was given to the war in Iraq.
Point 2. argues NOT to give coal-fired plants tax deductions or shelters, subsidies or credits for promises to change their way and to conduct research, say, into capture and sequestration, since this just compromises the principle under point 1. What if these promises turn out to be just a smokescreen? What if at best they can only partly reduce emissions, while it takes a lot of extra energy to capture carbon, transport it and put it into the soil, with questions remaining as to leakage and safety? Why not give that money instead to people who install solar panels and wind turbines in their backyards to generate electricity and perhaps put a surplus back into the power grid, without adding any extra heat?
That brings us to point 6, which does indeed advocate net metering to go both ways. It's also about having more dynamic, market-oriented networks that do NOT focus on building power plants, but instead focus on buying energy from a market of suppliers and transporting it to customers, preferably in competition with other networks. Where networks are monopolies, they should be structurally separated from energy suppliers (especially from coal-fired power plants).
On point 8, Tax on sales of meat. One can of course have ethical objections against eating meat. A second argument is that it takes a lot of fertile land to put meat on the table. Global warming threatens supply of food, while using more land for bio-fuel will only increase prices for food. A third argument to tax meat is that animals release methane, a gas that's twenty times more potent as a greenhouse gas than carbon-dioxide.
As discussed earlier, if such taxes are merely used to help the poor pay higher prices, then little will be achieved for the environment. Instead, such taxes should be used to support environmentally-friendly developments, such as communities without roads, as suggested under point 7. We should start building such communities without roads on university campuses, designing small houses for staff and students to live around shops and restaurants. Small houses need less heating and air-conditioning. If we leave out roads, garages and other car-parking spaces, they can be built closely together, so anyone can easily walk or bike their way around. That would be more healthy as well!
Cheers! Sam Carana
Just like the US agreed on Federal Government with the precaution of appending a Bill of Rights to the Constitution, limits should be set to whatever global authority will come out of this.
Instead of calling for a World Government to dictate every aspect of our lives, any such Treaty should work on the basis of respect for direct choice and ideological neutrality, as fundamental starting points. Such a Treaty should recommend taxes and subsidies in such ways that people have as much direct choice as possible in how the details work out for them individually. A Global Treaty on global warming should stick to global warming. It should not be allowed to be used by socialists, capitalists, religious fundamentalists or whatever groups to advance their particular ideology and impose it on society at large.
It makes sense to tax those who sell polluting energy and to give that money to those who sell energy that - as you say - doesn't add extra heat, as long as we can agree what is extra heat. Similarly, it makes sense to tax meat for its methane and use the money to support more responsible lifestyles, as long as we can agree what is most responsible.
Perhaps scientists should do less analysis of the dangers and instead focus more on the solutions. I'll leave that up to the scientists, but I do repeat that when joining negotiations on a world treaty, we should table the principles of direct choice and ideological neutrality.
That is the subject of the next chapter of the 2007 IPCC Report.
DC: "Whenever I hear about a world Treaty that goes beyond Kyoto, I am worried about effectively creating a World Government...."
There have been treaties forever. I don't see much danger of a World Government resulting from a treaty on global warming. The reason Kyoto failed was that China and India were not included in reducing emissions. China and India maintained that the west was responsible for the GHG concentrations present in today's atmosphere, and therefore should be responsible for the first installments on the solutions. The U.S. rejected this because it said it would put the U.S. at an economic disadvantage. The U.S. should take the lead in addressing this problem. Other countries (particularly Germany, Japan, Denmark and the Netherlands) have already taken the lead in renewable technology. The U.S., in refusing to take the lead is paradoxically putting itself at a technological (and therefore economic) disadvantage. Where does our short-term thinking come from?
I agree. No subsidies or tax breaks for promises. That has been done before. No, I also favor incentives for producing results. I didn't get a tax break for "promising" to buy a hybrid. I had to produce documentation that I had already bought the hybrid.
The situation with coal is promising, though procurement of coal remains a substantial environmental issue. But the use of coal, aside from carbon sequestration, has something to be said for it. Here are a couple of links:
http://www.pbs.org/saf/1506/video/watchonline.htm
The third segment of this PBS video illustrates creation of hydrogen and biofuel from coal emissions.
A Canadian company appears to have established a patent on this technology:
http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474976817561
#6: with distributed energy and zero net metering, my understanding is that every household and business can be an energy producer as well as consumer. Such a decentralized energy network, which Gore called an electronet (like the internet) is also a significantly less vulnerable target for terrorists, and therefore a great national security asset. Imagine, if even the exterior of your car were a solar collector, your car could produce energy when not in use, and it could be plugged back into the electronet as a producer.
#8: The old cow fart phenomenon! Methane is natural gas (of course). Why not give incentives to meat producers to capture this gas (really, mostly the result of reserviors of animal waste) and use it for energy? I have read that this is being done on a limited basis already. Unfortunately, I don't have a link, but I'll try and find one.
In that analysis, we should let the facts speak for themselves, or in this case, the weight of the arguments. Just compare different political proposals for their effectiveness, their impact, the practicalities. We should ask questions to those who come up with proposals and we should ask ourselves what makes sense. Is there any reason why scientific interest into solutions wasn't worthwhile? Is political science not a science worthy of study and research? Is it perhaps in the interest of scientists to avoid coming up with solutions, as if this would further increase their budgets for research into the problems?
On sales of meat. As I said above, there are ethical objections against slaughtering animals and eating their meat. Also, it takes a lot of fertile land to put meat on the table. Global warming threatens supply of food, while using more land for bio-fuel will only increase prices for food. Specifically relevant for global warming is also that animals release methane, a gas that's twenty times more potent as a greenhouse gas than carbon-dioxide. Was there anything not scientifically correct about that?
Cheers! Sam Carana
#6. Yes, I like Al Gore's Eletrocnet. I just want to make sure that competition and diversity will be encouraged. Where networks are monopolies, they should be structurally separated from energy suppliers (especially from coal-fired power plants).
#8. Sales of meat could be taxed higher the more methane was released in production, which should be disclosed (as under #10.). Once we've got a good system in place that displays how many greenhouse gases were released in production, we could tax accordingly. There could be different tax rates, or a gliding scale proportional to the emissions. We should also avoid double taxation. These are all practical problems of how best to tax things. The point merely argues there should be tax on the sale of meat.
I think the issue with meat (at least partialy) is the size of the industry... The US's demand for beef drives a great deal of forest clearing around the world where a large bulk of the beef cattle are raised (especially in ecoogically sensitve areas like the Amazon). I am not at all a vegitarian and I do understand the nature of the human diet with its origins, its diversity, and its flexibility (as well as its impact on societies and lifestyle behaviors). (I certainly enjoy a peperoni pizza and cheeseburgers at times). The sizeable chunk of the US diet devoted to beef, though, has a great deal been shaped by the industry and profits (as well as our natural taste for beef). Beef being origianlly a more opportunistic item on the menu, when it becomes more easily available the opportunity is often taken to consume it in quantity. It's just the way human brains work. (some fish will not stop eating while food is available because they are used to it being a scarce item for long stretches of time).
Anyhooo... the point is that discussing beef consumption and its role in society is worthwhile in terms of the big picure of climate change (maybe not the top priority, but it's there). But it should be considered in context of most other farming methods and food production.
Chris, I agree that an overarching issue is the leadership in this and the approach with sincerity, commitment, and wisdom...
Sam, Great piece...
A tax should be used to avoid something that is bad and the revenue should be used to improve the situation. We shouldn't tax companies simply because they were profitable. Making profits shouldn't be a sin and people shouldn't be encouraged to stay poor in the hope to receive government funding. We need a political system that encourages improvements.
If we can globally agree on what is good or bad, then it's possible to have global treaties on that basis. Pollution is bad and if someone can find ways of supplying energy without adding extra heat, then it's worthwhile supporting them.
Similarly, I suggest that it's worthwhile to support competition and diversity worldwide. Monopolies should be taxed, with the proceeds going to solutions that create more competition and diversity. However, this is best dealt with in a separate treaty. Direct choice is by implication respected, if not actively supported.
In both cases, such treaties would observe the principle of political neutrality by focusing on a single issue and by combining taxes with subsidies, in such a way that bad practices on the issue are taxed and the revenue goes to initiatives that improve the situation. International treaties should focus on improving a single issue, rather than serving specific ideological goals. Instead of having a UN with a standing army and an international court, we should have separate treaties on specific issues. Only by negotiating such issues in separate treaties can we keep them separate. That is our best chance of avoiding dictatorial world government.
Finally, I want to leave the door open for seeking bi-lateral agreements with other countries, in case there's little or no progress with a global treaty on an issue. The US has reached regional and bi-literal agreements with many other countries on the topic of trade. In the face of failure of countries to reach a global agreement on trade, such regional and bi-lateral trade agreements have been very successful and are still setting the agenda for a future global trade agreement. It's a second-best alternative, but it could become the only alternative if we fail to reach global agreement on reducing emissions. We should start thinking ahead, in terms of taxes on or boycots of products from countries that refuse to lower emissions. In that case, we need to take another look at all our trade agreements.
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Majority.PressReleases&ContentRecord_id=dd3c443b-802a-23ad-41f9-acd8843a8bd7
I wrote these Ten Recommendations partly in response to this Committee's Top Ten Actions, which are all good points, but the Senate should now focus on designing legislation that will work.
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Majority.GlobalWarming
http://www.gather.com/viewArticle.jsp?articleId=281474976930655
In many ways, that same conclusion applies to S.309, which proposes standards for car emissions, generation of electricity, etc. This will merely encourage companies to operate at the edges of those standards, from their need to be competitive and commercially viable. In the absense of rewards for suppliers who do better than that, consumers will buy the more polluting products that choose to stay just within the maximum pollution allowed by the standard.
Instead, taxing is a better way to accomplish a shift away from polluting products. If tax rates are sufficiently high, heavy polluters simply price themselves out of the market. Importantly, if the tax proceeds go to subsidize those who do best, this combination will be doubly effective.
Standards are merely prohibitive, they create an administrative nightmare that works like a straightjacket that fits nobody. As I explained, it will push many out of the market who pollute less or not at all. The only point where I would use the blunt instrument of prohibition is regarding incandescent lightbulbs, because too many people remain misguided by a perception that they were cheaper. In the long run, they're not, but more importantly they require more energy. I don't want to go as far as prescribing any specific alternative, though, but I believe that LEDs look most promising as replacement. Whatever consumers choose instead can be left up to market forces, as long as we do apply the combination of tax and subsidies to accomplish that much-needed shift away from polluting products.
The tax that I propose under #1. would be a new, separate tax, specifically on supply of energy that adds extra heat. What I want to avoid is that the proceeds of this tax go back to the polluter, e.g. in the form of tax deductions or subsidies for capture and sequestration.
Already now, a taxi can be much more efficient than public transport, since buses and trains follow a set route, stopping only at set points. Many buses and trains remain virtually empty at off-peak hours, consuming huge amounts of energy in vain. Many people avoid public transport for the long waiting in inhospitable environments wit high crime risks and lack of service. If taxi services were deregulated, there would be far less need for public transport.
The idea of communities without roads is that there is very little need for public transport, but it doesn't mean that people are locked up inside their homes. Terms like homeschooling and working from home may give that false impression. In fact, most homeschoolers I know love to go and see other homeschoolers and they are more outdoors than kids who go to school. Similarly, working from home means that one spends less time commuting, time that can be spent at exhibitions, conferences, in restaurants, shops, etc. New technology more and more allows people to work when and where they want, while greater efficiencies mean that one can achieve moe results in less time.
Also, many people are currently locked up inside their homes because they have nowhere to go. This is especially a problem for elderly people who are afraid to drive a car and who are afraid to walk the empty streets in the suburbs. Town planners have designed urban nightmares, with most activities centralised in specialized buildings, e.g. medical care and education preserved for schools and hospitals. Shopping is concentrated in malls and most offices are centralized in the CBD of each city. This kind of design and zoning results in suburbs stretching out further and further along railway lines that bring people daily into the city. Suburban houses are occupied by few people during the day, people literally go there to sleep.
Communities without roads is an excititing concept that allows people to live within walking distances of colleages, customers, medical and educational facilities, shops, restaurants, etc. Again, this doesn't mean people are to be locked up inside. The sedentary lifestyle of many people is a result of the way cities are currently designed. Instead, we should facilitate the opposite, i.e. people coming out of their houses, offices, etc, meeting other people, getting more healthy food and becoming fitter.
We can't rebuild our cities and completely change our construct overnight. I question seriously changing anything significantly in this country in say, the next 20 years! To do so here in the west would cause economic disaster on a scale that would put the great depression to shame!
There are certain governmental obligations to the citizenry which must be honored. The vast majority of people here in the west must drive to work. If you moved a plant requiring 10,000 workers to a "close" proximity, that community would be large enough to require transportation!
One thing you failed to mention was hydroelectric power. We could add to the existing amount of that but then you get into it with people who are concerned about the acrimonious fish runs!
Electrical grids should be market-oriented and obtain power from a multitude of sources, among which hydroelectric power should play a big role. The Great Lakes, which contain 20 percent of the world's fresh surface water, already generate a lot of electrcity as the water naturally flows down from a higher to a lower lake. We should consider supplementing this by using lakes to store excess power. Excess electricity generated by solar (on sunny days) or by the wind turbines (at windy nights) could be used to pump water back from the lower lakes to higher lakes. The result is continuity in supply of electricity, which can easily be adjusted to demand.
At other places, dams in rivers could similarly create several lakes that could be used both for water supply and to generate hydro power. Excess power from solar and wind could be used to pump water back into the higher lakes.
So we are left now with a self warming planet where only, at most, 20% of humanity can survive in far north regions because temperate zones will no longer support agriculture. Solar panels, wind farms, electric cars and so on are just rearranging Titanic deck chairs and feel-good nonsense.
Lovelock somewhat contradicts his outlook by pushing for use of nuclear power for electricity, but despite this, his basic findings seem air tight. Billions of humans are going to die, there is going to be mass starvation and panic and a stampede to the northern and perhaps some southern land regions.
We humans have seen a lot of Hollywood movies and we demand a happy ending. But demanding does not mean getting. Sorry.
"There is one way we could save ourselves and that is through the massive burial of charcoal. It would mean farmers turning all their agricultural waste - which contains carbon that the plants have spent the summer sequestering - into non-biodegradable charcoal, and burying it in the soil. [We could get] farmers to burn their crop waste at very low oxygen levels to turn it into charcoal, which the farmer then ploughs into the field. A little CO2 is released but the bulk of it gets converted to carbon. You get a few per cent of biofuel as a by-product of the combustion process, which the farmer can sell. This scheme would need no subsidy: the farmer would make a profit. This is the one thing we can do that will make a difference..."