Get Energy Smart! NOW!

Sadly, there are far too many “OH SH-T” moments for those paying even the slightest attention to climate chaos (and related environmental issues/crises). One came for even that “slightest attention” crowd as a peer-review article about Bitcoin’s gluttonous electricity habits made a splash leading to global headlines like “Bitcoin Predicted To Be The Nail In The Coffin Of Climate Change” with the potential that “Bitcoin alone could push global temperatures over the 2ºC catastrophic threshold by 2034.” ‘Oh s—, Bitcoin miners could well kill kill us all’ was a thought that passed through likely not just this blogger’s mind. Now, on second reflection, the thought was ‘this seems a bit click bait exaggeration potential’, then ‘need to check into it’, and, then, life caught up and the check-up never occurred. And, like probably so many of us, in the back of the mind was this idea that Bitcoin’s electricity demands posed a serious, menacing, and real threat to hopes for driving a clean energy future.

Those click-bait headlines and that back-of-the-mind, semi-forgotten thought were — like all too many fantastical claims — simply off by orders-of-magnitude. As Churchill said, a lie is halfway around the world before the truth got out of bed. Well, as to the fantasy claims of Bitcoin burning the world, the truth got out of bed wide-awake today as the Coin Center just issued a report it commissioned from energy efficiency expert Jonathan Koomey entitled Estimating Bitcoin Electricity Use: A Beginner’s Guide.

“Periodically and predictably someone makes wild claims about information technology electricity use. Because I’ve been working on this topic for a quarter century, those claims always make their way into my inbox.  I wrote this report to address misconceptions about Bitcoin electricity use and give those not versed in its complexities some simple tools for assessing whether an estimate of Bitcoin electricity use is credible.” Jonathan Koomey

In brief, Koomey makes clear that Bitcoin is responsible for perhaps 0.2% of global electricity use with uncertain projections about its future growth. That Bitcoin mining is using 1/500th of the world’s electricity production, when hundreds of millions have no electrons, isn’t something to laugh at but it isn’t going to drive global warming.

As to that 2 degree prediction, Koomey makes clear the fundamental analytical assumption failures:

The authors assumed that the efficiency of Bitcoin mining as well as the emissions intensity of electricity would stay constant over the next century. [p. 12]

Sure, based on the past 50+ years, it seems ever so reasonable to assume that computing efficiency wouldn’t improve an iota. Sure, based on rapidly reducing emissions per kilowatt hour through the global electricity system over the past decade, let’s assume that the grid of 2109 will be no cleaner than that of 2019. Sure …

Reading that one line reminded me of how forecasting agencies are constantly getting it wrong as to (even near term) future clean energy developments: assuming that efficiencies won’t improve and costs won’t fall pretty much guarantees underestimating how well clean energy systems will perform in the market place.

Koomey’s opening underscores the importance of being awake to clickbait risks about information technology energy demands since debunking claims about growing IT electricity usage is Groundhog Day for him. For example, there were claims that the Internet used 8% of electricity in 2000 (actual figure, about 1%), all computers plus the Internet used 13% (actual about 3%), and that a wireless Palm VII used as much electricity as a refrigerator to support its networking (oops, this was an exaggeration of the networking electricity demands by some 2000%). Thus, Koomey’s opening section’s title: Know Your History (Beware the Hype). Or, as Jonathan summarized it last fall when he blogged on this Bitcoin will burn the planet hysteria.

“The amount of energy needed to refute BS is an order of magnitude bigger than to produce it.” (Brandolini’s law)

In any event, with yet another quality analytical product, Jonathan Koomey’s work should put to rest aside any lingering concern you might have had that Bitcoin miners were frying humanity’s future.

NOTEs:

• Koomey’s blog
• Highly recommended Turning Numbers into Knowledge: Mastering the Art of Problem Solving

Looking around the world, there is much to be frustrated and angry with. “If only …” could start a million sentences about possibilities for change to the better. The climate and clean energy space is replete with such ‘missed opportunity’ frustration space. Assaad Razzouk‘s new podcast “The Angry Clean Energy Guy” (website) gives voice to this frustration in an impassioned and informative way.

Assaad begins each podcast:

There is so much to be angry about, if you are a clean energy guy.

 Every day, SO many things that happen around the world make me angry when I look at them with lenses COLORED BY the climate change chaos unfolding everywhere around us

 – and I am especially angry because I KNOW we can solve the climate change crisis if we were only trying.

 But as a civilization, as a collective, as a society, we’re not.

 IN FACT, we are doing the opposite, because the climate chaos is getting worse!!

Razzouk has, for awhile, been a staple of my social media life — a Singapore-based clean-energy investor, his tweets and LinkedIn posts often highlight items that I might otherwise have missed and his OPEDs (and other commentaries) frequently coherently lay out issues and opportunities. Thus, when he announced a podcast, I had decided to try it out … and, with the opening, he had me especially I was experiencing an ‘angry clean-energy guy’ micro-moment as I listened. I had walked to the library to return some books, arriving in beautiful weather perhaps ten minutes before it’s opening, and there were five people in cars with engines running, engines polluting as they waited for the doors to open. Really? REALLY? Have to doubt that a single one of those people considered what was coming out of their tailpipes.

That sort of ‘micro-moment’, which is exemplary of thoughtless all around us, isn’t Razzouk’s focus space. As he puts it,

each week, I will share with you a few TOPICS that struck me and that I was very ANGRY about – and this will generally have to do with CLIMATE CHANGE, SOLAR OR WIND POWER, PLASTIC POLLUTION, THE OCEANS AND OTHER RELATED TOPICS – as well as some of the HYPOCRISY I see coming from the REALLY BAD ACTORS in my world WHICH, NOT SURPRISINGLY, ARE MOSTLY BIG, BAD CORPORATIONS

In line with that, Angry Clean Energy Guy’s first podcast discussed plastics in the ocean, Cyclone Idai, and fossil-foolish global banking.

Re plastics, Razzouk opens the discussion with a poignant example of how and why anger is sparked.

 angry to see that a dead whale turn up in the Philippines, with, wait for it, 40 kilograms of PLASTIC in its belly. 

 So this poor whale died of “dehydration and starvation” after eating 40 kilos (or 88 pounds) of plastic rice sacks, grocery bags, banana plantation bags and general plastic bags

He provides some context

 We are currently producing EACH YEAR plastic equal to the total weight of 5 billion of us, 5 billion people.

Can you even imagine that kind of VOLUME? I can’t …  

And here’s an even more incredible number:  Since we invented plastic, we’ve produced THE equivalent of the weight of 100 BILLION PEOPLE

We’ve recycled just seven percent — leaving 93 billion people of plastic weight for landfills or, too frequently, the environment to ‘absorb’ (roughly 5 billion people’s worth has made it into the oceans).

And, at the core of the plastics problem: subsidies to the oil industry (across the board) and an inability (refusal) to price in real costs (externalities) (which, in this case, would include plastic pollution implications).

 But do you know what else? Pretty much all of the TV, press and social media coverage I’ve seen blames us, the consumer, and the Filippinos in the case of this poor whale, for this tragedy. 

 But the truth is very, very different: The plastic EPIDEMIC is fundamentally due to the fact that OIL, the principal raw material in plastic is not priced correctly.

 And therefore plastic is not priced correctly

 And the reason oil is cheap – – and plastic is cheap — is because its impact on the environment is not in its price.

 In other words, oil companies aren’t paying for the damage their product is causing

 The oceans are paying, the rivers are paying, the waterways are paying, and WE are paying with our health

 All this plastic means hardly any drinking water we consume is free of microplastic, and so much of the food is consume is contaminated with microplastics

 But you aren’t going to see that mentioned in ANY of the media coverage about this poor whale. 

 So: oil companies are burying us with plastic because they are basically dumping it on us free. If oil companies PAID for the environmental impacts their products cause, plastic would be a lot more expensive and guess what would happen then?  Supermarkets would STOP giving out plastic bags that most of us, ashamed as we are of taking, can’t say no to when we have a baby with us, 3 other bags, and are frenetically working our phones because it’s raining and we can’t get to the subway …

 Wrecking the planet is the business model of Big Oil. 

“Wrecking the planet is the business model of Big Oil.” Assaad has the capacity to eloquently, directly, succinctly capturing the truth of a matter.

The above is simply a taste of The Clean Energy Guy weekly podcast which has joined my podcast staples for informed commentary for walks to the library and elsewhere.

When it comes to climate discussions, a “Lukewarmer” represents a dangerous portion of the climate discussion spectrum. While stringent climate denial, like Donald Trump’s, can be quickly pigeon-holed as yet another ignorant absurdity from someone who is poorly acquainted with truth and knowledge, Lukewarmers can easily confuse the situation through their seeming reasonableness and superficial moderation — mixing some truth, partial truths, and outright deception to undermine public (and policy community) understanding of climate science and, therefore, to weaken support for climate mitigation.

A definition is merited before delving deeper. A Lukewarmer

• acknowledges that climate change is occurring and that human action is, in part, driving a warming planetary system;
• Asserts that this isn’t a crisis due to
  • low ‘climate sensitivity’ (how much heating will occur for doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations);
  • warming (and increased CO2) provides significant benefits (at least to well beyond where we are today); and that
  • adaptation to changed conditions is normal human action and easy/low-cost.
• argues against action to mitigate climate change
  • asserting high costs and risks for mitigation action, minimal impacts of action, combined with the assertions above, makes this simply not worth doing.

Or, as a member of the National Academies of Sciences put it to me in a private note:

Lukewarmer.

That’s just a medium denier, who pretends to accept the science, but then fights against ANY action to address the problem by minimizing how bad it is and maximizing false information of the costs of acting.

[A moment for some critical truth: no matter its level, that there is any level of climate sensitivity to human action should merit attention and concern. Agreeing that there is climate sensitivity is agreeing that we are driving change in the global system that human civilization and, well, all creatures have evolved/developed in.]

A smooth talking, well-prepared Lukewarmer can truly confuse a public audience by seemingly being so reasonable and so well armed with (alternative) facts to buttress that reasonableness. Just such a snake-oil salesman came to my backyard the other day.

Pat Michaels is a rarity in the climate denialism/lukewarmer space. He actually has a relevant degree, actually has worked in relevant science, actually has (even if long ago) publications in peer-reviewed literature. Michaels, also, has a long history of the fossil-fuel industry paying for work to confuse the public about climate science and policy. For example,

• In 1991, “Patrick Michaels lended “expert” advice on the impacts of global warming to a public relations campaign conceived and funded by a coalition of coal companies and electric utilities.  The campaign, under the title “Information Council on the Environment,” aimed to “reposition global warming as theory (not fact).””
• “In a leaked 2006 memo of the Intermountain Rural Electric Association (IREA), Michaels is listed as a recipient of at least $100,000 from IREA to combat global warming “alarmists.” The IREA memo outlines a coordinated strategy by Koch Industries, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, Michaels, and other key groups. “We have met with Koch, CEI and Dr. Michaels, and they meet among themselves periodically to discuss their activities,” NERA’s General Manager Stan Lewandowski wrote. [97]”
• Etc ….

In any event, Pat Michaels came to my backyard to give a presentation to the Lewinsville Presbyterian Church’s “Faith and Public Policy Committee”.

In this announcement, some critical language is underlined. An assertion that Michaels is providing a legitimate “alternative perspective on the underlying science” which could “turn out to be correct”. We are mandated to accept as some form of a reasonable proposition that the world’s scientists could be wrong and fossil-fuels-funded Michaels and friends just might be right. (Re that link, Michaels is asking us to believe him (and bet our, our children’s, humanity’s future) rather than pay attention to every single national academy of science and relevant professional association.) Perhaps the next Faith and Policy Committee announcement will request invitees to “please suspend your disbelief as we discuss the implications of the coming Zombie Apocalypse.”

Summarizing a truthiness-laded presentation

Michaels roughly 90 minute presentation (especially without a recording nor slides) is just too much (and too painful) to recount fully here. A reasonable summary of this Lukewarmer:

• Yes, there is warming
• Yes, humans have something to do with it
• Warming risks/CO2 implications are less than the models predict
  • Scientists have ‘gone along’ (conspired) to exaggerate warming risks and implications
• Increased CO2 and warming are beneficial, on average
• Options to reduce CO2 won’t have much impact and cost too much money
  • We should bide our time until technology and options come around
• Adaptation is what humans do and is easy.

The standard denier (okay, Lukewarmer) tactic is what’s call Gish Gallop: jumping from one false or misleading argument to another so fast that it hard to keep up and hard(er) to refute. In an audience like this, the Gish Gallop is strengthened with slide after slide seeming to ‘prove’ with data the point on file. And, unless a true world class expert who has been ‘fighting’ these issues forever, it is essentially impossible to keep up with the presentation while delving into specific items to figure out how they’re misleading. And, since the slide deck isn’t available, pretty much impossible to go back to X slide to demonstrate how the data or presentation was manipulated to confuse the discussion.

Even so, here are a few examples of such ‘misdirection’ or confusion generation.

Hurricanes ….

Michaels talked about how people are concerned about things they hear on the radio and that they shouldn’t be. His example was claims that “hurricanes are getting worse” with an implication (statement?) that this is what climate scientists are stating. He talked for a few minutes (with, of course, solely a focus on Atlantic hurricanes rather than the global data) about how the data record doesn’t back that up.

Hmmm … Okay, it was just too hard to search for material to challenge all the misdirection but had to at least strive to look for one item to use in a question and I chose this as there is debate within the relevant scientific community as to how and, in some ways, whether climate change is impacting hurricanes. As per a National Academies of Science report on Advancing the Science of Climate Change,

Changes in the intensity of hurricane have been documented and attributed to changes in sea-surface temperatures, but the link between these changes and climate change remains uncertain and the subject of considerable research and scientific debate.

Now, when I read a sentence from this NAS report to preface a question, to highlight how he was gaming the situation, Michaels interrupted me (as opposed to the moderator not allowing anyone in the audience to interrupt Michaels — so much for cordiality) to state that this was responding to X study by Y author as if (perhaps it is true) that Micheals knew exactly which report this was (out of dozens) and exactly which page. The point really was that Michaels set up a strawman argument to pick apart to ‘prove’ an exaggeration that, well, simply doesn’t exist.

Washington will be like X

Michaels wants people to think that impacts will be minor and thus easily adapted to with, for example, air conditioning. Amid his ‘adaptation’ will be easy (and not even noticeable as we go about our lives), he said something like ‘Washington’s weather will become like Richmond’s. Really think that this will have much of an impact on our lives.’

Richmond? How about Greenwood, Mississippi, which “is 9.8°F (5.5°C) warmer and 75.2% wetter than winter in Washington.” By 2080,

“Many East Coast cities are going to become more like locations to the southwest, on average roughly 500 miles away.”

Fossil-foolish funds

When asked about his history of taking funding, Michaels simply refused to answer. Again, there is a long documented history of Michaels taking (directly and indirectly) funds from fossil fuel firms — even for specifically assisting to confuse the public discussion of climate science.

Pat Michaels: a confusion-generation machine

Some other Michaels’ confusion-generating messaging that, well, generates head-knocking against wall and deception that takes much more effort to refute than it does to spew out.

• TRUTH: Scientific modeling on climate change has done/is doing reasonably well in providing a window on what has and is happening.
  • Michaels: Scientists are “cheating” at the models, are poorly executing their models, and leveraging bad models to scare people.
    
• TRUTH: Greenland ice melt is accelerating, could have a serious impact on global sea levels in our lifetimes, and — if totally melted — could add 23 feet to sea level.
  • Michaels: Greenland ice melt isn’t to be worried about — it will take a long time and won’t be that consequential.
• TRUTH: Energy poverty is being tackled around the world, with increasing numbers of people having access to at least basic (level 1) electricity every year with solar power being a primary reason for this.
  • Michaels: Africans face a choice between burning fossil fuels or burning dung … who are we to keep them burning dung.
• TRUTH: People want/need energy services, not the ‘energy’. Some situations, like powering a jet aircraft, require “dense” energy (power per weight, volume) while in other situations, ‘energy density’ is irrelevant. (Think solar power on rooftops — the roof is already there. As long as those clean electrons are cost competitive, does it (in economic calculations) matter how many watts are generated per square foot? And, for the energy/economic system, that rooftop would be wasted space without those solar panels.)
  • Michaels: Fossil fuels are an absolute necessity due to energy ‘density’.
• TRUTH: Market interactions are complex, with incumbents and other influencers distorting markets and ‘irrational’ humans (e.g., essentially none of us are homo economicus) not always making the most rational economic choices. The ‘market’ isn’t perfect and the ‘best’ solution doesn’t always win or emerge.
  • Michaels: Efficiency and the market will win out. Just let the market solve everything.
• TRUTH: “Climate change is the greatest threat to coral reefs.”
  • Michaels: Yes, there is coral bleaching, but it has nothing to do with CO2 warming and the system is self-correcting as coral polyps that are able to handle the heat replace those who die. Nature adapts just like humans.
• TRUTH: Using obsolete financial industry very high discount rates for assessing, for example, impacts of environmental regulations essentially means that we could couldn’t care less about the future. Using a high discount rate in a social cost of carbon analysis quite literally means that today’s consumption is worth more than all of humanity’s existence a century from now.  The Obama Administration’s calculation of the social cost of carbon was, in fact, far lower than the numbers generated by many analytical teams around the world.
  • Michaels: The Obama Administration Social Cost of Carbon was overstated since it didn’t discount the future [e.g., the value of we (in our old age), our children (as adults) and grandchildren having a habitable planet] enough.
• TRUTH: Climate change is complicated, as is the global ecosystem. Carbon dioxide can lead to greater plant growth even while lowering the quality of the plant’s nutrients (in many cases).  And, tropical deforestation is a real thing that creates real risks … and tropical deforestation is happening.
  • Michaels: The world is greening due to increased CO2 in the atmosphere [implying that we should just keeping adding more] and that areas of greatest greening are in tropical forest areas — which are getting greener, more vegetation rather than the deforestation we hear about.
• etc …
• etc …
• etc …

Head hitting desk moment … essentially every one of Michaels’ assertions was false and/or misleading.

Laughing all the way

Michaels is a good snake-oil salesman, overwhelming with appearance of overwhelming data to ‘prove’ his assertions and engaging in ways to win over audience sympathy. All of this confusion generating and misdirection came with wry humor and seeming self-deprecation.

• ‘Washington, DC, has one of the largest urban heat islands in the country from all the money changing hands.’ 
• In discussion falselyasserting that modeling is wrong, with the exception of one model: “I hope the Special Prosecutor gets his report out because it is the Russian model.”
• In an audience dominated by people over age 65, Michaels slowly and loudly stated “O … M … G” to emphasize (false) points.
• “Let’s talk about Syria because that’s one of the infrared herrings of the climate discussion.”

Ha … ha .. ha … laughing our way to catastrophe.

O … M … G … The Oregon Petition

My question was the last of the evening and I did manage to get out (something like): “Every single world Academy of Science and relevant scientific institution would not agree with your presentation. You are asking everyone here to believe you over the world’s scientific community.” While Michaels’ reaction was, in essence, ‘they are all going along to get along and don’t have my courage’, the most interesting reaction came as the evening closed.

The wife of the event organizer, John Theune, was (my wording) clearly outraged over the impugning of Michaels, Theune, and the professional climate science denial (oops, Lukewarmer) world. She stood up, in her outrage, to assert that there is a “petition signed by 31.478 American scientists who agree with John and Pat Michaels.  When John worked at NASA, the position was we did not know enough … There is a large body of data, research, and scientists who stand behind Dr. Michaels.”

Sigh. Love the preciseness of 31,478. In any event, that is the Oregon Petition whose luminaries, in signing, have included senior scientists like Mickey Mouse and ” included the names of “Drs. ‘Frank Burns’ ‘Honeycutt’ and ‘Pierce’ from the hit-show M*A*S*H and Spice Girls, a.k.a. Geraldine Halliwell, who was on the petition as ‘Dr. Geri Halliwel’ and again as simply ‘Dr. Halliwell.'” Now, even if we were to assume that 100% of the “31,478” were accurate, as of 2010, there had been over 10 million Americans who fulfilled the claimed ‘requirements’ to be able to sign the petition as scientists.

An interesting aside moment: CATO vs Heartland

After the presentation, one of the audience members went up to Michaels and said that his unwillingness to discuss his fossil fuel funding undermines his message. Amid this (paraphrasing),

• Audience member: You worked at Heartland, after all, which takes lots of money from the Koch Brothers.
• Michaels: No, I work at CATO. We’re quite different. You shouldn’t trust anything about science from Heartland.

Hmm … okay, there is at least one thing Michaels said Wednesday evening that is accurate and truthful.

The most critical message of the evening

Without question, there are far (FAR) more pleasant ways to spend the evening than sitting in the audience for a science denial presentation. The event moderator, Lincoln Brooks, provided the painful truth as to ‘why’ it can be necessary:

No matter what you think of Pat Michaels and what he said, no matter whether you think he is utterly wrong, there is a simple truth. One half of major American political parties is listening to him.

A note: In more than one way, a post like this is painful to write. One of those ‘ways’ is that, writ large, we should welcome that efforts/groups/discussions like the “Faith and Policy Committee” exist and try to educate/inform/engage people on important issues. Sadly, however, hosting Michaels was/is misinforming and deceiving, rather than enriching. Step back for a moment and think: should the Faith and Policy Committee next host someone (falsely) explaining how vaccines cause autism? Or, someone (falsely) arguing that smoking doesn’t cause cancer (something, btw, that Michaels was associated with in his history)? Or, that the Earth is flat? Giving a soap box to serial deceit is not a path to improved public discourse and better public policy.

And, one last note to resolve an opening question: despite a lukewarmer’s substantial CO2 emissions, the grass wasn’t any greener in my backyard the day after Michaels’ visit.

A small ‘update’ to highlight the ‘flawed’ community Michaels is a member of:

Over 3300 economists around the world have signed the Economists’ Statement on Climate Dividends. Original co-signatories include Nobel laureates (27!), former Chairs of the Federal Reserve, former Treasury Secretaries, …

Let us be clear, upfront, that it is important that

• so many credentialed, prominent economists have come together to call for action to address climate change; and
• these economists agree that it is past time for polluting “externalities” to be internalized into financial transactions

As leading environmental economist Frank Ackerman put it to me,

it’s great to hear that lots of utterly mainstream economists think a response to climate change is needed, and that a carbon price is part of that response. 

Even so, the Economists’ Statement on Climate Dividends is troubling on several accounts, including that it seems oblivious to some basic Econ 102-level economic realities.

Some background

First published 16 January in the Wall Street Journal, as news and excitement mounted about the Green New Deal, the Economists’ Statement evolved from the Baker-Schultz climate dividend plan and could be seen as the calm, collective, experienced, incremental, classics economic theory‘s alternative to an unbridled effort to transform American society while radically reducing emissions. As Baker-Schultz implies, the Economists’ Statement originated with conservative thinking about how to engage productively in discussion about how best to address climate change mitigation. Proponents assert that it “represents the largest expression of combined economic expertise in American history”.

Think ‘classic economic theory’ as this statement fails to stand up to basic scrutiny in part because it is such classic Dismal Science and enshrines Homo Economicus as core to humanity’s future.

A very quick summary of the short statement:

• Climate change is real, a threat, and requires action.
• Pricing carbon is the most effective way to do so.
• Thus, set a price on carbon that increases, gradually, over time to let the ‘invisible hand’ drive decision-making on investments to less polluting options.
• With price in place, end regulations and other government interventions (inefficiencies) related to carbon.
• Use 100% of the revenues for dividends because this will boost public support.

Why “Dismal Science“?

One clean example makes stark how over 3300 (including many of the most accomplished) economists got it wrong with this Statement.

• Carbon pricing has significant differential impact across sectors.
  • $10-$20 ton is enough of a tipping point to accelerate, rapidly, coal off the grid and reduce natural gas seriously.
  • $50/ton would barely dent liquid fuel demand without accompanying policies.
  • The statement gives no indication of an understanding of this simple truth: what is a “powerful signal” in one sector is barely noticed in others.

In other words, these world-leading economists are flocking to sign on to a statement that seems oblivious to a simple reality: in terms of climate impacts, a price is not a price is not a price … What ‘kills coal’ barely would barely wound natural gas and oil.

As Climate Shock author, economist Gernot Wagner, put it to me in an email:

 it’s always meant to be a political document that basically says: “Economists support carbon pricing.” The dividend bit is there based on who the organizers are, but that’s about it. It’s not some sort of legislative text. It’s simply a sign-on statement that went viral. The fact that it only reflects econ 101 and not, say, econ 102 or political economy 101 is unfortunate but doesn’t really matter in that context. …

What’s telling in general is that e.g. the two Nobel laureates best positioned to know the details — Nordhaus and Krugman — did not, in fact, join their fellow Laureates. (I didn’t sign either, in case that matters.)

Can’t we rely on the Invisible Hand & Homo Economicus?

As a basic point, the failure is classic “liberal market economics” perpetuating the falsehood of “the invisible hand” even as putting in policy (pricing) to shape the ‘invisible”. 

The rejection of regulation as a legitimate part of policy is great example of Homo Economicus thinking without integrating/involving any of the learning from behavioral economics over the past several decades. As per study after study of Misbehaving humans in the real world, humans are not perfectly informed, perfectly rational actors across our economic decision-making. And, while a strong believer in the value of pricing externalities as part of changing course toward a prosperous, climate-friendly society, real-world experience demonstrates that ‘pricing’ doesn’t work in absence of accompanying policy (e.g., regulations) in many energy domains.

The Economists’ Statement derives from the Climate Leadership Council whose explanation makes clear an intent to eliminate significant regulations (while eliminating any/all liability for past emissions). E.g., let’s issue ‘Get Out of Jail Free’ cards to firms who have fostered confusion in climate discussions for decades while undermining the ability to have a “well-regulated” economy structure “invisible hand” decisions to drive ever-greater emissions reductions.

As one pulls threads on the Economists’ Statement, one starts to wonder just how many of its authors really thought about what they were signing — past a desire to sign on to a symbolic statement. For example,  

• there is (yet again) the assertion that 100% of any carbon price should be returned as dividends because it will boost the political popularity. 
  • While I tend to fall into thinking that having a decent share as ‘rebate’ would foster increased support (and is a minor path toward addressing economic inequalities), I have yet to see proof that this is actually true rather than assertion.
    • The “Stand-Up Economist” (Yoram Bauman) is (one of) the economist(s) with the most intimate experience with dividends and electoral results. He simply doesn’t see the proof for the political utility assertion and challenges assertions about “fairness”. These were principal reasons he didn’t sign the Statement.
  • In addition, the basic logic of 100% returned is hard to justify.
    • What carbon pricing system around the world is giving 100% of revenue back as dividends? None by recollection.
    • As Ackerman put it to me, “Why the 100% return requirement? Nothing else in public life is required to be 100% revenue-neutral, why should climate policy have to meet this strange standard? Public investment, infrastructure, basic research are all important, along with dividends to ease the possible regressivity of a carbon price.”
• 100% discounting of the future, in terms of dividend payment
  • Giving out dividend, today, ‘rewards’ people alive today while reserving nothing (investing nothing) for those tomorrow.
• Assumption that individual knows better than the collective (e.g., government) is one of the greatest myths promoting by the GOP and accomplice economists.
  • While there are things the individual knows better (what clothing their children like; whether they want to save money for vacation or go out to restaurants; etc …), there is so much that the ‘individual’ isn’t in a position to know better (what concrete should be used to repair the road; how to recruit/train teachers/police/etc; public health; etc…).
  • Giving 100% of the money back in a dividend is an implicit embrace of ‘individual knows better’ (Homo Economicus) ideology.
• etc …

The “Economists’ Statement” totally misses what is the core of Hal Harvey’s highly technocratic Designing Carbon Solutions: there is no silver bullet, no one size fits all answer to addressing climate change.

No single policy can solve climate change, but a broad portfolio of policies already available to policymakers can drive down emissions.

And, as Ackerman sums it up, “prices are not enough.”

In addition to undermining non-pricing mechanisms, by asserting ‘a single price uber alles’, the Economists’ Statement fails to meet very basic analytical standards to support their statement along with these other failures.

Thus, let’s celebrate the Economists’ Statement on Carbon Dividends for highlighting that pricing pollution has widespread support across the economics profession while recognizing that signatories are promoting a flawed structure that does not stand up to scrutiny.

Selected Bibliography: In addition to material cited/linked in the post, here are some discussions of the Economists’ Statement that I found interesting/useful.

• George Harvey, Flaws in the Baker-Schultz Plan
• Michael Balstenberger, The Economists’ Statement on Carbon Dividends and the Green New Deal This is a quite useful post reviewing a variety of opinions on The Economists’ Statement.
• Noah Kaufman, Leading Economists Offer 5 Carbon Tax Recommendations: 3 1/2 are Basic Principles of Economics, examines The Economists’ Statement against basic Dismal Science principles.
• John Cochrane, The Economists’ Statement
• Charles Steele, Why I Won’t Sign Onto Climate Leadership Council’s Plan
• Michael Strain, What to Do With the Revenue From a Carbon Tax

Trump’s inane rejection of climate science (and, well, fundamental statement that he is clueless about the most basic concepts of science and the scientific method) are well known, provide a comedic statement about what has become core Republican dogma, and sadly occupy the Oval Office.

In all seriousness, it seemed on 5 November 2016 that there was a crowd of PMS (pale, male, and stale) somewhat irrational outliers on climate science who were truly about to be relegated to the ash heap of history — instead, thank you to Putin, horrible media practices, GOP voter suppression (among other reasons), these deluded people have the demi-G-d in control of the Federal government and are in positions of power. With Trump about to announce a “Presidential Committee On Climate Security”, it’s those irrational outliers who are going to be in charge of the game.

Among the PMS crowd, there are a few credentialed scientists (though very few climate scientists) who rate in the ‘climate science confuser’ (if not denier) space. One of those is William Happer, formerly a professor at Princeton University, a specialist on lasers (not climate science) and now a senior director in the Trump National Security Council staff. Happer is to be in charge of that Presidential Committee.

A decade ago, Happer provided one of most painfully comedic moments of Congressional testimony history. Happer has a shtick in asserting that carbon dioxide brings benefits and, well, anyway carbon dioxide levels have been higher in the past than today … millions of years before human civilization. From his exchange with Senator Barbara Boxer.

Boxer: This is a weird kind of place you’ve taken us to. You’re taking us back how many years to when we were fine.

Happer. About 80 million year

Boxer. I don’t know how to say this. A lot has happened since then in terms of where people are living and working. We have a society now. So, to say go back to those days, … either I’m missing something or you just don’t seem to think times have changed.

Happer: While I don’t think that the laws of nature or physics have changed. [Said snidely …] or chemistry have changed in 80 million years. 80 million years ago the Earth was a prosperous place. There is no reason to think that it will suddenly become bad now …

Hmmm … well before human civilization, in the … period, CO2 levels were higher and sea levels were only about 400 feet (120 meters) higher than today. Thus, according to Happer, evidently losing every piece of land less than 400 feet above sea level today would be “bad”.

Happer’s irrational outlier views on climate change science don’t stop there.

It’s important to note the person behind this attempt to chill our defense agencies from understanding and managing climate risk is Dr. Will Happer.  Dr. Happer testified before Congress in December 2015 that the world has too little Carbon Dioxide and is too cold – an extreme, fringe view even for the tiny number of scientists who call themselves climate skeptics.  This is a clumsy attempt to force the entire federal government to conform to a bizarre view thoroughly rejected by the vast majority of scientists.” – Rear Admiral David Titley, US Navy (Ret), former Oceanographer of the Navy and now a Professor at Penn State. [Note: Titley gave a truly excellent TED talk about his journey from climate science skepticism to understanding its reality and importance. See it at the end of this post.)

And, it is that irrationality — framed as run by a “Princeton Professor” — that will head a Presidential Committee on Climate Security.

Now, why this Committee? Why now? Because the National Security community has, yet again, come out with additional analysis showing climate change as a threat to the nation.

The assessment Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats submitted on Jan. 29 to the Senate Intelligence Committee, for example, states, “Global environmental and ecological degradation, as well as climate change, are likely to fuel competition for resources, economic distress, and social discontent through 2019 and beyond.”

There are strong rumors going around that Trump hates (and is likely to fire) Coats for telling him like it is, rather than the #alternativefacts he desires to hear. How dare Coats hint at acknowledgment of basic climate science?

The Defense Department said in a report submitted to Congress in mid-January that several dozen military installations around the nation already are experiencing climate impacts. The assessment, which called climate change “a national security issue,” said rising seas, wildfires and other such disasters are likely to create more severe problems for the military in the coming years.

In the face of these reports, CO2 promoter and climate change risks dismisser Happer will head a “Presidential Committee” created to put the White House seal on the rejection of science and a refutation of the national security community’s assessment that climate change is “a national security issue”.

Experts are, well, aghast.

From the Center for Climate and Security’s statement.

“This is the equivalent of setting up a committee on nuclear weapons proliferation and having someone lead it who doesn’t think nuclear weapons exist,” said Francesco Femia, Chief Executive Officer of the Council on Strategic Risks and Co-Founder of the Center for Climate and Security “It’s honestly a blunt force political tool designed to shut the national security community up on climate change.”

“Looks like someone at the White House doesn’t like the fact that our defense and intelligence agencies are concerned about the security implications of climate change,” said John Conger, Director of the Center for Climate and Security and former Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for Energy, Installations and Environment. “So they want to set up a politically-led panel to undermine the credibility of military and security experts.  They don’t seem to understand that to the military and to the broader security community, this is an issue of risk, readiness, and resilience, not politics.  The military doesn’t have the luxury of deciding to ignore certain threats because a politician doesn’t find them convenient.”

“For over 7 decades, our Nation has been the instrument of change in establishing world order in the face of fascism, communism and terrorism.  The human toll from these “isms” has been catastrophic and those of us who have served in public office and in uniform can be rightfully proud for taking decisive action to right those wrongs.  But to deny the trajectory of the global climate defies America’s bias for action as a catalyst for change among world leaders.” – Admiral Paul Zukunft, U.S. Coast Guard (Ret), Senior Member of the Advisory Board at the Center for Climate and Security and former Commandant of the Coast Guard

“Our intelligence, defense and science agencies stretching back across many Administrations, both Republican and Democrat – including the Trump Administration itself are closely aligned.  The science and facts on climate change are well-established and do not need an administration influenced review by an NSC headed panel. What we do need are practical and pragmatic policy choices today to fix the problem. Americans are affected everyday by climate change and will see through any thinly-veiled political attempt to say they are not. An NSC-headed panel to address solutions is what we need.” – General Ron Keys, US Air Force (Ret), Senior Member of the Advisory Board at the Center for Climate and Security and former Commander of Air Combat Command.

“This is not a real peer review committee – it’s a political review committee,” said Rear Admiral David Titley, US Navy (Ret), Senior Member of the Advisory Board at the Center for Climate and Security and former Oceanographer of the Navy. “It’s designed to try to scare our intelligence, defense and science professionals into doing and saying nothing about this pressing threat. I don’t think it will succeed. In fact, I think it would be an embarrassment, like other panels before it.”

“It’s hard to stop good people from doing good work – especially those in the defense, intelligence and science agencies of our government,” said Sherri Goodman, Senior Strategist with the Center for Climate and Security and former Deputy Undersecretary of Defense (Environmental Security). “One way to try to stop them is through bullying. This proposed ‘adversarial’ committee is a bully committee. And whether it succeeds or not, it will hurt our national security. Hopefully, cooler heads will prevail.”

UPDATE: From an excellent Graham Redfearn DeSmogBlog post:

Princeton colleague and climate scientist Professor Michael Oppenheimer has said of Happer that “with respect to climate science and scientists, he is not only unknowledgeable but appears to have become unmoored.”
One of the few genuine climate scientists to have engaged with Happer in detail about his interpretation of climate science is Dr. David Karoly, currently leader of the Earth Systems and Climate Change Hub at the Australian government’s CSIRO science agency. In 2016, while at the University of Melbourne, Karoly engaged with Happer in a so-called “focused civil dialogue” on climate science.
Karoly told DeSmog he disengaged from the process after having reservations about the way it was being moderated. “But in the end, I realised that no matter what I said — all based on the peer reviewed science — he was not going to change his view, so I gave up,” said Karoly.   
Commenting on Happer’s suitability for the White House position, Karoly said: “Usually you would select a scientist with a strong peer-reviewed publication record in the area of interest. But he has not published a single peer-reviewed article on climate change in his career. That would suggest he does not have the credentials. I would argue that he does not have the appropriate experience, or the demonstrated capabilities, to be engaged in this sort of position.”

BP’s Valentine Day gift to the energy geek world: the release of BP’s Energy Outlook and Chief Economist Spencer Dale’s discussion of key issues and implications of its work. As previously written,

BP’s chief economist, Spencer Dale, is perhaps one of those for who the old EF Hutton ad applies: when Spencer Dale speaks, people should listen. Thoughtful, substantive, and often incisive about what has happened, is happening, and might/potentially could happen in the energy sector.

As as a sign that opinion is shared by others, in addition to a packed meeting room in London, there were 8,435 people signed in globally to the live webcast.

From the presentation, the key underpinning point about humanity’s requirements is perhaps ‘no surprise’ but succinctly well put. Any reasonable look out into the future, seeking to have improved conditions for humanity is summarized in four words:

More energy, less carbon

Ending energy poverty and increased ‘middle class demands globally drives a massive increase in energy demand and requirements. BP’s CEO, Bob Dudley, gave a window on this based on a recent conversation with Boeing’s CEO:

Eighty two percent of humanity has never been on a plane.

Every year, year-in, year out, Boeing projects 100 million people taking their first flight.

While energy efficiency and other paths towards improved energy productivity can ameliorate the extent of this increased demand, a reasonable look forward ends at roughly 40 percent greater global energy use by 2040. With a reasonable assessment of current trends, this would mean a ten-percent increase in annual global green-house gas (GHG) emissions.

Pretty simple summary: continued growth in annual emissions means cooking humanity’s future.

Thus, if meeting increased services will occur without cooking humanity’s future, there must be far more aggressive energy efficiency globally and far more aggressive introduction of renewable energy than what is currently projected under current policy structures.

Note: I intend to provide additional thoughts on the BP Energy Outlook after having a chance to read through it rather than an immediate response to/during its initial presentation. In the interim, I recommend taking a look of Gregg Muttitt’s 2017 BP’s Energy Outlook: between forecasting and advocacy.

John Prine likely gave Paradise, Kentucky, its greatest fame.

And daddy won’t you take me back to Muhlenberg County
Down by the Green River where Paradise lay
Well, I’m sorry my son, but you’re too late in asking
Mister Peabody’s coal train has hauled it away

Now Paradise has another claim to fame as @RealDonaldTrump weighed in challenging the Tennessee Valley Authority’s (TVA) comprehensive research, analysis, and planning made clear that shutting “Unit #3” (a coal-fired power plant) is in ratepayer interest.

Unit 3, which went online in 1970, has deteriorated with age and has had a relatively high rate of unplanned shutdowns.

Keeping it running would require expensive mechanical and environmental upgrades

As Michael Bloomberg accurately put it replying to Trump, “As any business leader knows, the top consideration at @TVAnews is cost. Phasing out that coal plant will save Kentuckians money (not to mention their air & water).”

To provide some context as to Unit #3, it is a 50-year old plant that directly employs 131 people. Every year, its economics are worsening as its inefficiency, repair challenges reducing availability, and changing electricity markets reduce demands for it to produce electrons. In 2017, its capacity factor (what share of the time it was producing electricity) was just 25.47%. And, that lowered demand for generating services occurred even as two other coal-facilities (Units #1 and #2) were fully retired in 2017.

Clearly, within the local economics, this plant has an impact — between those 131 direct jobs and indirect employment (truck drivers delivery coal, some coal miners, restaurants relying on the business). This local economic impact, the only substantive argument for keeping the plant open, is real and should be addressed. This is, however, a “positive” externality just like coal pollution hurting human health and damaging the climate is an externality not included in the financial equation. Smart policy should incorporate externalities. In the case of the ‘positive’ externality, smart policy would incorporate TVA’s sensible decision-making, in the best interest of ratepayers and the region’s economic viability, with investment to provide a just and healthy transition for Paradise as the coal-plant is closed due to basic ‘business leader’ economic decision-making. Regretfully, unlikel Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump has (and his GOP enablers have) never shown substantive (as opposed to false rhetorical interest) in securing the long-term economic and social interests of America’s coal-miners and coal communities as 21st century reality lowers the viability of their resource extraction economies.

As to Trump’s out-of-the-blue engagement to drive TVA decision-making away from that in the interest of its ratepayers and larger community,

Not surprising, Trump’s tweet led to 10,000s of engagements. Many mindless Cult Of Trump, of course, along with fantasy fossil foolish comments (like claiming the future is the fairy-tale “clean coal”). On the other hand, quite a few substantive comments making clear simple reality:

• With every passing day, coal is a less important part of the U.S. (and global) electricity system. In the United States, coal was over 50 percent of the grid a decade ago and 30 percent today. And, as coal-generated electrons evaporated from the grid, the lights keep on and the economy boomed. The average person simply didn’t see the difference, other than reduced electricity bills, from flipping the switch on with cleaner electrons.
• Unit #3 is inefficient, unreliable, and less competitive with every passing day. Its operating costs, per kilowatt hour, are above the price it can sell its electricity. E.g., it is losing money with every electron it produces. It is not a viable entity in a capitalist economy.

There is yet another twist in the equation. Trump has been been a (corrupt) elephant in the china shop, breaking norms while likely breaking laws left, right, and center. In this situation, in addition to bringing Presidential visibility to a relatively small decision-space being executed by a competent planning process, Trump is intervening in what should be a commercial decision-making and putting serious pressure on public servants to skew decision-making. That is norm breaking in action. On top of that, there is a viable question to ask whether this goes past breaking norms to breaking laws. Is this a(nother) situation of corrupt Trumpian “Pay-to-Play”.

The primary provider of coal to Unit #3? Robert Murray’s firm.

Murray was a major contributor to the Trump campaign. An ‘advisor’ who had unique access to and influence over the Trump transition teams into the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection Agency. Acting (and likely soon to be confirmed as) EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeling was a Murray lobbyist. Murray was a six-figure contributor to the Trump Inauguration. Yes, that inauguration committee that is under investigation for whether there was ‘pay to play’ and which remains unclear as to where it put its nearly $100M in contributions. (How much of that money went into Trump’s pockets? How many dollars were payoffs to people around Trump? How many were …??) Did Trump’s “Unit #3 tweet” not just give more fame to Paradise, Kentucky, but also raise a new angle for legal investigation?

UPDATE

Corruption only goes so far as does Donald Trump’s influence. Despite Trump’s aggressive tweet, TVA went forward with decision to retired Unit #3.

This morning, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Senator Ed Markey are introducing Green New Deal resolution. This resolution lays down a clear set of markers and principles that, if (when) adopted as core to U.S. government policy for the decade(s) to come, will make the most significant statement about and most significant set of measures to address climate change risks while seizing the reality of ‘crisis’ to strengthen society for the present and tomorrow. 

From an Rep. Ocasio-Cortez’s office site’s blog post on the Green New Deal from the 5th: [note: that link will not work as that page/blog post was deleted shortly after this piece was written/posted]

The Green New deal achieves this through a World War 2 scale mobilization that focuses the robust and creative economic engine of the United States on reversing climate change by fully rebuilding our crumbling infrastructure, restoring our natural ecosystems, dramatically expanding renewable power generation, overhauling our entire transportation system, upgrading all our buildings, jumpstarting US clean manufacturing, transforming US agriculture, and putting our nation’s people to work doing what they do best: making the impossible possible.

Any large-scale transformation of society can create the risk of some people slipping through the cracks. That’s why the Green New Deal also calls for an upgrade to the basic economic securities enjoyed by all people in the US to ensure everybody benefits from the newly created wealth. It guarantees to everyone:

A job with family-sustaining wages, family and medical leave, vacations, and retirement security

High-quality education, including higher education and trade schools

High-quality health care

Clean air and water

Healthy food

Safe, affordable, adequate housing

An economic environment free of monopolies

Economic security to all who are unable or unwilling to work

Before taking additional keystrokes, an important public service statement of appreciation:

• Thank you Sunrise Movement founders/activists who have leveraged the work of many others, for many years, and helped spark a dramatic shift in the public conversation.
• Thank you Representative Ocasio-Cortez for your
  • passion about climate issues and how critical the requirement is to act,
  • full comprehension of how choosing to Act On Climate is an investment that provides the potential for massive return (financial, social structure/equity/etc),
  • incredible skill in communicating difficult issues in understandable and compelling ways, and
  • leadership on pushing the Green New Deal forward in public and in the Halls of Congress.
• Thank you Senator Markey for your
  • long-term work and passion about developing better climate policy.; and,
  • leadership in spearheading this resolution.

Right now, the most important item about the Green New Deal resolution is that it exists. With climate-science denialist Donald Trump occupying the Oval Office, fossil fools in political appointment positions and controlling the Senate, this resolution will not pass and become law in the coming 23 months. It does, however, set a marker for developing legislation to have ready to have the desk of the next President come 21 January 2021. For those of us who have concerned about climate change for years (decades) and have seen the nation take one step forward to be followed by two (or more) steps back, this is an amazing moment to conceive.  While this GND resolution is introduced on the Hill,

• Candidates from local school boards to many of the Democratic Party Presidential Primary candidates are endorsing Green New Deal;
• Legislation and policy discussions of Green New Deal (variants) are being introduced in County and State political bodies; and,
• Public support for climate action — for a Green New Deal — is at stunning levels (over 80% Democratic identified people and over 50% Republican when polled on basic principles).

While there is incredible amount of discussion that can/will be had about the Green New Deal (from ‘is it aggressive enough’+ to tweaking policy nuances (that matter) to balancing the role of the private/public sectors to asking if it misses real opportunities* to ….), the core point of the moment is to:

• Thank those who have been driving the Green New Deal into public conversation and into the Halls of Congress; and,
• Call on political and ‘thought’ leaders, of all stripes and at all levels, to support a Green New Deal as a fundamental and core element of government policy and investment.

NOTEs/PS

* “Miss real opportunities”: The GND resolution gets into specific technologies and policies, in a few cases, such as calling for “high-speed trains”. While that merits discussion (for example, far more valuable/critical is electrifying rail and upping capacity (nation-wide) for mid-speed rail), the GND resolution doesn’t seem (on first read, on word search) to have a syllable about a powerful arena: the payoff for greening school infrastructure. Not only is that valuable and critical space, it also appears to meet essentially all the core principles of the GND and is a massively popular option across the entire nation.

+ Re ‘is it aggressive enough’, an example is an already emergent challenge is ‘KIITG’: keep it in the ground.  Already, this morning, Friends of the Earth criticized the Green New Deal resolution for not explicitly calling for an end to Fossil Fuels. That criticism comes within praise, however. 

The Green New Deal is a strong vision for the future, stuck in the politics of today. We enthusiastically endorse the many pieces of the resolution that call for systemic change. But by failing to expressly call for an end of the fossil fuel era, the resolution misses an opportunity to define the scope of the challenge.

We are encouraged by many pieces of the resolution, including the embrace of a federal jobs guarantee, the commitment to worker rights and collective bargaining and recognition that the Green New Deal must be developed from the ground up in collaboration with frontline communities. While incomplete, the resolution is a good first step toward a Green New Deal.

It’s up to the grassroots to keep pushing at every step of this fight for an expansive vision that ends our fossil fuel addiction and solves the climate crisis.

Erich Pica, Friends of the Earth president

– Rep. Ocasio-Cortez was on NPR earlier this morning.  The few minutes are truly worth listening to for an excellent example of her effective ability to communicate difficult issues and for her words about the Green New Deal.

# Seen (published) after posted this, Dave Roberts has an excellent initial look at the Resolution that merits reading to provide a framework for understanding what it does to shift the ‘climate’ legislation discussion (move The Overton Window) in a progressive manner/way. 

But take a step back and appreciate: the progressive movement has, in rather short order, thrust into mainstream US politics a program to address climate change that is wildly more ambitious than anything the Democratic Party was talking about even two years ago. One-hundred percent clean energy, investment in new jobs, and a just transition have gone from activist dreams to the core of the Democratic agenda in the blink of a political eye. There’s a long way to go, but the GND train has come farther, faster than anyone could have predicted.

While most discussions of climate change focus on modern history, discussing the change from pre-industrial CO2 levels of roughly 275 parts per million to today’s 410 (or so), humanity has been impacting the climate for millennia. Essentially since the emergence of agriculture, humans have been putting their thumb on the scales and influencing climate. While it is the industrial era and the ever-mounting burning of fossil fuels that have driven the greatest change, agriculture (such as methane emissions due to rice cultivation and forestry (think the forests that became the Royal Navy’s ships)) has had enough emissions to tip the scale toward warming.

Generally, we think of humanity’s impacts as warming the planet. There are, however, other ways in which human impact has actually contributed to cooling the planet. Well known is the mid-20th century cooling influence from all the particulates and pollution in the atmosphere that reflected solar radiation and acted to counter the warming contributes of increased greenhouse gases. (This, plus the studied impact from volcanoes, is behind much of the thinking behind geo-engineering concepts like ejecting sulphur in the atmosphere to counteract warming.)

Until reading a paper earlier today, this seemed to be the major example of humanity driving ‘cooling’ (rather than warming) globally.

In “Earth system impacts of the European arrival and Great Dying in the Americas after 1492,” scientists put figures behind the impacts of the genocidal 16th century. When Columbus ‘sailed the oceans blue’, there were approximately 60 million people living in the Americas. A century later, the population was a tenth that. With 90% fewer people, less agriculture was required (and sustainable), fewer other elements of human civilization (cities, roads, …) were required and maintained.

The scientists’ analysis suggests that some 56 million hectares (or roughly 140 million acres or over 200,000 square miles (nearly the size of France (250,000 square miles))) of agricultural land was overrun by fast growing plants and forests. These soaked up massive amounts of carbon dioxide. The scientists assess that, over a century, this amounted to 7 to 10 ppm.

In this period, there was a climate event called the Little Ice Age that, in at least part, seems to have been driven by human action.

“There is a marked cooling around that time (1500s/1600s) which is called the Little Ice Age, and what’s interesting is that we can see natural processes giving a little bit of cooling, but actually to get the full cooling – double the natural processes – you have to have this genocide-generated drop in CO?” explained co-author Prof Mark Maslin.

Let us be clear, as Prof Maslin’s comment does state, that the “marked cooling” was not solely driven by human action: the genocide (and resultant natural process of trees reclaiming cleared land) might have been half the reason for the Little Ice Age cooling.

Prof. Ed Hawkins, Reading University, was not involved in the study. He commented: “Scientists understand that the so-called Little Ice Age was caused by several factors – a drop in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels, a series of large volcanic eruptions, changes in land use and a temporary decline in solar activity.

“This new study demonstrates that the drop in CO? is itself partly due the settlement of the Americas and resulting collapse of the indigenous population, allowing regrowth of natural vegetation. It demonstrates that human activities affected the climate well before the industrial revolution began.”

While a genocide is not the path for climate action, this study has interesting lessons for today:

• Human action can cool the planet just as it is warming it today.
• Reforestation — on sufficient scale — can have a climate-level impact.
• This climate impact can occur quickly — with the same sort of rapidity
• This massive reforestation (essentially a France of trees) reduced carbon emissions roughly equivalent to two years of today’s emissions.

Tree-planting (such as massively accelerating green walls) can (should be) part of humanity’s decision to act on climate, to mitigate future climate change. The ‘natural’ reforestration due to the 16th genocide in the Americas makes clear that it can have a meaningful impact. And, it provides a simple rule of thumb: we need to push humanity toward a carbon-neutral emissions economy as rapidly as possible while reforesting roughly six Frances to bring the carbon system below 350 ppm.

Notes:

1. The study is well-documented. The references are rich and are worth mining is this topic is of interest.
2. Professor Bill Ruddiman, Emeritus-UVA, is perhaps appropriately called the doyen of studying humanity’s impact on the climate in the pre-industrial period. Here is his Tyndall prize lecture laying out his hypothesis and 2013 state of the research. In 2010, he published Plows, Plagues, and Petroleum: How Humans Took Control of Climate.
3. Other human ‘genocidal’ actions might have had climate impacts. For example, Genghis Khan is estimated to account for killing about 5% of the then world’s population with a resultant impact (through reforestation) of perhaps 700 million tons of carbon dioxide removed from the atmosphere (about 1/10th the impact in the Americas).

The Atlantic Coast Pipeline (ACP) is supposedly designed to bring fracked natural gas to theoretical markets in Virginia and North Carolina. This environmentally devastating project (from cutting swaths through pristine forests to worsening climate pollution) is, at its core, designed to boost its owners profitability (Dominion Energy (48%), Duke Energy (47%), and Southern Company (5%)) on the backs of ratepayers. While the pipeline is theoretically a private concern, regulated subsidiaries of its owners have contracted for 96% of the pipeline’s projected capacity. Those contracts assure payments (assure outsized profits) even if the services aren’t ever required.  Ever hear the term ‘privatize profits, socialize risks’? The ACP is a poster child for the term and the changing situation (increased risks) are making this clearer with every passing day.

Just released by the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis and Oil Change International, the report The Vanishing Need for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline makes a compelling case that should underpin regulatory decision-making that the ACP is simply not in ratepayer interests and is counter the interests of Virginia and its citizens — if it ever was.

Things have changed since the ACP was originally proposed and then approved.

• The project’s costs have skyrocketed by at least 30 percent — and could mount even higher.
• Electricity demand projections used by Dominion and Duke (D&D) electric utility subsidiaries (68% of total capacity) to justify the contracts are not standing up to reality: demand is flat and no serious analyst considers those D&D assertions about future (phantom) growth defensible.
  • In fact, neither do these utilities. Dominion Virginia Power now projects 2033 natural gas use at 2019 levels.
  • “For the first time ever, the Virginia State Corporation Commission rejected Dominion’s Integrated Resource Plan in 2018. Among other issues, the Commission noted its “considerable doubt regarding the accuracy and reasonableness of the Company’s load forecast.” The Commission cited the inaccuracy of Dominion’s forecasts in the recent past, as well as the fact that PJM – the regional transmission organization – forecasts load growth for Dominion’s region of only 0.9% per year, compared to Dominion’s forecast growth of 1.4% per year.”
  • “Dominion has consistently predicted growing electricity demand, while actual electricity demand has remained essentially flat since 2007.”

• Renewable energy (and storage) prices have plummeted (and continue to plummet), making it clearer that new natural gas electricity plants will have a hard time competing against clean energy options.
  • With the emergent potential that Virginia will start to develop and exploit the Commonwealth’s virtually unlimited offshore wind resources at prices below what new natural gas projects can provide.

“Recent analyses of the Levelized Cost of Electricity (LCOE) for a range of generation technologies shows utility-scale wind and solar already competitive with gas in many markets,” said Lorne Stockman, Senior Research Analyst at Oil Change International and co-author of the report. “As renewable technologies and storage continue to decline in price, it increases the risk that natural gas plants planned for construction in the late 2020s will never materialize.”

Any objective read of The Vanishing Need for the Atlantic Coast Pipeline makes clear that, even putting aside its environmentally catastrophic implications, the case that this project is in Virginia utility ratepayer and Virginia citizens’ interest has withered away … if it ever even existed.