Why People Deny Global Warming

Opposition to environmental protection comes, in large part, from proponents of small government who see the environmental issue as a threat to their attempt to reduce taxes, reduce regulations, and reduce government spending.

(If the threat to our country came in the form of a military threat, I'm positive that those same people would be willing to raise taxes, increase regulations, and increase government spending. Just look at recent events in the US.)

The troubling thing is that the opponents of large government do not phrase the environmental debate in terms of how we should respond to global warming; they deny the existence of global warming. Thus we have wasted years arguing about whether there is a problem, and are not making progress on how to address it.

The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has been clear for some time that our pollution is causing global climate change. The most recent IPPC report states that this is "unequivocal". This isn't just a small committee. Wikipedia says, "The report was produced by around 600 authors from 40 countries, and reviewed by over 620 experts and governments. Before being accepted, the summary was reviewed line-by-line by representatives from 113 governments". I challenge anyone who doesn't believe the IPCC to say that they support big government; I don't think any such person exists.

There is a place in the environmental debate for people who are wary of big government. In fact, Canada's Green Party takes a very small-c conservative (even a big-C Conservative) approach to the environment by calling for a new tax structure that taxes waste and pollution. (I think the idea is crazy, as I have said before, on two grounds: (1) the tax system tosses out out the foundation of our current system, that people should pay proportionally more as their income rises, and so will have all sorts of unintended and negative social side effects; (2) their proposed tax system has no hope of being adopted in Canada, so the Green Party is wasting our time having this as the center of their environmental policy when they should be talking about more pragmatic, possible policy.) But the strategy is working for the Green Party - they are picking up right-wing voters.

In Europe, where big government is not such an anathema, environmental issues have been acknowledged and addressed much more effectively than in North America. And, gee willikers, the environmental initiatives haven't created behemoth public corporations, high levels of taxation or crushing regulatory bureaucracy. The free market isn't destroyed by wind power, tighter car emission standards, better urban planning, or better public transit infrastructure. It's nothing new... it's just smarter.

Germany, which is leading the way in environmental initiatives, now produces one-third of the world's wind power. It has the highest targets for cutting greenhouse gases in the EU, and is ahead of schedule. It has pioneered energy-sufficient towns and carless towns. It is the world leader in development of solar power. As one blogger writes, "Bad choices aren't banned outright (you can still buy a Hummer in Germany if you really want one), but better choices are encouraged. Discouragements: $6 a gallon gas, and special taxes on extremely inefficient vehicles. Encouragements: An efficient public-transport system, and compact, diverse neighborhoods." That kind of encouragement is no different from the Canadian government encouraging us to drive cars by paying for hiways but not for rail transit, or by zoning so much low density housing.

Germany is showing us all how to meet environmental targets. It has made huge environmental improvements without curtailing freedom in any way. An example: only one-third of German hiways have a speed limit. Argue that one if you like, but Germans like to drive fast, and they do.

Me, I'm a proponent both of free markets and of big government. In fact, I don't think markets work without a lot of government "interference". Take financial markets as an example - stock exchanges are arguably the most tightly regulated markets going, and that's what keeps them humming. If you lose investor confidence you lose investors. Hence the biggest proponent of free markets - the US - has the most tightly regulated financial sector.

I love government regulation, and I want more regulation and more enforcement throughout society. But I can see that not everyone agrees with me, and I respect that. So let's get down to work here and find a way to address the environmental issue that we can all live with, as Germany has done. Otherwise we're heading for a fall.

###

Why We Need the Kyoto Protocol

Because we aren't going to make significant environmental improvement unless we're forced to.

There's a reason why Jean Chretien didn't make significant movement on the environment, even though his desire to was clearly proven by his signing of the Kyoto Protocol. We didn't let him. We didn't want to change our own lives. We didn't want the government to spend money on it.

Friday's Globe & Mail editorial, Behind the Gloss of Liberal Kyoto Virtue, paints a terrifying picture of what our renewed commitment to Kyoto will do to us. The Globe argues that there's no way we can meet our commitment and we can't afford to pay the penalty. They lay the blame on Liberal inaction.

That's crap. It was Canadian inaction. We're all to blame: the Alberta oil industry and Ontario consumers first and foremost, but nobody has been environmentally responsible. Even the Green Party, by wasting time on a new tax system that ain't gonna happen, is part of the problem.

We can't rely on the will of the electorate, so we can't rely on the leadership of our politicians, so the only way we can make any progress is to be forced to. Now we're forced. Do we want to pay $10 billion in penalties in five years, or do we want to get serious?

###

Environmental Dissonance

North Americans know that the environment is a huge problem. We know that we need to take immediate steps to reduce green house gas emissions. And yet we seem unable to do even the easy things.

Reducing electrical consumption means reducing the pollution that comes out of coal-fired generators and other plants. There is so much waste in our current lives that we can greatly reduce electricity usage without losing any comfort or convenience. For example, Garth Turner writes, "if we just put on-off switches on kitchen appliances to shut off power (stoves, microwaves, coffee makers) when not in use, we could save a third of the power generated by the country’s worst polluter, Nanticoke."

It's a great idea. But don't forget that there are currently on-off switches that aren't being used enough. Walk through any office building on a Friday evening and you'll see computers and monitors winking away on every desk. Even in power-saving mode computers use up a lot of power when left on, and they should be shut down every evening.

Thermostats are another easy change. I wear short sleeves in the winter and jackets in the summer because in my company we heat too high and cool too low. (Some people put heaters under their desk in the summer.) And there are still loads of homes that don't have programmable thermostats and don't turn down the heating/cooling when they're asleep or out of the house. Or even wear sweaters around the house in winter.

That's just part of it. There are also compact fluorescent light bulbs, fuel-efficient automobiles, insulation, energy-efficient appliances, products with less packaging, public transit, long-lasting appliances... in almost every well-known, easy to change environmental initiative, North Americans aren't doing what they could.

There are a number of things the government isn't doing that it needs to do. They need to make regulations smarter, tighter, and better enforced. They need to increase the tax on gas and electricity so that we have a cost incentive to reduce consumption. And they need to provide clear, unambiguous public education about the need for change.

But none of this is going to change things until North Americans clear up a conflict of values about consumption. Smoking finally started to drop off when smoking became déclassé. Wasteful consumption is not déclassé - far from it. Its opposite, frugality, is déclassé.

Wasteful excess is still glorified in our society as a sign of wealth and success. We are living in a state of cognitive dissonance in our attitudes to the environment. We know there is a huge problem and we're scared and we want to improve it, but we value excess as the trappings of success. We're proud to live in a huge house that costs $500/month to heat, and we consider little houses as being for people who can't afford "better". We value big new SUVs and devalue buying small cars and keeping them a long time. We admire possessions and don't admire simplicity.

I used to think that raising the price of gas and electricity would solve the problem of wasteful consumption, as it has in Europe. I no longer believe that. Gasoline prices skyrocketed in the US over the last couple of years, and yet the fuel efficiency of new cars fell. We are a very wealthy society and we can afford to waste.

Our clash of values freezes us up. That's why Jean Chretien signed Kyoto but didn't reduce greenhouse gas emissions; that's why Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty had to go back on a campaign promise to close down coal-fired generators; that's why every North American politician has talked about the environment but done precious little to improve it. The lack of political will among citizens is holding back the government.

It's nice that a few movie stars are driving hybrid cars, but as long as we watch celebrities debauching out of gas-guzzling limos onto the red carpet at the Academy Awards, as long as we aspire to the wasteful excess of the rich and famous, as long as we value wealth and excess over all - we won't make real strides on the environment.

###

The Virtues of Scarcity

This morning on The Current, Anna Maria Tremonti was talking about geothermal electricity sources. Iceland gets virtually all of its non-transportation-related energy from geothermal sources. It's easy there because they have geysers of hot water on the surface of the land. California also produces quite a lot of electricity from geysers (if I heard correctly, sometimes it's up to 20% of their electricity production). According to The Current, the technology exists for geothermal-electric generation to be used everywhere. One technique is to dig a tunnel about 500 feet deep (where the rock is hot), close off an area down there, and pipe down water. The water comes back up as steam; the steam is used to create electricity; and the cold water is sent back down the hole again. This form of electricity would be extremely cheap.

This got me thinking about what would happen if North America had virtually unlimited, dirt-cheap electricity. Hmmm. My guess is that we would use so much that we'd either start damaging the earth or use it all up.

For example, we might decide that the only way to cope with cold Canadian winters is to build giant domes over cities and heat the whole thing. Then we'd consider it an abrogation of human rights to not heat every settlement, no matter how small (and of course to cool them in summer). How about the idea of heating the rivers so we can fish and swim year-round? And freeze some in the summer so we can skate outdoors. Or we'd start using unbelievably inefficient manufacturing methods. Or prices would drop on goods so we'd start treating even more items as disposable. How about one-trip plastic cars? Disposable houses? Then we'd look back and be amazed that we could ever have survived without all this stuff. "How primitive and rustic!" we'd say, referring to those days when we had to change our clothing during the year to cope with temperature changes.

Unless there's scarcity and a price incentive, we seem to use up everything. We have water shortage issues even where I live, which is a small splotch of land surrounded by the Great Lakes - and in some communities, the only thing that is holding back complete paving-over of farmland with subdivisions is the availability of water. At one point, we'd used up the bandwidth available for transmitting radio waves - now technology has increased that limit, but who knows how long it will be until we bump up against similar constraints on our seemingly endless supply? A mature capitalist economy turns out to be one that is intent on exploiting every resource to the limit, and so destroying itself.

Perhaps that's a slightly too negative reaction to the possibility of using geothermal-electric generation...

###

Dion Has Nothing to Apologize For

I heard a Conservative spokesman on CBC radio today saying that as Environment Minister, Stephane Dion presided over a 35% rise in greenhouse gas emissions.

This is a lie.

Stephane Dion was appointed Environment Minister by Paul Martin in 2004, and he presided over an aggressive agenda to improve greenhouse gas emissions. In April 2005, 8 months after becoming Environment Minister, Dion launched Project Green, which was a climate change plan aimed at meeting our Kyoto commitments. His program was trashed by the Conservatives when they took power in early 2006.

The 35% figure refers to Canada's rise in emissions from the time it signed Kyoto in 1993. Prime Minister Chretien promoted the idea of greenhouse gas emissions, but he did not do a great deal to contain them. Why did emissions rise? Over half of the cause was the oil boom in Alberta. Some of the rest was due to the low Canadian dollar causing a boom in manufacturing, mostly in Ontario - over this period, manufacturing processes became much less polluting, but the great rise in volume caused greater emissions. Why wasn't Ottawa able to rein in Alberta? Well, the Alberta-based Conservative party (nee Reform, prev. Alliance) had something to do with that. Also, if you remember, Chretien had to devote most of his resources to fixing the economy in the 90s, and every other brief suffered. I'm not arguing that he made the right choice on that, but we all benefit from it today.

During the Chretien years, Dion was not involved with the environment. He was kept busy as Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs and he did a very able job at it.

See also
Those Pesky Greenhouse Gas Emissions
Earth Day


###

Those Pesky So-Called Greenhouse Gas Emissions

We've all heard the statistics about Canada's terrible environmental record, and especially the increase in our greenhouse gas emissions since Canada signed the Kyoto Accord in 1993. The increase in Canada's greenhouse gas emissions is largely due to pollution in the Alberta oil patch.

There are existing technologies such as carbon sinks that could be used to reduce tar sand pollution. Jim Dinning, the frontrunner slash loser in the recent Alberta Conservative leadership race, was set to implement them. With his loss, the chance that Alberta will initiate significant environmental improvements on its own has declined.

It's time for the federal government to step in, and as Liberal leader Stephane Dion pointed out this week, we have a tool - government oil subsidies.

The Accelerated Capital Cost program, created 10 years ago to help a fledgling Alberta oil industry, is now giving an estimated $1.4 billion per year in tax breaks to an established, profitable - and environmentally disastrous - industry. Dion has suggested that the program be changed so that tax breaks are tied to environmental improvements. It's a wonderful idea.

Stephen Harper shot down the idea, saying central Canadians should stop picking on Alberta. But it is Harper who is standing alone on this issue, not Dion. According to the CBC, "former [Alberta] premiers Peter Lougheed and Ralph Klein, as well as Reform party founder Preston Manning, have all called for a move toward green technology. Lougheed has called it a "major wrong" that, under the current rules, Alberta taxpayers subsidize multiyear capital projects for an industry so lucrative that it has sent the cost of living skyrocketing in the province."

The second biggest cause of greenhouse gas emissions is manufacturing, which is centered largely in Ontario. But Canadian manufacturers have done a lot to improve their environmental record, and are much less polluting than they were ten years ago. As technologies became available their adoption was not altruism - environmentally sensitive manufacturing is also cheaper. The reason for the increase in pollution in this sector is because the low Canadian dollar greatly increased the output of manufacturing since 1993.

At a press conference today, Harper made what may be a slip of the tongue, and used the phrase "so-called greenhouse gases." It may be that Harper's dismissal of Dion's suggestion has little to do with his love of Alberta and a lot to do with his stubborn state of denial over the environment.

More Reading
Earth Day
Sierra Legal Defence Fund
Video of Harper saying "so-called greenhouse gases"

###

We Don't Get It

Earlier this week the British government released a devastating analysis of the effects of global climate change. The report does not derive from the usual environmentalist perspective - Sir Nicholas Stern, former chief economist at the World Bank and current head of UK government Economic Services, wrote the report at the behest of the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer. (You can find the full report here.) His bottom line: climate change caused by soaring greenhouse gas emissions is going to:

- cost the world 7 trillion dollars
- displace 200 million people because of flood or drought
- make large areas of the planet uninhabitable
- hit developing countries first and hardest
- cause a worldwide drop in GDP of 5-20%
- cause an economic catastrophe greater than WWI, WWII and the Great Depression combined

Europe gets it. European countries have been leading the way for decades on alternative energy sources, better transit, urban planning for the carless, and on and on.

Canada and the US don't get it.

One small example of our disastrous public policy: It was reported today that the US has strong-armed international organizations into allowing US farmers to resume use of methyl bromide, a pesticide that is banned internationally because of its potent ozone-destroying effects.

Canada and the US are now both out of Kyoto. Our record is pitiful and our greenhouse gas emissions are soaring. Prime Minister Stephen Harper just cancelled a European summit because he feared his environmental record would be publicly criticized, even though British Prime Minister Tony Blair and German Chancellor Angela Merkel just reached out to the US and Canada on environmental issues in the most positive, friendly and diplomatic way possible. (The statement said things like, "there's a real opportunity to make progress" and "there are signs of hope here.")

Why don't we get it? I mean this as a personal question too. Why am I not outside right now carrying a placard to protest the Tory's "environmental inaction" legislation?

The number one reason has to be that we enjoy such low oil prices. Europe has paid over $2 a liter for gas for decades, and that changes everything. I keep saying this - all apologies to Joe Clark, who lost his prime ministership because he tried to institute an oil tax - but we must raise gas prices. This initiative has to come from the public. We can't expect another government to commit suicide by trying to do the right thing and institute a gas tax. We have to let them know that we want to pay a higher price at the pump.

Another reason is historical. Back in the 70s there was a huge movement to convince the public that nonrenewable resources were running out. Gaining popularity just when the oil cartel created a worldwide gas shortage, there was widespread panic at the belief that everything from oil to copper was going to be gone well before the end of the century. I still have my well-thumbed paperback copy of The Limits to Growth around somewhere. It didn't serve us well.

Also, we've been talking about this for so damn long and not getting anywhere. Oh, we've done lots of other good things. Canada has a brilliant recycling program that is reducing the cost of garbage disposal. But the average gas consumption of cars keeps going up in North America, consumer packaging keeps getting bigger, we keep buying bigger houses with bigger applicances, blah blah blah.

A big part of the problem is the enormous amount of misinformation we in North America receive through our media and the internet. It doesn't help to have conservative politicians say that climate change is bunk. I read a blog recently that argued that it doesn't matter what we in Canada do because of the enormous environmental disaster coming in China, where economic growth means more cars and industry, and where environmental regulations (according to the blog) are lax. In fact, environmental regulations in China are orders of magnitude better than ours. Their limits on car emissions are better even than California's. We can't pass the buck on this. It's us - North America - that's screwing the pooch. It's us - Canada and the US - that needs to get it together and start playing catch-up with the rest of the world.

See also: Earth Day

###

Earth Day

It's earth day, and that makes me think of the great What Might Have Been, Al Gore. Gore was a strong promoter of the Kyoto Accord (along with many other environmental initiatives), and signed it in 1992. Had he become president, the US would have used its mighty influence to lead the world in reducing C02 emissions... instead of wielding its might to become an imperialist pariah.

But Gore hasn't given up and continues as an environmental crusader. In terms of the Kyoto Accord, he is working to get Americans to commit to the US target of 7% emission reduction without federal government input. So far 219 US cities have signed on, representing 44 million Americans.

Gore was in Seattle last month congratulating the city on its adoption of Kyoto. The approach of municipal adoption is laudable, and Seattle shows some of the strengths and weaknesses of this approach. Seattle is focusing on more efficient vehicles and household appliances, lower thermostats, better public transportation, and the use of biofuels to reduce emissions from diesel trucks, trains and ships. For decades Seattle has implemented a brilliant and simple way to reduce traffic downtown: transit is free within the downtown area.

So how is Canada doing on our Kyoto commitments? Back in 1998 we pledged to reduce emissions by 6% from 1990 to 2012. By 2003, our emissions since 1990 had risen by 23%.

Over half of the increase in emissions is in Alberta. In part, this is because the population is rising in Alberta, and Alberta relies largely on coal for electricity. But the biggest cause of the emissions is the tar sands. Two-thirds of the energy extracted from the tar sands is used up in the extraction process, and the process generates an enormous amount of pollution. There is a glimmer of hope on the horizon in the person of Jim Dinning, Alberta Premier Ralph Klein's heir apparent, who is a proponent of clean coal technologies and of carbon sequestration, a technology for capturing C02 emissions either artificially or with natural carbon dioxide sinks.

The electricity and petroleum sector has the worst environmental record in Canada, but no sector is doing well: we have made some progress in vehicle emissions, but these gains have been more than offset by the increased use of vans, SUVs and trucks. The manufacturing sector has also made improvements in its emissions but overall it has grown so much that it hasn't led to any overall decrease. Agriculture continues to be a carbon-intensive activity. (Another reason for the rise in emissions is simply that our population has increased.)

Last year my town spent upwards of a million dollars installing a green roof on our city hall, which seems to be missing the point entirely. The time for expensive and impractical symbols is over. We need to start making some progress. What are our tools? Public education, grassroots mobilization, regulation, taxation, subsidies, emissions trading, research, and government policies regulating its own projects. Paul Martin put a plan in place last year, but it's not clear whether the new conservative government will allow it to continue.

For environmental initiatives to be effective, there should be a lag time between announcement of government initiatives and their enaction. This is because efficient adoption of policies means that less polluting equipment should replace current equipment when it wears out. It won't help the environment if manufacturers throw out machines that have 10 years life left in them, or if drivable SUVs go to the junk yard.

We are pathetically far behind, both in government initiative and in public awareness. I include myself in the latter failure. For example, someone told me this week that GTO and Sunoco gas stations sell gas with much lower sulphur content than other gas stations. So far I have been unable to verify it. We need more information about things like that so we can make intelligent consumer and political decisions or nothing will ever get done.

###