The View from Right Field

Bad Sprawl. Good Sprawl.

If we are going to cut our carbon emissions, to save the planet, we are told we need more housing density and more mass transit, and we need fewer single-family homes and fewer automobiles.  But then came Covid-19, and the requirement to socially distance.  Which is really hard in crowded cities and on jammed buses and subways.

If you are an essential worker who has to go to work, what better way to do it than in a car – by yourself.¹  Sheltering at home is easier in a single-family house than a one-bedroom, 600-square-foot apartment (with a couple of roommates).  If you want to take a walk, to get some exercise, what’s better: a neighborhood of houses built on 35- or 50-foot lots or a neighborhood of apartment buildings with 35 floors?

Solving Climate Change Needs Solutions We Haven’t Invented Yet

Earlier this month, I wrote about getting to carbon-free and suggested that natural gas from fracking and nuclear power were part of the way to get there while putting relatively less carbon into the atmosphere on the way.  Today, I am going to make another suggestion with respect to climate change.  Most of the proposals for addressing climate change and getting to carbon-free are not easy.  In fact, they are downright hard, and they will cause a lot of pain for a lot of people.  It’s not just cutting out the occasional airplane flight or getting rid of plastic straws.  We are talking real impacts on living standards – especially on people who are still hoping to increase theirs. 

If Emanuel Macron had trouble raising gasoline taxes as part of his environmental plan in France, how are people in China and India, etc., going to feel if their chance at a higher living standard is cut off by a green agenda?  I realize that climate change advocates, perhaps especially those in the West, will say that the alternative is global catastrophe, but that is easier to say when you already have a higher standard of living than when you are giving up a chance to ever get one.

Getting to Carbon-Free

Carbon-free.  That is the goal.  Companies, countries are setting a goal of becoming carbon-free.  Some are aiming at 2030.  Others 2040.  And others still 2050.  But regardless of the date, the goal is the same.  To become carbon-free.  To not only reduce the amount of carbon being put into the atmosphere each year, but to get to zero.

But how we get to carbon-free is important, too.   And that is where it gets tricky.  The point is that carbon in the atmosphere doesn’t go away (or at least not very fast).  While getting to carbon-free is important to minimize the effects of climate change, how much carbon we put into the atmosphere while we are getting to carbon-free is important, too. 

Youth Climate Activists Call for a Halt to Fossil Fuel Investment – Right Now

Greta Thunberg and twenty other youth climate activists have issued a letter in which they “demand” (their word) that, at the World Economic Forum meeting scheduled for later this month in Davos, Switzerland,

“all companies, banks, institutions and governments immediately halt all investments in fossil fuel exploration and extraction, immediately end all fossil fuel subsidies and immediately and completely divest from fossil fuels.”

And they want these things done “right now” (their emphasis).¹

While they go on to say that they understand “that the world is complicated and that what [they] are asking for may not be easy”, they don’t seem to care.  The climate crisis “is an emergency”, and it seems like nothing else matters.

Climate Change: Getting It Done Versus Merely Adopting Plans

With the world meeting in Madrid for the annual U.N. Climate Change Conference, it’s time repeat something I said back in July (and alluded to in October): If we want to cut emissions, the key is not what we do in the United States.  It’s both what the United States does and what we help the rest of the world do.

The discussions in Madrid are about how everybody needs to have a plan to substantially reduce carbon emissions, or even go net carbon-free, by 2050 or sooner.  But what we need aren’t plans.  (Ask President Emanuel Macron of France how his plan to cut carbon emissions by, inter alia, raising gasoline taxes went.)  We need realistic actions, actions that will actually happen, to get emissions down.  And not just in the United States and Europe.

“There Is No Planet B”. But What If You’re Poor on Planet A?

When I was having dinner at a local seafood restaurant recently, there was a little sign on the napkin holder that said “There is no Planet B.”  I don’t know if the restaurant was just trying to get me to use fewer paper napkins or if they were making a general comment on climate change, but I assume that it was mostly the latter and that the point of “There is no Planet B” is to get us to do more, and to push our government to do more, on climate change.

Which raises one of the conundrums with climate change.  It is easy for people who can afford to eat at an upscale restaurant in suburban Chicago to say the world needs to do more, and spend more, to fight climate change.  The problem is, however, if we are really going to do enough to stop climate change, it can’t be done just by rich people in rich countries.  Middle income and poorer countries have to do their part, too.  And that’s where it gets tricky.

@BernieSanders’s “Green New Deal”. Is He Trying to Re-elect @realDonaldTrump?

Senator Bernie Sanders was an early supporter of the Green New Deal, and last week he issued his version of what that would mean.  Let’s just say his plan is big.  It would require lots of government and lots of money, though as to the latter, his plan says it’s all paid for with taxes on big energy, reduced military spending (because we can “scal[e] back military spending on maintaining global oil dependence”), taxes paid by all the people with new, good-paying jobs, and, of course, the rich “pay[ing] their fair share.”

Most of the news articles did not go into the details of Senator Sanders’ plan, though “Vox” did include some of them.  Perhaps the most comprehensive list was in The Wall Street Journal’s editorial this morning.  (Not surprisingly, the WSJ’s editorial page is not supportive.)  On the other hand, if you really want to see what’s in the plan, just go to berniesanders.com.  It’s there.

Climate Change: A Bonus Question

This is to follow up on Tuesday’s post, “Climate Change Is a Two-Part Question.”  In June, The Economist wrote about “Green New Democrats” and in particular about Joe Biden’s and Elizabeth Warren’s plans for climate change.  While neither of them has endorsed the “Green New Deal,” they both have big dollar/big concept environmental plans. 

After reading the article, however, my question is this: How can you seriously claim to have a plan for climate change and not address a carbon tax or some kind of a plan for carbon pricing?  I know that cap-and-trade couldn’t pass the Democratic Congress of 2009-10, that the Liberal/National Coalition (i.e., center right) in Australia won re-election twice after repealing Australia’s carbon tax (here and here), and that the "yellow vests" in France were protesting a gasoline tax increase that was part of a climate change program. 

Climate Change Is a Two-Part Question

The Democratic debates, the European heat wave (not to mention the 90 degrees in Anchorage), et al, are getting people to talk even more about climate change, assuming that is possible.  Many of the Democratic presidential candidates support the “Green New Deal.”  Even those that don’t, have their own plans for dealing with climate change (and getting votes from those for whom this is the number one issue). 

The thing to remember about climate change, however, is that it is a two-part question.  Just because you’re right about mankind affecting the climate through increased CO₂ emissions, etc., doesn’t mean you are right about what the solution is.  The second question is not whether we need to reduce emissions.  The second question is how we reduce emissions – and how much we need to reduce them.  Do we need to reduce emissions to zero or can we just reduce annual emissions to 25% of current levels?  Or do we need to get them to below zero, because we need to reduce the amount of CO₂ in the atmosphere?

Here’s Why Self-Driving Cars May Be a Long Way Off

A column in Wednesday’s Financial Times by Brooke Masters noted:

“Consolidation is sweeping through the self-driving cars sector like the last dance at a high school disco – everyone seems to be grabbing a partner or two for fear of being left out.”¹

Car companies are joining with each other and/or with technology companies in a race to get to the size necessary to compete in the self-driving race.  But I wonder how soon self-driving cars are really going to happen for one reason: lawsuits.