Viewing the fire this time

September 2nd, 2009

My friend and not too distant neighbor Doc Searls posted a geological outlook on the ecosystem here in fire plagued California. And he looks both past and present in doing so. Doc is always a good read.
And inspired my comment, which I re-post here.

People come to California to reinvent themselves, free from the constraints of ‘home’. Yet they don’t adapt to the physical reality of where their psychic freedom is achieved. Only since jurisdictions started enforcing building codes have we seen the end of shake roofing in southern California. Our past is pretty clear- when there is death and suffering, we’ll respond.
As my very smart sources in “Proof or Propaganda” told me- we are a very clever species. How much suffering will occur before we adapt the laws of humans to the facts of chemistry and physics is yet to be seen. Nearly 80 years since Fuller pointed out we could feed everyone, we still haven’t. Global television makes that suffering very available and yet not compelling.
Short of the most extreme asteroid hitting the planet or nuclear holocaust scenarios, humans are likely to persist and prosper.
While millions of Mayans may have starved over a decade or so of that society’s demise, there wasn’t global telecom to show those who were sharing the planet at the time. We really don’t know what will happen on so many levels. We seem to be able to watch Darfur and keep our selves under control.
Geologic perspective can be misleading too. Humans have succeeded to this level because we have had geologic and climate stability for 10- 15,000 years. Will the lessons learned from those successes be available in the future? While we have built seed repositories, will those who find them be able to make use of them?
“The little ice age” was a challenge to emerging agriculture, but previous ones only prove that we can survive as hunter/gatherers.
We started burning wood, and went to coal and oil because they were easily available and convertible. Governments subsidized that transition heavily. Given what we know about the risks of continued burning, to say nothing of the increasing costs-security as well as monetary- and lack of availability to bring another billion people into even third world middle class standards of living, borrowing against the future to own the clean coal price generation of kilowatts is a good bet.
Betting on human nature to change without widespread pain and suffering is probably not as good a bet. We may be decades away from those painful possibilities. That gives those who benefit from those coal trains crossing the continent plenty of time and money to make sure that things change over as long a time frame as there is still coal easily and cheaply available.
The very successful memes of the individual are currently much more effective than those of the collective. Unless the balance shifts toward collective benefit,only the efforts of enlightened capitalists offer promise.
That said, it was a beautiful humid day in Santa Barbara. I’m looking forward to more.

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Fear & Free Markets/ Health Care and Climate

August 30th, 2009

Today’s LA Times front page and A section supplies a black and white illustration of our state of being in late summer 2009. Squeezed below the fire reports (“10,000 Homes Threatened”& “Time of the essence in Afghanistan”) and between the relative human stories of Ted Kennedy’s funeral and the slim likelihood of long-term ‘normalcy’ for either Jayce Dugard or her daughters, is the news that bullets are in short supply.

Seems that in spite of producing two billion more bullets this year than last, it is difficult to find ammo and when you do you will pay more. It isn’t that there is more shooting going on, or even a likelihood that there will be. No- it is the negative anticipation (AKA “fear”) of many that the current administration will restrict gun ownership. Gun sales in California are up 26% over the same period last year. Seems that even outlaws are having a hard time finding weapons and ammo to buy. Demand and prices are up.

Inside pages reveal that the fear tactic in political discourse can be traced to a guy named Wirt. According to Michael Hiltzik, writing on page 2, Wirt started all this hysteria-oriented stuff back in 1934 by suggesting that Roosevelt had a secret plan to put Bolsheviks in control. Playing on your fear of the unknown has been a tactic ever since, especially when any given interest has an interest in keeping things the way they are. Hiltzik mentions “corporate fronts and gun toting hysterics” but attempting to scare the public hasn’t been the sole province of any particular extreme.

Dig a little deeper and on page 7, Jim Tankersley reports under the headline ‘Foes on energy plan watch healthcare battle”. “The battle could be just as nasty” he writes. So we can look forward to another season of do nothing or little built upon the strategy of screaming instead of seeking solutions. The article ends with the admission by a GOP pollster that they need to bring alternatives to the administration’s plan. “They can’t just criticize Obama’s energy plans”. Why- because polling suggests that you the public want clean power in sufficient numbers that a ‘just say something scary” plan won’t be enough.

Virtually every page in the ‘A’ section is about something you can be afraid of- terrorism, being uninsured, rare orchid poaching, or that John McCain got to a million Facebook followers faster than the White House. That fear plays, and motivates us to spend our time and money on negative concerns shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone observing their own visceral responses in life. What is surprising is that it has come to dominate markets, our most critical policy discussions, and thus the front pages.

As Neil Gabler pointed out last week in his opinion piece, we currently getting ‘facts’ instead of truth from our media. “The more noise and the bigger the controversy, the greater the coverage. This creates a situation in which not only is the truth subordinate to lies, but one in which shameless lies are actually privileged over reasoned debate.”

With all the information available, and the huge stakes that ride on the decisions our federal government makes about those issues such as health care, and energy, why aren’t we demanding truths, rational discussion, and dispassionate decisions? Are we not a mature democracy? Leaders of the civilized world? Smart thinking adults? Draw your own conclusions.

And one bit of good news, at the bottom of the “Top of the Ticket” political news bits on page 14- Obama’s vacation reading list includes Thomas Friedman’s “Hot Flat & Crowded”. Friedman is a huge proponent of the opportunities reinvention of energy, transportation and building segments called for by many centrists in the climate conversation. If you like to think of yourself as a thinking adult, and would like to hear more facts and rational discussion on climate, you might want to check out “Proof or Propaganda”. In it you’ll find smart committed rational men and women who aren’t afraid of either the facts or markets, much less change.

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Are we ashamed yet?

August 14th, 2009

As pointed ut by Mona Gable on Huffingtion Post, white people are going to meetings and behaving badly. From comparing our elected representative with Nazis for things they haven’t even suggested, much less done, to having the lack of self awareness to not realize the irony of showing up to scream down a health care discussion while obese, a certain set of people are showing us just how to stop things from happening. Things like an earnest and honest discussion, or a full exploration of alternatives.

Fortunately I am so conditioned by advertising and my time in the last century to know that those are ‘my people’ even though I can certainly see white in my hair. I know that I’m not like them because I haven’t tried to shout down anyone since my kids got out of preschool and I gave up being a referee for AYSO.

The whole health care ‘debate’ is a sorry excuse for public discourse much less democracy. What’s happening in Iraq looks more honest and authentic Where are all those smart young ground troops that helped elect Obama now? It looks like the party in power put the freshman team on the field and they’re getting their butts kicked by the other sides sympathy alumni (didn’t even attend or graduate) pickup squad.

And Mona’s absolutely right. Their behavior isn’t called for. A single person whispering into the microphone “We don’t trust you” would be more compelling, especially if it was somebody’s grandma.  At the heart of the resistance to much of what is being proposed right now is our lack of confidence in any government to do a decent competent job.  Any and every person that gets an income from a government should be looking in the mirror right now and asking “am I part of why they don’t trust government?”

Between six hundred dollar toilet seats, $150 hammers and weapons systems for threats that don’t exist, and education systems that can’t produce mediocre results much less world beaters while spending more than half a state’s budget (California educators this means you), the people of this country have reason to doubt that a government role in health care is a good thing.

Now lest you think I’m ranting, or am still riding Reagan’s “government is the problem” bandwagon, I never thought it was “morning in America”. I am a former board member of my labor union, and I still support the right to collectively bargain as being equal to, and part of, the individuals right of self definition.  I recently completed a government contract with a program at NOAA , and found the competence and quality of everyone I dealt with to be great. In fact I tell people that if only all of us taxpayers could meet and work with the members of the US Global Climate Research program, we would be of the opinion that our taxes are producing great results.

But that billion dollar annual success gets wiped out by one pallet of cash that disappears in Iraq, or any of a dozen or so no bid defense deals. It certainly doesn’t make up for the fact that Swedish and Korean kids get more time on math and science instruction. And it clearly hasn’t made me forget about the fact that a few manipulative interests can twist even a really good idea like paying someone to counsel you once in a while on your rights when you are a patient in the health care system into ‘death panels.’

Why these old fat white guys ( they aren’t all fat or white by the way) would rather have a private sector profit participant decide they should have their plug pulled than a government bureaucrat beats me.  I haven’t seen anybody yet who can convince me that we don’t have rationed health care already. It’s who’s doing the rationing that we ought to be concerned about.

Do we really like horror movies and monsters all that much? Why do we keep inviting them to our discussions about important topics? Whether the topic is health care, product safety or the climate, the people who are trying to scare you aren’t interested in your best interest., much less society’s. Their looking out for their own skin, and more than likely pockets. I’d like to see the Vegas line on whether a competent journalist can draw a line from those screaming faces at the town meetings to insurance company lobbyists.  Then at least we could blame the media for illuminating something besides a lack of civility.

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‘Cash for Clunkers’ and Climate

August 10th, 2009

As widely printed and reported by Seth Borenstein of the AP, the “Cash for Clunkers” program is a wildly successful program for individuals that isn’t going to do much about the climate. The estimated impact being the equivalent of the country’s CO2 output each hour of the day, every day of the year. Nor is it much of a benefit in terms of our energy dependence. The amount of gasoline saved annually by all the new better mileage vehicles being bought is about what we gulp in an afternoon- or four and a half hours.

So just like the cap and trade proposed legislation, the two extremes in the climate discourse are predictably critical of this for their own reasons. For those who favor more aggressive changes in our society, this bill does too little, and at too great a cost. For those who favor no changes, the bill is just a waste of money adding to an already intolerable deficit.

However there is a math that says this will pay off. Joseph Romm at Grist.com -  points out the fuel savings alone will pay taxpayers back in five years. Not really. Those savings will be in the pockets of the people who can afford to buy the discounted new car today. Still there is a payoff as one can expect that those savings will get spent here rather than become deposits in a Saudi accountt.

On many levels, we have been here before. These are the first small steps toward a reinvention of our economy.  First any reduction is at least a change in direction from our previous decades of practice in either carbon generation or oil consumption. Second, unlike the first or second round of OPEC induced oil embargoes, more efficient cars in terms of fuel use are not just econobox deathtraps. Every level of automotive product is being reconfigured, if not outright redesigned to reduce its consumption. Third, the purpose of the program was a short term support of the auto industry in which we are all partners. Seeing it as cost ineffective in reducing carbon is ignoring the program’s priorities.

And that is significant part of the larger issues facing us today. Addressing any longterm issue, be it health care, water supply or climate, will always need to address human nature and its focus on immediate security and prosperity. Regardless of our personal values, our traction in the greater society will always be conditional on our understanding of the majority’s short term thinking, and positioning whatever change we advocate within these.

“Cash For Clunkers” resonated with individuals sense of personal benefit, and that’s why Congress took two more billion dollars from the renewable energy fund to extend it ( keeping these additional billions from adding to the deficit). It is a success based upon its priority goal- stimulus.

That is what the second half of “Proof or Propaganda” is full of – people who have found ways to prosper while addressing the issue of climate.

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The Green in Green won’t be Green

July 30th, 2009

Yesterday McKinsey & Company released a 165 page report titled “Unlocking Energy Efficiency in the US Economy”.

Summarized here in the NY Times, it shows that an investment of $520 billion in “sealing leaky building ducts and replacing inefficient household appliances with new energy saving models” could yield a 23% savings in the nation’s energy bill, more than the projected increase in demand, or “greater than the total of energy consumptions of Canada”. The paper only looked at buildings, commercial and private. It did not include the anticipated carbon cost, which would add another 8%.

Count this as another supporting document reinforcing the opportunity available in reinventing everything in society, as suggested by Mark Porat in “Proof or Propaganda”.

While the report looks at a ten year reward, the immediate impacts of such an investment is the massive domestic employment of such a broad and essentially low tech effort. The vast majority of those jobs would be urban because that is where our buildings are, especially our most easily improved buildings. And the jobs would employ those without high tech skills- people who are disproportionately unemployed at the moment and the ones most likely to not have bought all those consumer products languishing on store shelves at the moment. So there are big immediate payoffs available as well as a significant long-term benefit.

Many of the programs required have already be running in California for decades- incentives to utilities to give rebates for efficient appliance upgrades, and insulation installation in homes for instance, so while there is a lot to be done to execute such an investment, the models exist and have been tested.

But while there are short and long-term economic results available, to say nothing of decreasing if not eliminating our need to build more power plants, there are some facts about efficiency that mean that the result won’t be less pressure upon the environment, and certainly won’t result in the lowering of consumption hoped for by environmentalists. Historically, efficiencies result in resources that we use in some other way. We might put away more savings, but human nature says we’ll spend most of it, and even if it is on much more sustainable goods and services, it won’t be about reducing our individual consumption.

One good example is the automobile over the last thirty years. Without increasing CAFÉ standards, automotive engineers have made huge advances in engine efficiency. But almost all of that has resulted in increases in horsepower, making it possible for even relatively small cars like the Mini to weigh a lot, and still get away from a stoplight faster than a 70’s Porsche or Corvette. A Toyota minivan today can reach freeway speed faster than the most performance cars from the 80s.

Another issue is the fact that a 2 for 1 payback over a decade won’t inspire many individuals, much less landlords that don’t pay the electric bills. Without significant public policy incentives, whether in tax breaks or extraordinarily low cost financing, the average homeowner won’t be making major renovations solely to achieve energy efficiency. While we should count on energy costs continuing to rise, unless we see the kind of spikes that occurred last summer, most people won’t be either investing in efficiency or changing their use. And until utility costs of a house or building are reflected in resale pricing, a population that moves as often as we do won’t be looking at a ten year return.

I recommend you look at the comments section of the article as well. There are lots of insightful references. One points out that a similar study reached the same result in 2002, but only projected a fraction of the savings. The difference? Well oil was $22 a barrel in 2002, and reached $145 last summer. Plenty of other great pointers as well.

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I’m sick and tired of sick and tired false debate. or Haven’t we heard this before?

July 28th, 2009

Do the arguments on health care sound familiar ? One of the clearest examples of how form and posture has come to dominate policy, as opposed to substance and common sense, comes to us in the current discussion about health care. The similarities to the current back burner climate legislation discussion are great.

Maybe its just summer lethargy. Warm days, short nights. The recreational opportunities everyday of the week. It might be some sort of cold. But I think it is the less than forthright speech coming out of political leadership that is giving me this sluggish condition.

First is that there are voices that are committed to philosophical concepts above all, and the facts be damned. “Markets’ we are told are more important than facts, however those facts might be arrived at. “Freedom of choice” is of greater concern than care for all, as if they are mutually exclusive.

While there are political parties and associations that represent these positions to one degree or another, what the fundamental similarities in the discussion really turn out to be is who wants to scare you, and who is willing to let you to make your own choice on where to stand on the individualist-collectivist spectrum.

To some degree, many of the people ranting the loudest at this stage of the health care debate are not really too concerned about health care. Like those who are to one degree or another minimizing  climate concerns, they are far more concerned about ‘big government’ or ‘socialism’ than they are about reforming our health care, or its impacts upon the nation’s economy.

To be sure, some of these voices are for those who benefit from the status quo. Others are from those who think their interests lie in the promised change. But the voices resorting to scare tactics (“Obama’s plan could kill you” was one I heard yesterday) are consistently originating in ideology first.

As someone residing in the middle of the bell curve, not on the line between the polar opposites, and where most of us by definition of the bell curve must be, I want relief- Relief from those whose misrepresentations, bad logic, or just flat out irrelevant arguments fill the media; relief from repetitive stating of refuted or discredited positions; relief from a health care system that is failing millions of people, frustrating many of the dedicated professionals working in it, and burdening our economy in micro and macro ways.

Clearly, we are a people and a nation capable of amazing unprecedented accomplishments (moon rocks anyone?) and everywhere I look, I find hardworking sensible folk. Why these attributes don’t seem apparent in the health care or climate debates makes someone like Larry Lessig, who says that the appearance of money’s influence is sufficient alone for almost all of us to doubt the legitimacy of any discussion of an issue.

So if you are sick and tired of simplistic argument, and reductionist and negative discussion, I can’t recommend any media on the health care issue. On climate change, well you are already there, here in the middle of the road.

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Reinventing Capitalism for a sustainable world

July 19th, 2009

If you are like most people, according to every single published social science, public opinion poll or market research survey, you care about the environment- just not very much, at least compared to other concerns and issues. Depending on which study you select, around 85% of us will state that the environment is an important issue.Yet very few of us say we are “environmentalists” with single digit percentages selecting the term when are offered that option.

In virtually every survey where people are asked to rank their concerns, the environment falls to near the bottom of how ever many issues are offered.    Two areas are consistently at the top of nearly everyone’s list- security and prosperity. FDR made these the two ‘from’ of the “four freedoms” – freedom from fear and want (the other two being the “of “ freedoms – speech and religion).

Thanks to the bifurcated and stilted state of public discourse today, the relationship between a healthy, sustainable environment and our security and prosperity have been typically placed at odds, if not outright opposite ends of a scale. Yet as is clearly visible in any place where air and water are significantly degraded, there can be no prosperity and security is threatened in an entirely different way. So it is no surprise that today’s business leaders are embracing ‘green’ ways of doing business. As one of the sources in “Proof or Propaganda”, Andrew Winston points out that this isn’t just altruistic or even enlightened capitalism. Because as much as we may rate the ‘environment’ near the bottom in a survey, in our shopping carts we rank it pretty highly, purchasing the product in any segment that creates a credible value of sustainable or ‘green’ – even though these terms are not clearly defined – and manages to be priced within 6-8% of the leading brand for that segment.

So in that very personal alchemy calculation where we may or may not actually use a calculator, pencil, make a list or just as Stephen Schneider says “in our gut” decision making, we are very much environmentalists. Nobody wants to have their daily existence be part of poisoning the water, making the ground or air toxic, much less contribute to child labor, slavery or suffering. And if we can do it without having to go to a different store or pay higher prices so much the better. We, as a group, voting with our money, want to be responsible, and will take up any and all retail opportunities to do so.

You would think that conservatives – social and fiscal- would be touting this victory of personally responsible behavior and capitalism. But they aren’t at least not from the usual known voices. And you would think that classic environmentalists would be cheering from the treetops too. But they aren’t. In fact those traditionally environmental leaders that have ‘crossed over’ to aid companies like Walmart are in most cases vilified and lose credibility.

Just look at this past week’s announcement by Walmart,  launching a new initiative to label all their products. Just like their other green efforts over the last four years, cynics and critics were quick to point out all sorts of flaws and contradictions inherit in a major agent of consumption and globalization advocating sustainability and conservation.

Well,”yea!” for Walmart. Four years in, and the company is continuing to take more significant steps toward sustainable operations, and is bringing its vendors along too. By all measures, this hasn’t cost them market share, gross revenue or their status as world’s largest retailer.

And while we’re at it, let’s say greenwashing and totally hypocritical marketing is appreciated too. In the big scheme of things, that is at least an acknowledgement that the need to appear ‘green’ has weight even among the least sincere  enterprises. If the goal is truly reinventing our society so that our footprint is actually an enhancement to the environment, as William McDonough says, then every step toward that is good. It’s very early in this evolution of society. Tom Friedman of the New York Times likes to say that we aren’t having a ‘green’ revolution. “It’s a green party. It’s not a revolution until someone gets a bloody nose.” And the party needs everybody as soon as possible.

As evidenced by our buying patterns, we all want to be part of a cleaner, more sustainable society, although as evidenced by social science, we need to feel safe and prosperous to do so. From what I learned from making “Proof or Propaganda” the path to integrating those values is not only possible, it’s the reason that the 21st century is the most exciting time to be alive.

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21st century capitalists rejoice

July 12th, 2009

News from the G8 talks this last week was dominated by the lack of consensus action.

With the main three developing nations balking at restricting their own burning of fossil fuels, supposed champions of capitalism were heard carping at China, India and Brazil’s leaders failing to commit to standing side by side with the far richer more established nations in addressing our collective atmospheric imbalance.

Among my favorite examples was Bill O’Reilly, who claimed to have spent his most recent vacation in Switzerland so he could learn how the Swiss do sustainable. But he also used the developing three’s reticence as his reason for the US to not attenuate our own burning ways. This is so 20th century thinking, conservative, capitalist or otherwise.

Let me point out that none of those three developing economies has sufficient coal or oil reserves to make it out of the 21st century burning fossil fuels, given their current rates of economic growth, even assuming population stasis mid century. All of them have significant toxic air pollution and related health issues to address, to say nothing of smog in the air right now. These three countries have as much at stake in arriving at the solution to the world’s sustainable clean coal priced energy generation problem as any of the G8, plus they have to raise the standard of living for the majority of their populations.

Thus all three are, like all the G8 nations, future customers of whoever does solve that problem. I say, thanks guys, for not being more focused on the key economic opportunity of our times- that being the leader in developing the solution. The country that is home to the inventor/company/coalition that brings forth that solution instantly wins the 21st century leadership economically. Probably the 22nd century too.

If you are under the age of 30, that means that in your lifetime the country that has this solution will see all the dollars China currently holds, shift there. That country will have the leverage for good or evil that OPEC has had over the last 50 years.

So rejoice 21st Century capitalists. Three emerging powers won’t be in the race, because they have decided to focus their resources on feeding and housing more and more of their people. That leaves the game more open to those countries that do pursue this.

Remember, when you hear someone complaining about what China or India aren’t doing you are listening to someone who: 1) is not a 21st Century capitalist 2) is not aware of what leadership in this issue or time is and 3) hasn’t watched “Proof or Propaganda” where why we want to lead the world in reinventing energy among other things, is explained in clear terms.

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Not the average Tuesday…

July 8th, 2009

Tuesday, July 8 presented all of us with several compelling globe spanning stories.

If you were in the television, radio or networked universe, you had the option of sharing in the experience of Lance Armstrong and his Astana team seizing the Tour de France by the throat, sitting in at Michael Jackson’s Memorial as his extraordinariness was rendered human by his family, friends and others, or being riveted by the Senate hearings on the climate/energy bill. Several Senators hardly broke a sweat batting around the ideas that will guide the energy investment market for the near future, if not a full decade. Would these elected officials be able to listen to the people who populate “Proof or Propaganda” I wondered, as I heard one fallacy after another be given voice.

I did a bit of all three events but that was all after the highlight of my day – being interviewed for the Six Billion Others project. Since Saturday my family hosted the filmmaker conducting interviews around the US for the next few weeks. Thanks to my wife and children being willing to share their house with a complete stranger that their husband and father connected with by email.

Emmanuel Cappellin (see his picture on this page from The Berkeley Digital Film Institute-  or visit his home page where he makes his portfolio available) is a one man production field acquisition team. He was hired out of a six month vacation to the middle east. One month after starting from France and letting the hitchhiking rides take him where they might, he returned from Italy to take on the task of traveling the United States and adding to the inventory of human experience that 6 Billion Others is, adding the perspective of people impacted by recent events that some attribute to climate change. In our neighborhood that would be the Tea and Jesusita Fires. From southern California he will travel by bus to interview the largest enclave of “Katrina” evacuees in the Houston area.

Being asked about my concepts of happiness, relationship, forgiveness, hopes and fears was leavened with whether or not I felt this event was related to climate change. Well before that event, I got to know a bit about Emmanuel, the project, the artist Yann Arthus-Bertrand ( ) behind the project, and watch Athus-Betrand’s “Home”, which is what I really want to share with you today.

An extension of the “Earth From Above” photographic books that established him among commercially successful photographic artists, “Home” is also tells the story of how we have arrived at this point in time, starting with volcanoes and microbes. Release on June 5 2009 simultaneously in 25 languages ( a huge accomplishment logistically, technically and aesthetically) in theaters, online and to your phone if you like, all for free. Theaters started charging just their share of the ticket price the next day. Except of course in the United States where 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment is selling the DVD. Glen Close narrates this version. You can see Yann’s speech to TED in February of this year for an extended introduction to the man and his projects.

In the month since, over 200 million people have seen this all thanks to new media thinking with traditional commercial sponsorship. French based highend brand conglomerate PPR put up the budget.

“Home” was gratifying to watch. Appealing to the sense of wonder and utilizing his ability to mesmerize us with beautiful pictures, the film is an emotional appeal to persuade us to change our way of living. As a filmmaker, I envy having the budget he had, to say nothing of the freedom to give the film away. I am also humbled by the humanity so evident in his production and projects.

As I discussed with Emmanuel, the question of how to best approach the issue of enrolling the critical leadership in reinventing our production of energy, food and transport gave way to the realization that every form and appeal is called for. Whatever success each product has, is required.

With “Proof or Propaganda” we went the rational approach, presenting really smart people sharing what they know, emphasizing how such a shift can increase our security and prosperity. These ‘trusted friends’ need to get more exposure. If you know someone that is ambivalent or doubting, and you think they might absorb the middle of the bell curve rational presentation of “Proof or Propaganda”, buy the download or DVD.

Let me know how people respond. We are building a “Make a Date with a Doubter” campaign kit, and your suggestions and feedback are wanted.

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Climate, Coal, Corn and Culligan- power and policy collide in Congress

June 29th, 2009

The passage by the house of what is widely called the climate bill illustrates a number of the challenges faced by American society in addressing any of its problems.

The bill, historic (“revolutionary” was Massachusetts’s Democratic Congressman Ed Markey’s assessment) in its creation of the first carbon regulations in the country, was a far cry from what many had called for as necessary to address the need to reduce greenhouse gas generation over the next few decades. So much so that some Democrats opposed it as not tough enough.

At the same time there are voices decrying it as a radical job killer, a shift of wealth to foreign nations or just too much government. West Virginia Congresswoman Shelley Moore Capito criticisms covered a wide range of her own constituents concerns, “”It is a national energy tax that will burden consumers, burden businesses, and particularly burden the lower-income families in this country — particularly the lower income. It picks regional winners and losers, with coal-dependent states like mine, West Virginia, bearing the brunt of this bill,”

So what do you make of this? Well let me suggest that what we have here is the result of democracy, as currently constituted and practiced in the United States. Those with power and influence, which is mostly derived from how things have been done, are doing their best to maintain that income producing advantage by shaping and eroding the aspects of the bill while those who see their interests served best by “a fundamental change” in our energy generation and use fight to change them.

Examine for instance the coal state concerns. If your livelihood has always been based in taking something out of the ground and selling it around the nation, hearing about how its base costs are going to be assessed and the price raised in a manner that will cost your customers more, your business will be dealing with such impacts. If you are a coal miner, you are among the lower income families and the idea that you will pay more for heating your house while the value of the element you extract will be made less is threatening.

At the same time, coal states have enjoyed a century of tax revenues and stability thanks to geographical accident. Nobody in West Virginia worked to make it the Saudi Arabia of coal, and while one can say it hasn’t’ made the state rich, it has made some people very wealthy, and no doubt that wealth has helped elect Capito.

Another big influence in this bill’s evolution was big agriculture, namely corn producers. Corn, which has gone from being a key product in our diets to being a major component of a number of industry sectors including energy, generates sufficient profit that it was able to get the administration of carbon dioxide emissions in the bill shifted from the Environmental Protection Agency to the Department of Agriculture. The EPA, which even under the Bush administration was perceived to be less business friendly than the DOA, at least has experience monitoring atmospheric gases. The DOA has experience generating them.

Other changes to the bill included dropping the goal from a 20% reduction over the next decade to 17% in the same time frame. And there is plenty of debate among those who are fully committed to control of CO2 as a means to defer or mitigate a crisis whether or not even the upper number is sufficient to do so.  What comes through any such process today is, as one elected representative labeled it, ‘a product’. Indeed a product of compromise, which is one definition of politics- “the art of compromise”.  And compromise has produced most of the results we like to think of as the best nation on earth.

The bigger picture is actually illustrated by the case of water softeners in California, and personified in the Culligan International, best known for the “hey Culligan man” ad campaigns from the last century. Water softening uses salt to change the characteristics of the water people get from the taps in their homes. That salt ends up in municipal sewer lines, making the waster water more difficult to reuse, eroding the infrastructure as well as eventually raising the salt level in the aquifer. Regulations in number of California communities are impacting the water softening business. Controlling the output of the devices, or shifting to other technologies or services to eliminate the downstream costs all threaten the existing businesses.

It is a classic case of externalities not being accounted for in our society, either in legal or economic systems. The same is at issue for the coal and corn related segments of our society. Successful capitalism has expanded itself right up to the boundaries of the closed system that is water, air and climate. Whether it is mothers wanting milder acidity in the water they wash their families clothes and faces in, or the price of keeping our homes comfortable, the larger systems and patterns of cause and effect have taken a back seat to the immediate and personal ones.

So whether or not the bill becomes law, is mutated further by whatever the Senate passes, and then is ‘reconciled’ by joint committee, is not as significant as the fact that in spite of overwhelming public opinion, national security and prosperity issues related to our current way of generating and using energy calling for change, existing cash flows are being directed to influence Congress to sustain those cash flows.

Should a climate bill be passed, its impacts upon the price of energy may be secondary to the number of jobs it will facilitate in alternative research and implementation. Those jobs may or may not be in West Virginia, and therefore Congressperson Capito will need to adapt as much as the current participants in coal mining. Coal won’t go out of business in even the most radical climate legislation discussed. Neither will oil or gas. But the statements of their lobbyists and elected spokespeople will make it seem that the price of energy was just fine until this law was proposed.

We all know that isn’t true. We know that we need to address our security in sending billions to the middle east for oil. We know that we need to support our long term future prosperity by ending our dependence on finite energy sources. And doing both of those will also address what is within our control in the area of climate.

The advantages that coal, corn and Culligan have had in establishing their places in the economy were the results of what was known then. What we know now is that all of those activities take place at a scale and scope that is difficult for those of us living today to grasp, much less those who made the choices and decisions about accounting for and assigning responsibility for ‘externalities’ in centuries past. We can’t know all the results of any course of action we take in a large complicated system, be it the economy or the climate. But that is no reason to not take any action.

I recommend- Paul Krugman in the NYTimes

Josef Hebert with AP

and for those with a big appetite- all the analysis in detail you can possibly absorb from The Breakthrough Institute.

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