It’s too weak! … No, it was a fool’s errand to begin with … China is to blame! Of course not, it was the United States that brokered a bad deal for the world’s poor … There’s no hope … Progress was made, there’s more to do … Despair … Hope …

theogeo via FlickrSuch was the general tone struck by newspaper editorial boards over the weekend about the climate accord announced late Friday from Copenhagen. Below is a roundup of Copenhagen editorializing. As the product of pre-1990s public education in the United States, this author is only able to read and speak English, so this is heavily weighted toward American and British publications, with a heavy smattering of newspapers based in Commonwealth nations (aka former Brit colonies).

Here we go:

Editorials in American papers tried their best to find the positive in the Copenhagen deal. Take, for example, The New York Times:

[f]or the moment it is worth savoring the steps forward. China is now a player in the effort to combat climate change in a way it has never been, putting measurable emissions reductions targets on the table and accepting verification. And the United States is very much back in the game too. After eight years of playing the spoiler, it is now a leader with a president who seems to embrace the role. — Copenhagen, and Beyond

The Washington Post editors said the Copenhagen deal, imperfect though it may be, should prompt Congress to finish work on comprehensive climate and energy legislation:

[R]educing America’s dependence on foreign sources of energy and tackling domestic pollution are strong enough reasons to pass a bill. Vigorous debate should commence. Sens. John Kerry (D-Mass.), Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) and Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) have released a framework for legislation similar to a cap-and-trade bill the House passed, which requires a lot of fixing. Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) have their own, much simpler bill that would rebate carbon auction revenue directly to taxpayers. It is appealing, and it warrants attention, too. — One Cheer for Copenhagen

USA Today‘s editors also chose to use Copenhagen as a way to prod Congress:

Beyond Copenhagen, the domestic action shifts to Capitol Hill, where the Senate is weighing “cap and trade” legislation already passed by the House. This complex but proven way to reduce pollution would use market forces to limit carbon emissions. Global warming aside, the U.S. has strong reasons to wean itself from its ruinous dependence on foreign energy sources and to become a leader in the emerging “green” technology. But, as with trade talks, the U.S. can’t go it alone. China, in particular, is the key player on climate change: It and the USA emit almost 40% of the world’s greenhouse gases. Effectiveness depends on the cooperation of the world’s major emitters. Senate action and leadership by example would give U.S. negotiators a stronger hand going into the next round of climate talks, scheduled in Mexico City a year from now. — Climate talks fall short, but some progress beats none

The San Francisco Chronicle editors creatively used the failure to reach a binding international climate accord as an opportunity to signal out and encourage the state of California’s efforts to transition to a clean-energy economy:

Here’s where California comes in. This state has become a test lab, standard-bearer and economic visionary in the climate-change fight. If world leaders can’t get together, maybe this pioneering state can pick up the reins. The message from Copenhagen shouldn’t be the futility of global progress. The spin also shouldn’t suggest it’s time to roll back California policies on greenhouse gas emissions and renewable energy. These are strong commitments that can show the way forward. Climate change remains the major challenge of the future. Copenhagen is no argument for giving up. — Amid the heat, a few rays of light

The Boston Globe‘s editors opted for a grudgingly positive headline — 11th-hour Copenhagen pact better than none, but barely — but were sure to make clear their overall disappointment: “Obama administration officials call the agreement ‘meaningful’ and ‘an important first step.’ That is putting the best face on it. In Copenhagen, the world has collectively kicked global warming down the road.”

The über-conservative Wall Street Journal editorial board took great delight in slamming the Copenhagen outcome:

No doubt under the agreement China will continue to get a free climate pass despite its role as the world’s No. 1 emitter. At Copenhagen the emerging economies nonetheless proved skilled at exploiting the West’s carbon guilt, and in exchange for the nonconcession of continuing to negotiate next year, or the year after that, they’ll receive up to $100 billion in foreign aid by 2020, with the U.S. contributing the lion’s share. We can’t wait to hear Mr. Obama tell Americans that he wants them to pay higher taxes so the U.S. can pay China to become more energy efficient and thus more economically competitive. — Copenhagen’s Lessons in Limits

Surfing north toward Canada, The Globe and Mail used the outcome to contrast how Canada’s conservative government and the United States approached Copenhagen:

The difference between American and Canadian leadership was clear in the press conferences its two leaders held [Friday] night. Mr. Obama hailed the deal, but communicated urgency, saying, ‘We have much further to go.’ Prime Minister Stephen Harper was defensive, and seemed glad to have simply endured the ordeal. As Canada prepares to host the G8 and G20 countries, it will need to do much more. — The Work Must Continue

The National Post, a conservative-leaning paper in Canada, opted for the usual right’ish criticism of the United Nations as the best friend of despots and corrupt governments in the developing world:

Thanks to speechifying by a who’s who of dubious gurus, self-promoters and self-declared ‘activists’ — a staple of international confabs these days — the event progressively took on the hypocrisy and surrealism of a UN Human Rights Council meeting, where the developed world meets to endure sermonizing from the likes of Cuba and Sudan.

Oh, and of course the National Post editors took a parting swipe at cap-and-trade:

The debate over emissions is a complex one, stuffed with conflicting claims and data all but incomprehensible to the non-expert observer. In trying to sort out what’s true and what isn’t, Canadians could hardly be blamed if they took one look at the childish antics and fatuous posturing by those supporting large-scale economic experiments as a possible remedy, and concluded they wanted no part of it. — Copenhagen Fizzles Out

Over in the United Kingdom, where newspapers carry a much more overt political viewpoint, there was general agreement that Copenhagen was one big letdown.

The Independent‘s editors were perhaps the most forthright in their anger over Copenhagen, leveling the blame directly at two nations:

[I]t is important to be clear from where the opposition came. The immediate reaction against Barack Obama smacked a little of a pre-written liberal script, combining anti-Americanism with the certainty that progressive leaders will betray their cause. The real obstacle to a better deal, as Michael McCarthy reports, was China, with India hiding ‘behind the Chinese shadow,’ in the words of one participant. The US President declared a target for his country of an 80 per cent cut by 2050 – we can be doubtful about the mechanisms for achieving it, but not about its ambition. But the Chinese refused to have any targets in the accord at all – not even the targets that other countries were willing to set themselves. This requires a rethink about the realities of geopolitics in the remaining decades of the 21st century. In the economics of carbon, we are back in a bipolar world, with China the pre-eminent power. China has moved a long way towards its green responsibility in recent years, but the failure of Copenhagen has exposed how large a gulf remains between Beijing and the rest of the world. — Copenhagen: Our Lost Chance

The Financial Times was brutal in its assessment, chiding the conference organizers for mishandling the entire process:

Governments need to understand, even if they cannot say so, that Copenhagen was worse than useless. If you draw the world’s attention to an event of this kind, you have to deliver, otherwise the political impetus is lost. To declare what everybody knows to be a failure a success is feeble, and makes matters worse. Loss of momentum is now the danger. In future, governments must observe the golden rule of international co-operation: agree first, arrange celebrations and photo opportunities later. — Dismal outcome at Copenhagen fiasco

The Observer, the Sunday edition of liberal Guardian, struck a more realist tone:

Of course the accord is a disappointment for those who hoped to see the dawn of a new global climate order. It sets the right parameters, but they should have been in place at the start of the summit, not hastily approved in its eleventh hour. Precious time has been lost, but not hope. This is the only process we have to agree global carbon reduction. This is the dialogue that has been opened, in a spirit of goodwill worth admiring, between nations with vastly different strategic objectives. This inelegant compromise is what multilateral progress on climate change looks like. We cannot dismiss it in the vain hope that something more beautiful will appear in its place. But nor should we pause to applaud its authors. Instead, we must send them straight back to work. — The outcome at Copenhagen was disappointing. But if we work hard, there is still a way forward

The Guardian itself seems to be going through several of the classic stages of grief. On Saturday, it was outrage in an editorial headlined, “The grim meaning of ‘meaningful’.” A choice excerpt:

The threadbare agreement thrashed out last night has not even laid the foundations. The progress on financial assistance over the fortnight is welcome, but with much of the money earmarked for climate adaptation, the global community is left resembling an alcoholic who has decided to save up for a liver transplant rather than give up drink.

By Monday, the editors had cooled a bit:

While the Copenhagen product is every inch the sham that campaigners say it is, the Copenhagen process has set important precedents. Most obviously, although the haggling proved fruitless, the sheer fact that it took place – and at such a high political level – means it will probably do so again. … The silver that glistens within the dark cloud of Copenhagen’s failure is the west’s recognition that the world will not be rescued by diktat, but only through genuine dialogue. — Beyond Copenhagen: Dialogue, not diktat

The venerable Times of London, noting the accord’s many weaknesses, managed to end on a positive note:

Copenhagen has proved a milestone, with much success. A deal looks in place to prevent deforestation. There has been a recognition of the problem of acidification in the oceans. Pledges from China and the US to reduce emissions are big news, and the presence of President Obama at the heart of these negotiations can only be welcomed. We should also be upbeat about emerging consensus that the developed world should help to compensate for the limiting of emissions of the developing world, provided it comes with effective checks so that the right money goes to the right places. Most importantly, at the time of writing, the world’s major nations did seem to be closing in on a deal; and this against a backdrop of broad agreement among international policymakers, all aware of lingering doubts among the global public. If Copenhagen has produced an agreement on climate change, it is now the task of those policymakers to go back home and win the argument. — Not Just Hot Air

Heading toward the antipodes in our editorial roundup, first stop Australia where the Sydney Morning Herald tried to look at the bright side:

[A]fter days of grandstanding and ill-tempered haggling, first between bureaucrats, then ministers and finally leaders – the majority of attending nations did agree grudgingly to ‘take note’ of a fluffy, last-minute compromise document cobbled together behind closed doors by the US President, Barack Obama, and the leaders of four major emerging powers: China, India, Brazil and South Africa. Such is the magic of multilateral democracy.

Yet it would be wrong to dismiss the Copenhagen capers as wasted time. Obama exaggerated when he described the 12-paragraph final document as a ‘breakthrough’, but it delivered modest progress on a continuing hard journey. The proposed funding to help vulnerable nations meet the challenges of global warming – $US30 billion ($33.7 billion) over the next three years building up to $100 billion a year by 2020 – would, if delivered, make a real difference. While the document lacks emission-cut targets, it acknowledges the need to limit temperature rises to less than 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels. Crucially Copenhagen, and the lead-up, have seen big developing countries such as China accept that if major developed nations are to cut their emissions they must curb the rate of growth of theirs, and allow some monitoring. — One cheer for Copenhagen (Editor’s question: How did WaPo and SMH wind up with same headline for their editorials? Conspiracy!)

The Age of Melbourne leveled blame at China:

The deepest reason for Copenhagen’s failure to produce a binding agreement is to be found in the evasiveness of China, one of the world’s two largest greenhouse-gas emitters. It was always recognised that a satisfactory outcome would depend on the ability of the other big emitter, the US, to reach agreement with China, and the accord announced by Mr Obama was indeed reached through negotiations between the US, China, India, Brazil and South Africa. Yet China has sought to be recognised both as an emerging industrial superpower and as a developing nation, labels that simply do not match. If China wants recognition as the former, it cannot also demand the special consideration given to the latter. — Hopes for humanity wilted before national self-interest

The Australian, owned by Rupert Murdoch and not to be outdone by its rivals in the Fairfax chain, aimed its tirade at just about every other country before concluding, interestingly, that bilateral deals are probably the best way forward on climate change:

The way forward may be similar to global trade talks. While negotiations for a worldwide agreement have stalled, free traders like Australia are developing bilateral and regional arrangements. This is not optimum, but it is the best arrangement available and something similar could occur to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Under the Copenhagen Accord, countries, including Australia, that have made unilateral commitments to reduce emissions and are prepared to increase them in co-operation with other nations will submit pledges by the end of next month. The discussions that will follow will offer developed economies the chance to commit to emission reductions in a practical timeframe, say by 2020. It is an opportunity many nations will want to take. The European Union, which already has an emissions trading system, will want other economies to follow its lead. It will be impossible for China to pretend global carbon emissions are not its problem for they cannot sit quietly while Third World states rage against the US, as occurred at Copenhagen. And after the shambles in the Danish capital, the world will want to know whether the US will deliver, or even improve, on President Obama’s offer of a 17 per cent cut by 2020, based on 2005 levels. — New approach on global warming needed now

Across the Tasman Sea, the New Zealand Herald said the fate of the world is in the hands of two nations:

The task between now and the next climate change conference in Mexico City in 2010 will be to find a way to make China willing to accept targets. Its rapid development, and the huge increase in its emissions, means its obstructiveness must be overcome. Business as usual for it and countries such as India is not a viable scenario. At some point, all nations will have to accept their share of responsibility for global warming and bear their part of the burden of tackling it. — Response from world leaders sad and stilted

So what do editors at one of China’s English-language newspapers think about all this? The China Daily glossed over the country’s obstructionist role at the conference and offered general encouragement for seeing the process through next year in Mexico:

[l]eaders who turned up at Copenhagen still deserve credit for inking a sub-optimal deal, rather than leaving with nothing at all. Unsatisfactory as it is, the new accord represents an essential step forward in our response to the long-term challenge of climate change. As UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon put it, “this is just the beginning” of a process to craft a binding pact to reduce emissions. — Small but essential step

While we’re in the neighborhood … The Japan Times stressed the human side of the climate equation, noting that not enough attention has been played to matters of public and reproductive health in the developing world:

Japan has been aiding developing countries in the area of public health, including the fight against infectious diseases. From now on, it should help work out not only measures to increase transfer of low-carbon technologies to developing countries but also those that take into account population dynamics, gender equality and poverty reduction. — People and Climate Change

And the Korea Times editors offered some general hand-wringing:

The climate change summit showed how difficult it is to narrow differences between developed and developing countries over emission reduction targets, historical responsibility for global warming, and fairly distributing the burden of addressing climate change. At the start of the Copenhagen conference, some negotiators and experts cautioned that no deal would be better than the wrong deal. In this sense, the summit paid heed to the caution and only succeeded in avoiding a wrong deal. But what a disappointment it was for more than 100 heads of state to gather and no binding deal to have been made! World Faces Uphill Battle to Reach New Climate Change Treaty

Now, over to India where, surprise, there was a bit of finger-pointing back at the world’s rich countries. Here’s the Times of India‘s take:

What are the quantifiable targets for rich countries to reduce emissions? What is the time frame? How will the UN ensure that the promised $30 billion between 2010-2012 and the $100 billion a year from 2020 onwards as assistance from the rich to poor countries (announced by the US, not the UN) are deposited in the fund and disbursed equitably? … The 2010 Mexico summit has to produce a plan that works out the mechanisms involved including emissions targets, deadlines and penalties for failure as well as rewards for achievers. With only a token agreement at Copenhagen, the ball has just been pushed down to Mexico. One can only hope the Americans are more forthcoming there. — Token Agreement

The Indian Express, meanwhile, wasn’t shy about blasting India’s government for not playing a proactive role at Copenhagen: “India will have to realise at some point soon that hanging on to China’s coat-tails, instead of isolating its obstructionism internationally, is not helping the world closer to a solution.”

And the Economic Times, sort of the Wall Street Journal of India, puts the whole Copenhagen mess in the context of the growing China-India rivalry:

The US-BASIC agreement envisages $30 billion will be made available to developing countries for fighting climate change by 2012, and larger sums thereafter. More significantly, the agreement says that both developed and developing countries will list their climate change actions, and, crucially, provide information on these actions through national communications and international consultations and analysis ‘under clearly-defined guidelines’. This is likely to get the goat of many high-minded nationalists in India, who will fault the government for submitting to ‘imperialist’ pressure. This Pavlovian reflex completely misses the advantage it bestows on India. While the Chinese make grand commitments to fight climate change but insist on remaining stereotypically inscrutable on vital questions of how and how much, even as parliamentary democracy keeps such information transparently in the public domain in India, India’s international competitiveness would suffer should the Chinese choose to fudge their figures. That the Chinese have agreed to international consultation under defined guidelines offers some insurance against this risk. India must refine its position to become an even more aggressive climate negotiator. Let us put more ‘no regrets’ commitments unilaterally on the table and then demand reciprocal action by developed and competing developing countries. — Copenhagen Fails

Across the border in Pakistan, The Dawn, one of the country’s major English-language dailies, eloquently noted that it’s the world’s poor who suffer most from global warming:

The unkindest cut for many developing countries is that they will be hardest hit by climate change even though their emission levels are negligible on the global scale. Take the case of Pakistan. Our contribution to global warming is almost irrelevant, yet we are already facing the reality of erratic weather that is playing havoc with an agro-based economy. Sea levels are rising and vast swathes of arable land have been lost to intrusion, for reasons of climate change as well as reduced flows downstream of Kotri. Our glaciers are melting at a rapid rate, which means inundation in the medium term and ultimate drought. It must be accepted, sooner than later, that there is no Planet B. A global solution needs to be found. — The Deal That Wasn’t

In the early hours after the Copenhagen talks ended, some commentators in the developed world complained vigorously about how Africa’s representatives negotiated at the conference, charging that Africa focused too much on adaptation financing at the expense of trying to broker a compromise. Well, they don’t really see it that way on the continent. Here’s what the editors of the East African in Kenya had to say:

For Africa, however, the devil as usual lurks in the detail. If traditional aid disbursements are anything to go by, it will be a very lucky continent indeed if releases of this money [the $100 billion promised by rich countries for climate adaptation and technology transfer] are structured in a manner that allows any meaningful development to take place. It will be an even more fortunate Africa if the local buzzards muster the moral courage to allow what little will trickle in to be put to its intended use. Otherwise, it all looks like theatre with the powerless masses as mere spectators. Little has really changed. One way or the other, poor Africa will pick up the tab for global warming while its richer cousins hide behind meaningless tokenism. — Copenhagen: Africa picks up the tab

With that context set, the last word goes to an unlikely world leader — the bloodless despot Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe, whose words were (surprisingly) echoed by the editors of the Johannesburg Mail and Guardian:

Robert Mugabe said at the conference that he couldn’t understand why Western nations were so concerned about human rights and so blithe about climate change. He was right to ask — and that should deeply shame the opponents of a deal. Let’s hope they don’t let his question stand as the epitaph to Copenhagen. — Conference of villains

Read other languages and want to summarize more newspaper editorial about the Copenhagen accord? Use the comments to contribute.

Check out our comprehensive coverage of what the føck is going on in Copenhagen, or track the latest from Grist on our Facebook page or the @grist Twitter feed.

In accepting the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo today, President Obama touched briefly on the issue of climate change, lumping it in with a laundry list of “soft” issues like economic security, food security, and education.

Here’s the excerpt, which came very late in the speech:

…a just peace includes not only civil and political rights – it must encompass economic security and opportunity. For true peace is not just freedom from fear, but freedom from want.

It is undoubtedly true that development rarely takes root without security; it is also true that security does not exist where human beings do not have access to enough food, or clean water, or the medicine they need to survive. It does not exist where children cannot aspire to a decent education or a job that supports a family. The absence of hope can rot a society from within.

And that is why helping farmers feed their own people – or nations educate their children and care for the sick – is not mere charity. It is also why the world must come together to confront climate change. There is little scientific dispute that if we do nothing, we will face more drought, famine and mass displacement that will fuel more conflict for decades. For this reason, it is not merely scientists and activists who call for swift and forceful action – it is military leaders in my country and others who understand that our common security hangs in the balance. (Text as prepared for delivery)

Obama’s brief references to climate were clearly influenced by politics back home in America. First, his statement that there is “little scientific dispute” about climate science was a rejoinder to Sarah Palin and the vocal climate denier community. And the lumping of climate with national security is aimed at Americans’ almost universal view that any president should do whatever it takes to protect the country from outside threats.

Obama was much more direct about climate change earlier in the day, during a brief press availability after his meeting with Norway’s prime minister, Jens Stoltenberg:

Something that obviously is pressing right now is the issue of climate change, and the Prime Minister and I discussed the ongoing meeting in Copenhagen, in which we’re both strongly committed to a positive outcome. The United States has done a lot of work this year to transform the way we think about energy and our use back home, and to help to move international climate negotiations forward in an effective way. And I look forward to coming back this way next week during the leaders’ summit that ends the conference.

Prime Minister Stoltenberg and I also discussed how we can work together and with other countries to protect forests — something that he has personally championed and I’m very impressed with the model that has been built between Norway and Brazil that allows for effective monitoring and ensures that we are making progress in avoiding deforestation of the Amazon. And we all understand that it’s probably the most cost-effective way for us to address the issue of climate change — having an effective set of mechanisms in place to avoid further deforestation and hopefully to plant new trees.

In presenting the award to Obama, Thorbjørn Jagland, Chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, only briefly touched on the climate issue, first in a punny reference:

From the very first moment of his presidency, President Obama has been trying to create a more cooperative climate which can help reverse the present trend. He has already “lowered the temperature in the world”, in the words of former Peace Prize Laureate Desmond Tutu.

… and later more seriously:

Regarding the fight against climate change, we can see the same underlying idea: the U.S.A. cannot be indifferent to global challenges; while it cannot solve such challenges alone, they cannot be met without the U.S.A. Obama has presented concrete proposals for what the U.S.A. will do. This has improved chances of reaching an effective global agreement, if not this year then, we hope, at least next year.

Meanwhile, another world leader was making a more direct and emphatic appeal on the climate issue. French President Nicolas Sarkozy urged a 30 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions worldwide “as soon as possible,” according to Agence France-Presse.

The two Steves knew exactly what they were doing when they sat down to pen the final chapter of their sequel to their 2005 bestseller Freakonomics. In the now infamous chapter in the newly released SuperFreakonomics, Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner manage to downplay the global warming threat, compare climate change believers to religious fanatics, and accept at face value the assertion by some pointy-headed geeks that they can save the world on the cheap.

No surprise, SuperFreakonomics set off a firestorm of criticism and angry rebuke. To quote Joe Romm, “the Superfreaks frame this chapter mostly as their (misguided) view of the science versus the views of that famous non-scientist Al Gore (as opposed to the views of all of the scientists who disagree with the crap they are peddling). That straw man approach gives them the ‘high’ ground.”

The Steves feigned surprise Monday night before a crowd of 300 gathered at Seattle’s Town Hall. Why would anyone get upset about that chapter? We’re not denying the climate change problem, they averred, nor are we saying nothing should be done about it.

To the contrary, the Steves told the audience, when they suggested that the costs of capping carbon emissions are greater than the costs of potential geoengineering solutions, they’re just being good, objective scientists. No, make that economists — the only truth tellers among the social scientists, who get treated like pariahs because they make morally agnostic observations about humanity, they said. Dismal science, indeed.

The truth is, there’s plenty to object to in SuperFreakonomics. The whole tone of the climate chapter understates the threat and overstates the potential for technology to save the day. Some examples:

• Leading off the chapter with the “global cooling” hysteria of the 1970s, which sends a not-so-subtle signal that scientists are wrong lots of the time — so they might be wrong again on global warming (pp. 165-66).
• Citing one economist’s analysis that there’s only a 5 percent chance of the worst-case climate scenarios happening — so why invest billions to fix an unlikely threat? (p. 169)
• Making the “global warming as religion” comparison, as if climate science were just another meaningless sectarian rift (p. 170).
• Worried about sea level rise? Relax. The climate models all disagree, and the rise that will actually happen won’t be all that bad (pp. 185-86).
• Worried about a bunch of U.N. bureaucrats coming up with a draconian solution? Don’t. Even if they do, world governments will behave like “rational actors” and do whatever is in their short-term best interest. China and India ain’t gonna put their development on hold (pp. 202-03).
• You’re still worried about the devastating effects of global warming? Stop losing sleep. There are these smart dudes with Microsoft riches working to solve the climate problem, MacGyver style (pp. 176-96).

That’s a pretty simplistic review of the first part of the global warming chapter. But it’s no more simplistic than the authors’ breezy survey of climate science and unquestioning regurgitation of the wild geoengineering ideas being offered up Nathan Myrhvold and his Hall of Justice pals at Bellevue-based Intellectual Ventures. (Motto: If you thought of it, we already patented it.)

This point bears a bit more scrutiny. Freakonomics and its sequel contain lots of counterintuitive observations based on measurable data. The global warming chapter stands out because, well, it doesn’t rest on data. Myrhvold says he and his pals can float a “garden hose to the sky” to pump sulfur 18 miles high into the stratosphere, all for $20 million in upfront costs and $10 million annually to keep it running. Uh huh.

And the IV brainiacs have super boats in mind that would spray ocean water into the air to feed the formation of clouds, blocking more sunlight from hitting the surface and being absorbed as heat. Sounds great, but how many boats? What do they cost?

Dubner event hinted salaciously that IV has solutions to ocean acidification in the works. Details, please!

These are fascinating ideas. But they’re just that — ideas based on some pretty big leaps of faith, i.e. that these things can be engineered, that someone will fund them, and, moreover, that the solutions will actually do enough to cool the planet.

As Grist’s very own David Roberts wrote a few weeks back, “Lesson: the problems humanity faces are systemic and interrelated. The idea that sucking CO2 out of the atmosphere will save us is akin to the hope that a math equation can be solved by erasing one of the numbers.”

OK, enough. The real point here is get beyond the bad in SuperFreakonomics and focus on two messages that deserve greater discussion in the world of climate wonkery.

First, Levitt and Dubner do what economists do best, and that’s note that emissions from burning fossil fuels are a negative externality — fancy economist speak for the fact that we don’t really pay the full cost of relying on coal, oil, and gas. Power plants and their customers around the world generally don’t pay anything now to deal with the environmental impact of CO2 emissions and other bad stuff — heavy metals in the emissions and ash, health effects of particulate pollution, etc.

And it’s an open question whether an international carbon-cap system based on trading credits and buying offsets can genuinely cut carbon emissions enough to reduce global warming that’s already predicted to happen. At the end of the day, no matter what is decided at Copenhagen, it’s still in too many people’s economic interests to keep burning fossil fuels. It’s also right for Levitt and Dubner to note that cutting carbon emissions won’t address methane from livestock or nitrous oxide from fertilizer.

Second, and just as significant, Levitt and Dubner are doing a real service by talking about geoengineering and stressing that technology and innovation are going to be a part of saving our asses — it won’t be done through complex cap-and-trade schemes alone. As fancical and unproven as the ideas proffered by Myrhvold and company are, eggheads everywhere should be encouraged to think about them and figure out ways to execute them. We might just need some wacky tech solutions to fend off the worst effects of global warming while we transition the global economy toward clean, renewable energy.

So, read the book. Take the Steves’ dismissive tone with a grain of salt, but think hard about how we insert geoengineering into the climate discussion, and heed their warning about the limits of public policy to steer people away from the old ways of doing things.

More on the super-freaking-hullabaloo …

• Levitt’s lengthy defense of the global warming chapter.
• Joe Romm’s lengthier dissection of it.
• Boston Globe writer Drake Bennett’s take.

Video: Stephen Dubner on SuperFreakonomics:

Video: Intellectual Ventures video on “garden hose to the sky”:

Tim Flannery says the U.S. Senate absolutely must pass some form of carbon cap before the Copenhagen talks in December.Mark Coulson, 5th World Conference of Science Journalists

That’s the message author and climate campaigner Tim Flannery brought to Grist’s Seattle office today. By that, he means: The U.S. Congress absolutely must pass climate legislation that puts a cap on the country’s total carbon emissions. Failure to do so will take pressure off other nations to follow suit, effectively undermining the spirit and intent of the international climate talks set to happen in Denmark in December.

Flannery is an Australian scientist-activist in the model of Carl Sagan, James Hansen or Stephen Jay Gould. The author of the influential book The Weather Makers and chairman of the Copenhagen Climate Council, he’s traveling the United States promoting his latest book, Now or Never: Why We Must Act Now to End Climate Change and Create a Sustainable Future.

The inspirations for the book, he said, are the political tracts and pamphlets of 17th and 18th century Britain — lengthy, often underground, publications circulated by the various political factions.

“It’s a tract for our times,” he said — 20,000 words making the case for why the world must get serious about global warming.

If the U.S. Senate fails to pass a companion to the Waxman-Markey cap-and-trade bill, America will show up in Copenhagen without anything to put on the table, Flannery said. “The United States needs to be able to demonstrate a commitment to reducing total emissions,” he said.

Atlantic Monthly PressFor climate activists who say no bill is better than a watered down climate law, Flannery says cool it. As long as a firm cap is put in place, he said, it will spur the international talks and, more importantly, boost alternative energy.

Flannery praised the Waxman-Markey bill in particular, noting that its provisions calling for a huge U.S. investment in international carbon credits amounts to “the perfect mechanism for exporting cap-and-trade to the rest of the world.”

The agricultural offsets included in Waxman-Markey, he said, will drive additional research into how much carbon farmland can store and how it should be managed to maximize storage. That, he said, will do much to spur a vibrant market in carbon credits.

For readers who will be making the trip to Copenhagen, Flannery advises that you study up on your Shakespeare. The Copenhagen Climate Council has rented out the historic Kronborg Castle, famous as the setting for Hamlet, and will use it on Dec. 12 as a stage for scores of business leaders to talk about the importance of finalizing a global climate deal.

And a word of consolation for American climate campaigners: If you think the coal lobby is bad here, move to Australia, where 90 percent of the country’s electricity comes from coal-fired plants. The industry’s influence over the political system is expansive, with the conservative Liberal Party beholden to the mining and power generating companies while Labor must balance its support for change with the need to curry favor with an important political constituency — the labor unions that represent coal industry workers.

Flannery will speak tonight at Town Hall in Seattle. The point he will stress to the audience: Our planet is at a critical moment in time, and voters in United States in particular are at a critical juncture. Carbon emissions need to be capped and curtailed, otherwise we’re on track for 1,000 ppm of atmospheric carbon dioxide.

Best-case scenario, Flannery said, is that we max out at 450 (we’re at about 390 now). Those may sound like dry numbers, but a 1,000 world would look drastically different than a 450 world. Just ask the folks at 350.

Blogging won”t save the world, nor will rowing across the ocean. But join Roz Savage and thousands of others on Oct. 24 for 350.org’s climate action day!Courtesy Roz Savage

The cynical move here would be to take a great big potshot at Blog Action Day, e.g.: “Thanks, bloggers, for dedicating a whole day to this topic. [Insert eye rolling] Your bits and bytes will help change minds and save the world.”

And after attending an event the other night in Seattle, I am feeling very cynical about online campaigns.

Roz Savage was in town to tout her first book, Rowing the Atlantic. You’ve heard stories like Savage’s before: Earnest, hard-working striver finds wealth and success in the dog-eat-dog corporate world. One day, our hero wakes up, questioning what the hell he/she is doing, and whether killing himself/herself to build up a bigger bank account to fuel more consumption of ridiculous things (little red sports car, in Savage’s case) is really making him/her happy. The hero takes the drastic step, walking away from the grinding career to find meaning and personal discovery in a simpler, more meaningful life.

Cue the heartfelt music and the Hollywood screen treatment.

But try as I might, I can’t get too cynical about Roz Savage. Yes, it’s easy to fall for her charm, beauty and storytelling ability. What’s compelling about her, I find, is her fearlessness and her conscience. She gave up the rat race to become … wait for it … an ocean rower.

She rowed across the Atlantic Ocean in 2005 — a three-month ordeal that’s the topic of her book. And she’s two-thirds of the way through her row across the Pacific. She’s using her momentary celebrity to call attention to need for climate action, serving as a UN “climate hero” and planning to walk from London to Copenhagen (presumably, with a ferry trip across the Channel) so she can be among the activists in that city this December urging the world’s leaders to agree to a new climate treaty.

Crossing the Atlantic in 100 days at 10,000 strokes a day.Courtesy Simon and SchusterAt the book event the other night, Savage said something that really caught my attention and put the climate challenge into focus. On her Atlantic Ocean voyage, she calculated how many oar strokes she made on a typical day — 10,000. The trip took about 100 days, translating into 1 million strokes to cross an ocean.

One million … a few feet for every stroke, amounting to imperceptible progress in her voyage. But add those strokes up, day after day. And day after day. Before you know it, she crossed the water. It was hard. There were errors and backsliding from time to time. Still, the distance was overcome.

Sorta like this climate problem we’re facing.

Next Saturday, Savage will be in London for 350.org‘s Global Day of Climate Action. She’d like everyone — Blog Action Day supporters especially — to join her there, or join the 350 movement in your hometown wherever you are.

We can’t save the world through keystrokes or oar strokes alone. We gotta get outside and stand together to save the planet. Stand together, not just on October 24, but every day, in little and big ways. That’s how movements become reality.

OK, back to your regularly scheduled cynicism…

Bruce Bueno de Mesquita uses game theory to predict all sorts of geopolitical and business outcomes. Don’t ask him about global warming…Courtesy NYU

The COP-15 climate talks in Copenhagen will fail. Bruce Bueno de Mesquita, “one of the world’s most prominent applied game theorists,” has already gamed out the talks, according to the New York Times Magazine:

Global warming is another area where politics are doomed to fail. World governments are set to meet this December in Copenhagen to commit to firm CO2-reduction levels — but when Bueno de Mesquita modeled the future of these targets, most countries renege on them. No democratic government will seriously limit CO2 if it will hurt its citizens economically.

“When people are asked to make personal sacrifices for the greater good in the longer term, they seem to find 1,001 reasons why their particular behavior is so virtuous that this one particular deviation is really O.K.,” Bueno de Mesquita told me recently as we talked in his home office. “‘I have to drive an S.U.V. because I want to protect my little children from a car accident!’”

Or maybe not. The NYT was good enough to note that Bueno de Mesquita also predicted Bill Clinton’s health reform plan would pass back in the 1990s …

See also: GOOD Magazine’s profile from October 2007.

The Senate celebrated the imminent arrival of the annual August recess by confirming Sonia Sotomayor‘s Supreme Court nomination and ponying up an additional $2 billion for the highly successful (though dubiously green) cash-for-clunkers program. The vote was 60 to 37, with Democrats almost unanimously supporting the extension and Republicans nearly united in opposition. President Obama has said he will sign the bill ASAP.

That $2 billion, various news reports agree, will keep the program running through Labor Day. “Administration officials have said the extension will subsidize the sale of another 500,000 new vehicles. Consumers get breaks of up to $4,500 to help pay for vehicles with better mileage standards,” the Detroit News says.

A couple of interesting nuggets:

• The New York Times relays that transportation expert Lee Schipper concluded “the average fuel economy of cars bought in the first six months of this year was slightly higher than the average bought under the ‘cash for clunkers’ program in July.”
• The same Detroit News piece quoted above says two senators — Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.) and Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) — “introduced legislation Thursday to reward consumers who buy fuel-efficient vehicles through a tax break or rebate. The Efficient Vehicle Leadership Act of 2009 would give tax breaks or rebates to consumers amounting to up to thousands of dollars, the senators said. Meanwhile, manufacturers would be charged a ‘fuel performance fee’ to pay for the program.”
• Autoblog Green says cash-for-clunkers “is boosting the number of new clean diesel cars on the road, says Biodiesel Magazine. Apparently, BMW’s trick is working. Another side benefit: C4C is improving the overall safety of the vehicles on the road because a lot of rides with full-powered airbags and/or a tendency be involved in single-vehicle rollover accidents have now been disabled.”
• Marketplace Radio says clunkers are flooding junkyards.
• Interested in taking advantage of the program? Check out cars.gov for the details. And the Sierra Club has a nifty tool to help you figure out if you can trade in your clunker.
• Lastly, the Senate vote is good news for these fine folks polled by The Onion about the clunker program’s sudden bankruptcy… . And HuffPo can stop wondering whether voters can trade in “clunker Republicans” under the program.

The White House billed Wednesday night’s primetime press conference as being about health care reform. And sure enough, President Obama and the press by and large stuck to that script.

The president made a passing mention of renewable energy in his opening remarks, saying the U.S. economy “simply wasn’t ready to compete in the 21st century, one where we’ve been slow to invest in clean-energy technologies that have created new jobs and industries in other countries.”

After that, all health care, with a smattering of the Prof. Gates arrest at the end. The media did not ask a single question about climate change and renewable energy. No reference was made to the massive cap-and-trade bill passed last month by the House or the Senate’s work to come up with its own bill.

Politics is about timing. I get that. And until the Senate begins debating an actual proposal, there’s not much the White House can (or should) do to urge action. But a very important clock is ticking: Passage of a climate and energy bill is seen as a precondition for an international deal to be reached at Copenhagen late this year.

Health care continues to dog the push for a comprehensive climate and energy bill. So here are some questions for Grist readers:

Does the president risk losing momentum for climate action by turning his attention to health care?

Or is the health care focus a sign of confidence — that the White House believes a Waxman-Markey-like bill is a done deal?

Should we get over ourselves and concede that health care takes priority over climate action?

Are both issues “doable” this year?

I think I can guess what Grist’s David Roberts would say: Obama is laying the groundwork for a major makeover of the U.S. economy, and focusing just on energy or just on health care would fall short of getting our country ready to compete in the 21st century. David will be back tomorrow, so we’ll see if he takes that view or not.

For now, get the conversation going in the comments below.

Palin takes to the pages of The Washington Post to blast away at President Obama’s cap-and-trade plan. Too bad she’s firing away with blanks. Above, Palin on the campaign trail last year.Courtesy sskennel via FlickrThese criticisms, typically, come backed by well-reasoned arguments. The liberal critique of Waxman-Markey focuses on the questionable decision to give away emissions credits to polluters and concerns that the Agriculture Department, not the EPA, will review and regulate carbon offsets in the farming sector. Many conservatives, meanwhile, have argued that the best way to curb emissions and spur a clean-energy revolution is with a carbon tax, not a complicated cap-and-trade scheme.

So when the person John McCain once said knows more about energy policy than anyone else in America pens an op-ed for one of the nation’s highest-regarded newspapers, it’s time to pay attention and learn something.

Sarah Palin, the soon-to-be-ex-governor of Alaska, has an opinion piece (a screed, really) in Tuesday’s Washington Post in which she shrilly blasts away at “President Obama’s cap-and-trade energy plan,” calling it “an enormous threat” to the U.S. economy.

Juicy stuff. Ordinarily, we’d let David Roberts out of his cage to respond, but he’s happily away on vacation. Joe Romm will surely be along in the morning with a strong piece tearing apart Palin’s piece. [Yep, here's his piece.] But for now, here are some first thoughts from me:

Palin’s thesis comes loaded with plenty of rhetoric and zero facts. It offers nothing more than assertions about the emissions reduction part of the bill, ignores the energy investment and green jobs provisions, blames “Washington bureaucrats” for hampering oil development in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (not Congress, where elected lawmakers have repeatedly expressed the American public’s desire to keep ANWR off limits), and fails to even take note of the underlying issue — catastrophic climate change.

Couldn’t Palin’s ghostwriters have cribbed from any of the well-researched, highly technical criticisms produced by just about every conservative think tank in the land?

Grist’s David Roberts and other contributors have answered every one of Palin’s “points” in the past:

Palin says the bill would result in skyrocketing energy prices. Higher prices are surely likely, David noted last month, but not on the order of what Palin thinks.

Palin: “Many states have abundant coal, whose technology is continuously making it into a cleaner energy source.”

See David’s debate with clean-coal flack Joe Lucas. There’s no such thing as clean coal, and even if the technology appears in 10-15 years as predicted, it will be so costly as to effectively raise energy prices substantially on the regular folk Palin claims to be defending.

Palin: “Westerners literally sit on mountains of oil and gas, and every state can consider the possibility of nuclear energy.”

See Kate Sheppard’s piece from last summer. The oil shale pipe dream has been around since the 1970s. The fact is, the technology doesn’t exist yet to extract it cost-effectively, and won’t for many years (if ever). And extraction comes with a host of environmental problems.

As for the nuclear energy canard, the fact remains that most Americans don’t want to live anywhere near a nuclear power plant or a storage facility for highly radioactive nuclear waste. France is a place where bureaucrats truly hold enormous power, and that explains in part why the central government was able to push nuclear so effectively. Thankfully, our American system is more democratic.

Palin: “We have an important choice to make. Do we want to control our energy supply and its environmental impact? Or, do we want to outsource it to China, Russia and Saudi Arabia? Make no mistake: President Obama’s plan will result in the latter.”

Governor, listen closely: oil is a commodity. Even if we increase domestic production, we’ll still be held prisoner to Russia’s and Saudi Arabia’s ability to meet global demand — demand being driven by China, India and many other developing nations.

Ironically, Palin concludes her piece by asking, “Can America produce more of its own energy through strategic investments that protect the environment, revive our economy and secure our nation? Yes, we can.”

Yes, governor, we can accomplish that goal. And there are probably several ways of doing it. But each path requires thoughtful policymaking, not just hot air for hot air’s sake.

–

UPDATE: Media Matters now has a quick debunking of Palin’s op-ed. And so does The Atlantic and Huffington Post.

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) on Tuesday surrendered to agriculture interests on a key provision in the massive climate and energy bill he introduced with Rep. Ed Markey (D-Mass.). Facing a defection from farm-state Democrats, Politico.com reports that Waxman agreed to change the bill so that “the U.S. Department of Agriculture will oversee the [carbon] offset program for farmers, and the House will seek further guidance from the Obama administration about the appropriate role for the EPA.”

Politico further reported that Waxman “agreed to ask the EPA to roll back its new requirements that farmers offset rural land developed in other countries.”

The deal paves the way for the climate and energy legislation to come to the House floor at the end of this week. Reuters reports that Waxman believes there’s a solid majority to pass the bill, which will then be acted on by the Senate.

Grist’s Tom Philpott has written extensively about how agribusiness interests have worked to modify the Waxman-Markey legislation. Check back on Wednesday for an update from Philpott.

And check Grist’s Climate Citizens page for information on what environmental groups are doing to urge passage of the bill.