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A price signal in the vehicle market is best applied to the vehicle

Proponents of raising the gas tax -- and the chattering class is littered with them these days -- have a simple, central argument: gas taxes create a market signal that pushes all vehicle consumers in the direction of fuel efficiency.

Indeed, some conservatives (and car companies) go further: they say that CAFE standards are bad policy because they force automakers to create products for which there's no demand. It's no good making fuel-efficient cars if nobody wants to buy them! (Americans love big, powerful cars. "Everybody knows" that.) Higher gas taxes should replace CAFE, because they create create demand instead of forcing supply.

A moment's thought reveals a serious flaw in these arguments. Fuel costs are a relatively low portion of total vehicle costs -- maybe 10-20 percent. There's maintenance, insurance, parking, but most of all, the price of the car.

And when the time comes to buy a car, people don't behave like the rational interest maximizers of economic myth. They rarely calculate out future costs like fuel. They consider the number on the price tag in front of them: the price of the car.

It follows that if you want a market signal, you should put it where it will have the most effect: on the price of the car.

As it happens, we have a policy like that! Let's hand the mic to John Heywood, who has headed the Sloan Automotive Laboratory since 1972:

I think we need a purchase tax, a feebate system, like the French have instituted fairly recently. Fees for high-consuming vehicles and rebates for low-consuming vehicles. That will help reinforce consumer response to CAFE requirements by providing a market incentive.

There you go. A clear price signal, applied at the point of maximum effect, supplementing rather than replacing fuel efficiency standards. CAFE standards push automakers to make fuel-efficient cars; feebates push consumers to buy them. (Oh, and unlike gas taxes, feebates aren't regressive.)

How is this not a preferable policy, both economically and politically? What am I missing?

Attack of the zombies: global cooling!

John Fleck comments on George Will's latest zombie attack: in the 1970s, scientists said the Earth was cooling!

What's amazing is not that George Will is selectively quoting to mislead the reader, but that he continues to do so after John sent him a copy of the article in question:

When George Will last wrote about this subject, last May, I sent him a copy of the Science News article he misleadingly quoted in the example I used above. I got a nice note back from him thanking me for sharing it.

I'll leave it to the reader to decide what this reveals about George Will's journalistic integrity.

I can sense some frustration from Fleck that this argument lives on despite the publication of his nice BAMS article that lays out the actual history of the argument, and which clearly shows it to be false.

All I can say is: Welcome to the club, John.

Freaky

World carbon dioxide levels jump 2.3 ppm in 2008 to highest in 650,000 years

NOAA's Global Monitoring Division reports that global concentrations of the primary heat-trapping greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide, jumped 2.28 ppm in 2008.

A study in Science from the Global Carbon Project (see "More on soaring carbon concentrations") noted:

Conservative columnist lies to millions of people, again, ho hum

George Will is supposedly one of the reality-based conservatives, who eschews the willful know-nothingism of some of his ideological co-travelers. Yet today, as he has many times before, he uses his perch on the Washington Post editorial page to lie to readers and reduce their knowledge of the facts.

It's hard to believe, but he wheels out the "scientists said there would be global cooling" myth again. See it refuted here in our How to Talk to a Climate Skeptic guide. Or see Brad Plumer for yet another refutation.

But at this point it seems futile to refute it yet again. The question here is not about the facts, but about sociocultural norms. Why is Will permitted to lie to millions of readers every week? At what point do the editors of the Washington Post feel that it's their job to step in and stop him from misleading people? Is there any such point? Is there anything Will could say that would cross the line?

Addendum: Meanwhile, segregated over in the "green" section of the paper: "Scientists: Pace of Climate Change Exceeds Estimates." And so it goes.

Grid reliability statistics look good, if you don't consider the flaws

Refashioning our electric grid to move generation closer to load creates a host of benefits. (Two-hundred and seven, according to Amory Lovins.) Among them is an increase in grid reliability, since generation closer to load necessarily reduces the need for transmission to connect remote generators to that load. Carnegie-Mellon has estimated that we could free up something like 15 percent of our total grid capacity if we moved to a locally generated system.

But you wouldn't know that from the way some utilities calculate reliability statistics. The Columbus Dispatch reports that in spite of a wave of recent outages due to winds knocking out power lines, reliability statistics still look surprisingly good. Why?

The reliability statistics themselves are controversial. Major storms, such as the September wind storm that knocked out power to 700,000 AEP customers, are not included on the list. Utility officials contend, and regulators agree, that major storms would cause breakdowns in even the best systems, and are therefore not helpful in measuring overall reliability.

That means the September wind storm, the January ice storm, and this week's high winds will not be considered when the PUCO puts together reliability statistics for AEP.

"For analysis purposes, you've got to remove the anomalies," said Selwyn Dias, vice president for regulatory and finance at AEP Ohio.

So rather than build a more reliable grid, we will simply assume the grid we have -- and its innate exposure to weather-related outages -- is immutable.

Tomorrow: I'm favored to be the top pick in the upcoming NBA draft, once you remove the anomalies of my height, 30-percent shooting percentage, and lack of credible crossover move.

Superb NYT story captures both coal's peril and the barriers to its elimination

"Is America Ready to Quit Coal?"

So asks a must-read story by Melanie Warner in the Sunday New York Times.

And so, slowly, fitfully, that possibility -- the possibility not just of cleaning up coal or using less coal but eliminating coal -- creeps its way into the American public consciousness.

The headline isn't the only thing worth celebrating. I would quibble with some details, but overall this piece comes closer than anything I've ever seen in the national media to getting the big story right.

It starts off by describing what too few people understand: coal is in a perilous position. Already building new coal plants is extremely expensive; any new regulations -- on CO2, MTR mining, coal ash, you name it -- could put new plants permanently off the table.

But the more interesting parts, to me, are those that describe the barriers in the way of quitting coal. Here are the big three, in order of importance:

The fear that that there's no alternative.

"[W]hether renewables can keep the lights on and our iPods charged remains an open question."

Loss aversion is, in your author's humble opinion, at the core of the coal fight. If the American people can be convinced an alternative is possible, they will not accept dirty, unhealthy energy, any more than they accept tainted water or cars without seat belts. But the fear of letting go of the devil they know, the fear of jumping into the unknown, is incredibly potent.

"Charging iPods" trivializes it; electricity provides basic sustenance, shelter, and comfort for families. For children. This is primal lizard-brain stuff. You do not mess with it lightly. Those looking to dethrone coal in the public imagination would do well to focus most of their firepower not on coal itself but on establishing the credibility and reliability of the renewables/efficiency alternative. It can't be cutting edge and whizbang forever. It's got to be safe for soccer moms in suburban Atlanta.

The fear of rising prices.

Climate Central takes on Iowa corn

Climate Central bills itself as "a think tank with a production studio." This is what they do:

Using both staff experts and an extended blue ribbon network of scientists, Climate Central assesses and synthesizes the latest science, technology, and policy proposals. Our experienced communications team turns that information into creative, easily understood, and graphically rich pieces for print, television and the web.

They've got some serious names behind the project, including John Holdren and Jane Lubchenco before they were snapped up by the Obama administration. (Full disclosure: Grist board member Ben Strauss is a member of the CC team.)

CC just got up and running recently -- the full site doesn't debut until Spring -- but it's already turning out some great stuff. The latest is "Iowa: Corn and Climate," a video that recently aired on PBS's The News Hour with Jim Lehrer. Here it is (starts about a minute in):

The coolest thing, though, is that the video comes with an annotated transcript that takes virtually every sentence and substantiates it with a relevant bit of science, news report, or infographic. You get the public-friendly video and the wonk-friendly reference work, all in one package. Not bad.

CC aims to be an impeccably credible source of information on a highly contested set of subjects. It looks like they're off to a great start.

Seattle Greendrinkers show Grist some love

Seattle, we love you! And we love that you showed us the love Tuesday night at Greendrinks.

Our event at the LEED-designed Veer Lofts in South Lake Union drew some 450 Greendrinkers excited about catching up with old friends, mingling with new ones, and sharing green ideas and good times with all.

Generous donations from Pizza Fusion, Sierra Nevada Brewing Company, Snoqualmie Wines, Guayaki Teas, Clif Bar, Essential Baking Company, and Full Circle Farm provided sustainable (and delectable) sustenance -- and kept the crowd buzzing.

We also had photographers roaming the scene, asking Greendrinkers to hold up signs showing what it is they love. We got responses ranging from bikes, to national parks, to "snuggles." Check out the photos for yourself in our Flickr slideshow (below). Then share your own by joining our Grist Local Flickr group.

And if you wish that you'd known a little sooner about this great green event in Seattle, subscribe to our Grist Local: Seattle email list to receive weekly news about green goings-on in the Emerald City.

Uber-denier Inhofe misquotes Hadley, gives big wet Valentine's kiss to Pielke

Once again, the office of Denier-in-Chief (DIC) Sen. James Inhofe (R-Oil) has put out a press release riddled with misstatements. This one has a twist, though: a Valentine's love letter to denier-eq. Roger Pielke, Jr.

The DIC's last two releases were notable for their outright lies and distortions [see here and here.]

So it's no surprise that the DIC's pre-Valentine's Day missive is one big disinformation-fest, starting with the headline:

Climate of Change: UK Met Office Issues 'Blistering Attack on Scientific Colleagues' For 'Apocalyptic Climate Predictions'

You will not be surprised to learn that the U.K. Met Office issued no attack on scientific colleagues for "apocalyptic climate predictions." Dr. Vicky Pope, head of climate change advice at the Met Office did write a column for the U.K.'s Guardian that begins:

News headlines vie for attention and it is easy for scientists to grab this attention by linking climate change to the latest extreme weather event or apocalyptic prediction. But in doing so, the public perception of climate change can be distorted. The reality is that extreme events arise when natural variations in the weather and climate combine with long-term climate change. This message is more difficult to get heard. Scientists and journalists need to find ways to help to make this clear without the wider audience switching off.

That is really all Pope has to say about "apocalyptic predictions." She doesn't actually criticize any predictions that I would consider to be apocalyptic.

Indeed, Pope herself is the principal source of the major recent apocalyptic prediction made by climate scientists -- ironically in a December article in the Guardian, "Met Office warn of 'catastrophic' rise in temperature" (see here):

In a worst-case scenario, where no action is taken to check the rise in Greenhouse gas emissions, temperatures would most likely rise by more than 5°C by the end of the century.

You want an apocalyptic prediction? Try 5-7°C warming this century. So the implication of the DIC's press release and headline -- that Pope thinks the business as usual emissions trajectory the DIC wants to keep us on is not apocalyptic -- is quite, quite wrong.

The only prediction she talks about that comes close to being apocalyptic is: