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Obama's pick to head regulatory oversight agency draws criticism, sends Dave on tangent

Last week Obama announced that he'd be appointing Harvard Law professor (and prolific public intellectual) Cass Sunstein as head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs.

You could be forgiven for reacting to that news with a large yawn. But it's important!

First of all, OIRA is a big deal -- the conduit through which the entire suite of federal regulations passes. It can be used, as it was under Reagan and Bush, to stifle such regulations, or -- as will hopefully be the case under Obama -- to make them smarter and more effective. Ezra Klein has a great rundown on OIRA here, explaining its history and significance.

Some progressives are worried by the appointment because Sunstein is an outspoken proponent of cost-benefit analysis (CBA), which has been the death of many a progressive reg. Over on The New Republic, NYU Law professor Michael Livermore makes the case that Sunstein is a good choice because CBA needs to be reformed rather than scrapped. (It's a case he and his colleague Richard Revesz have made on Grist more than once.)

Do the emissions from a single Google search matter?

Apparently the question of how much greenhouse gas emissions can be traced to a single Google search is the hottest topic on the internets.

Research from U.S. physicist Alex Wissner-Gross says a single search produces 7g of CO2. Google says, nuh uh, it only produces 0.2g CO2 -- less than your personal computer generates while running it. Lots more here.

There may be some value in drawing attention to the substantial carbon footprint of the IT industry, but by the time this kind of thing gets filtered through the media it ends up yet another story about how every human action is a source of guilt and shame. Now they want us to search Google less?

In fact, the emissions of Google searches is a goofy distraction. As Joe notes, the internet has been a phenomenal driver of energy efficiency and dematerialization. Imagine how much clueless driving around has been eliminated by Google Maps!

White House chefs and the limits of personal choice

About a month ago, high-profile foodies got pretty amped up about whom Obama would choose as White House chef. Three of them -- Berkeley sustainable food doyenne Alice Waters, Gourmet editor Ruth Reichl, and New York City restaurateur Denny Mayer -- even got together to pen a letter urging the incoming president to replace the current White House chef with someone who chooses locally grown, organic food -- preferably sourced from an on-site vegetable garden. According to a New York Times account, the letter states:

A person of integrity who is devoted to the ideals of sustainability and health would send a powerful message that food choices matter. Supporting seasonal, ripe delicious American food would not only nourish your family, it would support our farmers, inspire your guests, and energize the nation.

Last week, Obama defied this gentle effort to convince him to send the incumbent chef packing. Cristeta Comerford, who has been in charge of cooking first-family meals for the Bushes since 2005, will retain her post, the Obama team announced.

My first reaction to this news was disappointment. After choosing an agribiz-friendly pol as USDA chief, couldn't Obama at least make a symbolic nod in the direction of the sustainable-food movement by picking a new chef?

Now I'm not sure what the fuss was about in the first place.

Thirteen years ago

"There's a strong possibility that Barack will pursue a career in politics, although it's not very clear yet."

-- Michelle Obama, in a 1996 interview with Le Monde (which also included her husband) that's just been published in English for the first time

Steven Chu’s stances on key energy issues: a primer for his confirmation hearing

Stephen Chu. Steven Chu, Nobel laureate and director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, will go before the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee for his confirmation hearing on Tuesday, where he’s certain to be grilled about his positions on key energy and climate issues. Here’s a guide to what Chu thinks — or at […]

Robert Mendelsohn says global warming is 'a good thing for Canada'

I asserted in Part 1 that economists don't understand climate science. Exhibit 1 would be Robert Mendelsohn, an economics professor at Yale University, whose "research" has prompted headlines in our neighbor up north like "A warmer climate could hold lots of benefits for Canada" and "The UP side of global warming":

Leading the charge is Robert Mendelsohn, an economics professor at Yale University, who says the benefits of global warming for Canada -- from a longer growing season to the opening up of shipping through the Northwest Passage -- will outweigh the negative effects.

"You're lucky because you're a northern-latitude country, Mendelsohn says. "If you add it all up, it's a good thing for Canada."

This series will have three recurring themes about Voodoo Economists aka Mainstream Economists who Opine on Weather (MEOWs):

1. MEOW's understanding of what global warming is doing to the planet now and what it is likely to do by 2100 on our current emissions path ranges from arrogantly incomplete to criminally ignorant. They really talk more about the weather than the climate.
2. MEOW's cost-benefit calculations ["if you add it all up"] are analytically unsound and qualify more as an opinion than a scientifically accurate statement.
3. The right wing loves what the economics profession is saying and publishing on climate, which is why they quote and cite them so giddily.

For instance, you would never know from this article -- or any of Mendelsohn's comments -- that Canada is already suffering widespread and completely unpredicted devastation from climate change:

"The pine beetle infestation is the first major climate change crisis in Canada" notes Doug McArthur, a professor at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver.

The pests are "projected to kill 80 per cent of merchantable and susceptible lodgepole pine" in parts of British Columbia within 10 years -- and that's why the harvest levels in the region have been "increased significantly." One analyst calls the devastation "probably the biggest landscape-level change since the ice age."

Losing every harvestable pine tree in British Columbia is apparently not a big deal to arrogant MEOWs like Mendelsohn:

Forests will become more productive, Mendelsohn says. The northern forests will expand into the tundra and the southern forests will grow better. The types of trees in different regions will change. Fire and disease might well take out old forests, but Mendelsohn says forestry companies can also be allowed to go in and take out at-risk trees. "Rather than let it be destroyed naturally, you harvest it into the marketplace and then just let the natural systems replace what should be there next."

Yeah, cut down the "old forests" before the climate-driven pests get them and replace them with "what should be there" -- that's an economic plus for everyone! If you look up hubris in the dictionary ...

The reality on the ground is quite different than the opining from Mendelsohn's ivory tower (Note to self: Maybe the towers are made of ivory because in economist-land there ain't no friggin' trees left). As the Chicago Tribune reported this month in a story titled, "Canada's forests, once huge help on greenhouse gases, now contribute to climate change":

How to make an industry irrelevant in one easy step

The mayor of Franklin, Tenn., vetoed some of the green elements of the new police headquarters in order to save money. The first thing to go? Bamboo wainscoting.

China's BYD to bring plug-in hybrid, electric cars to U.S. in 2011

DETROIT, Michigan, Jan. 12, 2009 (AFP) — China’s BYD Auto announced plans Monday to enter the U.S. market in 2011 with a range of electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles. It would likely be the first Chinese automaker to enter the highly-competitive U.S. market and beat many established automakers in offering an extended-range electric vehicle to […]

Slovakia tests E.U.'s patience with nuclear plant relaunch plan

BRATISLAVA, Jan. 12, 2009 (AFP) — Slovakia is keeping the European Union on tenterhooks with its plan to reactivate an outdated nuclear reactor in a bid to avert an energy crisis after gas pipelines from Russia dried up. The plan provoked angry reactions from the E.U. and environmentalists even though Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico […]

Half of world's population could face climate-driven food crisis by 2100

"Ignoring climate projections at this stage will only result in the worst form of triage."

The headline is from the University of Washington news release on a study in Science, "Historical Warnings of Future Food Insecurity with Unprecedented Seasonal Heat" ($ub. req'd). The quote is the study's powerful final sentence. The release explains:

Rapidly warming climate is likely to seriously alter crop yields in the tropics and subtropics by the end of this century and, without adaptation, will leave half the world's population facing serious food shortages, new research shows ...

"The stresses on global food production from temperature alone are going to be huge, and that doesn't take into account water supplies stressed by the higher temperatures," said David Battisti, a University of Washington atmospheric sciences professor.

Worse, the study must also be considered a serious underestimate of likely impacts since, as is common in such analyses, they based their simulations on "the 'middle of the road' emission scenario, A1B." In 2100, A1B hits about 700 ppm with average global temperatures "only" about 3°C warmer than today. In fact, on our current emissions path, we are going to get much, much hotter.

Figure. "Histogram of summer (June, July, and August) averaged temperatures (blue) observed from 1900 to 2006 and (red) projected for 2090 for (A) France, (B) Ukraine, and (C) the Sahel. Temperature is plotted as the departure from the long-term (1900-2006) climatological mean (21). The data are normalized to represent 100 seasons in each histogram. In (A), for example, the hottest summer on record in France (2003) is 3.6°C above the long-term climatology. The average summer temperature in 2090 [assuming A1B] is projected to be 3.7°C greater than the long-term climatological average."

The results are still alarming: