Articles by Gar Lipow

Carbon taxes and carbon trading: same deal

Every now and then I see a comment on the carbon-trading wars along the lines of: "Can't we just have everything -- rule-based regulations, carbon trading, carbon taxes, and public initiatives?"

The problem with this is that carbon trading and carbon taxes accomplish the same thing -- they put a price on carbon. If carbon trading works, you don't need carbon taxes. A call for carbon taxes is an admission that carbon trading doesn't work well in putting a price on carbon.

It’s all about inequality

Blogging about the new Elizabeth Kolbert article in the New Yorker, David writes:

But then, there's the nagging thought. Lovins can always talk and explain and persuade better than we can -- he's a friggin' genius -- but the intuitive question keeps returning: if there were so many errors, and so much benefit to be gained by correcting them, and it's all so easy ... why isn't it happening? Something doesn't fit.

Roberts quotes Kolbert expressing similar thoughts:

Lovins's promise that apparently intractable problems -- oil dependence, global warming, nuclear proliferation -- can be profitably resolved is both the great appeal of his approach and its biggest liability. Much of what he recommends sounds just too good to be true, the econometric version of "Shed pounds by eating chocolate!"

This is a good question, and one of my early posts on this blog partially answered it. Energy demand has low long-term price elasticity (PDF). (That's economic jargon for, "people tend to overlook a lot of profitable opportunities to save energy.") That, in turn, implies that Amory Lovins has spotted something real. We have overlooked, over a period of decades, profitable opportunities at market prices -- opportunities that were profitable even without carbon taxes or emissions caps. "Market failure" is not a strong enough term for a system that could consistently go so wrong.

Tree plantations are bad for people and no good for offsetting carbon

We've discussed problems with carbon offsets from an economic viewpoint, and from their abuse as a misleading public relations tool. But perhaps we should focus on the awesome cruelty of their human costs.

At present, offsets are impossible to verify

It is time environmental writers to stop accepting PR spin, and double check claims of "carbon neutrality" whether they come from giant corporations, the Super Bowl, or a really cool film festival.

Carbon offsets are almost always either an honest error or a scam.