Articles by Joseph Romm

Subsidized power leads to energy waste

Philippines president Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo spoke at the opening plenary of the Clinton Global Initiative. Unintentionally, her remarks illustrated the challenge of sustainable development.

First the good news -- green power:

We are endowed with geothermal power and it fits very well with our Green Philippines program. We want to use clean energy, we want to have energy independence, and geothermal power gives us clean energy and energy independence. Just before coming here yesterday, I was in an island in Santro Philippines, in a geothermal field. In fact the biggest wet field of geothermal power in the world. And what we did was we presided over yesterday a turnover of a build, operate, and transfer project from the private sector to the government sector. I had a similar turn over a few weeks ago, and the private sector has been able to get, the investors have been able to get their money back before they turn it over to the national government. So it's been a well paying proposition for them, too.

Now the bad news (which she thought was good news) -- subsidized power:

The death of ‘The Death of Environmentalism’

What do Michael Crichton, Bjorn Lomborg, Frank Luntz, George W. Bush (and his climate/energy advisors) have in common with Michael Shellenberger & Ted Nordhaus? They all believe that (1) new "breakthrough" technologies are needed to solve the global warming problem and (2) investing in such technology is far more important than regulating carbon.

In fairness to President Bush -- he doesn't really believe those two things (as evidenced by the fact that he has actually cut funding for key carbon-reducing technologies), he just says them because conservative strategist Frank Luntz says it's the best way to sound like you care about global warming without doing anything about it.

The "breakthrough technology" message is certainly the cleverest one the deniers and delayers have invented -- who wouldn't rather have a techno-fix than higher energy prices? That's why Lomborg endorses it so much in his book, Cool It -- but it is certainly wrong and dangerously so, as I argue at length in my book.

Why two people who say they care about the environment -- Shellenberger & Nordhaus (S&N) -- embrace it, I don't understand. I won't waste time reading their new instant bestseller, unhelpfully titled Break Through, and you shouldn't either (Roger Pielke, Jr., and Gregg Easterbrook endorse it -- 'nuff said). I've read more than enough misinformation from them in their landmark essay,"The Death of Environmentalism," and recent articles in The New Republic (subs. req'd) and Gristmill (here and here).

S&N simply don't know what they're talking about. Worse, their message plays right into the hands of those who counsel delay. For that reason, I will spend some time debunking them. Here is the most dangerous S&N falsehood, from TNR:

Hansen’s response to a claim that he accepted money from George Soros

I don't know how NASA's James Hansen keeps up his pace of writing -- or how he puts up with the steady stream of disinformation launched against him. I am not trying to create a cult of personality around him, but I do feel under some obligation to give his writing as much attention as possible -- as I think he has done more than any other scientist to raise awareness on climate change, and deserves our thanks, not slander.

"The latest swift-boating," Hansen explains in a new post (PDF), "is the whacko claim that I received $720,000.00 from George Soros." Here is a smear from Investors Business Daily, of all places -- I have no idea why investors would be interested in such drivel -- which migrated over to the conservative websight NewsBusters in an article titled, "Is Global Warming Alarmist James Hansen a Shill for George Soros?"

Hansen explains, "Here is the real deal, with the order of things, as well as I can remember without wasting even more time digging into papers and records":

John Dingell’s carbon-tax bill is designed to be unpopular

The carbon plan of Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.) is considerably lamer -- and more transparently a poison pill -- than early reports suggested. So I strongly disagree with Chris Dodd, Friends of the Earth, and Gristmill's Charles Komanoff, who all applaud the bill. Here's why.

First, as Dingell himself has said, he wanted to design a bill with maximum pain to prove to everyone how unpalatable greenhouse gas mitigation is (see below). Why else include a pointless $0.50 gasoline tax on top of the carbon tax? Dingell actually has a double agenda here -- to torpedo climate legislation and a toughening of CAFE at once. Taxes are unpopular enough -- but two of them? Come on! We've seen gasoline prices jump two dollars a gallon in recent years, with little impact on usage. What would another 50 cents do, except piss people off? It would never make the final bill, and Dingell knows it.

Second, Dingell "phases out the mortgage interest on primary mortgages on houses over 3,000 square feet." But why? Here is the lame answer: