Gristmill

Magic exists: It's called 'cap-and-trade'

One of the problems with carbon taxes is that they're static. Let's say you set a tax at $20 per ton of CO2. It's going to stay at $20 when the economy is hot, even if the tax rate doesn't do much to reduce emissions. Conversely, when the economy goes south, the carbon tax will persist at $20, even though emissions may be dropping fast on their own -- and companies may need some breathing room.

The first scenario is bad for the climate. The second scenario is bad for the economy.

If only there were a way for carbon pricing to respond to changing economic conditions in real time without any intervention from policymakers. If only. That would be like magic.

But I have good news for you: magic exists! There is such a thing as a magical self-adjusting carbon tax. It tracks economic conditions precisely and it always ensures the right amount of reductions. It's called "cap-and-trade."

'Irreversible' climate change does not mean 'unstoppable' climate change

Note to media: The Ghost of Climate Yet to Come says, "It's not too late!"

RealClimate makes a good point with the title of its post, "Irreversible Does Not Mean Unstoppable" about the recent NOAA led paper (see here):

We at Realclimate have been getting a lot of calls from journalists about this paper, and some of them seem to have gone all doomsday on us.

Indeed, this is the perfect paper for someone, like say, Lou Dobbs, who can go from hard-core doubt/denial to credulous hopelessness in one breath, as he did Friday (h/t ClimateScienceWatch):

Let's assume, for right now, that there is such a thing as climate change, let's assume it's manmade. What indication-what evidence do we have, what reason do we have to believe that mankind can do anything significantly to reverse it because a number of people, as you know in the last two weeks, are reported that, that, this is a 1,000-year trend irrespective of what we do.

Yeah, let's assume, for right now, there is climate change and let's further assume it's man-made since there's like no factual basis for actually knowing those things. Then let's tell the public the latest research means if there is man-made climate change, the situation is now hopeless -- when in fact the latest research makes it all the more urgent to keep total emissions and concentrations as low as posisble

Seriously. This guy has his own hour TV show on a major cable network -- albeit one that fired its staff covering science and environment and hired a psychic to cover climate change (OK, let's assume, for right now, that I made up that last part).

The whole world has become Dickensian, which just happens to remind me of another Dickens story relevant to the theme that irreversible does not mean unstoppable:

In which industry conquers nature

This is neither here nor there, but it just occurred to me: Last night, the Steelers -- a team named after Pittsburgh's legendary industrial past -- beat the Cardinals, a team closely identified with a bird. Industry beats nature. Prophecy?

Schumer calls for increase in transit funding in stimulus package

Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) is pushing to get more mass-transit money into the Senate version of the economic stimulus package, teaming up with Rep. Jerrold Nadler, a fellow New York Democrat, who successfully squeezed an additional $3 billion for transit into the House stimulus bill last week. “In order for our economy to get the […]

Vote today on your fave carbon cap video

Environmental Defense Action Fund is holding a video contest to "explain in 30 seconds how capping global warming pollution could help solve our oil addiction."

They've narrowed down the video submissions to the top five and are encouraging everyone to vote on a favorite by tonight. Check out two of the five videos below and vote on the best one here. The winning video producer will receive the Climate Activist's Choice Award, which comes with a $1,000 prize.

Taking a dive into the murky future of extracting food from the troubled sea

In my work on food and agriculture, I've focused nearly 100 percent on land-based issues. But the earth's vast and gaping oceans have always been a major source for human nutrition -- and will be only more so as population grows over the next decades. No one who writes on intersections between food and ecology can ignore the seas. I need to educate myself.

With that in mind, I'm currently attending the Seafood Summit, a confab sponsored by a combination of NGOs (e.g., Marine Stewardship Council), foundations (e.g., Packard), and corporate interests (e.g., Darden, which owns Red Lobster and other restaurant chains).

The hottest topic here is aquaculture -- a truly new practice with a history of around 50 years, compared with agriculture's 10,000-year track record. The question isn't whether aquaculture will continue to grow explosively over the next decades; the question is whether it will mimic the blunders of land-based industrial agriculture, or move in more sustainable directions.

Look for my seafood-ish posts over the next couple of days.

A small example of dynamic ice

Looking up from my keyboard, I saw a perfect illustration of what's happening underneath ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica. Two recent snowstorms dumped eight inches of heavy snow, followed by an afternoon of very warm air and a sharp rain. The rainwater lubricated the snow packs on my neighbor's roof and they began to slide. The temperature fell quickly with nightfall, leaving us with a perfect example of dynamic ice.

See the photo below the fold:

EPA Administrator Jackson's first public appearance

Those of you who did not make it to New York on Jan. 29-30 for the 20th anniversary celebration of WE ACT for Environmental Justice, a national conference on Advancing Climate Justice: Transforming the Economy, Public Health and Our Environment, missed an inspirational high. You also missed a political milestone.

The event marked the first public speech by new EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, who laid out the nation's new environmental-justice and climate-change priorities. President Obama echoed Jackson's sentiments and made a statement to the Muslim world by giving his first TV interview to Al Arabiya television.

Civilized, reasoned discussion and debate on environmental health and inequality, on the complexities of climate change economics, on cap-and-trade, cap-and-dividend, carbon charges, and on greening the economy as we invest in new infrastructure framed the formal content. But those substantive sessions were just the subtext.

Barney Frank on why tax cuts can’t do it all

“I never saw a tax cut fix a bridge. I never saw a tax cut give us more public transportation. The fact is, we need a mix.” — Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.), chair of the House Financial Services Committee, refuting arguments from Republicans that the economic stimulus bill should be scrapped in favor of their […]