LETTERS
Sunday Dialogue: Tackling Global Warming
Published: April 6, 2013
Readers urge carbon taxes, lifestyle changes and a new term.
To the Editor:
President Obama has put climate change back on the national agenda, but actually doing something about it is famously difficult. This time will be no different if policy makers let the best become the enemy of the good.
Hoping for the best gets us in trouble in two ways. First, while science can make a strong case for starting now to control carbon dioxide and other gases that lead to climate change, it can’t yet say exactly how much to do when. Yet the game will be lost if we require that science nail down every uncertainty.
The second problem is that solving the climate problem requires changing a vast energy infrastructure on a global scale. The scope and scale of this challenge far exceed any other environmental problem we’ve seen before. It’s no surprise that many existing government rules and institutions aren’t up to the job of managing climate policy.
Rather than waiting for settled science and perfected institutions, today’s policy should aggressively promote steps that will make useful progress at low cost. Energy efficiency is the prime example; we know that we can use energy more efficiently, yet we don’t.
As highlighted by the American Academy report “Beyond Technology: Strengthening Energy Policy Through Social Science,” social scientists can help resolve this paradox, and so energy policy makers should incorporate the social sciences into their thinking. It could be as simple as writing a clear energy-efficiency label or as complex as productively engaging local citizens about a fracking project.
But it’s also essential to invest in understanding what policies and institutions must come into being to manage the climate problem over the long term. Our scientific establishment should encourage this new and exciting area of research.
ROBERT W. FRI
Bethesda, Md., April 1, 2013
Bethesda, Md., April 1, 2013
The writer is chairman of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences’ Alternative Energy Future project and a visiting scholar at Resources for the Future.
Readers React
The solution to global warming — the only real solution — starts and ends with making polluters pay. It does wonders, large and small.
A cap on sulfur dioxide in the 1990s stopped the worst effects of acid rain by removing much of the sulfur dioxide produced by coal-fired power plants. Carbon caps and pricing are helping to decarbonize electricity generation in Europe, California, New Zealand and Australia.
The prices don’t have to be high to show effects. A 5-cent surcharge per disposable bag in Washington, D.C., cut bag use 80 percent within a year by some estimates.
Of course, wishing we had a strong cap on carbon won’t make it so. That’s where decisive, immediate action from President Obama’s administration comes in: everything from applying the Clean Air Act to global warming pollution, as instructed by the Supreme Court, to reining in methane leakage from our natural gas system.
Put together, these administrative actions alone could get us a long way toward where we need to be, until Congress finally gets ready to follow the will of the people to tackle global warming pollution.
GERNOT WAGNER
Economist
Environmental Defense Fund
New York, April 3, 2013
Economist
Environmental Defense Fund
New York, April 3, 2013
The perfect can be the enemy of the good, but here moderation or “probity” might turn out to be the enemy of life. In the midst of all the conditionals and uncertainties, one thing that can be said about mainstream climate science is that it has always been behind the curve, always catching up with the moving reality on the ground. The facts have repeatedly aligned with radical predictions, like those of the scientist James Hansen, who is now talking about the oceans boiling off and leaving the earth lifeless.
ROBERT LEVIN
Capitola, Calif., April 3, 2013
Capitola, Calif., April 3, 2013
In any scientific endeavor, the burden is on those who propose a theory to provide the proof. In the case of man-made global warming, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s models have come up short. This is clearly a case where consensus and facts diverge, showing that the former is the realm of politics, not science.
The issue shouldn’t be what to do about climate change, but whether we should institute monumental policies based on less than robust theories. Cheap energy is perhaps one of the greatest factors in lifting a society out of poverty. What is the humanitarian and moral price of raising the cost of energy for developing nations based on speculative science?
TIMOTHY NAYLOR
Brooklyn, April 3, 2013
Brooklyn, April 3, 2013
Mr. Fri makes two excellent points: We must tackle the climate problem now, and “many existing government rules and institutions aren’t up to the job of managing climate policy.”
However, what is too complex for governments is eminently doable by private enterprise — if the conditions are right. And in this context, the government’s task is quite simple — impose a financial burden on the causes of global warming, and specifically a tax on emissions of carbon dioxide.
Once an appropriate carbon tax is in place, private industry will have the incentive to improve energy efficiency, develop alternate energy sources, deploy nuclear power, commercialize carbon capture and do that which is most difficult for government — come up with new approaches to the problem.
Government’s role is as facilitator. The market will do the rest.
ZVI J. DORON
Pittsburgh, April 3, 2013
Pittsburgh, April 3, 2013
The writer is a retired nuclear engineer and co-author of a book (in German) about energy and climate policies.
I agree with Mr. Fri’s suggestion of more involvement by the social sciences, but I would also add the psychological sciences.
Our brains are hard-wired to address immediate danger with a fight-or-flight response, but our response for distant risk is more of a hug-and-shrug one, if you will. We need to make the future risks seem more immediate.
We need to appreciate why certain countries, businesses and people may want to play down the risks. Empathize and help them find alternatives.
Names have important psychological implications, as any parent and business knows. “Global warming” is benign at best, and “warming” will be welcomed by some geographical areas. “Climate change” implies either something harmful or beneficial. More psychologically accurate and worrisome would be the term “climate instability.”
We need an optimal Goldilocks amount of anxiety regarding this issue. Too little leads to apathy. Too much can lead to denial. Those in the psychological sciences can help us find the way to get the right anxiety temperature.
H. STEVEN MOFFIC
Milwaukee, April 3, 2013
Milwaukee, April 3, 2013
The writer is a psychiatrist.
Mr. Fri is convincing as he argues that we should “aggressively promote steps that will make useful progress at low cost.” But no solution to the issues will be successful without recognition of the depth of our cultural entitlements: the warmed/cooled home, the flights to Bangkok and London, the annual vacation that requires thousands of miles of driving, the apples from New Zealand and asparagus from Ecuador.
We have somehow earned these marks of success, and all require huge quantities of fossil fuels. We are a nation of addicts; no social scientist will change that fact, and no policy will be successful until the addictions are recognized and confronted.
KIRK NEVIN
Corvallis, Ore., April 3, 2013
Corvallis, Ore., April 3, 2013
The “Beyond Technology: Strengthening Energy Policy Through Social Science” report is fine and good, but as a social scientist, I believe that asking the right questions at the right time is all important. These are some questions I don’t see in the report:
¶How can any real progress be made at the governmental level when key actors on the political scene, who are in denial about the environmental challenges, are able to block virtually any legislation or other action that does not fit their mind-set?
¶How can the world respond to the challenges of the environment when the global economy is driven by a quest for short-term private profits by any means possible, regardless of the long-term consequences to society and the environment?
I fear that until such time that the environmental consequences are manifested in ways that we cannot even imagine today, we will continue on largely oblivious to the likely consequences.
DAVID L. ELLIOTT
Loudonville, N.Y., April 3, 2013
Loudonville, N.Y., April 3, 2013
Mr. Fri puts energy efficiency forward as a target. One step in that direction would be the implementation of a simple 15-word law that I’d like to call Raphaelson’s Law: “No public building shall be kept at a cooler temperature in July than in January.” Who hasn’t wished for a sweater in an over-air-conditioned movie theater in summer or sweltered in a store in winter? What a waste of energy.
Of course, such a law would be hard to enforce. But the principle could be advocated and publicized. Thermostats set three or four degrees lower in winter and higher in summer could save incalculably huge amounts of kilowatt-hours.
JOEL RAPHAELSON
Chicago, April 3, 2013
Chicago, April 3, 2013
The Writer Responds
These responses bring into sharp focus why dealing with the climate challenge is so thoroughly frustrating. Mr. Wagner is exactly right in saying we know what the most important policy is — put a price on carbon. And, as Mr. Zoron says, that will unleash the innovation of the private sector, an essential element for solving the problem. Yet, even though they should know what to do, policy makers have failed to act. Unfortunately, as Mr. Levin suggests, inaction only makes the problem harder the longer it lasts. So I think we can agree that if only our leaders would shape up and pass a carbon tax, all would be much better. But it’s not going to happen. We can’t expect our leaders and institutions to jump overnight from doing the few things that are feasible now to mounting a full-scale — and very expensive — onslaught on the climate problem.
That’s why I think the problem is less about designing the policies we should adopt over the long run than it is figuring out how to get from here to there. Realistically, it will be a stepwise process, and we need careful thought on how to design the needed steps. We haven’t had enough of that kind of thinking.
In the meantime, I’d be happy if we could achieve Dr. Moffic’s “optimal Goldilocks amount of anxiety” about climate change.
ROBERT W. FRI
Bethesda, Md., April 5, 2013
Bethesda, Md., April 5, 2013
OP-ED COLUMNIST
How We’ve Wasted Our Timeout
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: April 6, 2013 138 Comments
YES, it’s true — a crisis is a terrible thing to waste. But a “timeout” is also a terrible thing to waste, and as I look at the world today I wonder if that’s exactly what we’ve just done. We’ve wasted a five-year timeout from geopolitics, and if we don’t wake up and get our act together as a country — and if the Chinese, Russians and Europeans don’t do the same — we’re all really going to regret it.
Josh Haner/The New York Times
Thomas L. Friedman
Readers’ Comments
Readers shared their thoughts on this article.
Think about what a relative luxury we’ve enjoyed since the Great Recession hit in 2008. We, the Europeans and the world’s other major powers all have been able to focus almost entirely on healing our own economies — without having to worry about a major war or globe-rattling conflict that would snuff out our fragile economic recoveries or require extensive new defense spending. Relatively speaking, the world in the last five years has had a geopolitical timeout.
But now, everywhere you turn, you see different actors standing with their toes on red lines, seemingly ready and willing, even itching, to cross them at any moment. North Korea’s boy king, Kim Jong-un, who seems totally off the grid, has ordered his strategic rocket forces to be on standby, ready to hit U.S. and South Korean targets at a moment’s notice. Which is why you see the South Koreans starting to wonder aloud whether they should stay on this side of the red line and not be building their own nuclear bomb. Iran is also steadily getting closer to a similar combination of a homemade nuclear weapon and delivery system, and so far no sanctions have deterred Tehran. Meanwhile, Egypt is running out of money to buy bread for its people and is perilously close to crossing the red line into failed-state status, which would destabilize the whole region. At the same time, Syria’s mad leader, Bashar al-Assad, having been given the choice of “rule or ruin,” has chosen ruin for his country, which is also approaching state collapse, raising the prospect of jihadist militias picking through the rubble to obtain chemical weapons and sophisticated surface-to-air missiles — with no adult supervision.
Finally, the bailed-out euro zone states just had to bail out Cyprus — a bailout by the bailed-out — leading one to wonder just how many more Band-Aids the European Union has left. Maybe you can bail out Cyprus and its people will accept the haircut on their bank accounts, but we are one thin red line away from Spaniards’ waking up one morning and asking why they should keep their money in euros in their banks, when there is a real possibility they could get a similar haircut. Warren Buffett likes to say that if you ever walk by a bank and there is a long line of people out front, “get in it.” A bank run is a terrible thing to miss.
If any one of these red lines, let alone all of them together, get crossed, we will rue the day that we did not use these last five years to make our own economy more resilient. After all, in sports, timeouts are when you catch your breath, try to make sense of what is coming at you at high speed, figure out what has been working and what has not, design a play to win the game and then collaborate on its execution.
Future historians will surely ask how we in America could not agree on sensible near-term infrastructure investment — to upgrade our country with cheap money — paired with a long-term package of tax reforms and spending cuts, phased in gradually as the economy improves, so we have a much sturdier balance sheet to survive any geopolitical storms. We’re now driving around without a bumper and a spare tire, just when the world seems poised to turn into a crash ’n’ smash derby. (Kudos to President Obama for still trying for a Grand Bargain. Will the G.O.P. step up?)
But historians will also ask China: What were you thinking? When will you realize that whatever is bad for America is not necessarily good for you? Will it take South Korea, Japan, Vietnam and Taiwan all getting nuclear weapons? China controls food and fuel going into North Korea. It could end the freak show there anytime it wants, by cutting off both and opening its border to refugees. Yes, it is worried about a united, nuclear Korea and a flood of refugees, but America could help facilitate a united, nonnuclear Korea and dealing with refugees.
Then there is the Russian president, Vladimir Putin — the man who was born on third base and thinks he hit a triple, because his country has so much oil and gas. Refusing to ease Assad out in Syria, rather than hanging tough with him, at best could alienate Russia from the next generation of rulers in Syria and at worst could help Syria turn into another Afghanistan. Do the Russians really believe that indulging Iran’s covert nuclear program, to spite us, won’t come back to haunt them with a nuclear-armed Iranian Islamist regime on its border?
In many ways Russia and China are more irresponsible than we are. We need to make ourselves resilient but are not. We are being shortsighted. They are being downright harmful.
But the net result is that we could all look back one day and wish we had used this timeout from any global geopolitical contagion more wisely. I hope historians won’t say that for five years we were lucky. And then we weren’t.
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