Republicans and Democrats Really Do Agree on Climate!

On July 29, 2018 an op-ed by the social psychologists Leaf Van Boven and David Sherman reported that majorities of both Republicans and Democrats agreed that “climate change is happening, threatens humans and is caused by human activity — and that reducing carbon emissions would mitigate the problem.”

They summarize the results of two national polls, in 2014 and 2016, that they administered (together with a third colleague; here we’re omitting some details of the way the experiments were carried out).  Important conclusions they present include:
 

·        “…most Republicans were in basic agreement with most Democrats and independents on this issue.”

·        Probably the “problem is not so much that Republicans are skeptical about climate change, but that Republicans are skeptical of Democrats — and that Democrats are skeptical of Republicans.”

·        In experiments with different input information, “Republicans supported climate policies that they [were told were] backed by Republicans and were neutral toward policies backed by Democrats. Democrats supported policies that they [were told were] backed by Democrats more than they supported policies backed by Republicans.”  This emphasizes that members of both parties succumbed to intensified tribalism on this issue.

·        “Among social psychology’s fundamental lessons is that people are profoundly affected by what other people think. In their desire to be upstanding members of their political tribe, people are pulled toward embracing the stances of their peers and loath to publicly disagree with them.”

·        The authors found “a consistent, if somewhat surprising, pattern: Political disagreement was substantially smaller when it came to Republican-backed policies.  In particular, there was very little distance between Republicans and Democrats when evaluating a Republican-proposed carbon tax.”

As a result, the authors surmise there may be bipartisan support for a plan proposed last year by six Republican economists and statesmen, former cabinet members and high-level officials in former Republican administrations.  This writer described this proposal in a previous post.  Its essence is a revenue-neutral carbon fee imposed on all fossil fuels (coal, petroleum and natural gas) in proportion to the amount of carbon dioxide each produces when burned.  It is revenue-neutral because all fee proceeds are distributed back to American taxpayers.   

A similar proposal has just been introduced in Congress by Republican Representative Carlos Curbelo.  The carbon fee is US$24/metric ton of carbon dioxide emitted, increasing with time.  The difference is that this proposal is not revenue-neutral, but uses the proceeds for highway construction, climate research and support to low income households.
 
The social psychology results described above are likely not outliers in public attitudes on climate change.  The Yale Program on Climate Change Communication (working with George Mason University‘s  Center for Climate Change Communication, and other research organizations) has been surveying American public opinion on this subject for many years.  In a report on May 8, 2018 they found:

·        “Most registered voters (73%) think global warming is happening, including 95% of liberal Democrats, 88% of moderate/conservative Democrats and 68% of liberal/moderate Republicans, but only 40% of conservative Republicans.

·        A majority of registered voters (59%) think global warming is caused mostly by human activities, including 84% of liberal Democrats, 70% of moderate/conservative Democrats, and 55% of liberal/moderate Republicans…, but only 26% of conservative Republicans.

·        A majority of registered voters (63%) are worried about global warming, including 88% of liberal Democrats, 76% of moderate/conservative Democrats, and 58% of liberal/moderate Republicans, but only 30% of conservative Republicans.”

·        Most registered voters support policies that would reduce use of fossil fuels and promote investing in renewable energy to replace the lost conventional energy.

Conclusion
 
Tribalistic outlooks separating Republicans and Democrats concerning global warming and its effects may be resolving, in favor of collective action to address the issue.  It is indeed critical to embark on meaningful policies at the federal level as soon as possible, in order to minimize the continuing rise in the global average temperature.  Popular attitudes and Congressional approaches are coalescing to promote political action.

© 2018 Henry Auer

Politics Trumps Science at the Environmental Protection Agency

Summary.  The Environmental Protection Agency cancelled presentations by three EPA scientists at a conference about the effects of climate change on Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island.  Their work focused on the effects of climate change on the ecology of the Bay.  EPA gave no reason.  It has been supporting this research for decades, but in its draft budget for the coming year the agency has zeroed out support for all 28 of its estuary projects.

Administrator Pruitt has publicly rejected the role of humans in causing climate change, suggesting there remains some disagreement over the issue.  In fact, 99.99% of climate scientists affirm the reality that humans cause global warming.  Scientists the world over agree fossil fuel use emits excess carbon dioxide which retains extra heat in the earth system, leading to warming and its harmful consequences.

Politicization of science harms the public because political considerations supersede scientific reality in developing policy.  Here EPA suppressed research findings characterizing effects of worsening climate change.  A professor of oceanography at the University of Rhode Island considers the muffling of his colleagues a deliberate act of scientific censorship.  We must all resist further efforts at stifling research.  We must reinstate bona fide science as the guide for our policies.

 

EPA Scientists Prevented from Speaking.  The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) abruptly cancelled the speaking presentations of three EPA scientists at a conference about the effects of climate change on Narragansett Bay, in Rhode Island, held on Oct. 23, 2017.   One of them, a research ecologist at the EPA’s National Health and Environmental Effects Research Laboratory Atlantic Ecology Division in Rhode Island was to give the keynote address.  The other two, a postdoctoral researcher at the same EPA facility and a scientific contractor for EPA, were to be on a panel addressing the topic “The Present and Future Biological Implications of Climate Change.”  EPA’s decision was relayed to the meeting organizers just one business day before the conference.  No substantive reason was provided for the prohibition. 

The NBE Program was the host for the conference.  It issued a 500-page Technical Report, entitled “The State of Narragansett Bay and Its Watershed”, on the day of the conference.  Of three effects stressing the condition of the bay, climate change was identified as one.  This in turn was broken down to effects of temperature change, precipitation intensity and frequency, and sea level rise.

The Narragansett Bay Estuary Program (NBE Program), long supported by EPA, has been studying the ecological health of the bay since 1985.  The NBE was recognized as an “estuary of national significance” by the EPA’s National Estuary Program in 1988.  For reasons such as these colleagues were surprised at the EPA’s prohibition.

Research support of US$26 million for all the 28 Estuary Programs, including the NBE Program, has been dropped from EPA’s proposed budget for 2018. 

Politicization of science harms the public because political considerations supersede scientific reality in developing policy.  Here EPA suppressed research findings characterizing effects of worsening climate change.  EPA’s interference with its NBE Program employees stifles scientific study related to climate change. “It’s definitely a blatant example of the scientific censorship we all suspected was going to start being enforced at EPA,” said John King, professor of oceanography at the University of Rhode Island, the head of the science advisory committee of the NBE Program. He continued “[t]hey don’t believe in climate change, so I think what they’re trying to do is stifle discussions of the impacts of climate change.”

Adminstrator Pruitt rejects human-caused climate change.  The NBE Program case is but one of the agency’s many political actions.  In March 2017 the Administrator, Scott Pruitt, said “…there’s tremendous disagreement about the degree of impact [of ‘human activity on the climate’], so no, I would not agree that it’s a primary contributor to the global warming that we see”.  Pruitt’s assertion conflicts directly with EPA’s own statement, reported by The Guardian on March 9, 2017, “carbon dioxide is the ‘primary greenhouse gas that is contributing to recent climate change’”. (This statement could not be accessed on Oct. 26, 2017 using the Guardian’s link to the EPA page.)   Pruitt’s statement is also contradicted by James Lawrence Powell’s journal article (Bulletin of Science, Technology & Society 1–4, 2016; DOI:10.1177/0270467616634958).  He found that during 2013 and 2014 only 4 of 69,406 (0.0058%) authors of peer-reviewed journal articles dealing with climate change rejected the reality of man-made global warming.  That is, there is no disagreement on impact of human activity on the climate.

EPA is cleansing its sites of references to climate change.  EPA has purged most content dealing with climate change from its web pages related to helping state and local governments deal with climate change.  The site, previously called “Climate and Energy Resources for State, Local and Tribal Governments” is now titled “Energy Resources for State, Local and Tribal Governments,” dropping the lead word “Climate”.  The original 375 web pages now are reduced to 175, with changes in content that an outside group terms “substantial”.  Looking to the future, a draft outline of EPA’s plans for the next four years omits mention of climate change.

EPA is undertaking a review of automobile Corporate Average Fuel Economy standards that were intended to increase efficiency and reduce fuel use by about half by 2025, the Portland Press Herald reports.  “Administrator Scott Pruitt is intent on subverting that agency’s mission. At the behest of automakers, he is now reconsidering vehicular emission standards that help protect public health, save consumers money, and guard against further climate disruption”, the newspaper writes.  It reports that William D. Ruckelshaus, former EPA director under two Republican presidents, says that Pruitt’s approach appears more like “taking a meat ax to the protections of public health and the environment and then hiding [the ax].” 

EPA recently announced a draft rule overturning the Clean Power Plan (CPP), the Obama administration’s detailed program to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from large electric generating plants.  While Scott Pruitt was Attorney General of Oklahoma he helped lead more than 24 states in suing to overturn the CPP.  Gina McCarthy, EPA Administrator under President Obama, said the proposal “is a wholesale retreat from EPA’s legal, scientific and moral obligation to address the threats of climate change.”

Discussion

Carbon dioxide was identified as a greenhouse gas in the middle of the nineteenth century.  A warning that the gas would contribute to warming of the atmosphere was first made in 1896.  More recently the work of hundreds of climate scientists from countries all around the world have been researching this field for decades.  As noted above, essentially all agree: Man-made emissions of carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels, and other greenhouse gases, are warming the earth system at geologically unprecedented speed.  The effects of fossil fuel use lead to weather extremes, wildfires, sea level rise and changing habitats of pests and disease carriers.  Toxins released from fossil fuels cause illnesses among the public.  The costs of future mitigation of, and adaptation to, global warming keep rising, as the threats become more severe. 

The United States is the only country of the more than 190 nations that joined the Paris Agreement to withdraw from it.  Of the other nations, only Syria never acceded to the Agreement.  (In October 2017 the only other holdout, Nicaragua, joined the Agreement.)  It is unconscionable that a nation as respected as the United States has consistently refused to join the other nations of the world in recognizing the irrefutable scientific evidence, and acted accordingly.  The present U. S. administration, instead of mitigating emission rates of greenhouse gases, is consciously reversing previously enacted policies.  The result can only be accelerated emissions of greenhouse gases, with the consequent worsening of all the effects of warming.  This will be a legacy for all our children and further progeny, one our leaders cannot be proud of.

For these reasons we here in the U.S. must act to restrain Pruitt’s EPA policies and the framework envisioned by the Trump administration.  We must reinstate bona fide science as the guide for our actions.

© 2017 Henry Auer

Carbon Fee and Dividend Is Proposed by Conservative Economists

Background.  U. S. President Donald J. Trump has called global warming a hoax, and opposes policies that would combat its causes and effects.  He has assembled a cabinet whose members, as heads of departments that are relevant to this issue, hold opinions that are consistent with his.  They seek to reverse the policies of the Obama administration that mitigate global warming and its harms.

Carbon Fee and Dividend.  On February 8, 2017, three conservative economists who held high level positions in earlier Republican administrations published the op-ed “A Conservative Case for Climate Action” in the New York Times .  The authors are Martin S. Feldstein, formerly the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Ronald Reagan; Ted Halstead, the founder and chief executive of the Climate Leadership Council; and N. Gregory Mankiw, formerly the chairman under President George W. Bush. 

The op-ed is based on a more extensive paper made public the same day, by these writers and several other conservative or Republican economists.  Three other authors in this group, former Secretary of State under President George H. W. Bush, James A. Baker III;, former Secretary of State under President Ronald Reagan, George P. Shultz; and former secretary of the Treasury under President George Bush, Henry M. Paulson Jr. also discussed their plan.  They said that imposing an economy-wide tax on carbon emissions from burning fossil fuels is “a conservative climate solution” since it relies on free-market principles.

Importantly, and apparently in opposition to President Trump, the writers make clear their acceptance of “the very real dangers of global warming”.  They state that “this is the perfect time … to address the dangerous threat of climate change”, and support limiting emissions of the major greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide (CO₂).

Their goals are fourfold, to be achieved by simultaneously putting in place four measures in their “ideal climate policy”. 

1.    To reduce the rate of carbon emissions, the authors propose a tax on carbon, suggesting a level of $40/ton of emitted CO₂ at the outset, and rising in successive years. The authors state this would send an economic signal both to consumers and to businesses to lower their use of carbon fuels.

2.    To help working class Americans the proceeds from collecting the tax would be distributed equally back to citizens as a quarterly dividend.  For example, in the first year, a family of four might receive $2,000.

3.    The plan would help promote economic expansion in the U. S.  It would protect international commerce by subsidizing exports to countries that don’t have similar policies, and placing tariffs on imports from such countries.  The higher carbon pricing would stimulate growth in renewable energy enterprises, and in energy efficiency, which provides growing job opportunities.

4.    The plan would provide regulatory certainty for businesses and investors, since it would eliminate the need for regulatory policies such as former President Obama’s Clean Power Plan (which is currently under court challenge) to achieve reductions in annual emission rates.
 

Analysis

The authors cite U. S. Treasury, Office of Tax Analysis, Working Paper 115, January 2017, as concluding that the dividend would wind up benefiting the bottom 70% of taxpayers, or about 223 million residents. That dividend compensates for having paid the carbon tax.  The Working Paper estimates that during the first year the tax would add about $0.36 per gallon of gasoline, for example.  This increase pales by comparison to the gyrations of the retail price for gasoline during the past few years. 

The tax has the effect, at the instant of purchasing a carbon-based fuel, of discouraging excessive use of the fuel because of the higher price.  The dividend, on the other hand, has the effect of expanding spending power at a time considerably removed from the time of the restraint in purchasing.  Stimulation of spending will have a beneficial effect on the national economy, offsetting the loss of spending due to collecting the carbon tax at purchase time.

The authors also find, upon analysis, that the carbon tax and dividend, at the starting value of $40/ton of emissions, would reduce the carbon emissions rate to half the rate from all the regulation-based reduction programs put together by President Obama’s administration.

Citizens Climate Lobby (CCL) is an organization whose principal goal has been to lobby Congress to enact a revenue-neutral plan, essentially identical to the one proposed by the authors of this op-ed.  CCL commissioned Regional Economic Models, Inc. (REMI) to analyze the effects of the CCL carbon fee and dividend plan.  After running a model, REMI found that after 20 years of operation the program is predicted to provide a) a 50% reduction in the CO₂ emission rate, b) about 2.8 million new jobs being created as a result of the stimulating effect of the dividend, and c) 230,000 fewer premature deaths among the population as a result of reductions in air pollution from disease-causing agents.

British Columbia, the Canadian province, has had a very similar regime in operation since 2008.  Instead of a direct dividend, British Columbia uses the revenue to abate other classes of taxation, including the corporate tax rate.  The effect broadly is comparable to that of a dividend, namely, reinjecting funds back into the provincial economy. 

The New York Times reported, on March 1, 2016 that the carbon tax rose from CA$10 in 2008 to CA$30 in 2012 (about US$22.20 in 2016), while emissions fell over that time from 5 to 15% even as there were minimal effects on overall economic activity.  The Times stated “a carbon tax is the most efficient, market-friendly instrument available in the quiver against climate change”.  The report also quoted Mary Polak, British Columbia’s environment minister, as saying the tax “performed better on all fronts than I think any of us expected”. 

Conclusion

Martin Feldstein James Baker and their colleagues have provided a useful and timely recommendation in their op-ed articles.  A carbon tax is far easier to administer than the other major mitigation regime, cap-and-trade (in force in California and proposed to the states as a possible measure under President Obama’s Clean Power Plan).  The dividend ensures that the overall effect of the carbon tax is revenue-neutral.  As seen from British Columbia’s experience, a carbon tax and dividend regime would clearly produce reductions in the rate of greenhouse gas emissions, and indirectly stimulate new enterprise creation, together with new jobs, in order to mitigate global warming and promote energy efficiency. 

It is time for President Trump and the conservative majorities in the U. S. Congress to recognize the reality of global warming and its dangers, and to enact meaningful federal legislation to minimize future emissions.

© 2017 Henry Auer

President Obama’s Clean Power Plan to Reduce Emissions

The Administration’s Clean Power Plan will significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions from the electric power industry over the next fifteen years.

 

Global warming affects all humankind.  Changing weather patterns, consisting of greater and more frequent weather extremes have become more and more common in recent years and decades.  Around the world, extreme rains and floods, droughts and unprecedented sea level rise have occurred in ways that we are now accepting as being “new normals” of weather which humanity did not experience in earlier years.  While we cannot point to individual events as being caused by global warming, the frequency of occurrence and patterns around the world are all consistent with the predictions that global warming will worsen extremes of weather and climate going forward.  The warming arises because of humanity’s burning of fossil fuels for energy as well as from other human activities, not from any natural cycling of climate patterns.

Relative effectiveness of fossil fuels.  Carbon dioxide (CO₂) is the principal greenhouse gas contributing to global warming.  The fossil fuels used to produce energy yield different amounts of heat per weight of CO₂ resulting from combustion.  This is a consequence of the intrinsic chemical properties of each fuel, and cannot be changed by engineering or ingenuity.  These differences are shown in this table: 

           Relative Emission Efficiency of Fuels  

Fuel	Relative amount of CO2 released per unit of heat obtained, compared to natural gas
Natural gas	1.00
Petroleum (fuel oil,  gasoline)	1.55-1.61
Coal	2.00-2.03

                     Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_of_combustion

The table shows that burning coal produces twice as much CO₂ as does natural gas when burned for energy.  (Other references give slightly different numbers without affecting this overall conclusion.)  In other words, use of coal as a fuel, say, for generating electricity, releases twice as much CO₂ into the atmosphere as does burning natural gas to obtain the same amount of heat, i.e., to generate the same amount of electricity.  If humankind is concerned about minimizing the worsening of global warming, we would benefit greatly by reducing the use of all fossil fuels, and especially coal.
 

Coal demands of electric generation.  A typical coal-fired electricity generating plant has a power capacity in the megawatt (MW) range.  To have this capacity, it burns large amounts of coal.  The largest coal-fired plant in the U. S. is the Robert W. Scherer Power Plant in Juliette, Georgia .  When operating to capacity, the facility burns almost 1,300 tons of coal every hour, or 11 million tons a year.  The coal used at Scherer comes from the Powder River Basin in Wyoming.  It is transported by train to the plant, a trip of 1,800 miles.  The coal arrives in trains 124 cars long; such a train can reach as long as two miles in length.  A picture of a coal train is shown here.

     http://tcktcktck.org/2014/02/coal-train-photo/

The Scherer facility consumes 3-5 such trainloads of coal every day.  When burned, this coal yields 27 million tons of carbon dioxide annually.  The facility has four separate generating units, each with a capacity of 880 MW.   So smaller facilities might use perhaps one-quarter, or one-half, for example, of the amount of coal that the Scherer plant uses. Overall, the U. S. has about 1,000 fossil fuel-fired generating plants, and, since many plants have more than one generator, a total of about 3,100 generating units that fall under the CPP.
 

The U. S. Clean Power Plan.  President Obama heralded the release of the Final Rule for the Administration’s Clean Power Plan (CPP) on August 3, 2015.  The proposed rule was released over one year earlier and is described here.  The CPP addresses greenhouse gas emissions, primarily CO₂, produced by electricity generation in the U. S.  Emissions from this sector of the energy economy are a main component of overall greenhouse gas emissions in the U. S.
 

Over 4.3 million comments from stakeholders and the public on the proposed rule were received by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), many of whose considerations were incorporated in the Final Rule. 
 

The CPP’s goal is to reduce emissions from electricity generation by 32% below the levels of 2005 by the year 2030.  Importantly, the plan does not dictate how these goals are to be met.  Rather, it recognizes that the features of each state’s generation infrastructure differ from one another.  As a result, the specific reduction goal for each state has been assigned differently to account for these distinctions.  In addition, each state is given the responsibility of devising its own specific plan for attaining its particular reduction goal.  Among the general paths to reducing emissions, the CPP names retrofitting existing power plants, eliminating noncompliant power plants, and installing renewable energy facilities.   Additionally, states can trade emission allowances among themselves to help attain their objectives.
 

Opposition to CPP.  Legislative and industrial opponents of the CPP began expressing their concerns as soon as the Final Rule was issued.  Here are some arguments being presented.
 

The CPP is illegal or even unconstitutional.  The Supreme Court, in Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency and others (2007) interpreted the Clean Air Act, originally passed in 1970, as including the authority to regulate CO₂ as an atmospheric pollutant if EPA found it to endanger the welfare of American citizens.  Following up on the Supreme Court’s decision, EPA did subsequently find that the gas threatens the health and welfare of Americans, and of our environment, in 2009.  As a result of this finding, EPA has the legal authority to regulate CO₂ emissions.
 

To the knowledge of this writer the question of the constitutionality of this rulemaking power is not being considered by the courts at this time.
 

Opponents have called the CPP a “War on Coal”.  In doing so they seek to place the burden of reorganization of the electricity generating industry on President Obama and his administration.  Use of coal in generating electricity has been declining for more than a decade, as has been the number of working coal miners.  A graphic representing the decreasing use of coal is shown here:

Comparison of the use of coal (blue bars) and natural gas (red bars) from 2002 to 2012. 
Source: http://www.energytrendsinsider.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/nat-gas-takes-market-share-coal.jpg?00cfb7

 

The graphic shows that the percent share of use of coal in electricity generation has been declining since well before President Obama took office in January 2009.  Perhaps opponents may wish to call this finding “Bush’s War on Coal” (not appropriate) or “Capitalism’s War on Coal”.  In fact the principal factor underlying the diminishing role of coal, and the increasing percent share of use of natural gas, is the growing availability of gas in the U. S. due to the increased use of hydraulic fracturing to produce it.  This has resulted in higher gas production and a lowering of its cost.  The increased availability of natural gas began during the administration of President George W. Bush. 
 

In spite of the increasing layoffs among Appalachian coal miners, the Congressional delegations from these areas appear not have their interests high on their agendas.  Only Rep. David McKinley, Republican of West Virginia, teaming with Rep. Peter Welch, Democrat of Vermont (not a coal mining state), offered a bill for assistance to miners, in Sept. 2014.  Additional searching does not show that this initiative progressed further in Congress.  President Obama’s administration, however, granted $7.5 million in June 2014 to Eastern Kentucky Concentrated Employment Program Inc. to help retrain out-of-work Kentucky miners.   This action is not consistent with a supposed Administration “War on Coal”.

Clearly market forces expected in a capitalist economy are responsible for the declining share in the use of coal.  The CPP does not institutionalize a “War on Coal”, but in view of the profoundly higher rate of emission of CO₂ resulting from its use (see above), the Plan is likely to lead to further reductions in coal use.
 

The CPP will produce only an insignificant decrease in global emissions.  This writer heard this argument expressed on the National Public Radio program “Here & Now” on August 4, 2015.  Such statements are not supported by the facts.  The U. S. is a major global emitter of greenhouse gases, and the CPP alone has the potential of reducing U. S. emissions by almost 10%.  In addition, representatives from all United Nations members are convening in December 2015 to finalize a global agreement to limit greenhouse gas emissions from all members.  A rigorous stand by the U. S. at the domestic level will enhance its ability to obtain meaningful reductions from other nations.  This is a very important factor going forward.

Conclusions
 

Coal is a major fossil fuel used in electric power generation, but results in twice the greenhouse gas emissions per amount of heat generated than the other major fossil fuel, natural gas.  The Obama administration has issued its CPP which would reduce emissions by 32% below 2005 levels by 2030.  This is a significant emission reduction program.  Coupled with the Administration’s regulation to increase transportation fuel efficiency by almost a factor of two by 2025 it will have a major effect on the energy economy of the U. S.

© 2015 Henry Auer