The Hard Look

Why “Cool Counties” Is Irrelevant

The Chairman of Fairfax County’s Board of Supervisors is running for reelection on the shoulders of his “Cool Counties” initiative, the principle element of which is to reduce green house gases by 80% over the next 46 years. Indeed, he unilaterally committed the county to this goal and now trumpets it on the county’s web pages.    Gerry Connolly promotes himself through this action by pandering to the general public ignorance on global warming.  This may reflect legitimate political self-preservation, and perhaps even political acumen, but it does not reflect honest statesmanship, especially because Connolly already knows that the Cool Counties goal is bankrupt.  The public deserves the truth on these issues and hence this posting.

In a paper soon to be published, Scott Barrett explains why we are not facing a global emergency, why we need not act precipitously and without sufficient regard to the economic consequences, and why we will never reach, nor need to reach an 80% reduction in greenhouse gases.  So who is Scott Barrett and why should anyone listen to him?

Dr. Barrett is the Director of the Energy, Environment, Science & Technology Program, and a Professor of Environmental Economics & International Political Economy at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies.  If you care about degrees, he graduated summa cum laude in resource economics from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, and earned his doctorate in economics at the London School of Economics.  He is also on the board of directors of the Climate Policy Center, a more or less centerist group that gets its money from foundations, many of which also fund climate alarmists and some of which fund climate deniers (if either of those terms mean anything).

In other words, this is the person to whom the political left goes for advice.  In still other words, it’s ok to listen to him because he is not any kind of climate change “denier”.  So what does he have to say?  In essence he makes three points, together which explain why Cool Counties is irrelevant:

1.      The world will never cooperate enough to reach an 80% reduction of greenhouse gases by 2050.

2.      Geoengineering by seeding the atmosphere with reflective particles, in the same way as does a volcanic eruption, is virtually “costless”, has immediate results, and extends indefinitely the time we have to move from a carbon based economy to a non-CO2 producing energy.

3.      Because the costs of geoengineering are so small, because the technology already exists, and because the economic consequences of increased warming are unacceptable to any of the major developed and developing nations, someone is going to do this with or without the rest of the world’s permission.

Here are a couple of important quotations from his paper, entitled, “The Incredible Economics of Geoengineering”.  [When the paper has been posted to the web, I’ll provide a link here.] 

Geoengineering is the deliberate modification of the climate by means other than by changing the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases.  It is a concept that needs to be taken seriously.

It has been widely suggested that global mean temperature should not be allowed to increase by more than 2º C. At a concentration level of 550 parts per million CO2, mean global temperature is likely to rise 1.5º to 4.5º C.   Put differently, to be confident (but not certain) of limiting temperature change to 2º C, concentrations would have to be capped at a level far below 550 ppm—to a level more like 380 ppm. This goal is essentially unattainable. Geoengineering might therefore be an indispensable ingredient of a policy aiming to ensure that mean global temperature rises by no more than 2º C.

Like volcanic eruptions, geoengineering would change the color of the sky. Volcanic particles whiten the sky by day (an environmental loss, presumably, though one that is already being caused by atmospheric pollution), but make sunsets and sunrises more vibrant (Crutzen 2006).

Nordhaus concluded that offsetting all greenhouse gas emissions today would cost about $8 billion per year—an amount so low that he treats the geoengineering option as being costless. According to Teller et al., engineered particles would be even cheaper; they estimate that the sunlight scattering needed to offset the warming effect of rising greenhouse gas concentrations by the year 2100 would cost just $1 billion per year. Keith thinks this is an optimistic estimate, but says that, “it is unlikely that cost would play any significant role in a decision to deploy stratospheric scatterers because the cost of any such system is trivial compared to the cost of other mitigation options.”

Taking into account the effect of engineered particles on scattering harmful UV radiation, Teller and his colleagues calculate that this health-related benefit for the U.S. alone would exceed the total cost of geoengineering by more than an order of magnitude. Deliberate climate modification would also allow carbon dioxide concentrations to remain elevated—an aid to agriculture.

Just as important as the cost of geoengineering relative to emission reductions is the nature of these two options. Geoengineering constitutes a large project (Schelling 1996).  By means of this technology, a single country, acting alone, can offset its own emissions—and those of every other country. By contrast, mitigating climate change by reducing emissions requires unprecedented international cooperation and very substantial costs. Stabilizing atmospheric concentrations requires a 60 to 80 percent cut in CO2 emissions worldwide. In the years since the Framework Convention on Climate Change was adopted, global emissions have risen about 20 percent. Even if the Kyoto Protocol is implemented to the letter, global emissions will keep on rising. So will concentrations.  Theory points to the difficulty in achieving substantial and wide scale cooperation for this problem, and the record to date sadly supports this prediction.

According to Nordhaus and Boyer, climate change might cost the United States alone about $82 billion in present value terms. Using a three percent rate of discount, this is equivalent to an annual loss of about $2.5 billion. If the United States cut its emissions, it could reduce this damage somewhat. If it turned to geoengineering, it could eliminate this damage. If geoengineering is as cheap and effective as is claimed, the U.S. might prefer the geoengineering option. So, of course, might other countries.

Notably, Dr. Barrett is neither the first nor the only individual to discuss geoengineering as the most likely candidate for moderating global warming (whether man made or not). See, for example, Joel Schwartz’s comments on National Review Online  , or Cruzen’s seminal paper.  Indeed, as early as 1992, the National Research Council concluded geoengineering would be effective and inexpensive.  Dr. Barrett places the period at the end of the sentence – concluding that it geoengineering is inevitable. 

We may now politely say goodbye to the 80% goal and instead concentrate on means to reduce energy costs, improve the local environment and move to new, non-carbon energy sources.

The Moose Did It

Apparently, the Scandinavian moose emits 2,100 kg of methane a year, equivalent to the green house gases emitted by an automobile trip of 13,000 km.  Here's the report.  Thank goodness hunters shoot 35,000 of them each year.  That's like taking 40,000 cars off the road. 

Whew!  Thank goodness they've got that sorted out!

Walking Away From Cool Counties?

On August 6^th, the Fairfax County Board directed its staff to work with outside interest groups to explore the desirability of statewide tax incentives that might encourage the widespread application of green building practices.  It was a clever move to appear to be green while avoiding the cost of being green.  Here’s why.

On March 13, 2007, the Virginia Legislature passed a bill, subsequently signed into law, creating tax incentives for green building practices -  but a county that wanted to promote these green building would have to bear the cost as the tax losses would come out of the county’s tax base.   Hence, the Fairfax County Board proposal.  They want a “statewide” incentive program that takes the cost out of the state revenues, not their own. 

Here’s the policy trade-off:  Roads and Medicare versus fireman, police men and affordable housing.  The first two are state responsibilities, the last three are the county’s.   

Here’s an example of what this really means:  If Fairfax County used the same system as Maryland, a nice little building worth only $12.5 million would reduce tax revenues by ONE MILLION DOLLARS.  That equals one mile of bike lanes or about 10 affordable housing units.  The Board has demanded both, and can get both as long as the state pays the freight for global warming. 

Of course, the State Legislature figured this out before the Fairfax County Board did, which is why they will respond to any proposal from the County with the simple refrain – we gave you authority to create these tax breaks so if you want them, go ahead and use them. 

It’s another way of saying, if you want a Cool County, then you are going to have to pay for it yourself.  Sort of a “walk the walk” kind of thing.  Wonder whether the Fairfax County Board is going to walk that walk and take a big hit on revenues by creating the tax incentive for green buildings, or whether it’s more hot air?

Cynic, Skeptic or Scientist

This week, during a public meeting of a Council on which I sit, and while discussing how to evaluate county-level responses to global warming, I was accused of being a cynic.  Hmmmmm.  Probably not. 

Cynic: One who believes all people are motivated by selfishness. (That's not me.)

Skeptic:  One who instinctively or consistently doubts, questions, or disagrees with assertions or generally accepted conclusions.

Scientist: A person learned in science and especially natural science – a scientific investigator who tests and rejects hypotheses.

I’m a Ph.D. environmental scientist (really, here’s my vita). As a scientist, from time-to-time I must also be a skeptic. It’s in the nature of the job.  When it comes to global warming, I’m a skeptic because the conclusions about the cause of the apparent warming stand on the shoulders of incredibly uncertain data and models.  Here are a couple of reasons why I’m more unsettled than not on global warming.

Temperature and warming estimates are highly uncertain 

According to scientists who study this question, “the term ‘global temperature’ is fundamentally meaningless and models built on this concept are inherently just as meaningless.”  See: Does a Global Temperature Exist? . I’ve already written about this (here)  and would now point readers to a still more recent finding that the fundamental data set on which the international community has based its models has been challenged and the keepers of the data have had to downward adjust their numbers, the first of several downward adjustments, apparently.  You can access that discussion here.  As a policy matter, one has to be less willing to take extreme actions when data are highly uncertain. So, for this reason alone, I’m also skeptical about governmental responses.

According to some, we can’t avoid a catastrophe, but we shouldn’t panic

Although there remains much valid debate on the subject, many folks believe there is a ‘tipping point’ beyond which life as we know it will forever change, (discussed earlier here).  Those who believe in a tipping point suggest we will reach it if carbon dioxide concentrations exceed 450 parts per million in the lower atmosphere.  The Natural Resources Defense Council made that claim to the Fairfax County Environmental Quality Advisory Council as recently as August 1, this year.  You can see this in each of the following graphs as well.  The solution offered is to have the entire world reduce CO2 emissions by 80 percent by 2050, a mere 42 years from now. 

Well, that just isn’t possible.  The U.S. Climate Change Science Program, a federal government program, has reached that conclusion.   (See it here.) http://www.climatescience.gov/Library/sap/sap2-1/finalreport/default.htm There are only two ways to make the 80% reductions, a massively revolutionary technological discovery and/or massive reductions in energy use. Here is a graph that explains the sacrifice people would have to make, barring a revolutionary change in technology that no one predicts will occur.  Notice what this graph means – that the poor nations must remain poor, and the rich nations must become poor. 

There is no consensus that technology will get us where we need to go.  Most of the problem comes from cars and our propensity to use electricity from coal-fired power plants.  I’ve discussed (here)  that even the environmentalists don’t think we can reduce the car contribution by more than 45% (we’d need more than 80% reduction). For those who think the $100,000 Telsa electric car is going to be the answer, just contemplate how fast the price can come down or the technology will spread when the Telsa folks refuse to license their technology to manufacturers with the capacity to mass produce their cars.  I suppose we could nationalize their business, but that’s not quite American and no one is looking in that direction.  Nor are we going to see speedy reduction in CO2 from coal-fired power plants.  The first test of possible controls won’t come on line until 2011, and that’s no more than a field test at a small facility.  A full field test will be a few years thereafter, and from the looks of it, that technology won’t work at the majority of facilities, as most of these plants just aren’t built over the top of the right kind of geology.  (See that news here.) 

Indeed, of the passel of Congressional bills intended to accomplish a major reduction through compulsory regulatory programs, most don’t result in sufficient reductions for the U.S.  Here’s a comparison of those bills.




















So, I’m skeptical that we will be able to avoid the “tipping point”, if there is one.  I’ll discuss what I think are sensible approaches a county could take in a future posting, but in the mean time, some might like to see what Cass Sunstein (University of Chicago) thinks about how to steer a path between willful inaction and reckless overreaction – between panic and utter neglect.  He’ll be discussing his latest book on the subject on September 6^th and AEI-Brookings will have a video webcast available thereafter (register here).