Climate: public opinion

Yesterday's post ended with the hope that experts’ reports on climate change, together with more and more peoples’ direct experience with its effects though more and more dramatic weather patterns, might finally affect public opinion and so push political decision-makers towards real action.

After writing that, I went looking to see what survey data might show.  I’ll keep looking, but the first stuff I found wasn’t exactly reassuring.  This Gallup poll, published March 18, 2014, reports that fewer people now than in 2001 think human actions are responsible for changes in the environment.  The whole timeline deserves attention, but this is still the basic finding.  Depressing.

Climate: sadness and frustration

Is there anything sadder than the regular news about changes in our climate?  The natural world is no longer natural.  Our actions, especially pumping the atmosphere full of CO2 from cars and power plants, have, to say the least, badly disrupted things.  And recent findings of the National Climate Assessment tell us it will get worse.  More glaciers melting, higher sea levels, more droughts, more torrential rains and flooding.

Is there anything more frustrating and disheartening that the collective failure to stop this?  Certainly, the President is now using regulatory authorities under existing legislation to reduce CO2 emissions.  But there are limits to how much he can accomplish this way and no one expects any new authority from the Congress.  Meanwhile, opponents of climate action cry that these regulations are “a war on coal” and promise opposition in every way possible.

Can we hope that reports like this, along with regular news of climatic disasters (we can’t call them “natural disasters” anymore), will change public views and be translated into political action?
We can only hope — and push wherever we can.

Multinationals and climate change

Washington DC is suffering through the second deep freeze this month.  Nighttime temperatures are in the single digits and teens.  I have the basement shower on constant drip because the pipes are well-enough insulated and could freeze if the water weren't moving, however slowly, through the pipes.  Even so I know the planet is getting warmer.

The New York Times had encouraging news the other day when it reported that this view is now shared by several large multinational companies like Coca-Cola and Nike.  These, and other businesses, are making adjustments on their own and pushing governments to do more.  And several conservative economists, like Douglas Holtz-Eakin, former advisor to Senator John McCain, are supporting a carbon tax.

It's enough to keep me reading the political news. 

Chemicals in the Elk River

It's a little while now since the spill of toxic chemicals into the Elk River in West Virginia.  For several days, after a storage tank owned by the wonderfully-named Freedom Industries leaked 4-methylcyclohexane methanol, or MCHM, into the river, West Virgina drinking water service was virtually shut down.

Last Sunday, the Washington Post published a useful article with a broader look at regulatory oversight of toxic chemicals.  In fact, Joel Achenbach, the reporter for the piece, leaves the impression that there’s little or none.  He reports that when officials were scrambling to deal with the leak and assess its seriousness, they had next to no information about the chemical contaminating the water supplies.  According to his article, the MCHM safety data sheet that officials were probably looking at anxiously, uses the phrase “no data available” 152 times.

That would seem unacceptable when so much emphasis is placed on the safety of the things we eat and drink.  But a spokesperson for Freedom Industries said the company was, in fact, following stricter European Union standards in the data sheet; under U.S. regulations, she said, they didn’t even need to say that much.

So the Elk River spill points out the need for better information about and regulation of industrial chemicals, right?  Right.  But the most prominent proposed legislation, drafted by the late Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) and David Vitter (R-LA), both from states with sizable petro-chemical industries, would, if anything, weaken oversight.  Elk River may have raised the salience of the issue for a while, and prompted an effort towards stricter regulation.  Here’s hoping something comes of it.

Climate change: EPA and Energy nominations

In his inaugural speech President Obama promised action to address climate change.  Monday he announced the nominations of two individuals who could take the lead in doing that.  These are Gina McCarthy, named to direct the EPA, and Ernest Moniz to be Secretary of Energy.  The two nominations require Senate confirmation.

Both agencies offer opportunities to reduce carbon emissions by means of existing authority.  With Republican opposition in the House, this may be the Administration's best chance to do something.  Later this year, the EPA is expected to propose emissions standards for new power plants.  It could then give its attention to the much more difficult and politically sensitive matter of standards for existing plants.  At Energy, the Secretary is expected to issue new efficiency standards for household appliances.  More problematic may be his proposals for new nuclear power plants and support for gas production through hydraulic fracturing ("fracking").

Both nominees seem to be highly capable individuals and experienced in administrative politics.  And I wish them well.  But I'm not expecting really dramatic action.  The President himself sent a mixed message at the announcement of the nominations when he talked about "making sure that we're investing in American energy, that we're doing everything we can to combat the threat of climate change, that we're going to be creating jobs and economic opportunity . . ."  As the New York Times pointed out, dealing with climate change and promoting domestic energy independence are not necessarily complementary goals.  Plus, whatever Ms. McCarthy and Mr. Moniz propose, even under statutory authorities, there's the matter of the House Republicans who will look for every means to oppose and block.  Maybe the Democrats will manage to retake the House next year.  But even if they do, I'd be surprised if four years from now we'll be able to say that the U.S. had finally adopted serious policies to cut carbon emissions.  I only hope I'm wrong.

New York proposes buyouts in hurricane zones

Andrew Cuomo is keeping busy.  Right after getting important gun control legislation passed, the New York governor is back with a proposal to protect the state's coastal areas from the next Hurricane Sandy.

Today's New York Times reports on his idea to buy up homes severely damaged or destroyed by the hurricane.  He would also offer financial incentives to homeowners in vulnerable areas to sell, even if they'd suffered little or no damage.  The state would then clear the purchased land, creating dunes, wetlands, or parks as natural barriers against future storms.

Based on estimates of the number who would sell, the state places the cost of the program at about $400 million.  A substantial part of this would come from the $51 billion in the recently-enacted Sandy relief legislation.  Before anything can happen, the program will require approval from federal housing officials at the Department of Housing and Urban Development.  When a Times reporter asked about the governor's ideas, they said it was too soon to respond.

Certainly, there will be other hurdles besides those in Washington DC.  But the governor's idea seem to make enormous sense.  According to the Times, people in affected areas have responded in mixed ways.  Some are enthusiastic and hope the buyout program is implemented.  Others say their ties to the coast are too strong and they'll never leave.

We'll see.  I haven't looked at the results of similar programs in other places, but I'd guess that presented with concrete offers, substantial numbers of homeowners will sell.  And what are Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, and other Atlantic Coast states coming up with?

Infrastructure

In the early 1980s, when I worked for the National League of Cities,
we heard regularly that too little was being done to replace and modernize urban infrastructure -- roads, bridge, water systems, public transit, etc.  Thirty years later we hear pretty much the same thing.  Is this a continuing theme from the collective infrastructure lobby or is it a real problem that's getting worse?  My guess is that there's at least some truth to the former suspicion.  But my every-day experience with traffic, with electrical power failures, and with breakdowns on the Washington subway system tells me the infrastructure problem is real.

And William Galston, at Brookings, has gathered several recent reports that back this up.  He cites one with comparative country-by-country rankings showing that the U.S. ranks "18th in railroads, 19th in ports, 20th in roads, 30th in airports, and 33rd in the quality of our electrical system."  For a country claiming to be the world's leading economic power this is not good.

I'd like to think that federal, state, and local levels of government, all of them with public support, would be responding.  How can businesses operate efficiently and compete in world markets if things like deteriorating utilities and transportation systems keep raising costs?  Galston cites one report estimating that "in 2010, Americans spent a total of 4.8 billion hours stuck in traffic, wasting 1.9 billion gallons of fuel, at a total cost of $101 billion."   And from what I can tell these reports don't even include the challenges of adapting to changing climatic conditions, the kinds of massive infrastructure projects now being talked about to protect cities along coastal areas.

But at every levels of government here there's a political party dug in and insisting forever that the public sector should be shrinking, not getting larger; that taxes and public spending should be always lower.  I can only hope that some of the progressive winds apparently bringing changes in other policy areas can have an effect here, too.

A few details on Obama's climate agenda

My impression as I watched the President's inaugural speech yesterday was confirmed today by the newspaper of record: Although he touched on several policy issues, the one he stressed most was climate change and environmental protection.  The New York Times article also suggests that the White House must have given reporters some background after the speech on what the President is intending.

The article reports he’ll work through executive powers rather than propose any new legislation.  Republicans, who generally deny any human responsibility for climate change, effectively make any legislative action impossible.  So far, according to the Times, the administration's climate action will have three components.
 
1. New EPA regulations to reduce emissions from existing coal-fired power plants.  The Natural Resources Defense Council estimates that effective regulations could reduce these emissions by 25 percent by 2020.
 
2. New regulations to improve energy efficiency in household appliances, prosaic items like refrigerators, dishwashers, washers and dryers.  It will be interesting to see how this develops.  Apparently, during the previous administration, the Department of Energy was not meeting statutory requirements for updating standards.  The DOE was finally forced to act after a court settlement in 2006.  By early last year, the department had issued 17 new or revised standards; it was due to have another 11 completed by now.  We’ll have to see if the administration's plans in this sector refer to these 11 sets of standards, or whether they’ll be going further.
 
3. Department of Defense energy efficiency and use of renewables.  The DOD is among the largest energy consumers in the country.  Greater energy efficiency, of course, means financial savings.  Potentially, the department could also become a model for other federal agencies and the private sector.

This would seem a pretty modest agenda.  There is, for example, no talk of something like a carbon tax.  But even these measures are virtually certain to get congressional Republicans worked up.  They can be expected to look for ways to block the regulations and will probably make it as difficult as they can to name a new EPA director.  And the power plant regulations will probably be challenged in court.

Obama action on climate change?

I liked the President's inaugural speech.  More than liked, I was moved at several points.  It was a relatively brief speech and took force from that I think.  He spoke of equity and equality, of the need for collective effort to solve collective problems, of the country's commitment to provide security and dignity.

Different people certainly will remember this or that reference or phrase.  But what especially struck me were his references to climate change and environmental protection.

We, the people, still believe that our obligations as Americans are not just to ourselves, but to all posterity. We will respond to the threat of climate change, knowing that the failure to do so would betray our children and future generations. Some may still deny the overwhelming judgment of science, but none can avoid the devastating impact of raging fires, and crippling drought, and more powerful storms. The path towards sustainable energy sources will be long and sometimes difficult. But America cannot resist this transition; we must lead it. We cannot cede to other nations the technology that will power new jobs and new industries – we must claim its promise. That’s how we will maintain our economic vitality and our national treasure – our forests and waterways; our croplands and snowcapped peaks. That is how we will preserve our planet, commanded to our care by God. That’s what will lend meaning to the creed our fathers once declared.

Did he finally commit to action on this front?  It would appear so.  Now the question is what form that commitment takes.  Preparation for the next round of climate negotiations?  A carbon tax?  Federal support for infrastructure adaptation to future Hurricane Sandys?  New support for renewable energy technologies?  I'm hoping, whatever they are, the proposals will be significant -- measures that put the administration out there in a forward position.  He'll likely not get everything, but the proposals can be part of saying this is what Democrats are for the future.

2012 was the hottest

It's not awful, tragic news like the murder of children and teachers in Newtown, Connecticut.  But it should have the same mobilizing effect.  I'm referring to the news in today's New York Times, and I'm certain in lots of other papers, that 2012 was the hottest year in U.S. history.  The Times reports that the average temperature for all of last year was 55.3 degrees; it was up over the previous record, not just by a little bit, but by a full degree.  This is scary.  And, meanwhile, the temperatures in Washington, D.C. this week are in the 50s, with 60s and even 70 degrees predicted for the weekend.  It will be a good chance to get out for a long bike ride.  But I really would rather not be doing that in January.  It's weird.

Are we likely to hear anything from the Administration?  Will the President, or anyone else, take this report as a teaching moment to start talking about climate change?  Not clear.  Admittedly, Obama has been busy lately and is lining up for multiple confrontations with Republicans (and possibly some members of his own party).  But he's talked about putting climate change on the Administration's action agenda and this news, while it has peoples' attention would seem like a good time to do that.  The Guardian has a story up reporting that Obama could be considering some kind of "climate summit."  Here's hoping.

State of the Chesapeake Bay

The Chesapeake Bay Foundation (CBF) has just issued its new State of the Bay report for 2012.  The last one was two years ago and covered 2010.  

Overall, the Foundation found a modest improvement.  Based on thirteen indicators, it increased the measure of the Bay’s health by one point to an overall score of 32 out of 100, still, a D+ in school terms.  At this level CBF judges the Bay to be “dangerously out of balance.”  It would need to reach a score of 50 before being considered “stable” and 70 to be considered “saved.”

Under CBF's methodology five indicators were up, seven were at the same levels, and one, the health of underwater grasses, declined.  The report expressed a little optimism in noting that despite 2012’s small improvement, the score is up by 4 points over the last five years.  Even so, by my quick calculation, at this rate it could take nearly 50 years to reach the level at which CBF considers the Bay to have been saved.
 

 A big part of the problem is the complexity of Bay governance.  The federal Environmental Protection Agency can do a certain amount to set regulatory standards and provide funding to states and localities.  But the real will to improve Bay conditions lies with the six states in the Bay watershed (see map above) -- New York, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, and Virginia.  Each of these by their water pollution control efforts affects the quality of the water entering the Bay.

The report was also featured on the front page of today's Washington Post.

Carbon taxes in Ireland

Friday’s New York Times includes an excellent reminder of the benefits of carbon taxes.  Elisabeth Rosenthal’s article reports on Ireland’s experience since it adopted such a tax in 2008.  As she describes it, the tax on each type of fossil fuel varies according to its carbon dioxide emissions.  Similarly, new cars are taxed according to the vehicle’s emissions.  Also, households are charged for any trash not recycled.

Measuring the law’s effect is a little tricky because Ireland was in recession for part of the time since 2008.  But it appears to be having the intended effect.  In 2011, when the economy grew at least a little, emissions were down by 6.7 percent.  Overall, they are down by 15 percent since 2008.  Financially, there’s no doubt about its positive effects.  In the last three years, including 2012, the tax has generated one billion euros (about $1.3 billion) and been a major factor in reducing the country’s budget deficit.

A single measure that both cuts greenhouse gas emissions and puts lots of money in public accounts; you’d think you’d hear more about it in the U.S., more than the occasional NYT article.  But from what I can tell, apart from discussions among some economists -- left and right it should be noted -- and environmentalists, there’s mostly silence.  Republicans and conservatives are generally trying to ensure that discussion of this, along with anything else related to taxes, is effectively banned.  It’s their own version of political correctness.

The Rosenthal article does point out that the law's success in Ireland didn't do anything to help its original sponsors.  The government enacting the taxes lost power in last year’s elections.  Nonetheless, the tax law remains in place.

I wonder what it will take to open up the possibility for a similar program here?  

Carbon tax in the U.S.?

Elizabeth Kolber, in the current New Yorker, [subscription required] reminds us that global warming is a very large problem of externalities, that is, costs of private actions imposed on the general public.  People using fossil fuels -- car owners and utilities burning coal and gas -- discharge CO2 into the atmosphere, add to the greenhouse effect, which heats up the planet, which ends up creating the havoc of storms like Hurricane Sandy.  The idea behind a tax on these fuels is to require users to pay for some of the environmental costs they help create with their CO2 emissions.  A carbon tax would have other benefits.  She cites a Congressional Budget Office report stating that a “relatively modest” tax on gasoline and other fossil fuels could cut the federal deficit in half.  How could this not be politically attractive?
 
So how attractive is the idea?  Kolbert reports considerable support from both liberal and conservative economists and quite a number of corporations, including ExxonMobil.  Unfortunately, the Obama administration, so far at least, isn’t at all attracted to the idea.  Maybe, after “fiscal cliff” issue have been resolved, the President could turn his attention to climate change, an issue he has repeatedly said has a high priority. 

Sadly, though, even after the current tax and budget issues have been resolved, House Republicans promise a new confrontation over the debt ceiling.  And this sort of action is likely to continue at least through the 2014 congressional elections.  In a sense, the carbon tax is another example of how House Republicans are stalemating efforts to deal with obvious public problems.  In this case they’re not doing it directly; yet, by opposing virtually every significant legislative proposal, they raise the political costs for the Administration, thereby limiting the range of what can be proposed to just a handful of critical issues.

Doha 2

Yesterday delegates at the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Doha heard that this year should be among the hottest on record.  The director of the U.N. World Meteorological Organization, Michael Jarraud, said that data confirmed trends towards a warmer planet.  “Climate change," he added, "is taking place before our eyes and will continue to do so as a result of concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, which have risen constantly and again reached new records.”  And yet delegates in Doha are not expected to do much during these two weeks of meetings.  This probably because the U.S. and China, the two principal actors at the conference, aren't ready to act to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Leaving China aside, after Obama’s reelection, can we expect a change in the U.S. approach, if not now, over the next few months?  It would seem unlikely given Republican magical thinking about climate change and the pressures to deal with the economy.  Right after Obama’s reelection, David Renmick, in the New Yorker, took a moment to celebrate and then said that, despite these obstacles, we have to recognize climate change as the central issue.  He noted that Obama has more than once spoken of its importance, most recently in his acceptance speech on election night.  As a way to move to action, Renmick proposed that the President take the lead in making us aware of what’s at stake, perhaps with an address from the Capitol on Inauguration Day.  If only.

Doha meeting

Michael Harrington, I think it was, used to say that nothing else is possible without full employment.  Grand as it is, I think the statement is true.  Still, it’s equally true that full employment isn’t possible without a sustainable environment.  And we won’t have that if we can’t do something about the disruptions in the climate.

Yesterday, in Doha, Qatar, delegates from around the world began two weeks of negotiations over measures to address climate change.  The meetings will end on December 7.  The objective in Doha seems modest; it's simply to start discussion of a new legal structure under which countries would take actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.  The framework is to be completed by 2015.

The most interesting question for us is what approach the Obama administration will take.  Especially, will there be consideration of a carbon tax?  Will his reelection free the President to exercise leadership in this area?  The U.S., China and India are the largest emitters of greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide from fossil fuels.  The success of these negotiations won't depend solely on the U.S., but it’s hard to imagine meaningful results unless we are in support.

Post-election commentary

The Sunday church bells are echoing each other across Bergamo and it’s raining.  Before I turn to my Italian homework, I’m reading and appreciating more of Arun Kapil’s roundup of post-election commentary.

I was struck by his brief thoughts about the reasons for the drop off in voting this time, a reduction, it seems, of about 10 million votes.  One reason, he speculates, may be a perverse effect of the electoral college.  If the election is only being contested in the ten or eleven swing states, then voters on the others, where the outcome is virtually certain, have less reason to go vote.  It’s a version of why I wasn’t too concerned when the District of Columbia didn’t send my absentee ballot to Italy as they’d promised.  After all, what’s another Democratic vote in the District?  If this is, in fact, what’s happening, and if the number of swing states drops further, the effect, as he says, is to make “the presidential election effectively irrelevant for may voters in most of the country.”  Sobering.

I was also especially grateful for his link to a Frank Rich piece in New York Magazine.  It reminds me of how much I enjoyed him in the Times and how much I miss him.  For example:

“Given that Romney had about as much of a human touch with voters as an ATM, it sometimes seemed as if a hologram were running for president. Yet some 57 million Americans took him seriously enough to drag themselves to the polls and vote for a duplicitous cipher.”

And his last paragraph:

Daniel Patrick Moynihan might be surprised to learn that he is now remembered most for his oft-repeated maxim that “everyone is entitled to his own opinion, but not his own facts.” Yet today most Americans do see themselves as entitled to their own facts, with one of our two major political parties setting a powerful example. For all the hand-wringing about Washington’s chronic dysfunction and lack of bipartisanship, it may be the wholesale denial of reality by the opposition and its fellow travelers that is the biggest obstacle to our country moving forward under a much-empowered Barack Obama in his second term. If truth can’t command a mandate, no one can.

This, or some version of it, should be kept in mind any time a political commentator moans about how the two parties can’t work together.  One of them isn't interested.

Italian versus Spanish

Tuesday's election has me looking back towards the news at home and, in particular, noting the role Hispanics played in the election; it makes me feel like maybe I’m learning the wrong language.  

It has been reported that 71 percent of Hispanic ballots were cast for Obama, up 8% from four years ago.  Census data from 2010 reports that Hispanics now make up a significant percentages of the population in several southwestern states and in Florida: New Mexico (46%), California (38%), Texas (38%), Arizona (30%), Nevada (26%), Florida (22%), Colorado (21%).  In Colorado it's reported that Obama took 74% of the Hispanic vote, up from 61% four years ago; in Florida, even with traditionally conservative Cuban-Americans, he took 60%, up from 57% in 2008.  In these, and several other states, Hispanic voters apparently did a lot to give Obama a majority.

This is especially impressive considering how commentators have been saying for some time that these voters were up for grabs, that many were new to the country and/or were first time voters, and that their impressions of the two parties and the one with which they might identify, were still in formation.  It appears that identification is taking shape.  It will be interesting to see whether the connection with Democrats continues to strengthen and whether it will also apply to state and local elections.  This support last Tuesday has significance in upcoming discussions of federal immigration legislation.  The new Administration certainly owes something to Hispanic voters and can expect to hear that message when it takes up a bill.  Beyond that, if they can get passed a bill that clearly benefits immigrants in difficulty, it could do a lot to solidify Hispanics’ connection with the Democratic Party.  I expect the Republicans will understand that.

And if Puerto Rico becomes a state, this Hispanic flavor to U.S. life and its politics will get bumped up yet another notch.

Obama reelected!

Obama wins!  Hooray and whew!

I’m listening to his acceptance speech translated in Italian with a voice-over.  I can hear him in the background, along with the crowd.  He says he has never loved Michelle more, never respected her more for being a favorite of so many Americans.  Without meaning to be at all cynical, he must know how that helped his reelection.

I can hear him affirming how much work still needs to be done, that he will try to find consensus on new proposals, and will work in a spirit of compromise.  Not too much, I hope.  He must have learned something from trying to work with Republicans these last four years.  I’m encouraged in that when he says that he won’t be operating with blind optimism, that he knows the difficulty of the challenges.  As an aside, from what I can tell, the translator on RAI 1 is doing an excellent job.

I switch to France Inter for a moment, hear some of the same speech, this time translated into French.  He seems “more determined than ever,” according to the French commentator.  Here’s hoping.

These radio broadcasts add to how I’ve been struck by the extent of coverage in the papers and on the radio (haven’t had time to watch TV) that the U.S. election received here, and not just on election day.  It’s been building up for most of the last week; multi-page sections on the campaign and ad spots for radio, TV, and the internet promising full coverage of the returns, most of which would start at midnight last night.  Given how heavily our policies can weigh on the rest of the world, there ought to be a way they could vote in our elections.
 
Listening to these reports, I feel like I've refound my interest in the world.  It's safe (more or less) to go into the water again.  Fearing the worst, I hadn’t been able to read anything about the election.  Pretty much everything I’ve heard for the last week or more has been thanks to Lynda.  Now, I feel like I can go back to reading TPM and the rest.  There’s at least the possibility of new public action and the hope that Obama is ready to put the Republicans to the test.  In fact, why not a strategy that forces them into the open over and over and sets the stage for the House election in 2014?

Below are this morning’s headlines from two of Italy's major papers.  I bought both thinking I wanted to read about the results before I realized that both were put to bed before anyone knew the results.  There's an interesting contrast in the headlines.  Corriere declares only “A Test in Key States.”  La Repubblica, though, seems sly in a headline that says, “White House, America has Chosen.”  And below there's a (composite?) photo with a young woman posing with a cutout Obama figure.  Were the headline and photo added at the last possible moment?  Did they mean the photo to suggest the result, even though none of the articles does more than report on the last campaign statements and election day turnout?