The Gang of Ten 'Compromise'

The details are starting to creep in about the proposed Gang of Ten Energy Bill, and it looks pretty bad. A removed moratorium on drilling off the Florida coast, in exchange for a bag of magic beans, and a player to be named later:

- A "Sense of the Bill" opining that cars should be 85% non-petrol within 20 years
- Actually renewing the renewable energy subsidy that has been in place approximately forever, expires on January 1st, and amounts to $18b annually
- A $7b handout to the auto industry
- A promise that the drilling will be done "carefully"

Which is of course, what we were all concerned about.

And some Republican somewhere, knowing nothing about what EROEI means, still wants shale oil to be part of the deal.

None of this amounts to an admission that our energy policy is broken, that consumption has outrun production, and that increasing production is a rear-guard action at its very, very best. Even a domestic oil bonanza like the North Sea did nothing for long-run energy prices in the UK. As I've documented in earlier posts, the Red States are over a barrel in this energy crisis, and their representatives continue to lie to them about who got them into this mess. The Democrats' best plans of action, in order, are to

1) Stall, take the White House, then pass a serious energy policy designed to emphasize energy independence, and carbon neutrality.
2) Explain to Americans that Imported, and/or Non-renewable Energy is the new Fascism, and beat the Republicans on the Sunday morning talk shows
3) Force the Republicans to the actual bargaining table, by flexing their actual majorities in our actual National Legislature
4) Juggle bowling pins on C-Span
5) Go on national television and say this:

"I want to be absolutely clear to everybody about this. If I thought that I could provide you some immediate relief on gas prices by drilling off the shores of California and New Jersey . . . if I thought that by drilling offshore, we could solve our problem, I'd do it." - Barack Obama [from Washpost above]

Once again, the threat of somebody, somewhere, having to pay what something is actually worth, has brought another great populist to his knees. When will someone at the Federal level get serious about energy? Hopefully, there are plot twists yet to unfold during the five week recess.

Who Loves Prop. 7?

Reader Citizen G has been attempting, over email, to convince me that the Solar & Clean Energy Initiative on the November ballot is actually a good idea despite its organized opposition. And it's definitely true that basically all of the considerable funding against Prop. 7 has been provided by energy companies.

But here's the thing: as Ballotpedia lays out almost nobody is actually in favor of the measure. They list fewer than 10 prominent individuals supporting Prop. 7, but have a lengthy list of groups opposed. Notable opponents include:

• 15 renewable energy companies (e.g., the American Wind Energy Association)
  
• 9 environmental groups (e.g., the California League of Conservation Voters)
  
• the California Democratic Party

So while it's no surprise that PG&E, the California Republican Party, and the California Chamber of Commerce oppose Proposition 7, the attribution of bad faith to all of these groups seems implausible, to say the least.

So where's the beef, here? Does any reputable group support the Solar & Clean Energy Initiative?

Update: Opponents of Prop. 7 lay out their objections here (pdf).

Converting miles per gallon to cups per mile

Though I do love Paul's more philosophical posts I thought I'd change things up a little by responding to this post on one of the NYTimes blogs:

“Miles per gallon is misleading and can play tricks on our intuitions,” Prof. Soll said in a press release, which also links to an interactive quiz.

Profs. Soll and Larrick offered an alternative metric: gallons per mile. Expressed in gallons used per 100 miles, 18 m.p.g. becomes 5.5 gallons per 100 miles, and 28 m.p.g. becomes 3.6 gallons per 100 miles. And the difference is suddenly obvious: nearly two gallons every 100 miles, or a difference of more than $8.

I thought that it'd be interesting to measure gas volume more directly. Instead of using 100 miles, just use one mile and use the appropriate household measurement.

Table of US Cups of Gas used per Mile traveled

Mpg	US Cups per Mile	Example car
10mpg	1.6 Cups per Mile	Bentley Azure Convertible
15mpg	1 Cups per Mile	Jeep Grand Cherokee
20mpg	.8 Cups per Mile	Toyota Tacoma
25mpg	.6 Cups per Mile	Model T
30mpg	.53 Cups per Mile	Toyota Corolla
35mpg	.45 Cups per Mile	Volkswagen Jetta
40mpg	.4 Cups per Mile	Honda Civic Hybrid
45mpg	.33 Cups per Mile	Toyota Prius

I just threw this together pretty quickly so please forgive me if I rounded a little or compared cars across different years and features.

As you can see, the savings really happen on the far end with people switching from gas guzzlers to slightly more fuel efficient cars. Getting hippies like me to buy priuses surely doesn't hurt but it's not the main solution.

A Probably-Awesome Parking Plan in SF

From the Chronicle:

At the first test location - the 52-space, city-owned metered parking lot on California Street just west of the tony Fillmore Street retail-and-restaurant corridor - the city covered the meter heads with red bags with instructions directing motorists to a pair of pay stations. The program will move into other neighborhoods in coming months.

...

Under the plan, parking prices would be adjusted according to demand. The ideal would be to have 85 percent of the parking spaces occupied. That way, parking spaces always would be available, meaning people would circle the block less in their polluting vehicles. The federal government, looking for ways to reduce congestion, awarded San Francisco an $18 million grant to help fund the $23 million pilot project. In all, 10 neighborhoods will be used in the study.

Interestingly, the article is primarily about the concerns bicyclists have about losing the existing parking meters, which they chain their bikes to, and possible ways to keep them in place. My experience with Piedmont Ave. in Oakland, though, is that you can just leave the poles in the street and nobody seems to mind. They're not any uglier with their heads taken off. If you stopped calling them "parking meter poles" and started calling them "bike poles", I think soon enough everybody would forget where they came from in the first place.

Solar & Clean Energy Act of 2008

There's some weirdness around California's Proposition 7:

A November ballot measure to boost the amount of renewable energy generated by California utilities has attracted a wildly diverse group of opponents - from the Natural Resources Defense Council to the Democratic Party and Pacific Gas and Electric Co.

...

The measure requires all California utilities to generate at least half their power from alternative energy sources such as wind, solar, biomass and geothermal by 2025, well above the 33 percent level Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger wants to see by 2020. Utilities currently must reach a 20 percent goal by 2010.

...

The groups, many of which had been working on energy legislation for years, were never really brought into the initiative effort, said Ralph Cavanaugh of the Natural Resources Defense Council.

"There was very late consultation," he said. "We asked them last November to step back and take a look at the measure, but by then they already had a finished product."

The initiative sets up such a detailed plan for dealing with renewable energy and siting and building the new, greener power plants that it opens the way for many unintended consequences, Cavanaugh said. Even groups closely involved with renewable energy, such as the Center for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Technology, have lined up against Prop. 7.

"If you're going to legislate at the ballot box, keep it simple, don't write 70 pages," he added. "Our objection isn't to their good intentions, but to their bad initiative."

Normally I'd defer to the relevant interest groups on an issue like this, but it's not obvious from the Chronicle article how much of the opposition is legit and how much is sour grapes from not being included in the process.

The full text of the measure can be seen here.

Note that Prop. 7 is only about 40 pages long, not 70. For comparison, Prop. 6 (changing criminal penalties) is about 30 pages long, but probably contains more words. Proposition 5 - which changes sentencing guidelines for non-violent offenders - is about 60 pages long.

Carbon Offsets

Via the libertarians at Marginal Revolutions comes this website making fun of liberals who think carbon offsets are good:

At Cheatneutral, we believe that we should all try to reduce the amount we cheat on our partners, but we also realise that fidelity isn't always possible.

That's why we help you neutralise your cheating. Your actions are offset by a global network of fidelity, developed by us. By paying Cheatneutral, you're funding monogamy-boosting offset projects - we simply invest the money you give us in monogamous, faithful or just plain single people, to encourage them to stay that way.

Ha ha! Those stupid liberals! Seriously though, does anyone see the fatal flaw in this satire? Cheating is bad for the individuals involved but has little effect on society at large. Releasing carbon into the atmosphere has no immediate negative effects but hurts society. Offsets don't do anything to mitigate the immediate effects of something but could work at alleviating the cumulative evils. QED

I understand the importance of protecting the environment but I also believe in capitalism. That means that in my ideal world people would charged for the damage they do and that the rich would obviously be able to pay for more carbon than the poor. I see no problem with using offsets in a reasonably ingenious stop-gap effort while we try to set up a more market-based carbon-tax or cap-and-trade scheme.

Get a broom!

I hate leaf blowers as if they were little gas-powered Hitlers.

That is all.

Plastic Grocery Bags

Relatives from out-of-state have been asking me about the ban on plastic grocery bags in San Francisco, so here's a little background info on what prompted the ban.

I think one of the biggest things worth noting is that even returning the plastic bags to the grocery store doesn't result in the material ultimately being recycled. Rather, the store just sells them to companies that make Trex, a wood/plastic composite, lumber-like material, which is itself not recyclable.

It's still not completely obvious to me that the bag ban is a net gain for the environment or society generally - I think that depends on what takes the place of polyethylene bags - but the thinking of the city of San Francisco seems pretty clear.

Woo hoo!

"Supreme Court rules EPA has authority to regulate car emissions in rebuke of Bush admin warming policy."

Word.

A little defensive, no?

Fourteen days and 214 commenter responses later, I'm still thinking about this post at Pandagon. The title, "Can 'Good' Progressives Still Eat Meat?"--which originated not from Roxanne but from Kathy Freston, whose excellent article inspired the post--is intentionally provocative and simplified. But boy did it strike a nerve with Pandagon's readers.

The U.N. recently told us something I've known since I turned vegan almost ten years ago:

The livestock sector emerges as one of the top two or three most significant contributors to the most serious environmental problems, at every scale from local to global.

Yet many self-described environmentalists (who tisk dispprovingly at Hummers and buy pesticide-free apples and turn down the heater in winter) aren't giving up (or reducing) pork chops without a fight.

The comments (I stopped reading at about 113) were discouraging, largely in favor of telling vegans to stop whining and start minding their own business (because we all know that "good" progressives shut up and never tell other people what to do). But what's most annoying is when omnivores will fabricate information or turn to prejudice to justify a culturally-sanctioned action that's a major detriment to environmental sustainability. A summary of the comments:

1) Eating organic, locally-farmed meat uses less resources than eating non-local plant-based food!

This was a popular one which, coincidentally, is entirely made up. This might be an example of well-meaning progressives favoring aesthetics over substance. It's the idea behind eating a cow from a neighboring county that appeals to us; nevermind if eating meat still uses ten times the gasoline, water, and fertilizer as eating only plants. But saying that I buy local meat sounds like I'm trying! I blame Michael Pollan. Anyhow, if you're spending the extra time and money to buy only local animal products in the name of environmental stewardship, why not maximize your efforts and buy only local plant products?

2) Being vegan is too expensive.

Which explains why all the poorest nations subsist almost entirely on plant products. Okay, if as a vegan you eat exactly what omnivores eat, just with "gourmet" soy-based substitute products in place of meat and dairy, then taking the moral high ground can cost you. Not only is this dietary chicanery financially expensive, it's also boring and gross. Otherwise, vegan food is the world's cheapest. Beans, whole grains, rice, vegetables, quinoa, fruits--you can't any thriftier than that.

3) Vegan food is tasteless and gross.

My friend, you haven't experienced Millennium. Or my chocolate chip cookies, for that matter. Mmmm ... Earth Balance.

4) If I don't eat meat I get weak and sick.

Then you're doing it wrong. There's an art to getting all of your nutritional bases covered without eating other animals, and it takes practice. But it's a small price to pay if environmental sustainability is actually an important issue to you. Part of being a liberal is making sacrifices--that's what makes us better than conservatives--and it's dishonest to pat yourself on the back for sucking it up and reusing your grocery bags while simultaneously refusing to reduce your meat intake because it would be a pain in the ass.

5) I get to eat meat because vegans are preachy and annoying.

Uh huh.

6) But some fancy-pants Berkeley researcher told me that tens of thousands of years ago the introduction of larger quantities of meat into the diet ushered in an era of profound cranial development and population growth among humans.

And this has to do with humans in 2007 how? Humans also used to poop outdoors. Live in the now! Plus Neanderthal's neighbors didn't have access to agriculture, so they had to diversify their diets in order to survive. (Prehistoric folks, for the record, also weren't consuming nonrenewable resources at alarming rates. They get a retroactive free pass from me.)

7) I totally don't eat meat ... that often! High Five!

A little defensive, aren't we Professor Lefty? But these folks have a point. In the battle against swiftly destroying the planet, every effort counts, and if giving up meat entirely isn't your game, try reducing a little (or a lot). It's like trading in your car for your bike Monday through Friday, but using the automobile when cycling isn't feasible (e.g., when you're picking up that $99 couch from IKEA). A pound of conventionally-produced meat sucks up over 2000 gallons of water (soybeans, by comparison, use fewer than 250); cut out a few quarter pounders a month and you've earned a gold star.

I don't expect everyone to throw down their forks and swear off ribs tomorrow in the name of "good" progressivism. But it's disingenuous to posture at (and congratulate yourself for) self-sacrificing efforts to conserve resources--by driving an expensive fuel-efficient car, taking shorter showers, or even buying locally-produced food--while also giving vegans a hard time for being self-righteous. There really couldn't be an easier way to reduce resource consumption than eschewing animal products. But because meat eating--moreso even than driving a car or running the AC--is so deeply ingrained in our culture as a staple, no, a RIGHT!, even the most self-congratulatory liberals will balk at the idea of taking a simple step toward practicing what they preach.

Focus on the Family: Great for fetuses; not so great for the people those fetuses will become

When he's not busy telling women what to do with their vaginas, Focus on the Family founder James C. Dobson likes to condemn people who think fighting global warming should be a priority for Christians.

In a letter this week to the board of the NAE, which claims 30 million members, Dobson and his two dozen co-signers said the Rev. Richard Cizik, the NAE's vice president for government relations, has waged a "relentless campaign" that is "dividing and demoralizing" evangelicals.

Cizik has been a leader in efforts to broaden evangelicals' political agenda beyond abortion and same-sex marriage. He says Christians have a biblical imperative to protect the environment, which he calls "creation care."

Troubling to some evangelicals, including Dobson, is NAE's increased dedication to human rights and environmental responsibility because these issues are "associated it with leftists, limits on free enterprise and population control." After all, nothing says Jesus! like rampant capitalism, indiscriminant reproduction, and deregulation of industry carbon emissions.

From NAE's website, here's an example of the extremist lefty hippie pinko stuff Cizik and his ilk are trying to promote:

Attending to Human Concerns
We stand committed to biblically defined family values, the sanctity of human life, and human rights. ...

Maximizing resources
NAE seeks the maximization and stewardship of all the resources God has given to us.

Oooh! Divisive! I guess right-wing Christians want to stick to evidence-based, controversy-squelching issues, and shy away from unproven, faction-splitting topics like global warming.

I'm rarely inclined to intellectually cooperate with any type of religious organization. They tend to shelter misogynist, racist, and homophobic doctrine under a roof of spiritual infallibility, and religion itself doesn't seem conducive to progressive ways of thinking. (Something about adhering to a static text as the sole moral guidance for the rest of eternity doesn't induce subversive behavior.) But if Christians (or any religious group whose principles dictate kindness to other people) can recognize that promoting life and happiness should apply to future humans as much as it does for existing humans, there could be a successful alliance between the fundamentalists and the environmentalist radicals. What could be more fundie Christian than taking action now to save the lives of children yet unborn? Fighting global warming: It's like being pro-life in the future.

Where's Clarence Darrow When You Need Him?

This is an old news story, but it's starting to feel like an even older one. Last month, Frosty Hardison, a father of a high school student in a Seattle suburb, managed to get "An Inconvenient Truth" barred from his daughter's district by writing a letter accusing her teacher of telling just one side of the supposedly multi-sided issue of global warming.

As if to deliberately create an aesthetic, as well as rhetorical, parallel between the creationists and global warming deniers, chew on this tasty treat:

The 43-year-old computer consultant is an evangelical Christian who says he believes that a warming planet is "one of the signs" of Jesus Christ's imminent return for Judgment Day.

-----

"Condoms don't belong in school, and neither does Al Gore. He's not a schoolteacher," said Frosty Hardison, a parent of seven who also said that he believes the Earth is 14,000 years old. "The information that's being presented is a very cockeyed view of what the truth is. ... The Bible says that in the end times everything will burn up, but that perspective isn't in the DVD."

Uh. Uh huh. Hardison is also a patriot. Check it:

"No you will not teach or show that propagandist Al Gore video to my child, blaming our nation -- the greatest nation ever to exist on this planet -- for global warming," Hardison wrote in an e-mail to the Federal Way School Board.

-----

"From what I've seen (of the movie) and what my husband has expressed to me, if (the movie) is going to take the approach of 'bad America, bad America,' I don't think it should be shown at all," [Frosty's wife] Gayle Hardison said. "If you're going to come in and just say America is creating the rotten ruin of the world, I don't think the video should be shown."

Scientists say that Americans, with about 5 percent of the world's population, emit about 25 percent of the globe-warming gases.

Clearly, Al Gore hates America. He's probably emboldening terrorists as we speak.

On a more substantive note, global warming deniers have taken a cue from creationists in insisting that a "balanced" presentation of a "controversial" issue be given to public school students. Why is anyone humoring these people? Why do nincompoops continue to buy into the idea that global warming, like evolution, is "just a theory"? Since when does championing diversity of opinion mean we have to let ignorance reign supreme? Why does superstition keep beating fact? Teaching global warming and evolution already is balanced; in fact, it's better than balanced: it's correct.

Subsequent to these two articles, the Federal Way school board has lifted the ban on the film. But I can't help myself in reprinting this nugget of comedy gold:

In the end, though, the board opted for an abundance of balance.

That means that "An Inconvenient Truth" may be shown only with the written permission of a principal -- and only when it is balanced by alternative views that are approved by both a principal and the superintendent of schools.

Hardison was pleased.

"I am happy they are giving the kids as much information as possible," he said.
His daughter's science teacher, meanwhile, said she is struggling to find authoritative articles to counter the information in the Gore documentary.

"The only thing I have found so far is an article in Newsweek called 'The Cooling World,' " Walls said.

It was written 32 years ago.

Awesome.

Politcal Cartoons: Stupid and Uninformative

My hatred of political cartoons is matched only by my contempt for Marmaduke. Like America's favorite two-dimensional great Dane, political cartoons are repetitive, obvious, unfunny, hyperbolic, and founded in an essentialist understanding of the world. But at least Marmaduke doesn't lie about global warming.

I browsed over a hundred of the "Energy and the Environment" cartoons reprinted by Slate, and I discovered a few themes: different artists tell the exact same jokes (I mean, c'mon), political cartoonists love excessive and bizarrely abstracted labeling, some authors don't get it that cattle wouldn't be so numerous if people didn't eat them, still others can't fathom that science should influence policy, and apparently everybody hates Al Gore (here, here, here, here, here, here, and here).

Most disturbing is that political cartoonists, like most journalists, didn't have to pass a science exam to get their job, which leads to ass-hattery like this cartoon:

Sorry, Glenn McCoy, but no one with even a basic understanding of global warming would claim that the effects of climate change occur in the span of a few years and without anomalous years. If our artist knew anything about science, he'd comprehend that climate change is measured over the span of decades, not months, and that within a trend outliers may exist. This strip demonstrates a similar misconception about global warming, namely that if global warming were a real climatological force then global temperatures would rise consistently across time and that all locations on the planet would experience an equal increase in heat.

I'm also troubled that environmentalists are being portrayed as doomsday prognosticators, easily dismissed alongside nut jobs professing the impending Apocalypse. I don't recall Al Gore saying that ocean levels were going to rise up and swallow Manhattan next summer. Environmental groups, backed by many members of the scientific community, are simply stating that severe climate change and irreversible pollution are eventual outcomes of our current behaviors. I guess that concept is a little too nuanced to convey in a comic strip, though.

What's Wrong with America

For some ungodly reason (I think his Hungarian grandpa, who also belives in hexes, is the responsible party), my boyfriend was sentenced to a subscription to the paragon of baseless conservative outrage-mongering, The Reader's Digest, so when it shows up in our apartment mailbox, I peruse it sometimes, just for laffs.

One article in the September issue examines three case studies of "A+" students, one from a home school, another from a private school, and the third from--and this is supposed to be shocking to the reader--a plain-old public school! Anyhow, the introductory paragraph rattles off a litany of indicators that America's schools are failing: a quarter of students don't finish high school, only a third of eighth graders score at grade level in math and reading, etc.

Naturally these startling--startling!--figures aren't compared to statistics from previous generations' students (thanks, Paul), but rest assured that "[w]hen it comes to education, our children are in trouble." Assuming we're worse off now that twenty years ago (which I doubt), whom should we blame for our crippling moral failure as a nation? Lack of funding from federal and state governments? Increased grade-level standards and AYPs? Atheists and homosexuals? No, silly. Teachers!

There are plenty of reasons for all that failure--from stultifying school bureaucracy to reform-resistant teachers unions to poorly qualified teachers.

Does anyone actually believe this? Are morons across this great nation actually falling for the witch-huntery that the media levy against educators? Do people actually think that waves of unqualified idiots are plucked from local rehab clinics and prison cells to teach American children? Where did all these horrible teachers come from?

In an unrelated story, as reported by the Wall Street Journal this morning (this also arrives into my house under my boyfriend's name--this time it's his dad's fault), bears are bothering people in their homes and recreational areas more than they used to. (They are?) Of course this troubling conflict is because bears are getting too bold, not because humans continue to encroach upon bears' habitat. Uh, yeah.

If I were queen of America I'd pass a law that if you publish supposedly alarming statistics then you have to (a) offer comparative statistics (from either another geographic area or time period, just so we know why we should be pissed off) and (b) actually analyze the causes in a fair, realistic way.

If American schools are failing to do anything it's teaching people how to examine causes when citing an effect.

Three Second Memory

Everybody knows that goldfish are stupid. The irrefutable evidence lies in their (perhaps somewhat mythological) habit of eating any food that's put into their bowls, even to the point of bloating their little golden tummies to death.

Humans, on the hand, are geniuses. The evidence lies in our big brains, big tools, and resulting domination over a big planet.

Thus it's confusing when such smart creatures mimic brainless ones. Take our Senate's passage of a bill that expands oil drilling in the Gulf Coast, rhetorically supported in large part as a way combat continually rising fuel prices. There are many fascinating aspects of this bill - for example, that if turned into law, some of the dividends from the extracted oil and natural gas would be given to the nearby states instead of only to the federal government; or that certain congresspeople who normally support drilling would suddenly oppose drilling if their states wouldn't benefit financially from this bill; or, even more interestingly, that legislators who normally oppose drilling would consider supporting this bill if their states weren't negatively affected.

But I'm not here to point out senators' internal inconsistencies; that's Garry Trudeau's job. I'm here to call humans stupid. Why else would we think the long-term solution to oil dependency was to continue sucking oil out of the earth faster than it is replenished? Why else would so much more money be dumped into finding new places to drill oil than into finding alternatives to oil?

Because we're goldfish. We like to consume, and no whiney long-haired hippie with speeches about the planet's mother spirit, nor any scientist with tales of woe about distant, abstract concepts of resource depletion will dissuade us from consuming. There's nothing unnatural about this; unfortunately, though, there's nothing natural about drilling for oil.

I would like one day to devise the perfect campaign to encourage environmentalism and conservation in the developed and developing worlds. I imagine it will involve reminders about how our grandchildren will inherit our world and our mistakes, and how attractive things like redwoods and tigers should be preserved so we can continue to enjoy them. This is not my ideal message, but it seems so far to be the most effective.

In the meantime, the environmentalists will continue to operate as a disjointed, misrepresented, maligned faction of society, and Ted Stevens will continue to be an idiot.