[Vision2020] Friedman's Op-Ed "Is It Weird Enough Yet?"

[Ted Moffett]

Is It Weird Enough Yet?
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Published: September 13, 2011

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/14/opinion/friedman-is-it-weird-enough-yet.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

Every time I listen to Gov. Rick Perry of Texas and Representative
Michele Bachmann of Minnesota talk about how climate change is some
fraud perpetrated by scientists trying to gin up money for research,
I’m always reminded of one of my favorite movie lines that Jack
Nicholson delivers to his needy neighbor who knocks on his door in the
film “As Good As It Gets.” “Where do they teach you to talk like
this?” asks Nicholson. “Sell crazy someplace else. We’re all stocked
up here.”

Thanks Mr. Perry and Mrs. Bachmann, but we really are all stocked up
on crazy right now. I mean, here is the Texas governor rejecting the
science of climate change while his own state is on fire — after the
worst droughts on record have propelled wildfires to devour an area
the size of Connecticut. As a statement by the Texas Forest Service
said last week: “No one on the face of this earth has ever fought
fires in these extreme conditions.”

Remember the first rule of global warming. The way it unfolds is
really “global weirding.” The weather gets weird: the hots get hotter;
the wets wetter; and the dries get drier. This is not a hoax. This is
high school physics, as Katharine Hayhoe, a climatologist in Texas,
explained on Joe Romm’s invaluable Climateprogress.org blog: “As our
atmosphere becomes warmer, it can hold more water vapor. Atmospheric
circulation patterns shift, bringing more rain to some places and less
to others. For example, when a storm comes, in many cases there is
more water available in the atmosphere and rainfall is heavier. When a
drought comes, often temperatures are already higher than they would
have been 50 years ago, and so the effects of the drought are
magnified by higher evaporation rates.”

CNN reported on Sept. 9 that “Texas had the distinction of
experiencing the warmest summer on record of any state in America,
with an average of 86.8 degrees. Dallas residents sweltered for 40
consecutive days of grueling 100-plus degree temperatures. ...
Temperature-related energy demands soared more than 22 percent above
the norm this summer, the largest increase since record-keeping of
energy demands began more than a century ago.”

There is still much we don’t know about how climate change will
unfold, but it is no hoax. We need to start taking steps, as our
scientists urge, “to manage the unavoidable and avoid the
unmanageable.” If you want a quick primer on the latest climate
science, tune into “24 Hours of Reality.” It is a worldwide live,
online update that can be found at climaterealityproject.org and will
be going on from Sept. 14-15, over 24 hours, with contributors from 24
time zones.

Not only has the science of climate change come under attack lately,
so has the economics of green jobs. Here the critics have a point —
sort of. I wasn’t surprised to read that the solar panel company
Solyndra, which got $535 million in loan guarantees from the
Department of Energy to make solar panels in America, filed for
bankruptcy protection two weeks ago and laid off 1,100 workers. This
story is an embarrassment to the green jobs movement, but the death by
bankruptcy was a collaboration of the worst Democratic and Republican
impulses.

How so? There is only one effective, sustainable way to produce “green
jobs,” and that is with a fixed, durable, long-term price signal that
raises the price of dirty fuels and thereby creates sustained consumer
demand for, and sustained private sector investment in, renewables.
Without a carbon tax or gasoline tax or cap-and-trade system that
makes renewable energies competitive with dirty fuels, while they
achieve scale and move down the cost curve, green jobs will remain a
hobby.

President Obama has chosen not to push for a price signal for
political reasons. He has opted for using regulations and government
funding. In the area of regulation, he deserves great credit for just
pushing through new fuel economy standards that will ensure that by
2025 the average U.S. car will get the mileage (and have the
emissions) of today’s Prius hybrid. But elsewhere, Obama has relied on
green subsidies rather than a price signal. Some of this has really
helped start-ups leverage private capital, but you also get Solyndras.
The G.O.P. has blocked any price signal and fought every regulation.
The result too often is taxpayer money subsidizing wonderful green
innovation, but with no sustainable market within which these
companies can scale.

Let’s fix that. We need revenue to balance the budget. We need
sustainable clean-tech jobs. We need less dependence on Mideast oil.
And we need to take steps to mitigate climate change — just in case
Governor Perry is wrong. The easiest way to do all of this at once is
with a gasoline tax or price on carbon. Would you rather cut Social
Security and Medicare or pay a little more per gallon of gas and make
the country stronger, safer and healthier? It still amazes me that our
politicians have the courage to send our citizens to war but not to
ask the public that question.
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Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett