Climate Capitalism

The White House released a key report on climate change this week. The report Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States, (Thomas R. Karl, Jerry M. Melillo, and Thomas C. Peterson, (eds.). Cambridge University Press, 2009.) was the work of multiple U.S. agencies including NOAA and the U.S. Global Change Research Program.

What a difference a new administration makes.  Rather than the Bush administration’s technique of downplaying hard science in lieu of industry interest this report was accompanied by a full White House press release by Obama advisor John Holdren.  The report itself paints a bleak, but honest picture of the challenges climate change poses for the 21 Century world.  It is written in fairly plain language complete with plenty of graphs, diagrams, and examples to make the results of the science that went into the report, accessible to the average reader.

You can view the official press release YouTube clip below.  If you are in a hurry, you can skip the first 5-10 minutes which is largely introductions.  It gets a little more interesting when the authors present some of the key findings of the report.  One comment I found very apt to “Climate Capitalism” was by lead author, Tom Karl,

“… we designed and built our infrastructure for the climate we’ve had, not the climate we will have.”

This statement is exactly the kind of pragmatic thinking this country needs if we are going to lead the world out of the climate crisis.  The status quo of industry and infrastructure will not hold up to the rate of change we are now experiencing.

I was lead the this report and the video clip by Lisa Moore’s post on the Environmental Defense Fund’s blog. Drawing from the report,  Moore’s post includes some nicely summarized highlights of what a warmer world might look like.

In this May 14 entry, I commented on an article from an Oregon newspaper discussing how relatively inexpensive efficiency improvements like installing insulation can have a much greater impact on reducing carbon emissions than investing in more expensive technologies like solar power.  Seemingly to reinforce the point, Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced an initiative today to increase the number of light colored roofs.  Replacing dark roofs with white ones, according to a statement attributed to Secretary Chu in a May 26, 2009, AFP article, “could have the equivalent effect of taking every car in the world off the road for 11 years.” 

Although the article isn’t clear, it appears that the 11-year figure assumes that all dark roofs in the world suddenly be painted white.  Obviously, an initiative to get new government construction or to provide tax incentives for lighter colored roofs on private construction would not have this drastic an effect, but it would have a positive effect.  Again, the point is not that investment in more expensive technologies should not be abandoned for simpler ones.  As Secretary Chu points out, we must consider a “range of measures” in fighting climate change, which includes both new advances in technology and greater implementation of common sense efficiency improvements.

Matthew Lockwood of the Guardian published an op-ed on Monday arguing that the free markets will never fix climate change and that government intevention is the only solution.  He makes several points that are difficult to dispute, such as that measures currently being considered are wholly inadequate to solve the problem, that that political pressures keep politicians from being able to make truly radical changes to energy policy needed to combat global warming, and that greatly increased investment in infrastructure to support green technology is essential.  He concludes that “the free market will not deliver.  We governments to take a lead.”

My only quarrel with the piece is the absolutist nature of the conclusion.  I don’t dispute Lockwood’s description of the issues.  Clearly more government intervention would be helpful.  Clearly more investment in technology and innovation are needed.  However, saying that we need more government intervention isn’t any more a solution to the problem than saying we need the free market to incentive green energy innovation. The difficulty in implementing radical governmental change is all the more reason why the free markets must deliver at least part of the solution.  We can’t rely on government alone to bail us out of this problem.