The campaigns for Public Service Commissioner are one of those crucial 2010 election stories I've neglected on LiTW. (And if there are others you feel strongly about, write! a! Diary!) PSC 5 - pitting Ken Toole against Bill Gallagher - and PSC 1 - pitting Travis Kavulla against Don Ryan - are going to nail-biters, and could decide the composition and majority of the Public Service Commission. Here's the Bloomsbury Businessweek on the races:
Republicans are eying a rare chance to take control of the Montana Public Service Commission, the body that regulates utilities, in an election year in which their brand of politics seems to be riding high.
But over the last 30 years, Democrats have been favored by voters in the role of policing the utility businesses. The Republicans last took control of the PSC in 2002, and that was only for a couple of years....
Democrats hold four of the five seats on the commission, with Brad Molnar, of Billings, the sole Republican. The GOP would have to win both races to take control, likely placing Molnar in the role of chairman.
Anyhoo - I want to talk about Ken Toole. You know the guy: fierce consumer advocate, opponent of the disastrous energy deregulation. Exactly the kind of commissioner the state needs, one who looks out after ratepayers first.
Well, his opponent has gone negative in a pretty strong way, using gays as a wedge. From a letter Gallagher sent out:
n 2004 Ken Toole, then Executive Director for the Montana Human Rights Network, joined with other "Pride" organizations and formed a group called Montanans for Families and Fairness to oppose CI-96, the one man + one woman = marriage amendment.
So far no problem. BUT, then the group sent intimidating letters to hundreds of protestant and catholic churches in Montana threatening them with IRS and election problems, and warning the churches not to support of CI-96.
Next, the group sent an infiltrator to the Canyon Ferry Road Baptist Church where, in an evening service, they presented a Montana Family Foundation simulcast event titled "The Battle for Marriage" and made petitions supporting CI-96 available to those attending the event.
The group followed through with their threat and filed a complaint with the Montana Commissioner of Political Practice which began a legal battle that finally ended in 2009, when the US 9th Circuit held that the Church's first amendment rights had indeed been violated and that the charges amounted to "petty bureaucratic harassment."
The result, Montana tax payers paid all the legal expenses, including $225,000 inserted into the 2009 MT Appropriations bill HB-003. That's right! We the taxpayers paid a $225,000 bailout for what Toole's group started!
Where to start? How about with an analysis (pdf) of the 9th Circuit Court decision? Which explains that the Commissioner of Political Practices found validity in the MHRN's complaint, calling the church an "incidental political committee," and the subsequent appeal to the district court was rejected. The Ninth Circuit overturned the decision, criticizing the law, not MHRN, because the church's expenditures were so small, it wasn't worth reporting and cases against small political donors would discourage small donors from participating in the public process. What's not mentioned here is the church's tax-exempt status, which comes at the cost of that church not participating in political activities - which it clearly was in this case, as all parties agree.
Got it? The MHRN was monitoring churches to see if they were hiding behind their tax-exempt status while engaging in political activity around the anti-gay-marriage initiative. And they were.
The next question that should come to you should be, what the h*ll does this have to do with the PSC? The answer, of course, is "nothing."
Which makes sense, given how inexperienced and unsuited Gallagher is for the PSC. That's probably why Gallagher is calling Toole a "career politician," which is another way of saying Toole was once chair of the Senate Energy and Telecommunications committee...that's, well, pretty closely related to the job he's doing now, to say the least. Gallagher's also against "any other irresponsible 'global plan' based on questionable 'science'," and calls Toole a "devoted 'global warming disciple'" and accused him of supporting a "socialist version of the Cap and Trade policy."
You're probably now asking yourself how a clown like Gallagher even won his party's nomination for the race. Well, that was the race Brad Johnson punted after blowing a 0.24 BAC in a May traffic stop.
Naturally Gallagher's endorsed by the Chamber of Commerce.
Donate to Ken Toole, or contact him to see how you can help out.
Matt wrote about Ryan Lizza's piece on the failure of climate-change legislation in the Senate, and found in it reason to "abolish the rules" of the Senate, which are "making our nation ungovernable." You probably know filibuster reform had me at "hello," so I put the article on the back burner, only slogging through it today.
Spoiler alert! I'm going to give away the ending, so if you want to be surprised, stop reading now!
The bill failed because of a combination of partisan Republicans, commercial interests' control of Congress, and fearful Democrats with a too-steady eye on polling numbers:
In September, I asked Al Gore why he thought climate legislation had failed. He cited several reasons, including Republican partisanship, which had prevented moderates from becoming part of the coalition in favor of the bill. The Great Recession made the effort even more difficult, he added. "The forces wedded to the old patterns still have enough influence that they were able to use the fear of the economic downturn as a way of slowing the progress toward this big transition that we have to make."
..."The influence of special interests is now at an extremely unhealthy level," Gore said. "And it's to the point where it's virtually impossible for participants in the current political system to enact any significant change without first seeking and gaining permission from the largest commercial interests who are most affected by the proposed change"....
As the Senate debate expired this summer, a longtime environmental lobbyist told me that he believed the "real tragedy" surrounding the issue was that Obama understood it profoundly. "I believe Barack Obama understands that fifty years from now no one's going to know about health care," the lobbyist said. "Economic historians will know that we had a recession at this time. Everybody is going to be thinking about whether Barack Obama was the James Buchanan of climate change."
Quite the shocker, eh? Okay, maybe not. But certainly the failure of climate change legislation is the icing on the cake of the systematic failure of government, finance, and media. Sure, in DC-land, it was collateral damage in its strange Kabuki theater, but climate change is the biggest crisis we've ever faced, our response to it here and now likely determining whether our planet will be habitable for humans in the next generation or so. (Sorry, kids. A bunch of Senators didn't like the idea of hurting coal industry short-term profit.)
With one exception, none of the Republicans running for the Senate - including the 20 or so with a serious chance of winning - accept the scientific consensus that humans are largely responsible for global warming.
The candidates are not simply rejecting solutions, like putting a price on carbon, though these, too, are demonized. They are re-running the strategy of denial perfected by Mr. Cheney a decade ago, repudiating years of peer-reviewed findings about global warming and creating an alternative reality in which climate change is a hoax or conspiracy....
...all are custodians of a strategy whose guiding principle has been to avoid debate about solutions to climate change by denying its existence - or at least by diminishing its importance. The strategy worked, destroying hopes for Congressional action while further confusing ordinary citizens for whom global warming was already a remote and complex matter....
The thing is, global warming has already had economic consequences for the American taxpayer. In addressing PSC candidate Travis Kavulla's gutless response to impending ecological catastrophe, I mentioned how climate change has extended the fire season 78 days in the last three decades, a primary cause of a 10-billion-dollar uptick (pdf) in federal forest fighting costs in the first half of this decade alone. And that's just one narrow element of our economy that's been affected by rising temperatures. Consider the costs to agriculture by the infestation of exotic weed species in the West abetted by warming mountain winters...
To be even an agnostic on climate change entails a willful obliviousness that borders on recklessnss if you're a public official. But to deny warming...? And we're talking here about Senate candidates -- you know, the ones that are supposed to be more thoughtful and careful when it comes to policy.
[On Oct. 15, "Urserious" responded to a recent posting of mine by including a commentary made on PBS by UM Professor emeritus Tom Powers. In it Powers raises important questions about Max Baucus's loyalties. Powers also questions the assumption that oil and coal jobs are an important part of our state's economy.]
Powers' Commentary
Last week Montana Senator Max Baucus appeared to side with Republicans and a handful of coal-state Democrats in opposition to the US Environmental Protection Agency using the authority that the US Supreme Court has said EPA has to regulate greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act.
Baucus was quoted as saying that the regulation of greenhouse gases was too important and complicated to trust to just a federal agency. Instead, that regulation should remain the business of the US Congress where different regional and industrial interests can be balanced. Congress, of course, has not been able to muster the votes to pass any climate protection legislation, and with Republicans expected to be significantly more powerful in Congress after the mid-term elections, there is little chance a greenhouse gas emission control bill will be produced by Congress any time soon. No EPA greenhouse gas regulation may effectively mean no greenhouse gas regulation at all for the indefinite future.
Because Baucus is a member of the Senate Committee on the Environment and Public Works, his apparent opposition to allowing EPA to adopt regulations controlling greenhouse gas emissions was big news in Washington DC. One of the Capitol's influential daily newsletters, Environment and Energy, explained Baucus' waffling on the regulation of greenhouse gases by saying: "Baucus is wary of efforts to limit carbon emissions, as coal mining, coal-fired electricity and oil refineries dominate his state.
It is true that Montana has lots of coal and continues to produce significant amounts of petroleum and natural gas. It is also true that a half-dozen large coal mines are operating in the state, shipping that coal to coal-fired generators across the nation. That coal mining also supports six coal-fired generators here in Montana including Colstrip's four generators. We also have oil refineries in Billings, Great Falls, and Laurel. We have high voltage transmission lines delivering the electricity we generate to the West Coast, a petroleum products pipeline stretching across much of the state connecting some of our refineries with the states to the west and a variety of natural gas pipelines crisscrossing the state. Clearly energy production, transformation, and transmission are a significant part of Montana's economy. But are we "dominated" by these energy industries?
That description, of course, is not just a shorthand way for Washington DC insiders to try to make sense out of why our representatives vote the way they do. It is also a description that increases the political power of those very fossil fuel sectors in Montana, giving them more leverage to either block or change any proposed greenhouse gas regulations or legislation. That, actually, is what Baucus meant by saying that regulation of greenhouse gases should be done in Congress where heavy emitters of greenhouse gases can better get their economic interests taken into account.
For that reason, it is important to investigate the extent to which Montana is actually economically "dependent" on coal mines, coal-fired electric generators, and oil refineries. The answer to that is that we have "little" and "shrinking" economic dependence on those energy industries. The Montana Coal Council tells us that in 2009 about 1,150 people were employed in coal mining in Montana. That sounds like a lot of jobs, but there were about 625,000 jobs in Montana in 2009. The coal mining jobs represented about one out of every 500 jobs, less than two-tenths of one percent of all jobs. In petroleum refining, we have about 1,100 jobs, about the same as in coal mining. If we look at electric generation, the 2002 and 2007 Economic Census indicate that the employment in electric generation was about 450, but about 150 of those jobs were associated with hydroelectric generation, leaving about 300 workers engaged in fossil fuel-based generation. Clearly that is even a smaller sliver of the total Montana economy, one out of every 2,000 jobs. If we add all of the coal mining, coal-fired electric generation, and petroleum refining jobs together, there are about 2,600 jobs associated with these energy sectors. That is, these sectors provide one out of every 250 Montana jobs or about four-tenths of one percent of total jobs.
To call this a "dominant" position in the Montana economy is more than a stretch, it is at the very limits of hyperbole. One can, of course, start using multipliers to inflate this number. But any reasonable multiplier would leave us accounting for less than two percent of the Montana's jobs. It might be better to be worrying more about the other 98 percent of jobs if we are really concerned about the future of the Montana economy.
Just as important, we could ask how many of the new jobs that have been created in Montana over the last 25 years were created in these energy sectors. Over the last quarter century, Montana added almost 220,000 jobs, over a 50 percent increase. During that time, employment in coal mining declined by over 300. Employment in coal-fired generation also appears to have declined as automation reduced the necessary work force. On the other hand, employment at our oil refineries expanded by 200. So overall, these three energy sectors lost a couple of hundred jobs while the over all economy was expanding dramatically. Just in health care, for instance, almost 30,000 new jobs were created, more than doubling that workforce.
It is important that we focus clearly on the economy we actually have and the sources of economic vitality that have actually been supporting the expansion of employment opportunities. Our continued fascination with the view through the economic rear-view mirror leads only to confusion and bad public economic policy that allows a tiny sliver of economic participants to distort public policy to protect their private interests at the expense of the rest of the population and the economy.
Via Ezra Klein, here's Ross Douthat explaining why Republican politicians are so eager to deny global warming - the only conservative party to do so in the industrialized West:
What's interesting, though, is that if you look at public opinion on climate change, the U.S. isn't actually that much of an outlier among the wealthier Western nations. In a 2007-2008 Gallup survey on global views of climate change, for instance, just 49 percent of American told pollsters that human beings are responsible for global warming. But the same figure for Britain (where Rush Limbaugh has relatively few listeners, I believe) was 48 percent, and belief in human-caused climate change was only slightly higher across northern Europe: 52 percent in the Czech Republic, 59 percent in Germany, 49 percent in Denmark, 51 percent in Austria, just 44 percent in the Netherlands, with highs of 63 percent in France and 64 percent in Sweden. (Doubts about anthropogenic global warming are considerably rarer, the study found, in southern Europe, Latin America and the wealthier countries of Asia.)
There's a reasonably large Western European constituency, in other words, for some sort of climate change skepticism. (And probably a growing one: In Britain, at least, as in the United States, the economic slump has dampened public enthusiasm for anti-emissions regulation.) But the politicians haven't been responding. Instead, Europe's political class, left and right alike, has worked to marginalize a position that it considers intellectually disreputable, even as the American G.O.P. has exploited that same position to win votes.
That is, the Republican party is using climate change skepticism for political gain, while their political peers in Europe eschew the quick fix and are contributing solutions to "the 21st century's biggest foreign-policy challenge," as Britain's Foreign Secretary and Conservative party leader William Hague said. "An effective response to climate change underpins our security and prosperity."
It's amazing how this political opportunism has morphed into a kind of belief. Take Dave Budge's sophist argument against the entirety of climate science: apparently the body's "oligopolistic nature" is "reinforc{ing} one approach rather than foster{ing} an environment in which a variety of approaches can flourish." Yet there's no evidence offered that climate science has indeed narrowed its approach. In reality, the opposite is true. Competing theories to the origin of climate change are investigated and tested - after all, that's what science is all about. And here's all you need to know: there exists no competing and scientifically valid theory to dispute the consensus that the climate is warming beyond the range of natural trends and that the major cause is rising levels of CO2. Where there is debate is in how quickly the climate will change and to what extent, how the changing climate will manifest itself, and the extent of the negative impacts to human health it will have.
Budge, as an economically-minded kind of guy, came to his conclusion in observing that economic modeling failed to correctly predict the current financial crises - therefore, he reasons, climate modeling couldn't possibly be accurate either, the data is too complex. But the climate - unlike economics - is a deterministic system. Actions always have the same results. If you turn down the sun, it gets cooler. If a surface is white, it's cooler. If you increase the presence of a greenhouse gas in the atmosphere - CO2, water vapor, or methane, say - it gets hotter. Accuracy in modeling is easier to achieve. On the other hand, as a human institution the economy is not deterministic. Sure, there are trends, but human free will prevents predictions for the economy (similar to history, say) to be anything other than guesswork. In fact, you could argue that economic theories themselves influence the economy. It's for that reason that economics is inherently political - unlike science.
Maybe that's why so many conservatives have rushed to denialist positions in the wake of their favored party's exploitation of climate change doubt: they come at the issue, not as scientists, but as political and economic ideologues. I suspect the reason why many dislike the findings of climate science is that the free market is inadequate on its own to react to the problem climate change poses. Climate change demands a state-led response that poses great economic risk. No wonder they've taken to quivering hand-wringing...
Still, market forces are incredibly useful as a means of innovation. It's too bad our nation's conservatives have abandoned our generation's greatest challenge.
In the article he wrote for the {American} Prospect's first issue, Schlesinger observed that many people believe politics is about power, while others think it is about image, and he granted there is some truth in both of those views. But in a democracy, he continued, politics is "above all about the search for remedy."
The Democrats will lose ground this year because they've failed to provide economic remedies fast enough. But the long-run problem for Republicans is that remedy is not what they have been offering -- not for health care, for which they barely offer even the pretense of a solution; not for the recession, which their ideas would aggravate; not for immigration, one of several issues they want to exploit without facing up to the facts; not for climate change, which many of them entirely deny; not for energy, where their favorite response, as summed up in the chant, "Drill, baby, drill," was drowned in the Gulf oil spill. Events like the financial collapse and the oil spill keep reminding people that they need a competent and activist government to rein in the market. Unless conservatives abandon ideological fantasy and denial and become a responsible partner in government, progressives will dominate the search for remedy. And if that is what political tug-of-war is all about, we will ultimately win it.
I don't share Starr's optimism that progressive remedies will eventually carry the day. After all, democracy's not even safe. Just a glance at Tea Party rhetoric, where the democratic process is called "tyranny" on the basis of distorted interpretations of 18th-century political theory and accompanied by overt threats of violence - "gather your armies!" - hints at what could be. I could imagine a world where a political party rides right-wing populist racism and xenophobia to elected office...
In short, if there's one lesson I've learned since mucking around in politics, it's that good ideas don't always win the day.
Still Starr's right: only Democrats have actually tried to solve the problems we face, economically, environmentally, and in foreign policy. We may not like the policies they craft in Congress - too slavish towards established institutions and big corporations - but at least they have policies. Don't believe me? Check out this post from Montana PSC candidate Travis Kavulla on global warming:
So what's the solution? Manzi suggests that there is no obvious solution in the here-and-now, and that whatever solution is out there almost certainly has not been invented yet. I agree. Manzi's recipe is investment, not mandates or carbon taxes or the creation of artificial shortages. And I tend to agree that anything that tries to make renewables more competitive by lowering their cost is a much better option as opposed to the self-defeating path of raising the price of carbon-based fuels for only some consumers in only some parts of the world.
So the answer is...do nothing? At least Kavulla acknowledges climate change is real. And it's pathetic, really, that he gets kudos for that, showing as it does how neanderthal most conservatives' views are on the topic.
First of all, Manzi based his do-nothing conclusion on the premise that "global warming...is expected to have only a marginal impact on the world economy." Of course, folks in Montana already know this isn't true. The region's mountain pine beetle infestation is a direct result of climate change, as is the West's prolonged fire season, which accounted for an increase in the federal firefighting budget of about 1.5 billion dollars a year (pdf) from 2000 to 2005. That is, climate change has likely already cost the American taxpayer in excess of 10 billion dollars in firefighting costs alone in the past decade. And that's not even mentioning the hit in tourism revenue, and the health costs and decline of worker productivity due to fire-related air pollution.
And the rise of global temperatures is just beginning. Wait a century.
As for Kavulla and Manzi eschewing a carbon tax or cap-and-trade, which would raise the cost of fossil-fuel-based energy sources, and reliance on white-hat investment into alternative energy technologies, they seem to forget that investment follows incentive. If carbon-emitting energy becomes more expensive, consumers will demand alternative-energy sources and energy efficient homes, cars, and appliances, mass transit and bike lanes, and livable, walkable neighborhoods. The revenue collected from a carbon tax can build the new green infrastructure. And consumers eventually save money by using energy more efficiently, using less of it.
Which is another way of saying there is plenty we can do, right now. We don't have to pawn off the problem onto some unknown, future technology, and force our children and children's children to muster the courage and determination to deal with environmental catastrophe. Some of us have the courage and determination here and now.
The freefall has begun. The US Senate has abandoned any notion of passing any kind of meaningful reform, and seems to be content to sit tight and watch the 2010 elections. Over the past week, the Senate has punted on some major issues that essentially say they're done.
To wit:
The Cobell settlementwas rejected by the US Senate. It was stripped from a war-funding bill. Harry Reid blamed Republicans, but as Indian Country Today's Rob Capriccioso pointed out, plenty of Democrats had to oppose the amendment for it to fail cloture, 46-51. Republicans - led by Wyoming's John Barrasso - do keep trying to "modify" the settlement in ways Cobell opposes, but it's unclear if the filibusterers here were voting against the settlement, or tacking on unrelated additional spending (there were other domestic measures in the bill besides the Cobell settlement) to the Afghanistan funding bill. So, it either failed because the Senate opposes the settlement, or because they're beholden to deficit hawks. Either way, it's a fail for the Senate.
Cobell is bringing the settlement back to the House. As Gwen Florio notes, the "most recent deadline - there have many, with many delays - for congressional approval of the settlement is Aug. 6."
From a planetary perspective, the Senate abandoning of a climate change bill is even worse. Harry Reid said simply he doesn't have the votes to pass a bill. Worse still, the abandonment of the climate in the Senate presages a complete collapse of any political will to work on climate issues:
The result is an undeniable defeat in stemming climate change in this country. It echoes overseas also with other countries wondering about American resolve on a global issue. The high-wire deal struck in a climate change conference last year in Copenhagen to reduce emissions by 17 percent by 2020 looks very far away.
But the wreckage isn't complete. California will face a challenge to its AB32 law cutting greenhouse emissions on the ballot in November. Also, GOP gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman wants to hit the pause button on the law if elected. Keeping this law on the books becomes a higher priority than ever.
The Obama administration may also take an extra step in the battle by using existing federal laws to crack down on carbon emissions, a regulatory showdown it wanted to avoid with the legislative package that's now dead. Whether it has the will to do so, after the Senate defeat, remains in doubt.
Spectacular fail.
Finally, Republican Senators tried to block the US DoJ from challenging the recent Arizona immigration law. It failed, but the bad news here is that both Jon Tester and Max Baucus voted with Republicans on the issue. It's an astounding vote, frankly. For starters, the bill attempts to dictate to Justice what cases they should pursue. For another matter, while Tester has always been hawkish on immigration, the Arizona law is irreconcilable with the kind of individual civil liberties issues Jon's always championed in the past. How can you be an outspoken opponent of Real ID - and a supporter of Arizona's immigration law? Real ID at least has the benefit of being applied uniformly to all citizens, while Arizona's papers check would be haphazardly applied without document standards, and by local authorities with all of their biases and no oversight. And Tester, at least, has an election coming up and a history of drifting towards nativist positions on immigration. What's Baucus' excuse here?
As Netroots Nation friend Paul Hogarth blogged today, the Senate is where "progressive legislation goes to die."
If there's one major frustration leading into November, it's the U.S. Senate - where Republicans have obstructed practically everything that passed the House. Reid came to the Conference on July 24th - right after announcing we "don't have the votes" for comprehensive climate change reform this year, only adding insult to injury. One panel on filibuster reform suggested we're in a constitutional crisis, but Reid himself wouldn't commit to any specific solution.
And the solution?
But rather than give up, Al Franken reminded the netroots that Senators elected in 2006 and 2008 with their help are a "coalition of the impatient" - and represent a new generation of more progressive Democrats. Bloggers are needed this November to add to their ranks, in order to change the Senate.
Well...it's a nice thought. And I do think our progressive resurgence moved too quickly, allowing too many politicians from earlier eras of appeasement staff the chairs of vital Congressional committees. We do need better representatives.
But I'm still staggered - especially on climate change - how spectacular our political failures have been.
So I'm reading this op-ed by Jonathan Kay on how global warming denialists "are a liability to the conservative cause," and I'm half shouting, yes! yes! when he talks about how denialism is a "phenomenon" fueled by echo-chamber blogs and staffed by people who will "assign credibility to any stray piece of junk science that lands in their inbox," and how denalist paranoia approaches conspiracy theory territory. And I'm nodding when Kay says "rants and slogans...aren't the building blocks of a serious ideological movement."
...the impulse toward denialism must be fought if conservatism is to prosper in a century when environmental issues will assume an ever greater profile on this increasingly hot, parched, crowded planet. Otherwise, the movement will come to be defined--and discredited--by its noisiest cranks and conspiracists.
Sounds good! I mean, I'm no free-market conservative...but if someone can posit a free-market solution to global warming (any solution!) and sell it, I'm all ears!
But the interesting point here is when Kay examines the psychological readiness among conservatives - who are otherwise, according to Kay, so practical when it comes to policy-making - to believe in wild illogical claims about climate change conspiracies:
But there is something deeper at play, too--a basic psychological instinct that public-policy scholars refer to as the "cultural cognition thesis," described in a recently published academic paper as the observed principle that "individuals tend to form perceptions of risk that reflect and reinforce one or another idealized vision of how society should be organized ... Thus, generally speaking, persons who subscribe to individualistic values tend to dismiss claims of environmental risks, because acceptance of such claims implies the need to regulate markets, commerce and other outlets for individual strivings."
In simpler words, too many of us treat science as subjective -- something we customize to reduce cognitive dissonance between what we think and how we live.
Why, yes...that does make sense. I'm sure I've been victim to similar bits of cognitive dissonance, sure.
In the case of global warming, this dissonance is especially traumatic for many conservatives, because they have based their whole worldview on the idea that unfettered capitalism -- and the asphalt-paved, gas-guzzling consumer culture it has spawned -- is synonymous with both personal fulfillment and human advancement. The global-warming hypothesis challenges that fundamental dogma, perhaps fatally.
"Unfettered capitalism"? "Spawned" the "asphalt-paved, gas-guzzling consumer culture"?
Come again?
If there's any part of our lives that's been more underwritten and centrally planned than our asphalt crusin' gas guzzling, I'm not aware of it. The construction of the nation's highway system wasn't the result of free-market pressure by consumers looking for someplace to drive cars. It was a huge government-subsidized project to build highway and paved road infrastructure largely at the behest of corporate magnates who needed a market for oil and automobiles, and rigged taxation and public funding to derail (pun intended) the streetcar and passenger train system already in place.
Calls for a green economy and transportation system represents nothing new, as far as government ventures are concerned. And, if it were up to me, it wouldn't involve any extra funding. If I were dictator, I'd simply start trimming money earmarked for highway projects, and giving it to mass transit projects. And, frankly, in building a green economy, we have a chance to do so openly and democratically, and not at the behest of corporations
But that just underscores the cognitive, dissonance, right? I mean, resistance to climate change legislation isn't opposition to a conspiracy of environmentalists looking to destroy American industry; instead, it's a blind defense of a kind of American socialist experiment that went horribly wrong. Admitting that the last century of car culture was a big mistake implies admitting it's nothing but a big government project, even if it does feel free-spirited to roll your window down and stick your elbow out the window while you drive 278 from Jackson to Dillon...
Paul Krugman wrote a must-read piece yesterday in the New York Times Sunday magazine on building a green economy. He essentially explains the various market solutions to global warming, analyzes future cost scenarios, and discusses the risk of not acting.
Read it. It's one of the better single-piece story laying out the case for government action on climate change I've seen.
And here's a quote that's especially relevant to Montana:
That said, some specific rules may be required. James Hansen, the renowned climate scientist who deserves much of the credit for making global warming an issue in the first place, has argued forcefully that most of the climate-change problem comes down to just one thing, burning coal, and that whatever else we do, we have to shut down coal burning over the next couple decades.
Not too long ago from a reader I got a link to a post suggesting that the "effort to establish climate science as the basis" for cutting down on carbon "lies in ruins":
Climate science, even at its most uncontroversial, could never motivate the remaking of the entire global energy economy. Efforts to use climate science to threaten an apocalyptic future should we fail to embrace green proposals, and to characterize present-day natural disasters as terrifying previews of an impending day of reckoning, have only served to undermine the credibility of both climate science and progressive energy policy.
Citing flatlined public support for belief in climate change, Nordhaus and Shellenberger advocate moving away from using immediate weather events - especially natural disasters - as a basis for supporting good, progressive low-carbon energy policy that's in our nation's "economic, national security, and environmental interest." (However, they never mention what line of reasoning should be used to support said policy.)
I'm down with avoiding using specific weather events to support climate change. That's something I can get behind. But that's not why I received the link. The reader sent the link to discourage me from mentioning climate change at all when I write about energy, as if somehow we've reached a state where the doubt of enough misinformed Americans trumps scientific reality, as if somehow the state of the climate were a battle of wills, not levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
Of course, that's a foolish notion. For one, policy should not be based on irrational public opinion. As Todd Tanner writes in New West, most climate skeptics are "past the point where scientists can convince them or where logical arguments can persuade them," and that they've become ideologues, and whether they're driven by religion or politics or their distrust of the science is ultimately irrelevant." Tanner:
Here's what we need to know. The science is clear and unequivocal. We are dumping huge amounts of carbon into the atmosphere, and all that carbon is warming the planet and making our oceans more acidic. Our dependence on fossil fuels has created a worldwide crisis that threatens every single aspect of our lives.
And, yes, wouldn't it be great if we could find some rhetorical silver bullet that utterly convinced the country that we need to wean ourselves off of our fossil fuel addiction - if not for the carbon, say, but for the deadly air pollution? Of course, I don't even agree that talk around climate change has failed just because a handful of people still claim it doesn't exist. A vast majority of Americans believe the US government should put a "great deal" (pdf) of effort into dealing with global warming, and a plurality believe the US sign on to an international treaty to "reduce significantly greenhouse gas emissions." If this is failure of message, I'd love to see the numbers on a successful public campaign. (Numbers, by the way, courtesy of Tanner.)
But the fact is that there are deep-pocketed people out there who have a strong interest in burning fossil fuels, who will work actively to combat any effort to change our energy infrastructure, and who will sow misinformation and doubt among the citizenry and who will politicize health and safety to thwart reform. That is, it doesn't matter what rhetoric you use to support progressive energy policy, you will be attacked. It's better to ignore the concern trolls and forge on ahead with values that most Americans share, like a clean and healthful environment and a better future for our children.
Climate change exists. We need to do something about it.
The Montana Building Industry Association argued against the changes, saying they would cause more harm than benefit. The group said that most houses, especially more expensive homes, were already built to the higher standards.
It is the buyers and builders of lower-priced homes that will have to make the most changes - causing a price hike for those least able to afford it.
Dustin Stewart, with the building association, said that people who build their own home often like to leave the basement unfinished to make it affordable at first. They will no longer be able to do so.
This is an argument that's heard a lot from builders around the country who are faced with increasingly tight building codes. Basically, builders argue that increased efficiency results in higher home costs, putting houses out of reach for those at the bottom of the economic ladder. Even if these folks rent, the argument goes, building costs will be passed on to renters in the form of higher rents.
First, is it a bad thing that more people will rent? And what's not mentioned is that the consumer saves money on the utilities, which more often than not come straight out of the renters' pocket.
Whatever. The days of enormous subdivisions filled with enormous houses offered up in exchange for the enormous loans rapacious lenders were foisting on consumers are over. It's time for builders to come up with a new business strategy.
It's easy to forget with all the heady talk about alternative energy - solar and wind and geothermal - as a panacea to our fossil fuel dependency, none of it works without increased energy efficiency.
So. The health care legislation is essentially done. Whew. Honestly, it was getting old, wasn't it? I mean, I was writing posts about it last summer. I'm glad to have self-appointed license to think of something else. Like climate change.
Today, the concept is in wide disrepute, with opponents effectively branding it "cap and tax," and Tea Partyfollowers using it as a symbol of much of what they say is wrong with Washington.
Mr. Obama dropped all mention of cap and trade from his current budget. And the sponsors of a Senate climate bill likely to be introduced in April, now that Congress is moving past health care, dare not speak its name.
"I don't know what 'cap and trade' means," Senator John F. Kerry, Democrat of Massachusetts, said last fall in introducing his original climate change plan.
Not sure what's going on over there in conservative brains. First, it's Ross Douthat pleading for "complexity" in film and literature instead of a simplistic good v evil dichotomy, and now it's Red State's Vladimir nihilistic sophistry on climate change:
One thing a scientist must know is how ignorant we are about a lot of things; otherwise, we don't need scientists to discover new stuff. But the remark points to a naive hubris that is pretty pervasive among a "consensus" in the scientific world.
Just fifty years ago, the few believers in "continental drift" were derided by the geologic establishment as kooks on the fringe of science (if not worse). But evidence accumulated, and the theory, repackaged in the '60s and '70s as plate tectonics, is now recognized as the grand unifying theory of earth science.
So-called "Progressives" have a tendency to evaluate everything in life as if it were a deterministic, zero sum game. What goes up, must come down. In with the good, out with the bad. What goes around, comes around. Input X necessarily results in Output Y.
But real life systems don't often obey these rules; they tend toward chaos and often lead to counterintuitive conclusions. In business, they often create examples of The Law of Unintended Consequences.
The Laffer Curve is a perfect example. To a "Progressive", if you want the government to have more tax revenue, you raise tax rates. Cutting tax rates only benefits "the rich".
But the real world is governed by the chaotic rules of economics and personal choices. Arthur Laffer made the simple observation that if tax rates are zero, tax revenue is zero. If tax rates are 100%, tax revenue is also zero. Somewhere in between is a maximum, and tax rates above that optimum rate actually result in less tax revenue.
Businessmen don't need to have this concept explained, so they tend to be conservatives. Academics, trade unionists and Hollywood types will never get it, so they become "Progressives".
Pretty funny stuff, eh? Of course, the plate tectonics idea is a good example - only it's the Vladimirs of the world who are the left-behind skeptics decrying climate change as kook-ish. As for calling progressives "deterministic" and implying they're simplistic? Bad maneuver using to the Laffer curve as evidence, that over-simplistic and crudely deterministic bow hastily scrawled onto a napkin in a 1974 political meeting and ever since used to support the most simplistic conservative tax-cut rhetoric, that raising taxes invariably leads to lower government revenue, and cutting taxes leads to greater revenue. (Both are canards divorced from the reality of the actual, complex marketplace.)
All this complex thinkin' leads Vladimir to this post: "The Unbearable Complexity of Climate," whose basic premise is that the climate is very complex and we don't understand it completely; therefore, it's possible climate change may not be happening, and, therefore, doesn't need to be addressed. Follow this line of reasoning to its ultimate, late-night-smoking-pot-at-college conclusion, and nothing is worth doing or believing because, ultimately, no system or object is capable of being understood completely. Not climate change, not the existence of your friends, and certainly not the Laffer Curve's efficacy (or lack thereof) for predicting tax revenues.
Why get out of bed in the morning when your alarm goes off, when there's a chance all life on the planet will be obliterated during your morning commute by a wayward asteroid?
If the climate is as all-unknowable as Eschenbach claims, then there's a chance that climate change is happening...right? And do you, in good faith, knowing that there's a chance - what with the unknowable-ness of climate - that climate change will make the Earth uninhabitable for humans, do you in good faith sit by, or worse, actively obstruct any measures that might mitigate the possibility of ecological disaster?
That, of course, is countering the argument with their own brand of sophism. In reality, climate scientists do have more than a passing familiarity of climate science, and there is actual evidence of climate change accompanying varying carbon dioxide rates. And we should probably form policy around the evidence at hand.
But just as Ross Douthat isn't really pleading for more complex movies about war, neither are these folks concerned about shades of gray in scientific discourse. They're all engaging in sophistry to obscure facts that are politically unpalatable to them. A climate change "skeptic" represents a political position, not a scientific one. Such a "skeptic" doesn't question climate change, he rejects it out of hand, and opposes any political solution to reduce carbon emissions. Not because there's a good reason to, but because it happens to stake out a position defined by political allies.
And to what end, is the question? To defend the interests of Big Oil?
The Pew Project on National Security, Energy and Climate recently released "Climate Patriots: A Military Perspective on Energy, Climate Change and American National Security." This five-minute feature video showcasing the inextricable links between climate change, our energy posture and our nation's security.
"Climate Patriots" addresses how America's dependence on foreign oil puts our armed forces in harm's way and how the effects of climate change could lead to more humanitarian missions and political instability. It features a number of military experts, including former Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Senator John Warner (R-VA). This video reinforces the recent Defense Department's Quadrennial Defense Review that declared "Climate change... may act as an accelerant of instability or conflict, placing a burden to respond on civilian institutions and militaries around the world."
To learn more about the Pew Project on National Security, Energy and Climate go to www.pewclimatesecurity.com/ Pew National Security is distributing the "Climate Patriots" video throughout the nation, if your organization, school or program would like a DVD copy of this video please contact Matt Leow at mleow@mrss.com or 406-370-3183 to obtain your copy.
This post by Ed Morrissey highlighting a peer-reviewed article questioning the role of climate change in strength and frequency of hurricanes is emblematic with what's wrong with the conservative movement.
For starters, there's always been controversy within the scientific community about the effect of warming global temperatures on storms - especially hurricanes. And note that the article cited second-hand from a Murdoch-owned newspaper essentially reaffirms that climate change is real; all that's being questioned is the effect of warming on hurricane severity. There are similar peer-reviewed scientific articles taking the opposite view.
Additionally, Morrissey isn't challenging scientific consensus here (emphasis mine):
In the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005, anthropogenic global warming (AGW) activists insisted that the stronger storm systems resulted from the build-up of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, making hurricanes increasingly more severe. These claims made their way into the UN's IPCC report and have been a staple of AGW arguments for immediate and drastic action to limit energy production as part of the "settled science" attempt to shut down debate.
Note that it was the media who ran off with the hurricane-strength-influenced-by-climate-change meme after Hurricane Katrina. And so a conservative blogger uses a distorted opinion from a biased newspaper to argue against uninformed opinions formed by the mass media...and concluding that global warming isn't happening.
It's not a stance that represents any discernible ideology. Instead, it's simply contrarian, pernicious arguing intended to confuse for political gain.
Sound familiar? It's the same kind of rhetoric we hear against the stimulus package, denying that the infusion of money failed to create jobs. Or rhetoric against health care, where calls for a rethinking of reform don't actually mean Republicans would like to rethink reform, they're meant to confuse, obstruct.
Thoughtful, rational conservatives exist. Only they're drowned out by the crazies, the Glen Becks and Tea Baggers who cry "socialism" and frame opposing policies, not as ineffective or inefficient or expensive, but as a danger to the very body politic. Any policy put forward by a Democrat is a threat to the fabric of the nation.
In the past, the GOP has always seemed to let the crazies keen and gnash their teeth, while all along they put the adults in charge of policy. You saw that during the Reagan administration, when the president paid lip service to the tax-cut and big-government rhetoric that got him elected, all the while raising taxes and racking up enormous budget deficits.
But the problem is that the reasonable people are losing control. The worst of Bush Jr's administration happened as a result of sticking too close to the rhetoric. Deregulation, runaway spending, and tax cuts for the wealthy led to financial crisis and huge budget deficits. Delusional war game theories led to the "Bush Doctrine" -- preemptive invasion and perpetual war. And now it seems the rational people have gone away, driven off by the Roger Koopmans of the right.
It's too bad, especially during the time of crisis we're in now. Rampant unemployment...budget deficits, spurred largely by rising health care costs...potential global environmental catastrophe...and for each, the conservative response has been denial.
So what did happen? CRU took the raw data from various primary sources, aggregated it and then made adjustments. It is some of the aggregation that they threw out when they moved a few decades ago. This means that the original data still exists at the primary sources and can be reaggregated. In fact, CRU is busy doing that just now.
Where did I get this information? From one of the largest thorns in the AGW community's side, Roger Pielke Jr., who seems completely satisfied with their explanation.
Mikkal Fishman reminds us that scientific data is often jealously guarded by scientists when new discoveries are made, or hypotheses. "Climategate" may actually benefit climate change science by forcing climatologists to "develop a standardized way of disseminating their data and models to the public," which will be a good thing.
The NYTimes' Andrew Revkin notes that the controversy has, at least, caused CRU to make their data available. Still, as an Illinois climatologist notes, the exposed emails served as "a complete distraction from the body of evidence pointing to a human hand on the planet's thermostat." After all, even the harshest, "rational" critics make no bones about the substance of climatology's findings, just the style of scientists....
...which brings us back to yesterday's post, which noted that it's the kind of behavior you'd expect from folks who have been on the receiving end of a massive, years-long, corporate-funded disinformation campaign.
There's been some noise from the right about "climategate" - apparently some emails were hacked from an English university's climate scientists that showed...well, according to climate change deniers, a world-wide plot to "trick" everybody into believing that the Earth is heating up...but actually were angry emails blasting shoddy science and the periodicals that published it. Righties already convinced of the world-wide climate plot cherry-picked some phrases from the emails, and distorted their meaning to incite like-minded conspiracy theorists.
The sad news in all of this is that there is a real conspiracy surrounding climate science, but it's not scientists and environmentalists working for - what? One-world government? Bison running free on the Northern Plains? (It's never explained, really.) Instead, there's real conspiracy of big industry to muddy the water on science and to sow enough doubt in the minds of Americans and others so that passing real and effective climate change legislation - which would be harmful the profit margins of fossil fuel companies - will be difficult or impossible.
Never mind, you know, the catastrophic effects to our children and grandchildren.
As Jeff Masters points out, the campaign of misinformation is nothing new, but following the well-heeled trail that industry used to thwart or delay legislation on cigarettes, asbestos, and chlorofluorocarbons.
Masters:
You'll hear claims by some contrarians that the emails discovered invalidate the whole theory of human-caused global warming. Well, all I can say is, consider the source. We can trust the contrarians to say whatever is in the best interests of the fossil fuel industry. What I see when I read the various stolen emails and explanations posted at Realclimate.org is scientists acting as scientists--pursuing the truth. I can see no clear evidence that calls into question the scientific validity of the research done by the scientists victimized by the stolen emails. There is no sign of a conspiracy to alter data to fit a pre-conceived ideological view. Rather, I see dedicated scientists attempting to make the truth known in face of what is probably the world's most pervasive and best-funded disinformation campaign against science in history. Even if every bit of mud slung at these scientists were true, the body of scientific work supporting the theory of human-caused climate change--which spans hundreds of thousands of scientific papers written by tens of thousands of scientists in dozens of different scientific disciplines--is too vast to be budged by the flaws in the works of the three or four scientists being subject to the fiercest attacks.
The Senate Environment and Public Works committee today passed the Senate's version of the cap-and-trade climate-change legislation bill - Sens. Kerry and Boxer's "Clean Energy Jobs Act." The bill passed by a 10-1 margin...with Republicans boycotting the vote.
Ah, so who's the sole Democrat that voted against the legislation?
Max Baucus.
Not that it's much of a surprise. Baucus raised "concerns" with the bill last month, saying the 20 percent reduction in carbon emissions by 2020 was too lofty a goal. Baucus' statement -- "we cannot afford a first step that takes us further away from a conceivable consensus on climate change" - hints that he'll stall the bill in the Tax and Finance committee, likely convening a "green" "Gang of Six" to gut the bill, or kill it altogether.
Frankly, Baucus should listen to Lindsey Graham, Republican:
The green economy is coming. We can either follow or lead. And those countries who follow will pay a price. Those nations who lead in creating the new green economy for the world will make money.
Or retired admiral Dennis McGinn, who reminded Montana's delegation that climate change is a national security issue.
Sadly, Dennis McDonald demonstrates how you can join Baucus in opposing climate change legislation while simultaneously keeping your enviro "cred," from his Facebook page:
Cap and trade has proven to be complex, inefficient, and an obstacle to investment in alternative energy. I think a straightforward carbon emissions tax would be a lot simpler and a more effective way of getting people to invest in alternative energy.
And the Waxman-Markey House cap-and-trade bill, with all of its faults, sets the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions to 83 percent below 2005 levels by 2050. That's huge.
In case you missed it, a lot of interesting things happened this week, a lot of them deserving their own posts. But, sadly, there's only so much time in the day...
Just when you thought the issues around the Flathead Lake Boat Crash couldn't get any more asinine, they do.
James Conner has the details of that night's incident - apparently Barkus thought he was heading in the opposite direction than he actually was, and was pulling a u-turn at 45 mph in the dark in treacherous waters when he struck the lake bank. Dan Testa, too, has a good roundup of that night's events - two scotches and an unknown amount of red and white wine for Barkus. Just the thing for a chilly night out on the lake.
Now Barkus' lawyer is challenging the .16 BAC results - which, I know, is his right to do and probably a smart legal maneuver. But Barkus is also planning on finishing out his Senate term, as if nothing's happened here, as if he hadn't just boozed up and almost killed himself and four others on Flathead Lake.
The crash was a good sign he's got a problem, eh? I mean, for most of us, this would be a kind of, I dunno, a wake-up call, wouldn't it?
That's the way I'd see it if it were me. I'd be apologizing my *ss off to the friends and family of those I injured through my loathsome behavior, I'd cooperate with the authorities and plea bargain my way into a just punishment, resign my public office because of the deficiency of my character, and I'd check myself into a rehab clinic, ASAP. I mean, wouldn't most people feel some remorse, and want to repent and work to rehabilitate themselves?
Instead, Barkus is still out there, still a drunk, and, probably as soon as he's walking again, back behind the wheel. And he'll be passing laws over you. So much for personal responsibility.
* * *
As always, there's plenty of news from Hardin.
The Billings Gazette got its hands on the "memorandum of understanding" between Hardin and the APF - which it had to get by court order, apparently because it's pretty embarrassing to Hardin officials - that revealed the city did have an agreement with Hilton's company to have the APF supply Hardin with a police force for $250K. The contract toned the language down, but the memo certainly explains the Hardin Police Force decals on APF SUVs.
Naturally, with all the furor over these SUVs, Hardin is looking to start its own police force.
But the American Police Force takeover of the Hardin jail only looks dead. While Hardin put the deal with APF on hold after revelations of Michael Hilton's checkered past, a mysterious APF investor stepped forward (anonymously, of course) and noted the firm would still pursue the Hardin jail contract, only without "Captain" Michael Hilton on board.
...Nike announced (pdf) that it is resigning from the board of directors because of the group's views on climate change policy. The Chamber was already in a tailspin this week, attempting to reclassify their position on climate policy following the departure of three major utilities.
"Nike believes US businesses must advocate for aggressive climate change legislation and that the United States needs to move rapidly into a sustainable economy to remain competitive and ensure continued economic growth," Nike said in a statement. "As we've stated, we fundamentally disagree with the US Chamber of Commerce on the issue of climate change and their recent action challenging the EPA is inconsistent with our view that climate change is an issue in need of urgent action."
(And wouldn't it be interesting to investigate whether similar splits exist in the Montana CoC?)
Meanwhile, in the wake of members abandoning the organization, the US Chamber of Commerce denies ever questioning the science behind global warming. Surprise! That is, of course, a lie.
Meanwhile, Sens. Kerry and Boxer unveiled their version of cap-and-trade legislation today. Its targeted carbon emissions levels are actually more aggressive than the House Waxman-Markey bill, which implies that some Democratic Senators, at least, learned lessons from how the healthcare reform strategy worked.
The split among the ranks of Chamber of Commerce members, too, makes the battle lines a bit murky. Will the bill pit the monolithic and anachronistic energy industry against the nation's more forward-thinking corporations? Who knows? I thought America's industries might push harder on public insurance in the healthcare debate - certainly our system's reliance on employer-provided insurance is a drag on most sectors of our economy - maybe folks should remember that these problems don't belong to a single economic sector, they belong to us all...
