While House Transportation Committee Chair James Oberstar talks about spending a lot of money, the Senate transportation chair, John D. Rockefeller IV, has a different agenda: he wants to reduce people’s driving. He thinks the next transportation reauthorization bill should include goals of reducing per-capita driving, reducing transportation-related greenhouse emissions by 40 percent, and reduce the amount of freight carried on highways by 20 percent. (His actual goal is to increase non-highway freight by 10 percent, but since slightly less than a third of freight goes by highway, that works out to a 20 percent reduction in highway shipping.)
The Antiplanner has a few problems with these goals. First, several states, including Oregon and Washington, have set goals of reducing per-capita driving, but none have succeeded. Per-capita driving has declined only when gas prices dramatically increased (a 40-cent-per-gallon increase in gas taxes wouldn’t be enough) or incomes dramatically fell due to a recession.
Second, if the real goal is to reduce pollution and greenhouse gas emissions, there are much better ways of reaching that goal than to try to reduce driving. When there are cars on the road now that get 50 miles per gallon, a dollar spent increasing fuel economy will go much further than a dollar spent trying to get people out of their car.
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Third, as the Antiplanner has noted before, Europe has long had a goal of reducing highway freight, but highway shipping there has increased. Highway’s share of shipping has dramatically decreased in the U.S., not because of some government policy but because the government deregulated the railroads. The lesson is that government should keep its hands off the freight business or it is likely to produce the opposite of the result Rockefeller wants.
Fourth, like the urban planners who try to stop sprawl and end up making housing unaffordable, the real problem with Rockefeller’s proposal will be the unintended consequences. The automobile produces enormous benefits, such as giving people access to better jobs, better housing, and lower-cost consumer goods. Any policies that successfully curb its use will also reduce those benefits.
Finally, no doubt many people will note the irony of the namesake of the founder of Standard Oil Company trying to reduce people’s petroleum consumption. But the real irony is that the namesake of someone who earned over a billion dollars in a relatively unregulated, free-market place wants to impose all sorts of government regulations that will effectively prevent others from achieving their own versions of the American dream.
d3p: Well, as it turns, I’ve asked him to do so, multiple times, in this very forum. And he has always ignored my request.
JK: As I said above, Randal does not consider himself an expert on the global warming issue and thus avoids taking a stance on the merits.
He does appear to mention CO2 as he would any other factor in the debate, without implying that he agrees or disagrees with its relevance.
An example: some fool keeps harping on the importance of satisfying the fairies that inhabit the woods around a proposed project, so instead of attacking the foolish belied, one just explains that popular myth has the fairies in a different part of the woods or that fairies really like the project etc. Avoids endless arguments with people who refuse to look at the real world
Thanks
JK
You have a deep agenda that is not based off of mainstream science.
I learned two things long ago: denialists don’t care for scientific evidence, and the reason they don’t is because of the solutions to the issue.
Fortunately they grow more marginalized by the day.
DS
the reason they don’t is because of the solutions to the issue
To be fair, sometimes the truth is inconvenient…
“Well Mr.Karlock is just a grizzled ol’crotchety grouch, fantasing about Al Gore & teabagging.”
Wow, talk about throwing stones when living in a glass house…
Though it would have been funnier if you wrote.
“Wow, talk about throwing stones when living in a green house…”
Dan said: You have a deep agenda that is not based off of mainstream science.
I learned two things long ago: denialists don’t care for scientific evidence, and the reason they don’t is because of the solutions to the issue.
Fortunately they grow more marginalized by the day.
THWM: Though it makes me wonder about the people bank rolling O’Tool’s or Cox’s disinformation syndicates. Why so much fear & hate of having some competition?
Dan said: I learned two things long ago: denialists don’t care for scientific evidence,
JK: WOW. It is Al’ zombies that ignore evidence. They just go with the propaganda flow coming from the vast Green Money Machine. What is truly amazing is that Al himself told these people he was lying and they still believe. Their poster child temperature curve was proven a fraud and they still believe. The climate has been cooling for years, with up to 20 more predicted by their side and they still believe. The editor of Climate Change Journal said it is ok to “offer up scary scenarios†and they still believe.
Dan said: because of the solutions to the issue.
JK: What solutions? Do you have some that will actually work and not hurt people?
Dan said: Fortunately they grow more marginalized by the day.
JK: You are so deluded:
“I am a skeptic…Global warming has become a new religion.†– Nobel Prize Winner for Physics, Ivar Giaever.
Warming fears are the “worst scientific scandal in the history…When people come to know what the truth is, they will feel deceived by science and scientists.†– UN IPCC Japanese Scientist Dr. Kiminori Itoh, an award-winning PhD environmental physical chemist.
“So far, real measurements give no ground for concern about a catastrophic future warming.†– Scientist Dr. Jarl R. Ahlbeck, a chemical engineer at Abo Akademi University in Finland, author of 200 scientific publications and former Greenpeace member.
“Anyone who claims that the debate is over and the conclusions are firm has a fundamentally unscientific approach to one of the most momentous issues of our time.†– Solar physicist Dr. Pal Brekke, senior advisor to the Norwegian Space Centre in Oslo. Brekke has published more than 40 peer-reviewed scientific articles on the sun and solar interaction with the Earth.
“After reading [UN IPCC chairman] Pachauri’s asinine comment [comparing skeptics to] Flat Earthers, it’s hard to remain quiet.†– Climate statistician Dr. William M. Briggs, who specializes in the statistics of forecast evaluation, serves on the American Meteorological Society’s Probability and Statistics Committee and is an Associate Editor of Monthly Weather Review.
“Gore prompted me to start delving into the science again and I quickly found myself solidly in the skeptic camp…Climate models can at best be useful for explaining climate changes after the fact.†– Meteorologist Hajo Smit of Holland, who reversed his belief in man-made warming to become a skeptic, is a former member of the Dutch UN IPCC committee.
There are 640 more scientists linked here: SustainableOregon226/dissenters.html
Thanks
JK
THWM: Though it makes me wonder about the people bank rolling O’Tool’s or Cox’s disinformation syndicates. Why so much fear & hate of having some competition?
JK: Good question. Who pays YOU to constantly say stupid things here, apparently just to be disruptive?
Thanks
JK
Good question Mr.Karlock, indeed what oligarchs pay you to do stupid things & to apparently just to be disruptive to society in general?
You like to talk political shit, but you don’t give a shit!
You like to talk political shit, but you don’t give a shit!
Any you are simple an idiot.
Denialists cuh-raaaack me up.
DS
Any you are simple an idiot
Classic.
Late arrival.
AGW is a hoax. A 1.7F rise in a century is not alarming.
A CO2 rise from 280ppm to 387pppm does not do much.
Temps varied in the past.
CO2 lagged the rise, proving it’s not a cause.
People, stop believing the hype.
There is no Easter bunny nor monster under the bed.