It is probably appropriate that climate extremists have named their policies after Roosevelt’s New Deal, a response to the Great Depression that, most economists agree, prolonged that depression. I find myself increasingly skeptical of the climate-change narrative, not because of the data but because the people promoting it seem more interested in social engineering than in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.
Click image to download this report.
A case in point is a recent report from the Climate and Community Project, a “project of the Tides Center.” Full disclosure: the Tides Foundation once gave money to the Thoreau Institute, but they stopped when they figured out I wasn’t a socialist. In any case, the new report proposes “a green new deal for transportation” that will “build just and sustainable communities.” Note that social justice has suddenly become as important as climate change.
The report stresses that 28 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions are from transportation, a figure repeated by most media reports. What they don’t say is that only about half of that comes from personal automobiles, yet most of the report is aimed at curbing auto use and substituting other forms of transport, most of which produce as much if not more greenhouse gases per passenger-mile as the average car.
Here are the reports recommendations:
- End federal funding for new highway construction, because cars and trucks stuck in congestion will spew out millions of tons of greenhouse gases;
- Increase federal subsidies to transit agencies by $25 billion a year. This will generate billions of tons of greenhouse gases as agencies build new transit lines few people will ride;
- Increase federal funding for Amtrak by $40 billion a year. This will increase greenhouse gases because Amtrak trains that reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 5 percent (vs. planes) will displace freight trains that reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 90 percent (vs. trucks);
- Build more dense housing near transit. This will increase greenhouse gases because construction of dense housing uses more greenhouse-gas generating steel and cement and heating of multifamily housing uses more energy than single-family housing;
- Reduce the extraction of rare minerals for batteries. This will increase greenhouse gases by limiting the construction of personal electric vehicles.
None of these proposals are anti-greenhouse gases. All of them are anti-automobile (and at least one is also anti-suburb). To the extent that their recommendations touch on social justice, they would increase housing and transportation costs thereby increasing wealth inequality.
Apparently, the authors of this report don’t give a damn about greenhouse gas emissions or social justice. Instead, their goal is to rebuild society so that, among other things, every urban area looks more like Manhattan, San Francisco, or Hong Kong than Atlanta, Houston, or Phoenix.
Why would the plan focus more on getting people to stop driving than on reducing emissions? The authors won’t say, leaving everyone to presume it is because cars produce all those greenhouse gases while mass transit and Diesel-powered intercity passenger trains are completely innocent. In fact, I suspect it has more to do with power: it is easier to control people who are dependent on transportation that only goes where and when the elites decide it will go. By prolonging the climate issue, proposals that increase rather than reduce emissions will prolong the period during which they will be able to exercise that power. I can’t prove this, and I invite anyone to offer alternative explanations of why the Green New Deal is anti-auto but pro-greenhouse gases.
I’m not the only one who thinks this is more about power than climate. A California attorney named Jennifer Hernandez calls climate policies “Green Jim Crow” because they impose the highest costs on the low-income people that the social justice warriors claim to care about. Those policies, she says, are “unbelievably regressive” and are forcing minorities out of California, the state with the strongest climate regulations.
If you combine their claim that greenhouse gas emissions are a crisis with 50 years of evidence that we can’t get people to stop driving, then the real solution is to rapidly replace the internal-combustion fleet with electric vehicles. Green New Deal supporters should be advocating enough subsidies to the electric-vehicle market that every owner of a petroleum-powered vehicle would buy an EV for their next car. The auto fleet completely turns over about every 24 years, so by 2046 there would be almost no petroleum-powered vehicles left.
At $15,000 subsidy per vehicle, this would cost about $3.75 trillion for the 250 million cars and light trucks Americans own. Spread out over 24 years, that’s about $156 billion per year. If that isn’t fast enough, increased the subsidies to encourage people to junk gas burners sooner than they normally would. It would also require a huge expenditure on renewable electrical generation plants since transportation uses 130 percent as much energy as is currently supplied by the nation’s entire electrical grid. I’m not saying we should do this, just that this is what Green New Deal supporters should advocate.
Those who truly want social justice should promote expansion of auto ownership, electric or otherwise, so that low-income families can have access to the same transportation as almost everyone else. Those who truly want to reduce greenhouse gas emissions should support highway expansions that can relieve congestion and oppose new transit projects whose construction would generate far more greenhouse gases than more highway lanes but not save greenhouse gas emissions in the long run. Apparently, supporters of the Green New Deal don’t fit into either of these groups.
Antiplanner: “I find myself increasingly skeptical of the climate-change narrative, not because of the data but because the people promoting it seem more interested in social engineering than in reducing greenhouse gas emissions.”
I agree with the Antiplanner that the those solutions to global warming such as “Reforming Federal Transportation Policy” do not show this it will reduce greenhouse gases make no sense. However, I argue that this is no reason to doubt that therefore the climate-change narrative is false.
This is a list of scientific organizations that agree that the earth is warming as a result of human activities: https://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/
As Wendell Cox has pointed out at an American Dream Coalition meeting, claiming human activities are not causing global warming is a “non-winnable argument.” Numerous times at public meetings I have heard climate change skeptics oppose public transport increases because they feel global warming is a myth, only to have everything they say dismissed even though their criticism of planning proposals is valid. Therefore, I would strongly recommend that anyone opposing non-sensical planning proposals concentrate on the cost per tonne of reduction of CO2 equivalent gases. This is a winnable argument. Unless a proposal for reducing greenhouse gas production has a cost per tonne of reduction, it is meaningless. For example, to reduce the effect of human induced global warming per capita will require one tonne per capital of CO2 emissions: https://www.withouthotair.com/c1/page_15.shtml while presently the US produces 15 tonnes per capita: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1049662/fossil-us-carbon-dioxide-emissions-per-person/. This means at 14 tonne per capita reduction. At $100 tonnes per capita reduction, this would be $1,400 per person per year, or $5,600 annually for a family of four. This is probably politically the maximum that can be charged. Fortunately there are many strategies for reducing greenhouse gas emission that cost much less, many energy efficiency ones can actually reducing CO2 emissions while saving money, see: https://www.mckinsey.com/about-us/new-at-mckinsey-blog/a-revolutionary-tool-for-cutting-emissions-ten-years-on
In conclusion: Claim of greenhouse gas reduction without a price per tonne of reduction is meaningless. Only those policies shown to be most cost effective at reducing greenhouse gases should be adopted. This is a winnable argument.
Green new deal is about socialism NOT global warming:
1) Many supporters admit it is about restructuring society, including AOL’s puppet master. http://www.debunkingclimate.com/green-new-deal.html
2) There is NO CLIMATE CRISIS!
THE CLIMATE HAS ALWAYS CHANGED!
5000 years ago, there was the Egyptian 1st Unified Kingdom warn period
4400 years ago, there was the Egyptian old kingdom warm period.
3000 years ago, there was the Minoan Warm period. It was warmer than now WITHOUT fossil fuels.
Then 1000 years later, there was the Roman warm period. It was warmer than now WITHOUT fossil fuels.
Then 1000 years later, there was the Medieval warm period. It was warmer than now WITHOUT fossil fuels.
Then 1000 years later, came our current warm period. You are claiming that whatever caused those earlier warm periods suddenly quit causing warm periods, only to be replaced by man’s CO2 emission, perfectly in time for the cycle of warmth every 1000 years stay on schedule. Not very believable.
The entire climate scam crumbles on this one observation because it shows that there is nothing unusual about today’s temperature and ALL claims of unusual climate are based on claims of excess warmth caused by man’s CO2.
http://www.debunkingclimate.com/warm_periods.html
http://www.debunkingclimate.com/climatehistory.html
http://www.debunkingclimate.com/warm_periods.html
http://www.debunkingclimate.com
Feel free to disagree by showing actual evidence that man’s CO2 is causing serious global warming.
Still waiting for any disagreements!
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Those who truly want social justice should promote expansion of auto ownership,
” ~anti-planner
Historically equity for all has never been able to build anything; only tearing things down.
NASA doesn’t have a spectacular record predicting climate change:
NASA Scientist Sees New Ice Age Coming
The Washington Post | Jul 9, 1971
The world could be as little as 15 or 25 years away from a disastrous new ice age, a leading atmospheric scientist predicts. Dr. S. I. Rasool of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration predicts that by 2021, fossil-fuel dust injected by man into the atmosphere could screen out so much sunlight that the average temperature could drop by six degrees, resulting in a buildup of new glaciers that could eventually cover huge areas.
Hell, NASA can’t predict when it’ll actually return to the moon, let alone the climate in 100 years.
Regardless of the “science” (most of which is incredibly vague and ambiguous) surrounding climate change, the more important consideration to understand is that climate change is more of a master narrative about the looming threat to society if people do not forgo their self-interest and conform to otherwise irrational standards. Its no different than any other fundamentalist religion or doomsday cult. Specifically, such thinking requires a vague and malleable set of ideas that the be used to justify whatever the elite deem necessary. If the prediction surrounding climate change were definite and easily measurable then you would deal with a falsifiable hypothesis that could be proven or refuted. The is not convenient for ideologues who want a prominent vague threat to motivate behavior. For example, I have seen people who are discussing a policy issue be effectively refuted on the details. When that occurs they regroup and bring in climate change by insinuating that if they don’t get their way climate change “will destroy us all”. This is much harder to attack since it is so vague. I think in the coming decades the environmentalist movement will be viewed more of as a quasi-religion rather than a science or objective endeavor. Also, it’s ironic that the same liberals who attack the “religious right” for being irrational exhibit the same behaviors but mask their irrationalities with the veil of “educated science.” Thomas Picketty describes this group quite well as being the “Brahmin left” who despite their alleged inclusity really have the same elitist goals as the far right. Ultimately everyone would benefit from more objective and diverse thinking.
Post 2. To those who dismiss the science. If you want to say that scientific organizations such as the American Association for the Advancement of Science, American Geophysical Union, American Meteorological Society, American Physical Society, the Geological Society of America, and National Academy of Sciences are all wrong, (see full list here https://climate.nasa.gov/scientific-consensus/) this is your right. However, don’t expect to be taken seriously by any number of individuals at planning meetings. I have seen this happen to often. If you want them to stop wasting money on new rail projects, smart growth etc that are using global warming as the excuse, point out that without a cost per tonne of CO2 reduction claims of CO2 reduction are false. Use the references I presented above.
The Central England temperature record us the oldest long term temperature monitor using basic instruments going back 400 years. Along with our CO2 monitoring capability
https://c3headlines.typepad.com/.a/6a010536b58035970c0120a7c87805970b-pi
note the temperature curve doesn’t obey the CO2 curve. CO2 does warm….there’s no denying it. However it’s thermodynamic threshold decreases upon saturation, in which case its ability to absorb energy requires exponentially greater inputs. CO2 concentrations went from 285 ppm in pre industrial times to 425 present. It took 200 years and 700 BILLION tons of CO2 and yielded a mere degree in warming. To get another degree you need another doubling 800ppm, 1600ppm, etc.
The urban heat island effect sets temperature abnormalities…..most temperature sensors are located at airports.
The Little Ice Age froze Europe for 500 years, finally ending in 1850. So look at solar studies. The sun’s warmer phase lasted from 1850 to around 2000. Surprise, temps rose 1.2 degrees. This paper thin rise is what drives the climate scam. But guess what? The sun is cooling in its next phase. Not Ice Age alarmism…..but cooling trend which can be mitigated by our CO2 inputs.
Humane aspects of CO2 infusion boosted agricultural productivity….as did fertilizer and water irrigation….. but if our atmosphere was 1000ppm in CO2 we’d have a more lush biosphere.
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcT0ki9MzlUNWtAn2r_0JUkRaMQ_mo350NUSfg&usqp=CAU
6000 years ago Sahara desert wasn’t a desert but a tropical pluvial grassland with lakes size of US states….holocene climatic optimum. That all went away when world got colder…
https://www.earthlymission.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/ancient_lakes_of_the_sahara.jpg
California alone uses 40 million gallons of gas and motor fuels a day….. producing 406,000 tons of CO2 emissions daily…148 million a year, even a 1% per year modest increase in fuel economy efficiency….
Improvements in fuel efficiency did nothing to change emissions, namely Antiplanner ignores aspect of Jevons Paradox…. technological progress or government policy increases the efficiency with which a resource is used (reducing the amount necessary for any one use), but the rate of consumption of that resource rises due to increasing demand; especially if perceived as being more available.
Higher gas prices may do more namely by mitigating unnecessary trips and mileage.
Bikes are great….where people can’t ride well, tricycles and quadracycles do the balancing act.
The Antiplanner brings up transportation innovations are economic gamechangers if they make travel faster cheaper or more convenient…
Bike and bike-esque conveyances are slower but share two positive traits….
Costs are mitigated by eliminating fuel, insurance and registration….
Unless an emergency what time frame is inconvenient…
A single mother cannot transport her kid(s) on a bike. But the kids can….but are too lazy to try. Same kids who can’t remember anything they’re taught in school… but know all the hidden skulls on halo and every riddler trophy.
Learned helplessness is a pervasive problem in most states quo industries.
@lazy reader. You are 100% correct. There has been next to no focus on making conventional vehicles more efficient. In fact last spring many car manufacturers announced they were canceling their subcompact lines in the US like the Toytoa Yaris, or Chevy spark. Frankly, I find all of this focus on electric cars etc. as being very disingeous and motivated by ulterior factors.