If you follow the media, you must think that everyone agrees that the Earth is warming and that it is our fault because we create greenhouse-gas emissions by driving, flying, heating and cooling our homes, and making other uses of fossil fuels.
Everyone agrees that unless something is done, and soon, the polar ice cap will melt, floods around the world will become more frequent and more lethal, and hurricanes will increase in intensity and frequency. If you don’t believe it, go see Al Gore’s movie, “Inconvenient Truth.”
Well, not everyone. There are responsible scientists who attribute recent warming to the natural long-run rhythms of the weather cycle. Others concede that the earth is warming, but say that it is important not to panic lest we rush to adopt excessively costly solutions. Still others urge us to “Cool It,” the title of a wonderfully readable new book by Bjorn Lomborg, a Danish political scientist and statistics professor specializing in environmental matters.
No matter: Enough people believe something must be done to propel politicians into action — not always a good thing. The Bush administration and the Congress want to lavish still more funds on growers of corn so that what was once a food crop can be converted into ethanol, a gasoline substitute.
This has had the unfortunate unintended consequence of driving corn prices so high that poor Mexicans can no longer afford their basic dish — tortillas — and encouraging deforestation, as farmers rush to clear land to make room for products that can be converted to fuel. This matters little to most politicians, especially those eager to please corn-growing Iowans who will vote in the nation’s first primary.
Those who are less enthusiastic about the ethanol solution argue that our salvation lies in nuclear power. These plants produce electricity without emitting the greenhouse gasses that are alleged to cause global warming. But they are expensive, and cannot be built without substantial subsidies, either paid directly by taxpayers or hidden as a surcharge on electricity bills.
And they can’t do much to reduce consumption of oil by our cars and trucks, at least until we figure out how to run these vehicle for long distances at high speeds on batteries, without sacrificing other economies of operation.
Then there are the technology worshippers, each of whom has an invention that will enable our automobiles to do without gasoline, or permit us to heat and cool our homes without needing to connect to the electricity grid, or will generate power from renewable resources.
There is no question that many of these technologies do work. But they are expensive — and not without environmental problems of their own, ranging from the space needed by solar generating plants, to the visual and noise problems incident to the operation of wind machines.
Still, Congress stands ready to spend taxpayers’ money on research and development of these sources, although governments arejust not well suited to pick winners, and there are plenty of hard-nosed venture capitalists ready to bet their own money on technologies that look promising.
None of this means that it would be wise to hope that doing nothing will prove prudent. What is needed is some method of making fossil fuels more expensive so that alternative fuels will be more competitive and attractive to consumers.
Most economists agree the solution is a tax on fossil fuels. After all, use of these fuels imposes costs on society that are not paid for by the drivers and homeowners who use them. A tax would make them pay, and at the same time encourage the development of efficient alternatives.
Such an approach leaves it to the markets to decide which of the new technologies solve the warming problem at lowest cost. Markets, after all, have proven over time to be more efficient than central planners in protecting the environment.
If you doubt that, compare the environmental degradation created by communist regimes in East Germany and the Soviet Union with the clean-up of the air, water and waste sites accomplished in the United States.
Meanwhile, approach media reports with care. One example: We are told that global warming will increase flooding. The fact is that warming will indeed increase precipitation but, as Lomborg points out, “If we check out when the increase happens, it turns out that it happens mostly during the fall, when there is generally lower [river] flow and little risk of flooding…”.
Facts matter, even when making environmental policy.
Examiner columnist Irwin Stelzer is a senior fellow and director of The Hudson’s Institute’s Center for Economic Policy.
