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Prologue: Part III
Barack Obama, in winning that election, had a golden opportunity.
His campaign included a promise to address climate change. His party
won control of both houses of Congress. A global financial emergency
required Congress to pass legislation that could include, at no cost,
the main requirement to address climate change: a rising price on carbon
emissions. A fee should be collected from fossil fuel companies at
domestic mines and ports of entry, with all the funds distributed
uniformly to citizens. Seventy percent of the public would get more in
the dividend than they paid in increased prices. Wealthy people, who
have large “carbon footprints,” would lose money, but they can afford
it. I first called this “carbon tax and 100% dividend,” but soon
simplified it to “carbon fee and dividend” or “fee and dividend.”
Economists support this approach to address climate change, simplifying
its name further to “carbon dividend.”[1]
Al Gore called me after the election,[I] before Obama took office. He
was preparing to meet with Obama to discuss climate policy, and was
seeking suggestions. I had three. Most important, by far, was
fee-and-dividend. Fee-and-dividend is the way, perhaps the only way, the
public will allow a rising price on fossil fuels, as the monthly
dividend more than offsets the rising cost of fuel for
low-and-middle-income people. Fee-and-dividend is also the basis for
global phasedown of carbon emissions, as a border duty would be
collected on products made from fossil fuels arriving from countries
that did not have an equivalent carbon fee or tax, thus encouraging most
countries to have their own carbon fee, so they can collect the money
themselves. Manufacturers would be given a rebate on products shipped to
nations without a carbon fee, thus removing the cost added to their
products by the domestic carbon fee and assuring fair competition.
My second suggestion was to ramp up RD&D (research, development and
demonstration) of modern nuclear power. Otherwise, the firm (24/7)
energy source complementing intermittent renewable energies for the next
half-century would be fossil fuels, mainly gas. Nuclear power is
potentially inexpensive, based on the cost of fuel and materials needed
for a nuclear power plant, but it requires RD&D support to drive
down the cost, just as subsidies drove down the cost of solar and wind
power. I feared that nuclear power might be a hard sell, as Clinton/Gore
had terminated R&D on nuclear power, claiming it was not needed.
However, Gore now seemed to be open-minded: he said that he would host a
meeting of experts to discuss nuclear power.
My third suggestion was to modernize the U.S. electricity grid,
including backbone direct current lines to allow low-loss transmission
of renewable energy to population centers. All three of these
suggestions were discussed at our workshop the day before the election.
Would Gore actually take these suggestions to Obama? I began to worry.
Gore seemed to agree with fee-and-dividend, but did not seem to
appreciate its merits for national and global purposes. He said that he
preferred to reduce payroll taxes instead of providing a dividend.
However, half of adults are not on a payroll, many being retired or
otherwise unemployed. Also, I doubted that Gore would suddenly flip to
strong support of nuclear power, after he had long opposed it.
So, I decided to try to get advice directly to Obama. I would write a
letter, but first I was committed to take a “vacation” to London for
meetings to encourage phaseout of British coal use, then on to the Hague
to testify to a Dutch parliamentary commission, and to Sweden for an
interfaith climate summit with religious leaders at Uppsala Cathedral.
Anniek would go with me, visiting relatives in the Netherlands while I
went to Sweden. She did not make it that far. As she rushed with me
between London meetings, she felt discomfort that doctors diagnosed as a
heart attack. They recommended an operation to insert a stent. As we
waited for her to be able to fly, we wrote a letter on climate and
energy policy to Michelle and Barack Obama.
How to deliver the letter? I sent it to Obama’s chosen Science Adviser, a
Harvard professor. He declined to deliver the message, at least until
after he was confirmed by the Senate, which would not be until the
spring of 2009, by when it would be too late to alter Obama’s economic
plans. Further, the Science Adviser wrote to me, he was “proscribed from
discussing matters of policy with anybody other than Obama and his
immediate team prior to my confirmation.” Really? That made no sense.
Instead, he seemed to be saying “I will handle this, I don’t need your
advice.”
Anniek says that some audience members look askance when I am introduced
as a graduate of a midwestern university, rather than the Ivy League. I
pooh-pooh that because in science your ability matters, not your
school. However, perhaps educational pedigree mattered to Obama, as he
chose a path out of the financial crisis that was a product of Ivy
League elite and Wall Street. Obama blew his golden opportunity to
affect the future of the planet.
Was effective, bipartisan, energy and climate policy possible? Yes,
at least it once was, based on interactions that occurred two decades
earlier. I briefly digress to events in 1989: Republican Senator John
Heinz of Pennsylvania protected me from the wrath of John Sununu,
President George H.W. Bush’s chief of staff, when Sununu was angered by
my revelation that the White House altered my congressional testimony on
climate change. Senator Heinz, after arguing that I was within my
rights, invited me to a “town hall” with his constituents, where he made
the case that fossil fuels were essential for a time, as they provided
most of the energy supporting high living standards, but he also said
that climate and pollution are valid issues that must be addressed in
energy policies on appropriate time scales. Based on his remarks, I am
confident that Senator Heinz[II] would have supported the actions that I
recommended in 2008.
Reasons to believe that bipartisan energy and climate policy is possible
are: (1) fee-and-dividend is based on solid, conservative, economic
principles, which favor taxing things that must be reduced. The price of
alternative energies should include their costs to society, thus
enabling fair competition. (2) Most Republicans support nuclear power.
Democrats have been unenthusiastic about nuclear power, but likely would
support it as part of an effective bipartisan energy and climate
program. (3) Both political parties agree on the need to modernize the
electric grid.
However, we were in the Obama years. Al Gore had Obama’s ear. Did my
suggestions persuade Gore of the merits of a potentially bipartisan
approach? The first test was on 12 January 2009, before Obama took
office, when Gore held his promised meeting on nuclear power. I had NASA
work that day, but Gore allowed me to send Tom Blees, a nuclear expert.
The meeting began with a strong signal: Gore chose Amory Lovins (who
says that energy efficiency and renewables are all that is needed) as
first speaker, introducing him with effusive praise. I had made graphs
showing that Lovins’ energy projections bear no resemblance to the real
world, but the focus seemed to be on vision, not on data. The clincher
was that Gore scheduled Arjun Makhijani, a dedicated anti-nuclear
crusader, to give the last talk. Gore’s mind was already made up.
That is no reason to give up. The underlying policy need is
fee-and-dividend. A cost-free rising carbon fee allows all clean
energies, including nuclear energy, to compete, which is the efficient
way to phase down fossil fuel use. Would Gore support fee-and-dividend?
The answer came quickly, later in January, when Gore addressed the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee: he advocated the “cap-and-trade”
scheme designed by big banks and big business. Carbon emission
reductions in that scheme are marginal. Worse, cap-and-trade increases
the public’s energy cost, with no off-setting dividend. This approach
has no chance of growing into a global solution.
Still, there was another opportunity. Obama chose Senator John Kerry to
lead the effort to sell Congress on climate legislation. I knew Kerry,
mainly via his wife Teresa Heinz[III] and her office. Kerry listened
patiently as I described the simplicity and effectiveness of
fee-and-dividend. It may be best, he said, “but I can’t get any votes
for that.” The cap-and-trade bill being worked on was already more than
3,000 pages, mostly written by lobbyists for special interests. How to
combat that? I wrote an op-ed, “Sack Goldman-Sachs Cap-and-Trade,” for
the New York Times. I believe that you will find the story of
the under-handed ways that the Times sabotaged that op-ed as maddening,
but illuminating. Once the liberal media decide on a position, they
become an enemy of free speech, restricting communication with the
public.
Many authors of climate books paint a picture of a “war” with an evil
fossil fuel industry. Sure, that industry, like others, tries to
maximize its profits and, like others, it bribes governments. However,
the public wants and still needs fossil fuels for some time. I hope to
persuade you in Sophie’s Planet that – despite bad actors in the fossil
fuel industry and those supporting that industry – the underlying
problem lies elsewhere, and it is a solvable problem.
Policy oscillations
increased with successive administrations. Growing oscillations can
lead to system collapse, like the Tacoma Narrows Bridge when the
frequency of the wind matched the natural vibration frequency of the
bridge.[2] We can help avoid such collapse by recognizing the positive
contributions of both political perspectives.
On one side, we can celebrate the success of renewable energy advocates.
That industry is now poised to make a significant contribution to clean
energy. However, the “green new deal” of the Biden administration was
ill-conceived from the start. Why borrow from young people via deficit
spending, fueling inflation and leaving a burden for future generations?
Wind and solar industries were already cost competitive after decades
of renewable portfolio standards. Carbon fee-and-dividend would have
cost nothing and been far more effective in the long run. Instead, Biden
added more subsidies and mandates, e.g., on vehicles, that were certain
to create a long-lasting backlash. Aversion to control is a powerful
force, especially in the United States.
On the other side, we should thank the people – some call themselves
eco-modernists, others work quietly, without a label – who are
shouldering the heavy work of undoing unjust prejudices that long
prevented development of modern nuclear power. It is not easy when you
look across the scrimmage line and see the fossil fuel industry and
liberal media lined up on the other side. In the period 2006-2008, when I
traveled with “environmentalists,” I was surprised by their open
admission that they fought for rules to make nuclear power as expensive
and slow as possible. They then argued that nuclear power is expensive
and slow. Nuclear power will be cost effective, when governments support
it as they have supported renewable energy. As for the time scale,
phasedown of global emissions will not happen in a few years; it will
require at least several decades. We need contributions of both
renewables and modern nuclear power.
Each side poses a threat for young people, with potential to continue
political oscillations that threaten system collapse. When the political
left regains control of levers of power, if they again fail to support
the basic policies needed to phase down carbon emissions, they will lock
in more fossil fuel infrastructure that will not disappear for many
decades. The political right is correct that abundant energy is needed
to raise living standards worldwide, but the danger is their flippant
attitude toward climate change. In effect, they say: “if 1.5°C global
warming has only moderate effects, what is the big problem with 3°C?”
Understandably, most of the public has no time to study and appreciate
the threat posed by the climate system’s delayed response and amplifying
feedbacks. Political and thought leaders have no such excuse.
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