Funny how movements spring from nowhere.
That's the case with the Waxman-Markey "Cap and Trade" bill to restrict greenhouse gases that I filed about yesterday. There's no question that the bill has legs given the orgy of lobbying over it that seems to have sprung from nowhere and is supplanting the economic crisis and the still-sizzling financial meltdown.
Why, for example, are right-wing groups suddenly having seminars about Cap and Trade? Why are conservatives such as U.S. Rep Eric Cantor equating the Waxman bill as a threat on the level of global terrorism and Iran? What's with the timing of the sudden anxiety?
According to the Center for Public Integrity, a group that tracks lobbyists, the renewed interest quietly gained steam in this years first quarter when the business community realized that Barack Obama's presidency meant that some kind of global warming law was likely. As many as 140 companies started circling their wagons, including makers of blue jeans, computer serves and sneakers. Food firms such as Land O Lakes, Tysons and the National Turkey Federation grabbed sand bags. Other than Duke Energy, whose CEO backs Cap and Trade, many utilities had been quiet but not any more.
The Center lists the "Climate Top 10" of big-time lobbying firms that lead the lobbying pack. Richmond's very own Hunton & Williams makes the cut with seven power, oil and gas companies.
Right wing advocacy groups, such as the so-called Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy, are setting up seminars to pump out their propaganda about the Waxman bill. Their call to arms is the supposed expense to stop global warming. The Jefferson crowd, which unfortunately was given and has seriously degraded the Bacons Rebellion e-zine, picked three speakers at a recent seminar at the Lewis Ginter Botanical Garden in Richmond who were obviously dogmatically correct and in tune with the institute's world view which is shaped by the many lobbyists who run the organization.
One speaker claimed that Waxman-Markey would cost the average family $3,000. Funny but the Congressional Budget Office puts the figure at $1,600, but what's $1,400 when you're trying to frame an important environmental initiative as needless and costly?
As for Cantor's concern, consider that for the past four of his election campaigns, Cantor has received money from powerful electric utility Dominion. The firm has given him a total of $88,097, according to the OpenSecrets, a contribution data base, and has been among the top five Cantor donors each time.
To sure sure, lobbyists are springing to action because so much money is at stake with whatever approach goes to cut greenhouse gas emissions. The flurry of activity now means one thing: Waxman-Markey really does have a chance.
Peter Galuszka
91 comments:
I would posit that the "legs" for the opposition are firmly routed in the doubts of the average person that we know how to cap GHG and still have cheap and plentiful electricity that powers the businesses that provide jobs.
I think until the public believes that there is a reasonable way to cut back on the emissions that the voices of the opposition will prevail.
and I would not worry about the right-wingers here.. it's going to be the ordinary middle-of-the-road Dems in Congress that are going to hesitate.
We can shout "wolf" all we want but unless someone tells us how to kill that wolf.. I don't think it's really productive.
Right now.. this is sorta like telling people that every hour ..they gotta stop breathing for 10 minutes... they just don't see how we're going to do that.
and remember.. I'm solidly pro-environment here but much like our efforts for the Chesapeake Bay - the mantra of "try harder, spend more, or the end of the world as we know it will occur" ...is a sorry excuse for intelligent policy.
I DO believe in the global warming issue but I don't see yet how to get from A to B.
and hollaring about the sky falling don't make me feel any better about which way to run.
Larry, while I'm more skeptical than you on the global warming issue, I strongly support energy conservation. Dominion still has declining block rates that force lower-volume users to subsidize higher volume users.
I also think that you've stated a major source of the likely opposition -- middle of the road Democrats. If the big recession has taught anyone anything, it's that jobs are important to virtually everyone. Most people, even those who voted for Obama and certainly those who voted for Mark Warner, are going to be distrustful of something coming from Congress that will likely increase their energy expenses and could threaten their jobs. And, of course, there will gross abuses of trading carbon credits. Again, does anyone really believe that GE is supporting cap & trade in order to benefit society?
TMT
The days of "cheap and plentiful electricity" are quickly coming to a necessary end.
Even data centers are now planning 'per server' costs based on energy use, not real estate (i.e. spots on racks). What's your office doing?
Distributed, micro-renewable power systems offer the best hedge against higher prices.
Virginia gets plenty of sun, and should take more steps to embrace solar power.
Right wing advocacy groups, such as the so-called Thomas Jefferson Institute for Public Policy, are setting up seminars to pump out their propaganda about the Waxman bill.I find this a bit amusing since the "cap and trade" advocates appear to be the ones seeking to redefine the terms of this debate. What are the "cap and trade" folks hiding? Their marketing experts reportedly recommend dropping phrases like "global warming" for "deteriorating atmosphere," and employing terms like "the dirty fuels of the past" in place of carbon dioxide. Isn't "propaganda" a selective presentation of information primarily meant to influence an audience? Isn't that what they're doing?
I love the way liberals put on "holier than thou" airs, impugning the opposition for taking money from tainted sources. If Exxon funded research, it's biased, therefore, it is descredited. Such research needs no counter-argument. It is refuted a priori. But research funded by government? Totally different story. Irreproachable and unassailable.
However, as Patrick Michaels (former Virginia state meteorologist and noted Climate Change "Denier") demonstrated convincingly in his book "Meltdown: The Predictable Distortion of Global Warming by Scientists, Politicians, and the Media", the process of doling out government climatological research funds is itself thoroughly tainted by political ideology, media hysteria, university politics and bureaucratic ass covering -- not to mention, of course, the Lysenko-like (my words, not his) efforts of the left to squelch scientific dissent and impose political orthodoxy.
In the past year, a bandwagon effect has developed, as described by Bjorn Lomborg in today's Wall Street Journal. Big corporations like GE have figured out how to make a bundle from the Global Warming scare, and they're fanning the flames with their own advertising and P.R. But I don't suppose Peter would classify that as "propaganda." Propaganda is a word you use only to describe the arguments of the people you disagree with -- even if the Climate Change crowd happens to dominate the Mainstream Media outlets and the dissenters must resort to blogs, newsletters and low-circulation magazines to get out their point of view.
is this propaganda?
http://www.eia.doe.gov/bookshelf/brochures/greenhouse/Chapter1.htm
this debate reminds me of the one we had about cigarettes when it took almost a generation before people stopped demanding "proof" that they cause cancer.
Of course ... we still have those occasional 90-some year olds who smoked 2 packs a day since their 20's.
so maybe that was a case of very successful "propaganda".
this is similar.. I doubt seriously that there is any level of "proof" that will convince the serious doubters...
so I'll ask - what would it take for you doubters to become believers?
"still has declining block rates that force lower-volume users to subsidize higher volume users."
Phat's a funny way to look at it. virtually every business has volume discounts, and the reason is that the big volume users subsidize the small volume users - not the other way around.
Postage, for example, would coast a lot more without the high volume junk mail to subsidize it.
RH
Jim Bacon,
What you may consider someone may arguing "convincingly" may not be what I think or someone else thinks.
Some cmomon sense, however. If most of the educated world sees a problem with global warming and CO2, then why is your voice so lonely?
Peter Galuszka
"What are the "cap and trade" folks hiding? "
You must love conspiracy theories. Cap and trade is a legitimate policy tool that has been used sucessfully in other fields.
My concern isn't about cap and trade or whether it will work, it is that we are having a debate with virtually no believable cost estimates -- on either side.
RH
More stuff, Jim Bacon,
RE: "the Lysenko-like (my words, not his) efforts of the left to squelch scientific dissent and impose political orthodoxy."
You are misusing Trofim Lysenko here. His stature success resulted in a totalitarian regime and not necessarily a leftist one. His screwball ideas about crop genetics were used by Stalin as an excuse to encourage more production from the Soviet agricultural sector that he ruined through murder, etc.
It's not all that much different than Hitler, a rightist totalitarian, using eugenics to kill off Jews, gypsies, Slavs, retards and deformed people.
Moreover, the "leftist" Soviet government publicly repudiated Lysenko in 1964.
As a Tyrannosuraus Rex on global warming, you are really stretching things with this Lysenko comparison.
Peter Galuszka
Greens: Obama and Congress are wrong on 'clean coal', nuclear energy, and emissions trading
http://gp.org/press/pr-national.php?ID=214
I am writing this in the Rio airport. Just spent the past week in dozens of discussions of technology in Brazil. One point of interest - Brazil generates 85% of its electricity from hydro power. No coal, no mountaintop removal, no uranium tailing ponds. One Brazillian told me that the town where he grew up will soon be underwater. The government decided to dam another water to generate more clean electricity. I asked him if they ever built dams that flooded denely populated areas. "Of course not", he said, "that would be stupid".
Hey Larry - get your snorkel.
I wonder how the PECerheads will feel about daming the Shenendoah River?
There are lots of simple answers but few easy answers.
Also - I'll make Peter an offer. I will e-mail you an article about energy (generation and conservation) in Brazil for you to post on BR. However, if you don't want to post articles from people using pseudonyms (my real name is Groovy G. Groveton) - I understand. In that case, I'll post the article on Grovetonsvirginia. What the hell - there's no rhyme or reason to that blog anyway.
Ray - My understanding is that the cost structure of the electric generating companies is such that the costs to generate or procure peak amounts of energy are higher than the costs to produce below-peak energy. Thus, it would make economic sense to charge more for the highest levels of usage. If I use 3000 kWh, you use 2000 kWh, and it costs more to produce the last 1000 kWh that I use than it costs to produce the first 2000 kWh that we both use, shouldn't those higher costs be charged to the cost-causer -- me? It doesn't seem fair to charge those who consume the lower cost amounts (the first 2000 kWh) more so that I can be charged less for my extra usage.
If I'm charged more, then I also have an incentive to use less -- maybe I cannot get down to 2000 kWh, but anything less than 3000 is energy conservation in my view.
TMT
TMT -
There is base energy and peak energy. The two are often generated by different plants. The base plants are never turned off. The peaking plants can usually be turned on and off (over some period of time). Since the peaking plants are smaller they are usually less efficient. Therefore, the kWh they generate are more expensive. However, under cap and trade that could change. Some utilities use coal as the base and peak with natural gas (including Dominion, I believe). So, depending on the level of CO2 tax, the peak KWh could become less expensive than the base. So, I guess we'd have to give people a discount to use more?
" the costs to generate or procure peak amounts of energy are higher than the costs to produce below-peak energy. Thus, it would make economic sense to charge more for the highest levels of usage. "
One has almost nothing to do with the other. One has to do with the amount used and the other with when it is used.
A large generating plant can generte electricity more efficiently than a small one (up to a point). The large one needs enough base load to justify its existence, but it is also capable of providing substantial peaking power. And power companies already have agreements with the largest users to cut them back and free up more peaking power.
If you eliminated all the large users everyone that is left would be the ones contributing to peak demand. You would need much less baseload and consequently you would have a lot of plants sitting idle waitng for peak demand to roll around.
Predictabley, the power companies would pretty soon go searching for some big users to use the plants off peak, and get SOMETHING out of their investment. They wouod do that by offering lower rates for interruptible service ---- just as they do now.
????
RH
http://www.eia.doe.gov/bookshelf/brochures/greenhouse/Chapter1.htm
http://www.c3headlines.com/quotes-from-global-warming-critics-skeptics-sceptics.html
New Jersy Palm trees will eventually convice the skeptics.
RH
"Aren't Regulations A Form of a Tax?
Remember when Obama said that not one single American making under $250,000 would pay a single dime more in federal taxes? Well the new emission standards Obama wants will make the cars we all buy as much as $600 - $1,300 more expensive."
From Carpe Diem
RH
Groveton,
I will gladly post your file if you promise to buy me a capirinha.
Peter Galuszka
"Global warming will be twice as severe as previous estimates indicate, according to a new study published this month in the Journal of Climate, a publication of the American Meteorological Society."
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/science/environment/2009-05-20-global-warming_N.htm
this is going to take a predictable but sad path....
re: Groveton & Hydro Power
you gotta have a canyon with "head" and the U.S. has built just about every feasible location in the lower 48 save the Grand Canyon and a half dozen others.
If you want Hydro Power - look at Canada which is chock full of lakes and rivers and which Hydro Quebec has systematically over the last 50 years been damming up one at a time.. in hopes of selling that "clean" power to the Northern part of the U.S.
I don't know about Brazil but I suspect that they have many huge rivers as yet undammned.
And I bet some don't know this.
Reservoirs cause green house gases.
http://internationalrivers.org/en/node/383
re: "one single American making under $250,000 would pay a single dime more in federal taxes?"
you're pretty awful at reading the fine print....
" single dime more in federal INCOME taxes"....
got it?
I'd say that $600 to $1300 is going to come out of my income.
RH
I think they call it a regulatory taking: that way they don't have to call it a tax, and it's "free, no cost".
RH
"Reservoirs cause green house gases."
Yep, and the oceans relae a lot of CO2 as they warm up, too.
RH
"Global warming will be twice as severe as previous estimates indicate"
That will mean a lot more rain, and a lot more hydro power.
Global warming is its own answer.
RH
"William Nordhaus, who heads the widely respected environmental-economics-modeling group at Yale, estimates (page 84) the total expected net benefit of an optimally designed, implemented, and enforced global program to be equal to the present value of about 0.2 percent of future global economic consumption. In the real world of domestic politics and geostrategic competition, it is not realistic to expect that we would ever have an optimally designed, implemented, and enforced global system, and the side deals made to put in place even an imperfect system would likely have costs that would dwarf 0.2 percent of global economic consumption. The expected benefits of emissions mitigation do not cover its expected costs. This is the root reason that proposals to mitigate emissions have such a hard time justifying themselves economically."
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZjhhNGM0Mzg0ODRhYWU3NzAxOGZiZjdlMTM5NTA4N2I=
RH
RH,
Once more in English, maybe
Peter Galuszka
Because of the fear that the financial services sector (the same folks that brought us subprime mortgages, the current meltdown and $4 a gallon gasoline last summer) would be manipuliting carbon credits, I heard Congress is considering cap, but no trade. Does anyone understand that option?
TMT
"Congress is considering cap, but no trade."
A cap-only would be the more traditional approach to pollution policy.
For instance, right now, each new power plant is limited to what they can discharge - and the limits themselves are determined by what is deemed to be possible with BAT - Best Available Technology - with the tacit assumption that at some threshold.. that less pollution is not technologically or economically feasible.
For instance, that's the current status with regard to mercury - a mere teaspoon of which can cause widespread impacts if dispersed wide and far with a smokestack...literally poisoning the terrain that it falls upon.
But there is no current available "economically feasible" technology to remove more of the mercury - cost-effectively.
So... we've made a conscious choice with regard to mercury -unless we shut down the plants or use very expensive technology.. that would significantly increase the price of electricity - we continue until more effective technologies come to the fore.
Capping and Trading has been proposed for mercury.. in effect.. to allow more mercury pollution if the company can buy credits from an area that has less mercury pollution - like for instance, where there is a Nuke Plant instead of a coal plant.
For Cap & Trade, it depends on what the downstream intent of the Cap & Trade approach is.
Do you want:
1. - the same or greater level of overall pollution but get rid of "hot spots" ...places where the concentration is higher than desired....
2. - less overall long-term pollution - no matter where... essentially not a local "cap" that can be transferred somewhere else... but a region-wide, nation-wide, planet-wide cap that is basically enforced by selling credits - discrete portions of the overall cap - sold on an annual or some other time-constrained basis such that -
at some point in time.. the price per credit - goes up....
the idea behind this.. is that if the price goes up .. gradually... that the companies will innovate and find ways to reduce their increasing costs by employing more and more technology ...that is too expensive to use - right now.. but will become cost-effective at some point once the cost of the credits keep going up and reach a threshold...
The problem is... way back with the concept of Best Available Technology....
Who determines what is the Best Available Technology and by what criteria?
Cost-effectiveness in a pure capitalistic society would be a simple monetary calculation.
but if pollution is made part of the equation... then by altering the amount of acceptable pollution -you alter the cost-effectiveness of the equation.
Cap & Trade is meant to let the companies decide how to determine the best available technology.... rather than bean-counters in a Fed Agency.
The problem that I have with this with respect to carbon dioxide is that ... to date.. there is no technology that is feasible.
"Clean Coal Technology" is an oxymoron - at least right now.
It takes more energy to process coal into a less pollution fuel that the coal itself yields in energy from burning it.
It's like the Hydrogen or Ethanol fuel issue.
Sure.. both of them are much less polluting... but how do you get those fuels?
well.. you don't get them out of the earth by extracting them.
you have to process them from other substances...
and so far.. the energy cost of converting... other materials into "clean" fuels takes as much or more energy than the final fuel product can provide.
So.. you have to "burn" more fuel to create "clean" fuel.
and that's the problem with the Cap & Trade (or even a Cap) for Carbon Dioxide...
....continued
....continued
so.. far.. there is no identified ...feasible.. "best available technology" that will permanently remove the carbon dioxide as a byproduct of burning ... ANY fossil fuel...whether it be coal or oil or even natural gas.
So... how exactly would cap & trade. or just "cap" work if there is no known technology to reduce the carbon dioxide to start with?
That's the problem - even for the folks that ARE convinced that we ARE experiencing global climate change as a direct result of burning fossil fuels.
Right now... essentially what cap & trade or just "cap" means.. in essence.. is less electricity because the only way to reduce the output of carbon dioxide is to ...not burn as much ....
so.. that will make electricity more expensive....much more expensive...
and the strategies?
essentially - pricing consumption...
peak hour "congestion" pricing... and pushing folks to more and more efficient machines that use less and less electricity.
One way to produce the same amount of electricity but pollute less.. burn natural gas - at about 7 times the cost o coal.
or solar or wind.. combined with a smart grid... to more efficiently move and route power with less loss in transmissions.
bottom line - cap & trade or just plain cap means that..in the end.. each of us will use less electricity... unless and until we can figure out what to do with carbon gases besides release them.
Here's an "oldie but a goldie" for LarryG.
http://www.examiner.com/a-1285128~Power_plant_proposed_for_Prince_William_County.html
It seems that building new power plants right here in NoVa remains under consideration.
"RH,
Once more in English, maybe
Peter Galuszka"
It was a quote, but I will try to translate.
If you designed and operated cap and trade perfectly, along with a number of other policies, theyw iell cost whatever they cost. Based on what we know now, these costs will prevent certain damages.
After you subtract the value of the damages from the costs you come out ahead, by an amount that is equal to 0.2% of the future earnings of the globe.
Some people doubt that government, and especially governments, collectively, will be able to design and operate the perfect set of environmental policies.
On top of that, the costs will incur especially to the US and other advanced countries, but the benefits will incur globally. The US is unlkely to get its moneys worth out of the deal.
So the question becomes how altruistic are we willing to be toward the globe we live on? Put another way, if the damages are so close to the costs, maybe we would be better off just to plan for the damages.
Sometimes scuttling the ship is preferable to letting it fall in enemy hands.
RH
"...there is no current available "economically feasible" technology to remove more of the mercury - cost-effectively."
In other words, the cost of the damage is less than the cost of capturing all mercury from power plants.
There is no point in insuring the car if the cost is more than the car is worth.
RH
"the idea behind this.. is that if the price goes up .. gradually... that the companies will innovate and find ways to reduce their increasing costs by employing more and more technology "
That is part of the answer.
The other part is that some other industry may be able to make more money with less mercury pollution. With more profit, they will be able to pay more for the credits that allow them to stay in business preferentially over power plants. If power companies wish to stay in the power business rather thna the new business they will have to find some other way to generate power.
The cap stays in place, but you maximize the amount of money produced for the economy and for the government.
The government then uses the excess money to reduce some other taxes so that peple can afford to buy power at the new, higher, price.
Speculators make money by betting th new comapnay will succeed. They buy credits in advance at a lw price (even though they have no use for them) and sell them to the new comapny at a higher price.
In doing this, they provide liquidity to the market, guaranteeing that credits are available whne the new comany needs them.
RH
"Cap & Trade is meant to let the companies decide how to determine the best available technology.... rather than bean-counters in a Fed Agency."
And if no better technology is available, to make the most amount of money that can be made under the cap.
RH
"Who determines what is the Best Available Technology and by what criteria?
Cost-effectiveness in a pure capitalistic society would be a simple monetary calculation.
but if pollution is made part of the equation... then by altering the amount of acceptable pollution -you alter the cost-effectiveness of the equation."
No you don't. The equation is ALWAYS balanced. It is only that we may not know what the balance is.
Total cost = cost of production + cost of pollution damages + cost of preventing and cleaning up after pollution.
Let's say cost of production is 100, cost of pollution damages is 100, and cosr of pollution cleanup is 100.
So the box of cereal you buy for a dollar actually costs $3.00: $2.00 for ceral and cleanup and $1.00 in costs paid to your doctor and car painter.
Now lets say we decide to limit pollution costs to 50, but no better technology is available for cleanup.
The only thing to do is cut production. So instead of 300 = 100 + 100 + 100, you now have something like 150 = 50 + 50 + 50 bcause with less production you have less cleanup costs as well as less pollution costs.
So you total cost goes down, but now the market steps in and drives up the price because there is insufficient production. Now you pay $3.00 at the market plus $0.50 to the doctor and car painter.
YOUR COSTS have gone up. government gets more taxes from the market, GDP goes up, pollution goes down and the world is good. Everybody is happy, except the consumer who still pays the freight.
---------------------
Theoretically, the best available technol0gy is the best and cleanest technology that does not allow the situation above to happen.
You have three available technologies.
One yields 300 = 100 + 90 +110
one yields 280 = 100 + 60 + 120
one yields 310 = 100 + 40 + 170
You choose the second one, becuase it yields lower societal costs, even though the third one reduces pollution damage more. It isn't enough more to make up for its operating costs.
---------------------------
The first and last numbers are well known, its that middle number, the cost of pollution damage that causes us trouble. In the past we have made mistakes by not count all of (or sometimes, any of) the damage.
As a result we have entered and era in which we prefer to err on the side of caution. As long as we are consistent in how we measure pollution costs, then choice two always wins.
RH
But here is the problem.
A reduces actual pollution and pollution costs by 10% B by 40% and C by 60%.
But we can claim any cost we like for pollution costs so we put a multiplier inther by 5. The technologies still only reduce the actaul pollution by 10, 40, and 60%, respectively.
Now you have
A 660 = 100 + 90*5 + 110
B 520 = 100 + 60*5 + 120
C 470 = 100 + 40*5 + 170
Now we can CLAIM that C is superior and justify spending the money.
But we have done so by tinkering with the equation, which is based on the REAL costs. We CLAIM as savings of 50 over choice B and 190over choice A.
But we have not DELIVERED that savings because the real lowest cost is actaully still 280. We paid 190 extra for NOTHING.
Except the knowledge that we have erred on the side of "caution". which means, really, that we don't have that 190 to spend on some REAL benefits. The caution of saving some lives means we will lose others, and most likely the total is higher than if we had bothered to find the right answer.
The only person with an interest in finding the right answer is the consumer, asnd his (diluted) benefit is so small that the search will cost him more than the result will yield.
But the Government has an interest n finding the right answer because the right answer will provide the greatest net benefit to the population and the fastest growth in government revenues.
It is worthwhile for us to find the RIGHT answer, and not just the right answer multiplied by five, or whatever some special interest wants. (You can get equally distorted results by dividing by 5).
Whether we CLAIM to deliver a savings that we are not or whether we CLAIM, either way, it amounts to
Guess what?
Stealing. Because we have sold and collected on a promise we have not delivered.
The true costs are what they are, no matter what we CLAIM they are and the cost effectivenes of the equation is NEVER altered. It ALWAYS holds true.
---------------------------
It would be nice if we had a continuous spectrum of technologies to choos from, but we do not, so the best avaiable technology is the one that yields the lowest overall costs, given what is available.
It would be nice if we never missed a potential pollution cost, but the historyis that we have. We can and will do better inthe future, so there is no reason to base our choice of technologies on policies that deliberately over run our costs by artificially choosing to err on one side.
An error on ether side wastes resources and money.
RH
re: "to build a large natural gas plant" in Prince William
.. that would cost about 7 ties as much as coal...
if you did that across NoVa - you could stop much of the mountain top removal in WVa but it would cost you quite a bit more for electricity.
re: "You choose the second one, becuase it yields lower societal costs, even though the third one reduces pollution damage more. It isn't enough more to make up for its operating costs."
how do you calculate the societal costs?
Do you think that different folks might come up with different costs?
How do you resolve the differences and decide on what the proper society cost to be used in your equation is?
Your equation is not only simple RH..it is... simple-minded.
If we knew the answers to your presumptions then how to proceed would be simple and easy.
But we don't know even in hindsight sometimes how much the societal costs are.
We don't know right now - the dollar costs of mercury in our environment..so if we don't know.. and the answer could be substantially more than we estimate.. what do you do?
that's the problem with GHGs.
how much do we HAVE to remove right away to head off certain substantial damaged - downstream?
If we knew the answer to that - and we all agreed on what the answer was -then we could agree on the next steps of how to deal with it.. and how much we should pay and so forth and so on.
But when you've got folks who do not agree even on the potential existence of some dynamic..much less.. even if it is true but we don't know how much of it to stop/reduce.. then your equation only "works" in a textbook.
"how do you calculate the societal costs?"
Societal cost is the total value on the left side of the equation: how much goods cost, how much damage from pouttion cuased in making those goods cost, plus how much it cost to prevent or clean up some of the damage (You never get it all).
Would some people "come up with" other costs?
No, it does not matter what costs people invent. The true costs are the true costs, which is all the equation claims. If you invent some other cost and it is wrong, the equation still holds true. I don;t understand why this is so hard for you, it seems perfectly clear to me.
I've got a field full of cows, the cost of production is the cost of the field, the cost of the cows, ths cost of feen, and cost to build and maintain the fences, cost of pollution is damage due to fecal runoff from the field, cost of preventing pollution is nonproductive buffers around the field, running the pooper scooper, and maintaing a place to put the waste.
I can claim $100 an hour for fixing fence and raise the total costs, but since I don't actually make a $100 an hour, it is a false claim. if I filed that expense on my taxes it would be a fraud - stealing from other people.
Likewise, my neighbors could CLAIM more damage from the fecal runoff than there is, but it would be a false claim: the damage is whatever it actually is. The fact that we don't have a precise value to put on it, does not make any difference. We don't get to pick just ANY value. And if we do, the equation shows us why it is NOT to our benefit.
The only choice is to work harder to find the right value so that we can adjust the other values to get the most for our money.
RH
"Your equation is not only simple RH..it is... "
The equation is no only simple minded, it is correct. I'm assuming that yuo think the societal cost is the second term on the right hand side "cost of pollution". the societal cost is the total cost, on the left hand side.
It appears, of course that we can reduce that by simply reducing production, which reduces costs there, reduces pollution, and the cost of preventing pollution.
But remember, in this equation benefits are counted as negative costs, so if you reduce production you also reduce the benefits of production: maybe you have less soap, and conswquently more infections.
RH
"how much do we HAVE to remove right away to head off certain substantial damaged - downstream?"
No one knows. We might remove ALL antropogenic CO2 and still have a problem.
No one has even calculated the cost of damage downstream, so we have no idea what to spend on prevention.
We don't know how far downstream, nor can we agree on a discount rate. We can't even agree on how to approach finding the right values to put in the equation, and as long as that is the case, we will ALWAYS find the wrong answer.\
As the quote above suggests, our current "best guess" is that the benefits are marginal. This doesn;t mean that we should no do anything, but whatever we do has to be done right, or else we would have been better off doing nothing - even as bad as that result migh be.
The idea that the best thing to do might be nothing is hard for Americans to swallow: it cuts against our "can-do" grain.
RH
"....then your equation only "works" in a textbook."
Nope. The equation works. it always works, and there is no possible way for it to be incorrect, until we invent some other form of math.
The fact that we do not know what the correct answer is does not make the equation wrong: it makes us wrong. And anyone who advocates for a solution that is more wrong rather than less wrong is basically stealing from someone else: they are creating an imporperly priced externality the same as pollution creates an improperly priced externality.
--------------------------
how much do we HAVE to remove right away to head off certain substantial damaged - downstream?
A perfect example of how not to go about it. First you have to figure out as exactly as you can how much the damage is, or will be.
THEN you can figure out pretty easily how much production and how much pollution prevention you can afford to get the lowest total price.
The goal is NOT to get the minimum amount of pollution, but the minimum economic amount of pollution.
This idea drives some people nuts. If youcan affored to get rid of half the pollution, why not spend twice as much and get rid of it all?
Because the cost is nonlinear, getting rid of the second half may cost 100 times as much as getting rid of the first half. Getting rid of the first half might be worth it, but getting rid of 60% isn't.
But first you have to agree on the amount of pollution damage. After that iit is easy to solve the equation.
RH
"In 2007, Ms. Sotomayor sided with the fishes and against power companies and the Environmental Protection Agency. That is, in Riverkeeper vs. EPA, she argued that the EPA can’t weigh costs and benefits in deciding what the “best technology” is for protecting fish that get sucked into power plants.
In a nutshell, there’s no point in tallying up the marginal costs of extra environmental protections when Congress has already decided they’re worth it."
Environmental Capital
Well, Geez, if you cannot weigh costs and benefits, how are you suposed to know what the best available technology is?
This kind of reasoning flies in the face of everything I have ever been taught, environmentally or economically.
The idea that no price is too high (for what I want) as long as someone else pays the price, is first of all wrong (we are gong to pay the price) and second of all it is a license to steal (we won't pay the price equally, but the environment is equally ours to protect.)
RH
her previous argument was ovberturned by the supreme court, but if she becomes a member of the cour, it bodes poorly for the rule of reason.
RH
"Nope. The equation works. it always works, and there is no possible way for it to be incorrect, until we invent some other form of math."
it don't work if you don't know the correct values for the inputs ... or there is wide disagreement about what those values are or should be.
If someone said it would only take a 1.50 per electricity bill to "fix" GW... then the response to that would be far different than if someone said the cost would be $150.00 per month.
That number if one of the values in your equation.
which value should we use in your equation that is never wrong?
fess up RH.. it's a simple-minded approach to a not so simple calculation.
Your equation works beautifully if we know all the inputs.
Your equations goes to hell in a handbasket if we don't have accurate numbers to plug into it.
Right now... if you asked 100 different folks what the costs attributed to mercury in the environment is - you'd get 100 different answers.
which one do you pick as the right answer?
what is your criteria for deciding which are the correct values to use?
"Your equation works beautifully if we know all the inputs."
It does not matter whther you KNOW all the inputs: the equation works perfectly. 3 = 1 + 1 + 1.
If you choose to call one of the ones a two, then YOU are the one that is wrong, not the equation.
If we don't know the inputs, it is OUR FAULT that we have not tried hard enough, or worse, we prefer to lie about what things are.
Even if we do not know the inputs exactly, we still get a range of answers that includes the right answer, and one that we can incrementally improve on.
But first we have to agree that the equationdoes work, and then we have to agree on how to seek the correct inputs.
What we cannot do is disagree about the naswer: It is what it is and the CORRECT answer is out of our control.
RH
"...what is your criteria for deciding which are the correct values to use?"
Autopsy everyone and see how much mercury they have in them, when they croak.
Then see what they croaked from.
If you have a million people with 3PPB of mercury in their liver that died of cardiac arrest, then probably mercury wasn't their (our) most important spending priority. Probably we cannot attribute their deaths to the cost of Mercury.
But if you do this long enough, you will zero in on the cost of Mercury.
If you are worried about their brain power, then record their lifetime earnings, too.
We can figure out a way to measure anything we decide to measure. We fool ourselves by thinking it is "cheaper" to pick a number out of a hat.
That kind of environmental or social economics is wasteful, and therefore not green. It is unsustainable because we cannot spen an unlimited amount on every perceived problem, no matter its true cost. And it is criminal/unethical because it values ome lives and proerty more than others.
RH
how would you measure the cost of a lower IQ from mercury poisoning?
How about the impacts of a potential food supply that is no longer available?
How about the loss of several species important in the food web...???
how about all of the above... affecting from incrementally higher and higher levels...??
your approach ... life and death and dollars is simple minded and does not address the harder issues outlined above.
It's not that your equation is not used.
It is.
but there is not agreement as to what the costs are or how to compute them...
If your equation "worked", we could simply crank in the costs of GHG and take the appropriate actions that the equation would indicate.
You see the equation as "truth" and I do to but it aint so easy to find it....
that's always been the problem.
If your equation "worked"... we'd never start out believing that dioxin was "good" and then later on "bad".
The reason that happens with your equation is that the inputs to it change.. sometimes dramatically so that the answer from the equation goes from "acceptable" to "not acceptable" ....
AND... had we know back then what we know now.. we would never had found it "acceptable" to start with.
Your equation works fine in the 5th grade... not so good in the real world.
"How about the impacts of a potential food supply that is no longer available?
How about...???
How about...???
How about...???
how about all of the above... affecting from incrementally higher and higher levels...??
your approach ... life and death and dollars is simple minded and does not address the harder issues outlined above."
Well, how about it? All of those things have a true cost and that true cost belongs in the second term of the equation – we have a lot of work to do.
People figure this stuff out all the time, and there are similar studies from other chemicals to compare to, it isn't as if this stuff is done in a vacuum, or there are no yardsticks whatsoever. However it is true that there are probabilities and uncertainties that we don’t have a solid handle on yet: we have to accept a range of values, but the range isn’t infinite, and it CAN be narrowed down over time.
The question you are asking is what are the real, true, and complete costs of pollution damage to put in the second element of the equation.
My response is that we do not know, and for two reasons: We haven't tried hard enough, and we haven't tried hard enough because some people mistakenly believe that they will be better off, or gain some political power by inflating those figures.
But what the equation tells us s that whatever the true, and complete costs are is what they are: We don't get to make them up, anymore than I get to "make up" what I spend on fence management.
All we can do is make our best estimate, and then work to improve it. But what I hear you saying is that it is impossible and unknowable, so there is no point in trying. By your argument, we are better off to spend more on cleanup and reduce production, regardless of costs just in case the pollution costs are much higher than we can currently calculate. Assume a precautionary high cost of pollution damage and then reduce everything else until you get to an "acceptable cost".
The problem is that there is no end to this argument: If you accept the what-if argument, then it is just as strong at 1 PPM as it is at 5PPM, and when you get down to 5PPB you can make the same what-if argument to get down to 1PPB.
So, you just keep cutting production and cutting production until you get to zero. No one can do anything without polluting something and somebody.
RH
Obviously, that cannot be the answer, so there must be some optimum level of pollution - and yes that includes kepone, DDT and dioxin, even if the amounts are very small.
The equation does work and either we will find the right answer or we won't. If we do not then someone will be in an advantageous position at the expense of others, usually understood to be stealing or something very close to that.
If we don't find the right answer then we will be wasting resources that could have been used to prevent other kinds of damage.
-------------------------------------------
There are reasons why but there is not agreement as to what the costs are or how to compute them...
Most people do not know about or understand this equation: they think we are ALWAYS better off with less pollution. It is a seductive idea, but wrong. This is because we DO NOT explicitly use this equation in policy making.
The other reason is that people think they get some advantage from one position over antother. And that is because property rights in the environment are not properly defined, recorded and protected.
If they were, then the market would trade amongst the three right hand elements of the equation in order to get the left side as low as possible. A current example is the people who drive from Oregon to Washington in order to buy soap that works - the good kind being outlawed in Oregon.
The equation absolutely works, and it will work whether we choose to apply it or not. The real world, meanwhile will go along arguing about what costs we should "put in".
Not realizing that we don't get to "put in" the costs. The costs are whatever they are and it is up to us to discover them. It is the real world tht is living in fantasyland by thinking we get to "put in" the costs.
What you are saying is that in the past we were bad at discovering the costs, and therefore we made mistakes. But the costs were always there, and they did not change just because we finally discovered them. The equation was right all along and we were too stupid to apply it properly.
What I'm telling you is that not using it properly leads to waste' Deliberately not using it properly means that a mentally defective victim of mercury gets differentially advantageous treatment over the equally mentally deficient victim of lead, or cadmium.
And that is why we choose not to use and apply the equation rigorously: not because we can't but because it is inconvenient and not profitable to our person or cause. No short term profits. We do not respect the life, health, and property rights of those classes of harmed individuals equally. No equality. And the environment (which belongs to allof us, pays the price), The right answer balances economy, equality, and the environment equally.
Sure, the minimum cost changes over time: I never said other wise. For example, as we accumulate more people, more people will succumb to harm from the same level of pollution. It is up to us to recognize when the inputs change.
Maybe when environmentalists get past the fifth grade level of environmental thinking, they will discover what actually works in the real world is the equation and not what they think about it. then we can stop babbling how about, how about, how about, and start acting like ethical, responsible, and accountable adults.
RH
"Well, how about it? All of those things have a true cost and that true cost belongs in the second term of the equation – we have a lot of work to do."
"My response is that we do not know, and for two reasons: We haven't tried hard enough, and we haven't tried hard enough because some people mistakenly believe that they will be better off, or gain some political power by inflating those figures."
we have lots of people who are honestly trying to find out even as we may have others who are not.
You're essentially saying that a grand and successful conspiracy is why we don't have the answers we should have.
No thanks Ray... once again..you're looking for simplistic and simple-minded answers.
You don't have 50 years of EPA with all kinds of different administrations - both pro and con "environmental" and end up with your statement.
"You're essentially saying that a grand and successful conspiracy is why we don't have the answers we should have."
I believe there are some elements of conspiracy, but mostly I believe that welll meaning people are making bad decisions because they do not understand the true implications of what they are doing, like Alec Guiness in "Bridge Over the river Quai"
I also believe that there are other people who know and just don't care. They have an (altruistic and worthy) goal and will pursue it singlemindedly to the destruction of other people's lives and property.
All you have to do is look around to see that happen, in big ways and small. When your county supervisor tells you that "Our plans for you property is to have someone wealthy buy it so they can put it in a conservation easement.", well that sounds a lot like a conspiracy, wouldn't you say?
The official birthday of EPA is December 2, 1970. We don;t really have 50 years of EPA, yet. That was the same year "Silent Spring" was published. EPA owes a good bit of its existendce to missionary zeal, whcih does not necessarily make for good public policy.
Even the EPA concedes that "Skeptics then and now have accused Carson of shallow science, but her literary genius carried all before it."
Before that was the Public Health Service where my father worked on the clean air act and the clean water act. He was careful to explain to me at a young age, the conflictiing interests, politics, and economics at play.
U Thant was the first to turn the environmental movement against the US in his famous UN speech, and we have been apologizing to the rest of the world for our manure ever since.
We can diligently and honestly look for the right answers, or we can chase political and angency expedienceis and accomplish less than we might or even the wrong things - at he expense of someone else.
That much of my argument is simple minded. The real diligence and difficulty of finding those answers is not simple minded at all. But first we have to agree on the goal: net social benefit AND social justice. Then we have to agree on the measure: total costs = production costs + external costs + government (control) costs. Then we have to agree on how to look.
If we do those things, then it will leave vary little room to argue over the answers. In the mean time, just don't try to tell me that the control costs don't count, or they result in green jobs, and they are ALWYAYS outweighed by reductions in external costs.
Economy, Environment, Equality.
RH
"When Stephen Munday spent £20,000 on a wind turbine to generate electricity for his home, he was proud to be doing his bit for the environment.
He got planning permission and put up the 40ft device two years ago, making sure he stuck to strict noise level limits.
But neighbours still complained that the sound was annoying - and now the local council has ordered him to switch it off.
Officials declared that the sound - which Mr Munday says is 'the same pitch as a dishwasher and quieter than birdsong' - constituted a nuisance, and issued a Noise Abatement Order...
The turbine generated five kilowatts of electricity a day - the equivalent of boiling 300 kettles - and provided two-thirds of the family's energy needs. It also saved them an average of £500 a year in electricity costs. "
Did the government do the right thing and should the powner be reimbursed for his investment?
RH
I think that there are folks on all sides - pro, con and in the middle who honestly cannot agree on the costs.
It's not because ALL of them are being dumb and disengenous for almost 40 years.
That WOULD BE a conspiracy.
there are very tough issues that don't have simple answers and in the end.. decisions are made with the best info available..knowing full well that later on.. they will find out that they grossly underestimated the costs...
That has happened so many times in our history.. dozens, hundreds of deadly .. persistent chemicals let loose in the environment ..
.. using YOUR EQUATION ...which is supposed to be ALWAYS CORRECT.
and we know that your equation is correct only if the data put into it is correct and we also know that more often than not..that the data is not correct but it is the best that we have available at the time we make the decision.
Your tilt has been and continues to be that the harm that results from pollution is often "overstated".
You're entitled to your opinion but there are a ton of folks out there just as honest and ethical as you claim to be that do not agree with you.
you just disagree with them...but you make a mistake when you question their integrity in my view.
there are many, many people of high integrity and ethics who totally disagree with you.
you need to accept that.
"I think that there are folks on all sides - pro, con and in the middle who honestly cannot agree on the costs."
It does not matter if they agree: they can agree and still be wrong. The true costs are what they are.
The fact that they can't agree simply means they have made up their mind based on insufficient evidence. With overwhelming evidence everyone will have to agree. All we have to do is look for the evidence instead of arguing for "our position".
If you look at these positions and you don't see evidence, then that is a weak position. (What is the cost of retardation caused by mercury? I don't know, you brought it up, put our figure on the table and defend it, but don't just raise the question as if it was some kind of defense.)
The other situation is that you see the same weak position argued (to the exact phrase or word), in which case you have an ipso facto conspiracy to hide the truth rather than to discover it.
We do these things because we WANT things to be a certain way, rather than the way they actually are.
We WANT that because we perceive some personal advantage. Some people will genuinely rationalize any kind of stupidity or policy in an honest attempt to gain advantage without seeming to. This is being dishonest with yourself AND other people.
RH
You tell me, did Steven Mundays neighbors steal from him, by shutting him down AFTER he met all the requirements.
Was it high moral character that led them to change the "cost of pollution" after the fact?
Or was this a defect in how property rights were defined? He has the right to emit a certain amount of noise, or at least he is permitted.
But maybe he should not have the right to do so continuously, and this favtor was over looked when the code was written.
Either way the neighbors are now claiming a new right that they have not paid for, but Steven Munday will.
RH
" The true costs are what they are."
"The fact that they can't agree simply means they have made up their mind based on insufficient evidence."
is "they" everyone on all sides or is "they" the folks that you don't agree with.
If you think there is..how about telling me what the final numbers were when they decided that the cost-benefit for dioxin or kepone went negative....
I agree that if we had the ability to crank numbers into an equation - it would be a vast improvement but we don't.
Not anywhere in the entire world do they do this.
No advocate of such an "equation" approach has ever proved that it "works".
Even for things such as seat belts - we never had definitive data BEFORE the decision was made to require them because all we had was statistical estimates.. not real data.
Only AFTER did we have REAL data.
and this invariably is the case with most pollutants.
it's was that way with unleaded gasoline.
Did we have definitive "equation-grade" data that led us to outlaw lead in gasoline because we knew it affected the IQ of people?
you tell me.
I don't think you have a clue Ray.
you've got this dogma you believe in...but it don't match up with the real world at all.
and then you question the motives..condemn those whom you don't agree...
most of whom would love to find the right answers and most of whom know for a fact that our history of doing this clearly demonstrates that we make huge mistakes over and over... that are very costly and we have to backtrack... and outlaw chemicals that were originally thought to be safe.
We have virtually no examples of where we did the opposite.
show me your equation for the things that we originally outlawed that were later found to be safe...
Did we make a mistake in outlawing lead in gasoline?
how "close" were the numbers Ray.
did the equation show just a bare cost-benefit in favor of outlawing the lead or was it no contest.. an easy decision?
If your equation is always "true" then why didn't it show originally when the decision to use lead was made - that the cost-benefit was correct?
"There’s been plenty of wailing and gnashing of teeth over the role Chinese factories play in the global greenhouse-gas emissions problem.
The Chinese say much of the stuff they make is for the West, so rich countries should shoulder those emissions as well. That idea hasn’t gotten much traction in the U.S. or other rich countries.
Now, climate-change guru Lord Nicholas Stern figures the Chinese might be right: “The logical point China makes is that there is a definite responsibility with the consumer and not just with the producer is a sound one,” Lord Stern told The Guardian’s George Monbiot, who figures this could mark a breakthrough in one big bone of contention between East and West."
Who is responsible for pollution, the producer or the consumer?
RH
"is "they" everyone on all sides or is "they" the folks that you don't agree with."
I don't have a position on one side or the other, but I don;t agree with someone who has no evidence. If you merely ask, what is the cost of a life damaged by mercury as is that justified any expense, then you have not got my support yet.
Our agencies typically use a figure like 6.5 million per life lost. I'd be willing to agree that a life seriously damaged costs more than that. But once we decide what it is for a life damaged by Mercury, it must be the same for a life damaged by AIDS, or auto accidents, or birth defects, one life being worth as much as another.
So, if you make a regulation that costs 20 million per life saved, you just raised the ante for all of our problems, or else you are stealing resources from those for whom we spent less.
Evenif we can't agree up front what the costs "shold be" we can certainly measure afterrwards what the results are.
RH
"the final numbers were when they decided that the cost-benefit for dioxin or kepone went negative...."
It is almopst a sure bet that the numbers did not go negative. There is almost ALWAYS some economic production level which provides more benefit than it does harm. that level might be very small but it is never zero.
You can set up the equation in Excel and use goal seeeking to see for yurself. You have to set up a model that includes fixed and variable costs and benefits for production, some pollution costs that are related to the production costs and the pollution prevention costs, and then sum them and look for the lowest sum. The relation between the pollution damage costs and production are logarithmic, and so are the costs of pollution prevention.
No one is ever going to admit it, but the probability is that we overreacted to Kepone and DDT. Even the EPA admits that Rachel Carsons legacy is based more on poetry and empathy than science.
As for Dioxin, we are unlikely to ever get rid of that, entirely, until we get rid of combustion, entirely.
You insist that such trades cannot be done. I merely point out that they ARE done everyday. We DO set prices on all of these things, but we don;t often bother to find out what they are. The medical community does, the military community does, but the conservation community just says we have to spend any amount, no matter how costly the results.
RH
RH
"If your equation is always "true" then why didn't it show originally when the decision to use lead was made - that the cost-benefit was correct?"
It did. It had the right answer all along, but no one ever looked to see what the true answer is. We still use lead in batteries and many other products, and no one has bothered to solve the equation for them, either.
Based on the gasoline situation we already have one set of "boundaries". No one knoews if the other products fall inside or outside of those boundaries. We recycle something like 95% of lead used in batteries. So five percent of yur battery is going to wind up in the environment. How much does your battery weigh? How many tanks of gasoline would that represent if we still used a few PPM of lead in gas?
This is a false question because we can reduce lead by eliminating it form gas without affecting the battery industry, but I'm just asking the question of whether the battery industry is really less harmful. If it is not, then why shouldn't we spend just as much to change the battery industry as the gas industry?
You may think that I don't have a clue, but I spent eneough time in the industry, and as an activist to see how screwed up and wasteful they are. all I'm suggesting is that we subject ourselves to the same scrutiny as others.
When you have a whole feature lenght cartoon show lampooning the greens, it is time to consider that some people consider us to be fools.
Maybe there is a reason.
RH
"Did we make a mistake in outlawing lead in gasoline?"
It is not a question of whther we made a mistake. It is a question of what were the real costs and the real benefits. Who went back and did a post mortem to see if the up front claims were actually met? Where is the Quality Control system on environmentla costs?
Whateer the results on gasoline were, there wer both costs and benefits involved. Our total societal cost is either higher or lower now than it was. Your assumption is that it is lower and we are better off.
My assumption is that if no one bothered to figure it out, then we just don't know.
If it is lower, the we ought to know how much lower and at what expense. then we have a yardstick by which to compare the next proposal. Then we can look objectively and say, look we think the savings for this proposal are better than DDT and worse than lead in gas. Or better than lead in gas and worse than silt fence, or vapor proof gas cans.
This isn't rocket science, it is just plain measurement and comparison. Eventually we gat something that we have a really good handle on, like measles vaccines. Something you can put a pretty hard dollar value on, suddenly, every thing else falls in line. You get a couple of hard dollar values and then you have a bounded range.
Suddenly, everything that falls within that range gets a lot more certain. of course the vbest way to do this is to NOT use a command and control system, but some kind of a cap and trade. Then you can control pollution and let the market decide the price.
RH
You didn't answer the question. What about Steven Munday, and his wind generator?
What about the Chinese argument that Americans are responsible for Chinese pollution? Aren't they just arguing EMR's pont that we are not paying our full locational costs?
RH
" Who is responsible for pollution, the producer or the consumer?"
the consumer for sure - no contest.
if they didn't want the product.. there would be no production of it nor the pollution that might result from it.
but there is more to this and that is there are different ways to produce the same product..some of them more polluting than other ways.
It's not a situation of product or no product.
" what it is for a life damaged by Mercury, it must be the same for a life damaged by AIDS, or auto accidents, or birth defects, one life being worth as much as another."
except some things we have no control over..and others we do.
what is the standard for things we DO have control over?
" Either way the neighbors are now claiming a new right that they have not paid for, but Steven Munday will."
nope.
they're claiming that it was their right from the beginning to not have the impacts from his stuff.
It was a reserved right all along.
The way this works is this way.
If you have no mercury pollution on your property that comes from other properties then it is your right to not have any put on it by others.
That's why pollution permits are "permits" that can and are revoked... and the terms of which can and are - changed - as more is understood about the nature of the impacts.
As a property owner you are entitle to no impacts that are not permitted.
The fact that someone might engage in an activity that has impacts that was not considered previously is no different than an initial finding that lead in gasoline is ok.. and subsequently it is not ok.
" My assumption is that if no one bothered to figure it out, then we just don't know."
I thought you said that at the very beginning it needed to be figure out - correctly?
Could it be that at the beginning they thought it was okay but as time went by, they realized that they erred ..and were wrong and had to go back and put new inputs into your equation?
How could you know Ray.. for virtually any pollution that your initial determination of it being "ok" would be totally correct for all time after that?
"they're NOW claiming that it was their right from the beginning to not have the impacts from his stuff."
Shouldn't he have the right from the beginning not to have impacts from THEIR stuff? Their stuff being new regulations which represent NEW property for them, same as his wind generator was new property for him?
The difference being that he paid cold hard cash for his new property, and his neighbors have not.
The time to protect their property was BEFORE he made his investment, under THEIR existing rules. Had they done that, eeryone would have borne the same costs: a little more global warming and higher electric bills.
As it stands now, HE bears all the costs, and THEY get all the benefit.
RH
"It was a reserved right all along."
They gave up the reservation when they issued him a permit. If they now want their right back, they have to buy it, or else they are stealing.
Suppose you had property and you allowed an easement across it so your neighbor would have access to his property. Later he sells the property to someone with dump trucks or Harleys crossing your property.
It is still your property but you are going to have to buy that easement back, even if you gave it away for free.
RH
"the consumer for sure - no contest."
Then why is it that the "polluter pays" principle is so popular?
If we institute new rules then WE should expect to pay the cost of them. It is opur pollution, just as it is our environment.
We cannot clamit is OUR environment but it is THEIR pollution without claiming superioer property rights to that which we argue belongs to everyone.
RH
"except some things we have no control over..and others we do."
We control how much money we spend on each. We have an obligation to spend it fairly. The things we have to spend the most money on are the ones we have the least control over.
In each field some lives are a lot easier to save than others: it is easy and logical and cost effective to collect all the old PCB transformers. It is stark freaking crazy to dredge the bottom of the entire hudson river fifty years after the fact, when for a fraction of that money we could have saved a lot more lives with easy to fix birth defects.
Whether it is PCBs, Lead, Mercury, Bitrh Defects, or smoking preventionthe cost of lives saved is non linear. The costs are usually logaritmic, in fact. Therefore, even having decided to do something about lead, we need to know when to stop, before we start stealing lives from someone else.
WE can figure this out if we try, we can;t figure it out if we start from the position that ALL mercury is equally bad. Some of it falls in the category of we can't afford to control it: we have no control.
RH
" My assumption is that if no one bothered to figure it out, then we just don't know."
I thought you said that at the very beginning it needed to be figure out - correctly?
-----------------------------
Whee is the conflict here? If no one has bothered to figure it out, then we just don't know.
That does not mean that it does not NEED to be figured out, and correctly.
What it does mean is that when someone says, well gee, we don't know how much mercury damage costs, that it is not a valid argument for spending an infinite amount of money to hunt down and dredge up avery last trace.
It is not even an argument for spending 90% of infinity or half of infinity. If you don;t have an idea of what it costs then you don't have an idea of what to spend.
RH
"It's not a situation of product or no product."
Try telling that to the companies and stockholders that manufactured asbesos, DDT or Kepone.
Sure, we got rid of Freon, and now we use something that is 60% as efficient and uses a lot more power.
RH
"That's why pollution permits are "permits" that can and are revoked... "
Having issued that permit we have to take some responsibility for the results. The manufacturer has a vested interest that depends on our permit.
Having once issued the permit we have no right to revoke it without some kind of compensation. That is why the new CAFE standards won't take effect for many years: it allows the manufacturors to work off their present investments.
RH
" Shouldn't he have the right from the beginning not to have impacts from THEIR stuff?"
this is like saying that if I keep you from hitting me that I have adversely impacted you.
like I'm supposed to pay you to keep you from hitting me.
See.. the rule is Ray.. your rights end at the point that your actions cause harm to my property.
you do not have the right to do anything you want and then claim that others are taking away your rights when others stop you from doing things that harm them.
So.. no.. you cannot rob a bank.. and then claim that when folks stopped you that your rights were being violated.
You cannot dump pollution on other people's property and claim that is your right and that if they meet you at the property line and say "no" that they have "violated" ...your "rights".
You never had the right to adversely affect others in the first place.
you have the right to own and to enjoy YOUR property ..ONLY.
" What it does mean is that when someone says, well gee, we don't know how much mercury damage costs, that it is not a valid argument for spending an infinite amount of money to hunt down and dredge up avery last trace."
tell me how that worked with the decision to originally allow lead in gasoline and then later on outlaw it.
" Try telling that to the companies and stockholders that manufactured asbesos, DDT or Kepone."
the product is what people use it for.
We have replacements for virtually all outlawed chemicals.
whether or not the are as "efficient" as the older ones is the tradeoff that you talk about in your equation.
right?
and if someone advocates outlawing a chemical.. the case can be made that it has a negative cost benefit.
that option is available at any time to the folks who make the chemicals.
" They gave up the reservation when they issued him a permit."
Nope.
Permits are never - "forever"..
they expire..and when they do.. you're not entitled to the same deal you had before if they want to make changes based on new info.
"and were wrong and had to go back and put new inputs into your equation?"
You STILL don't get it. There are no human "inputs" to the equation.
The equation is ALWAYS right. What you are saying is that the equation was right, and we didn't know it yet.
What I'm saying is that it is because we didn't try. The costs were always there, we just didn't see them.
One reason we don't see the costs is because property is not properly allocated. I'd be willing to bet that if someone owned the bottom of the James River we would have discovered the costs of Kepone a lot sooner.
That is why we have the "Adopt a Highwy" program: it transfers a sense of ownership.
At the same time, because ownership is not properly defined and protected, people think mistakenly think they are free to claim any damages they see fit to things they SUDDENLY claim they have an interest in.
Suppose we gave the Adopt a highway sponsors a cut of all the littering fines collected as incentive to be sponsors. At some level they would be sitting out there taking license numbers to raise the fines, and their cut.
But they would not want to stop ALL the littering, because they would lose their profit.
It is the same with any other pollution: we need a certain amount.
RH
" We still use lead in batteries and many other products, and no one has bothered to solve the equation for them, either."
I think the above statement betrays a fundamental lack of understanding of the nature of pollution.
Lead-Acid batteries don't pollute unless they are burned.
The lead is basically sequestered and will not break down and get into the atmosphere where it would be breathed.
That was the problem with lead in gasoline guy.
it's not a problem when it's not burned.
lots of substances -can be hazardous or relatively safe depending on their form and use.
with respect to PCBs.. I'd like you to read this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polychlorinated_biphenyl
and come back and tell me that you think we made a mistake banning it.
what does your equation say about PCBs?
does it say that PCBS have a positive cost/benefit?
did it say that when PCBs were originally proposed as safe and effective?
read the article guy..
re: " What I'm saying is that it is because we didn't try. The costs were always there, we just didn't see them. "
I think we DID try and still try.
A LOT of effort goes into trying to figure out what to allow for permits and in what concentrations.
"One reason we don't see the costs is because property is not properly allocated."
this is not true. you continue to think/believe that people have pollution rights - the "right to pollute" and they do not.
They NEVER had the right but they took it - until the folks who were being harmed by it defended themselves with an elected government that protected the property rights of those who would be harmed by others - in the name of property rights.
"I'd be willing to bet that if someone owned the bottom of the James River we would have discovered the costs of Kepone a lot sooner."
Someone DOES own the bottom of the James river and there WERE rules that said that private property owners could NOT put kepone in the river.
They violated the law Ray and they were fined heavily for it.
they did not make an "honest" mistake - they committed a criminal act.
"That is why we have the "Adopt a Highwy" program: it transfers a sense of ownership."
it does not redefine what property rights are.
"At the same time, because ownership is not properly defined and protected, people think mistakenly think they are free to claim any damages they see fit to things they SUDDENLY claim they have an interest in."
you got half of it right.
No one - Ray has the right to engage in any activity that causes harm to others.
That's the standard.
You "right" to drive a car is a "permit" not a right and if you cause damage to others, you will pay. You are not entitled to cause damage to others because otherwise you'd not be able to drive.
"Suppose we gave the Adopt a highway sponsors a cut of all the littering fines collected as incentive to be sponsors. At some level they would be sitting out there taking license numbers to raise the fines, and their cut."
Where would you get the money to pay them?
Are you saying that the Government should recruit people by using fines as a revenue source?
Most folks get pretty darn mad if they think the government is issuing tickets as a means of raising money.
But they would not want to stop ALL the littering, because they would lose their profit.
It is the same with any other pollution: we need a certain amount.
" It is the same with any other pollution: we need a certain amount."
this is true.
but the decision about what kinds of pollution and in what concentrations is NOT decided by the property owner that wants to pollute.
This is where you keep going wrong on this.
Individual property owners do not have an inherent, unfettered "property right" to pollute.
They never did.
What they had was an assumption that they could pollute and that if no one immediately objected to it.. then it became a "right".
And that question has been settled in the courts - and in the Congress -
and it boils down to this.
You cannot engage in any activity on your property which results in substances that leave that property and go onto other people's property without a permit.
The substances that are allowed to leave your property with or without a permit are not determined by you - but instead by those who are impacted.
No only will they not compensate you for not being allowed to pollute but if you insist on claiming that it is your "right" to pollute - you will be hauled into court and fined heavily as you should be.
And if you do not clean up the pollution on your property - the government will come in an clean it up - and charge you for it.
And if it cannot be cleaned up, then the government will take your property and fence it off.
You argue that not allowing you to pollute is "stealing".
I argue that allowing you to damage other people's property without compensating them is "stealing".
If you run into another persons car - you will have to pay their damages.
and no.. they don't pay you NOT to run into their car... which is a bizarre concept to start with.
A car is property. So is land.
if you own a car or you own land - then you are a "property owner".
As a property owner - if someone else damages your property - they are held responsible for such damage.
And that is true - even if - "they could not help it".
That's why when "accidents" occur - they determine who is responsible... who caused the damage... and thus who will pay.
Using your logic... a guy who owns a car has "no choice" but to cause damage to others cars because he "must drive his car to survive".
"Property Rights" do not give you the right to damage others property because you believe that you have no choice but to damage their property.
The people who make the determination with respect to whether or not you had a choice - are the people who were affected by your actions.
not you.
Property Rights ARE DEFINED.
there is no uncertainty.
they are already amply "defined".
You cannot cause damage to other people's property without their permission.
"That was the problem with lead in gasoline guy.
it's not a problem when it's not burned."
The lead in gasoline wasn't burned. That was the problem. Tetraethyl Lead burned realeasing four ethyl molecules which raise the octane level and prevented knocking. the lead was just a hook to hand the ethyl molecules on, making them stable and non-volatile.
The lead just passed through the exhaust and was deposited all ofver the place, where it could be easily ingested.
RH
Property Rights ARE DEFINED.
Correct. But no all of them are defined yet, not all of them are defined well, and not all of them are equally protected.
When they are, we will have less governemtn and better environmental protection.
What we have now is unequal property rights, which basically give some people the right to steal from others.
RH
"If you run into another persons car - you will have to pay their damages."
But only their real damages, not some imagined ones. And THEY don't get to set the amount.
RH
"Using your logic... a guy who owns a car has "no choice" but to cause damage to others cars because he "must drive his car to survive"."
No, you have misstated my argument as usual.
Anyone who drives a car has "no choice" but to accept the risk or probability that he will damage someone, somewhere, sometime.
Anyone who buys or uses ANY product accepts the risk that it will damage someone, somewhere, sometime.
The equation I have shown balances the costs and benefits of maing and using that product with the costs and benefits of pollution reducton and the cost of damage form whatever pollution we cannot or will not control.
We don't have to drive, of course: we know that at one time we did not. But that has a cost, too, and most of us, along with our insurance companies have agreed to share the risk of damage in order to enjoy the benefits of having cars.
You argue that it is just the guy who causes the accident who pays, but we know that is not true. We share those costs through insurance companies that ensure equality by hiring third party "assessors" and "lawyers".
The system is set up to (more or less) insure that everyone gets the same rights and endures the same risks. When our system of environmental rights works that well, we will have a reasonably good system.
As usual you have missed my point which is that EVERYONE gets the same level of rights as far as taking the risk of driving goes. I I want to drive I have to accept the risk and allow others to accept the risk that I am driving.
I cannot drive and expect no risk and I cannot buy any product and expect no risk (perfect cleanliness, no pollution). It simply canot be done, so we need a method that gives us the most product at the lowest risk, consistent with not stealing from someone else the right to go about their business as fairly and profitably as we go about ours.
I have a neighbor who is a terror on the road and I blanch whenever I see him on the road. But I don't get to make the choice as to whether he is allowed to drive. I can complain and bring him under greater scrutiny, but I cannot claim he is causing me damage that hasn't happened.
If he was a polluter making a product that I use it would be the same. I might think he is a hazard, but I don't have the right to stop him on the basis of damage claims that I cannot prove.
RH
"A LOT of effort goes into trying to figure out what to allow for permits and in what concentrations."
That has NOTHING to do with the equations. We can set permits and concentration levels wherever we like. Once we do that, it will result in certain costs which add up to one total cost.
The CORRECT amount to allow for permits and concentrations is the one that RESULTS in the lowest total cost. But you claim we cannot knw that becasue we do not know EITHER how much to charge for mercury Retardation OR how much actual Mercury retardation there is.
That lowest total cost is the ONLY one that we can ethically support.
Even if it leaves us with more retardation than we would like, we cannot reduce retardation by letting lower allowable limits it without causing a HIGHER total cost and therefore setting a higher value on some ailments (property rights) than others.
RH
"is NOT decided by the property owner that wants to pollute.
This is where you keep going wrong on this.
Individual property owners do not have an inherent, unfettered "property right" to pollute."
And it is not decided by th eproperty owner being polluted either, Otherwise he has superior rights that we know must all be defended equally.
The poluted property owner does not have the right to "no Pollution" anymore than he has a right to NO RISK when he goes out for a drive.
The polluter does not have an Unfettered right to pollute and the other property owners do not have an unfettered right to stop him.
Especially, having issued him a permit, they are taking some responsibility for his well being: that he can actaully operate within that permit and still make a living. Or, failing that, that we agree to reimburse him for losses sustained because of NEW regulations.
RH
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