Global Warming and the Next Big Political Fight
By Chad A. B. Wilson
Published November 25, 2006, 12:16 pm in Economic Issues, Voting & Partisanship, Environmental Issues.
On last night's McLaughlin Group, the commentators discussed global warming, a subject I haven't had much time to keep up with. I'm familiar with Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth, both book and film, but that's about the extent of my knowledge. I have read a couple of papers arguing that global warming is happening and others that suggest it is a myth, and the evidence points to global warming. However, Pat Buchanan did bring up quite a few interesting points last night that I want to discuss here.
I haven't heard anyone argue that global warming is wholly a myth. People seem to stay away from that, even though there is some evidence that the polar ice caps were warmer in the 1930s than they are today and that climate changes are cyclical. Or even that our use of different land masses has contributed to global warming or that cow flatulence is the main contributing factor. The overall trend, however, is that our climate is getting warmer, and most people don't debate that trend anymore. Al Gore compares the people who claim that climate change isn't happening to people who argue that the moon landing never happened, that it was staged in the Arizona desert. It's a funny, although not very apt characterization. There may be some people who claim that the moon landing never really happened, but these are fringe loonys and conspiracy theorists, not rational thinking humans. Global warming and climate change are perhaps a bit different. Most people don't dispute the fact that global warming is happening, though. What they dispute are the causes of it, a very different thing.
Liberals and environmentalists claim that humankind has contributed to the climate change, especially to the depletion of the ozone layer that protects our atmosphere. Conservatives like Pat Buchanan, including many Representatives, say that there is no evidence that humankind has done this, that this could be cyclical or simply a natural change. This is an important distinction. These people aren't irrational; they're just not willing to change our energy or economic situation based on something that may or may not be caused by it in the first place.
The problem is with our consumption of fossil fuels or the emission of carbon gases into the atmosphere. Supposedly, these gases help deplete the ozone layer. Therefore, we need to limit our use of fossil fuels. My feeling is this: I don't care what caused global warming; I just want to stop it. If it can be demonstrated that fossil fuels do contribute to climate change, then we should change our system immediately to stop it.
Why do I want to stop it? Well, there are numerous theories about the problems associated with climate change. If the current trend continues, many scientists say that New York and Washington D.C. will both be underwater. They don't say when this will happen, but many scientists point to a point of no return, which is 10 or 20 years from now. If we keep going at our current rate, we won't be able to reverse the trend, and our planet will be doomed!
This is where conservatives like Pat Buchanan come in and say that this point of no return is a type of fear-mongering. The point of it is to create a system of fear that forces us to create new energy sources. Not that that's a bad thing, but that it's a thing supported by liberals, i.e. democrats. All these liberals want to is to gain power and keep it. It works like this: there is a problem, global warming. The conservatives won't do anything about it, but the liberals will. Therefore, we must vote for liberals who will keep this disaster from happening. It's a strategy that usually works, if the public can be convinced that the problem exists. And the public is being convinced, slowly but surely. The fact that An Inconvenient Truth was such a popular movie says something about the way climate change is being received. If that movie had come out 15 years ago, Al Gore would have been laughed out of the theaters, if not the oval office. But now, it's a part of a Democratic strategy, a strategy most recently from the Karl Rove playbook, but it goes back to the beginning of politics. That's how the Republicans have kept power for the past six years (or twelve, depending on what you consider power). They established a fear of terrorism, and then claimed that they were the only ones who were capable of dealing with the problem. The people bought the fear and then voted for them. It doesn't work every time, of course, as the last election demonstrated, but it can help get a party elected.
I don't discount the political maneuvers here, but I'm not convinced that these maneuvers outweigh the science of global warming. Just as I don't discount the fact that terrorism is a problem. I'm just not convinced that the Republicans have a monopoly on dealing it. Just because the Democrats want to make climate change an issue so that they can get elected doesn't mean that climate change isn't a real problem and someone has to deal with it. The argument from conservatives that global warming is a political tactic may be true, but it doesn't mean that it isn't an actual problem, either. It's not a reason to ignore it, just as it isn't a reason to elect Democrats based on it.
Liberals come in a say that these Republicans are either crazy, ignorant, or money-hungry. I don't want to discount the political implications of global warming, just as I think we have to consider the economic implications, which are huge. From the Republican point of view, many industries are based on the burning of coal, such as most energy companies, car manufacturers, as well as the economics of oil speculation, production, and refining. If climate change is established as a fact, these companies will have to change their entire businesses, if not completely go under. People who are embroiled in these businesses, including prominent politicians currently on important Congressional committees, will lose large supporters when these companies are forced to change.
The economics work the other way, too. Finding alternative energy sources, including alternative fuels, will take lots and lots of money. It is estimated that 1-5% of the world’s gross national product will have to be invested in alternative energy sources or stopping global warming. We're talking about unfathomable amounts of money here, hundreds of billions of dollars. So if companies are interested in keeping their carbon-based fuels, then other companies are interested in taking some of that money from them. Lots of money is at stake here on both sides, so we shouldn’t think that the conservatives are being greedy and the liberals altruistic. That's just not the case. Everyone's greedy in their own ways. Everyone's interested in money and power.
Al Gore has suggested that we establish a carbon tax in place of a payroll tax. That's a great idea, but only in the short term. The idea is an old one: if you want someone to stop doing something, you tax it. So if you want companies to move away from using carbon-based fuels to alternative fuel sources, then you tax the amount of carbon emissions into the atmosphere. Then you can use that money to help fund alternative sources of energy through academic or other research institutions. Eventually, the idea goes, these companies will stop using carbon-based fuels altogether, because we will have found a different form of energy. And then, of course, we’ll need some other tax.
Don't be fooled by all of the alternative energy sources currently available; there are problems with all of those, too. Again, there are lobbies and economics involved. Ethanol, hydrogen, and solar energy are viable, but they aren’t perfected yet. Maybe I will get to that in a future column.
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