"Nothing isn't what it used to be.
Washington Post columnist Sebastian Mallaby recently reviewed Al Gore's movie "An Inconvenient Truth." He argued that President Bush "refused to let his administration do anything about climate." And last month New York Times columnist Paul Krugman made the same claim: "most governments have done little to curb greenhouse gases, and the Bush administration has done nothing ..."
One is tempted to ask whether they are being Clintonesque, with nothing depending upon their definitions of nothing. But assuming they were being honest, one can only wonder where they gathered their evidence that the Bush administration was doing nothing.
Obviously it was not from reading Gregg Easterbrook in The New Republic, who in February last year, wrote: "[T]he notion that Bush has done nothing at all about greenhouse gases can only be sustained if you ignore what he has done."
What has that been? Easterbrook was writing about a program called Methane to Markets, which the Bush administration negotiated among several countries in 2004. He noted that most news outlets didn't report a thing about it. Yet, the program promises a reduction in methane -- a greenhouse gas 23 times more powerful than the carbon dioxide that is the focus of most news reporting -- equal to the reductions in greenhouse gases from the more heralded Kyoto Protocol.
One of the fruits of the methane to markets program came last week. China, a chief emitter of methane from its coal mines, has signed an agreement to buy 60 methane generators from Caterpillar Inc. for $58 million. The generators will take in the methane from its largest coal mine, reducing explosions and improving safety and health in the mines while providing 120 megawatts of electricity with reduced greenhouse gas emissions.
Neither the Post nor the Times thought that worthy of reporting, nor did most other mainstream media outside of the business press. After all it's a "good news" story -- a kind of win-win-win-win scenario for health, safety, economics and the environment that the mainstream media are loath to report.
And besides, how can you write about the fruit of a program that you've barely acknowledged exists? The Post provided but one brief story about it on its inside pages back in November of 2004, and then gave it mention in a little science brief about a Princeton study that found "reducing emissions of methane ... by 20% from current levels would prevent an estimated 370,000 premature deaths worldwide between 2010 and 2030." And that's nothing compared to The New York Times reporting, which about methane to markets amounted to nothing googleable at all.
All of which may explain the frustration of James Connaughton, President Bush's chairman of the Council on Environmental Quality at a presentation at the American Enterprise Institute the day Mallaby's column appeared. He said he felt like asking the administration's critics such as Mallaby: "What part of 'yes' don't you understand?"
He said there is no longer any debate going on in the administration about the science of climate change nor that there is human contribution to warming. He said there is even consensus among policymakers here and abroad on the scope of action and places where it's needed and the type of arrangements required to help limit that contribution.
Connaughton pointed to 60 federal programs "designed to help reduce emissions by 500 million metric tons of carbon-equivalent (greenhouse gases) through 2012;" voluntary programs, such as Climate VISION, that aim to reduce carbon intensity -- the amount of carbon emissions for a given amount of economic activity -- by 18% by 2012; and federal spending on climate change programs of $26 billion since Bush came into office, about half of which has gone to researching new technology.
Where the administration runs afoul of its critics' demands -- and is considered to be doing nothing -- is in the promotion of caps on carbon emissions. The critics want to force carbon-emitting industries to cap emissions and then allow those who reduce their emissions below their cap to sell credits to those who fail to meet them. But such cap and trade schemes would do little to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Without China and India participating, costly carbon caps will prompt the movement of industrial emissions abroad -- where they will likely be spewed out in greater amounts through dirtier technology.
That is something that the Mallabys and Krugmans and most environmentalists overlook -- you can't force these countries to do what you want. You have to understand their economic and moral need to lift millions of people out of poverty quickly. They will put this goal ahead of reducing greenhouse emissions any day. And who can blame them? Further, from a political standpoint, you aren't going to get far with significant carbon curbs if they hurt your own economy, a fact that helps to explain why the Clinton administration did less than the Bush administration on climate change, if you look at the record.
What can do something to influence what is going on in China and India? As Connaughton pointed out, you can make a deal with them to provide them cleaner, better, safer, healthier, more advanced technology -- if they agree to protect the intellectual property of those who invent that technology. And you can seek to ensure that you don't wipe out incentives here for the development of the kind of clean technology they might buy -- in particular clean coal. You want coal cleaned up as a source of electricity, so as to pass on the technology to coal-dependent nations such as China and India. But it is unlikely these clean-coal technologies will develop if carbon caps force utilities to switch to natural gas.
What's more, recent real-world experience with carbon caps undercuts the arguments of the administration's critics. Canada has indicated it won't meet its caps under Kyoto, and Europe is heading toward failure as well.
Meanwhile, Bush's sweet nothings of Methane to Markets, his Asian Pacific Partnership on Clean Development and Climate Change (AP6), and his promotion of investment in technological development here and its spread through free trade and intellectual property protection abroad are producing measurable gains already with the China-Caterpillar deal.
Of course, don't expect to hear about those gains from Mallaby or Krugman or the rest of mainstream major media. Much like Sergeant Schulz, the guard in Hogan's Heroes who turned a blind eye to the POW's shenanigans, saying, "I know nothing! Nothing!" so he didn't have to report them to Colonel Klink, so they maintain a willful ignorance of the administration's climate activities so as not to complicate their case that the administration is doing nothing -- see nothing positive, hear nothing positive, report nothing positive.
Duane Freese is Deputy Editor of TCS Daily.
http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=052506BApril 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 January 2013 October 2011 September 2011 August 2011 July 2011 June 2011 May 2011 March 2011 January 2011 December 2010 October 2010 September 2010 August 2010 July 2010 June 2010 May 2010 April 2010 March 2010 February 2010 January 2010 December 2009 November 2009 October 2009 September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 March 2005 November 2004 October 2004