Years ago...

I gave a wistful commentary on what RR beans might mean to monarch butterflies.  The link is the virtual eradication of milkweeds from our fields.

Never mind I thought I hated them as they slipped aside from my hoe walking beans or the sticky sap gummed up my fingers.  Still there were the amazingly beautiful surprises when the combine reel would whack a ripe pod and the seeds would explode like graceful slow-motion snowflakes.

But like my ancestors talking about passenger pigeons, it may soon be a lost piece of nature.

While other factors cannot be dismissed, lack of milkweeds is the main cause of the monarch's slide toward extinction.

“The migration is definitely proving to be an endangered biological phenomenon,” Lincoln Brower, a leading entomologist at Sweet Briar College in Virginia, told the Associated Press. “The main culprit is now GMO herbicide-resistant corn and soybean crops and herbicides in the USA, [which] leads to the wholesale killing of the monarch’s principal food plant, common milkweed.”Monarch butterflies lay their eggs on milkweed plants. When the eggs hatch, the larvae feed off the plant. Researchers say that without milkweed, there are no butterflies."They can't lay eggs on anything else,” Christopher Singer, founder of the nonprofit Live Monarch Foundation, said in a statement, according to theChristian Science Monitor. “Can't lay it on a watermelon, can't lay it on a parsley plant. It has to be a milkweed plant."[More]

This is not an "Alas Babylon!" post. Species go extinct and arise constantly. This one strikes me as regrettable, but only because of so many milkweed-monarch memories. My grandchildren will never miss the monarch butterflies they never saw. 

It does seem a little unnecessary, however. And more than a little sad.

Time to stop sniggering?...  

Maybe the feral pig problem isn't just redneck reality show fodder. Maybe it's something we should take a little more seriously.

In southern states like Texas, backyard encounters with feral swine have become routine. The pigs — ill-tempered eating machines weighing 200 pounds or more — roam city streets, collide with cars, root up cemeteries and provide plot lines for reality TV shows like “Hog Hunters.”

But the pig wars are moving north. In Michigan, New Hampshire, New York, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon and Pennsylvania — states where not long ago the only pigs were of the “Charlotte’s Web” variety — state officials are scrambling to deal with an invasion of roaming behemoths that rototill fields, dig up lawns, decimate wetlands, kill livestock, spread diseases like pseudo-rabies and, occasionally, attack humans.

In 1990, fewer than two million wild pigs inhabited 20 states, according to John J. Mayer, the manager of the environmental science group at the Savannah River National Laboratory in Aiken, S.C., who tracked the state populations. That number has now risen to six million, with sightings in 47 states and established populations in 38 — “a national explosion of pigs,” as Dr. Mayer put it.

The swine are thought to have spread largely after escaping from private shooting preserves and during illegal transport by hunters across state lines. Experts on invasive species estimate that they are responsible for more than $1.5 billion in annual agricultural damage alone, amounting in 2007 to $300 per pig. The Agriculture Department is so concerned that it has requested an additional $20 million in 2014 for its Wildlife Services program to address the issue.

There is wide agreement that the pigs are undesirable — like the Asian carp that is threatening to invade the Great Lakes, but far bigger, meaner and mounted on four legs. But efforts to eradicate or at least contain them have been hampered by the lack of a national policy to deal with invasive species as a whole, the slowness of states to recognize the problem and the bickering between agencies about who is responsible for dealing with them.

“As a nation, we have not thought through this invasive species problem, and we just have disaster after disaster after disaster,” said Patrick Rusz, the director of wildlife services at the Michigan Wildlife Conservancy. Dr. Rusz, who travels around the state educating farmers about the menace posed by the wild pigs and encouraging them to set traps on their land, is so avid a hog-hater that in the early stages of Michigan’s invasion, he went to bars to eavesdrop on hunters who might have spotted the porcine invaders. [More]

What woke me up was mentioning Michigan - not some southern swamp. If they are breeding up there, it wouldn't take much for Illinois to enjoy this pest.

The wild pigs’ destructive feeding behavior poses a particular threat to sensitive wildlife species and their habitats. According to studies by researchers at Texas A&M University, wetlands and riparian areas suffer the most damage from wild pigs. In some areas, nearly 50 percent of the habitat is significantly degraded by the hogs’ rooting and wallowing. Additionally, these wet areas also are experiencing increased bacterial contamination in the form of E. coli and fecal coliform from the ever-present pigs.
“Hogs are deadly to anything that nests on the ground,” stated West.  “One of the best examples is the depredation of sea turtle eggs on Ossabaw Island.” Before the Georgia Department of Natural Resources (GDNR) began an intensive wild pig removal program on Ossabaw, a barrier island south of Savannah, sea turtle nests on the islands’ sandy beaches suffered greater than 30 percent mortality. Today, as a result of the GDNR removing nearly 3,000 hogs from the island annually, those nests experience less than 5 percent mortality.
Interestingly, researchers also documented a significant increase in the body weight of Ossabaw’s white-tailed deer following wild pig reduction efforts. This fact, along with other research conducted in southeastern hardwood forests, demonstrates that wild pigs present a formidable source of competition for dozens of native wildlife and plant species. Largely due to the pigs’ habit of bulldozing seedlings and rooting for mast crops, such as acorns, these forested areas are experiencing dramatic change.  Hardwood regeneration has nearly halted and many wildlife species are outcompeted for critical resources.
Unfortunately, the wild pig’s impact on native mammals is not restricted to increased competition or habitat destruction. Hogs harbor numerous diseases as well as internal and external parasites that are transmissible to wildlife, livestock and even humans. Many of these diseases, such as brucellosis, tuberculosis and the pseudorabies virus have been the target of national disease-eradication programs for livestock. As wild pig numbers continue to increase and spread to new areas, biologists are concerned that their efforts to eradicate or reduce the prevalence of these diseases in wild and domestic animals will be in vain. In addition, researchers at the USDA National Wildlife Disease Center note the possibly insurmountable challenge of controlling an “accidental or intentional outbreak of a foreign animal disease, such as foot and mouth, rinderpest, African swine fever or classical swine fever” if those diseases were ever to find their way into the wild pig population. [More]

I suppose this is one of those problems too outlandish to consider soberly until your poodle gets eaten by one. But it seems to me climate change will favor their spread. Or maybe this species doesn't need any help.

Save the mice!...  

An interesting response to the anti-meat position - at least for Australia.

Published figures suggest that, in Australia, producing wheat and other grains results in:

• at least 25 times more sentient animals being killed per kilogram of useable protein
• more environmental damage, and
• a great deal more animal cruelty than does farming red meat.

How is this possible?
Agriculture to produce wheat, rice and pulses requires clear-felling native vegetation. That act alone results in the deaths of thousands of Australian animals and plants per hectare. Since Europeans arrived on this continent we have lost more than half of Australia’s unique native vegetation, mostly to increase production of monocultures of introduced species for human consumption.
Most of Australia’s arable land is already in use. If more Australians want their nutritional needs to be met by plants, our arable land will need to be even more intensely farmed. This will require a net increase in the use of fertilisers, herbicides, pesticides and other threats to biodiversity and environmental health. Or, if existing laws are changed, more native vegetation could be cleared for agriculture (an area the size of Victoria plus Tasmania would be needed to produce the additional amount of plant-based food required).
...
Most cattle slaughtered in Australia feed solely on pasture. This is usually rangelands, which constitute about 70% of the continent.
Grazing occurs on primarily native ecosystems. These have and maintain far higher levels of native biodiversity than croplands. The rangelands can’t be used to produce crops, so production of meat here doesn’t limit production of plant foods. Grazing is the only way humans can get substantial nutrients from 70% of the continent.
In some cases rangelands have been substantially altered to increase the percentage of stock-friendly plants. Grazing can also cause significant damage such as soil loss and erosion. But it doesn’t result in the native ecosystem “blitzkrieg” required to grow crops.
This environmental damage is causing some well-known environmentalists to question their own preconceptions. British environmental advocate George Monbiot, for example, publically converted from vegan to omnivore after reading Simon Fairlie’s expose about meat’s sustainability. And environmental activist Lierre Keith documented the awesome damage to global environments involved in producing plant foods for human consumption.
In Australia we can also meet part of our protein needs using sustainably wild-harvested kangaroo meat. Unlike introduced meat animals, they don’t damage native biodiversity. They are soft-footed, low methane-producing and have relatively low water requirements. They also produce an exceptionally healthy low-fat meat.
In Australia 70% of the beef produced for human consumption comes from animals raised on grazing lands with very little or no grain supplements. At any time, only 2% of Australia’s national herd of cattle are eating grains in feed lots; the other 98% are raised on and feeding on grass. Two-thirds of cattle slaughtered in Australia feed solely on pasture.
To produce protein from grazing beef, cattle are killed. One death delivers (on average, across Australia’s grazing lands) a carcass of about 288 kilograms. This is approximately 68% boneless meat which, at 23% protein equals 45kg of protein per animal killed. This means 2.2 animals killed for each 100kg of useable animal protein produced.
Producing protein from wheat means ploughing pasture land and planting it with seed. Anyone who has sat on a ploughing tractor knows the predatory birds that follow you all day are not there because they have nothing better to do. Ploughing and harvesting kill small mammals, snakes, lizards and other animals in vast numbers. In addition, millions of mice are poisoned in grain storage facilities every year.
...
Each area of grain production in Australia has a mouse plague on average every four years, with 500-1000 mice per hectare. Poisoning kills at least 80% of the mice.
At least 100 mice are killed per hectare per year (500/4 × 0.8) to grow grain. Average yields are about 1.4 tonnes of wheat/hectare; 13% of the wheat is useable protein. Therefore, at least 55 sentient animals die to produce 100kg of useable plant protein: 25 times more than for the same amount of rangelands beef. [More]

I was vaguely aware of the problems in Australia due to a lack of predators to control introduced species like the famous bunny problem. But I did not know they were still battling occasional mice population explosions.

These calculations may be of little value to our grain-fed beef industry, but the new research in methane accounting and measurement could be altering even those numbers.

New CSIRO research indicates that the amount of methane emitted from cattle fed on tropical grasses in northern Australia is up to 30 per cent less than previously believed.

Current greenhouse gas accounts indicate that methane from the northern cattle industry contributes about 4.5 per cent of Australia's greenhouse gas emissions

CSIRO research leader Dr Ed Charmley says he hopes the new data might allow current estimates of the industry's contribution to Australia's greenhouse gas emissions to be updated.

"Measurements from cattle in CSIRO's custom-built respiration chambers show that Brahman cattle fed a wide range of tropical grasses emit up to 30 per cent less methane than previously determined," he said.

"While you always have to be cautious in extending lab data to the field and across an industry, we have been able to cross-check our findings with methane detecting laser systems used in the field. [Only a little more]

Again, I can't find anything to match this assertion for corn-fed meat, but as better methods for measurement are developed, perhaps those numbers, too will move us on from the caw-fart presumption of GHG contributions of meat.

Economics above all...

I have noted that the EPA-AFBF battle seldom centers on the actual pollution numbers. Or effects from it.  It is all about farmers making money. This is apparently the winning strategy farm organizations and their allied business partners intend to use going forward.

This isn't an important story simply because of the groundwater issue, however. It's true that it would be a landmark decision if the new regulations limiting runoff were to stand. What makes it important is the nature of the two sides' arguments. On the one side, you have environmentalists detailing the hazard to the health of humans as well as wildlife. On the other, you have "more than a dozen growers of rice, hay, grain and other crops in the Sacramento Valley" declaring that they are "'adamantly opposed' to a requirement for electronic reports on their discharges. 'Being a small diversified farmer has become increasingly difficult with regulatory burdens exploding over these last few years.'"That's what they call a non-denial denial. There is clearly not a dispute over the underlying facts -- the farm groups didn't even bother denying them. This is the increasingly universal strategy of Big Ag -- reduce safety or environmental issues to an attack on the viability of agriculture, facts be damned. They suggest that we have to accept -- if we want our cheap, mass-produced food -- that there will be collateral damage, in this case to the idea of clean water. It appears to be of little concern that much of the Central Valley population is made up of low-income Latino farmworkers.Of course, this issue isn't limited to California's Central Valley. The struggle over runoff is playing out across the country, from the Chesapeake Bay to the Midwest to the Gulf states. And with anti-regulatory fervor, along with food prices, on the rise, Big Ag's desire to be free from "regulatory burdens" may be that much closer to reality. [More]

This strategy will pay off perhaps in the short run, but as the problem persists seems to ne to be untenable longer term. It follows the theme of climate change arguments as well: "It's too expensive to fix (even if it did exist)".

And it should be said, we will clearly discover which threats have been overblown, and which are not a big deal this way. Curious science, but the high stakes will make it interesting.

The other half of this strategy obviously is to enact tort reform, just in case doing nothing is a really bad idea.

Atrazine is still in trouble...

This type of information format is not easy to counter emotionally. And farmers end up looking like insensitive tools too often when we try.


[Please go here to see the video in question.  I couldn't embed it with controls]

With the rising question of weed resistance making many of us reach for new/old herbicide tools, losing atrazine would really hurt.  It could be some farms/areas will have to be "sacrificed" to reach a compromise with regulators.

Personally, I would favor more local monitoring at farmer expense to provide hard evidence our farm is not contributing to the problem.  This would impact coarse soils most, and ease the burden on high clay soil types, I would guess.  These areas also seem to overlap somewhat with irrigation as well.

This is pretty "throw-under-the-bus" for the farm community, but solidarity should not be the impediment to solving the problem where the problem exists.

The spill could wash up farther...

Than we think.  I have been waiting for the fog of confusion to lift before commenting on the BP disaster. While not wanting to seem callous, many of us watched the Katrina catastrophe unfold with detached horror, since it really only affected folks in LA and, of course, Washington, D.C. It is easy to do so again as a largely unseen problem grows under the surface of the Gulf of Mexico.

But regardless of how pronounced the damage is to the coastline of the Gulf states, I could see a bigger problem as the ecology of an enormous amount of ocean is possibly devastated. I fully credit the efforts by both BP and the government to tackle this nightmare a mile down. [ For detailed explanations by experts about how BP is attacking the problem you can't do better than the Oil Drum]

Nonetheless, here are some ways BP could leak onto my farm:

1. Re-animating (and complicating) the "Dead Zone" controversy.

As oil continues to gush into the Gulf of Mexico, a "dead zone" is also having its annual growth spurt. It's not clear how these two complex systems will interact, but scientists are sampling the water for clues.

Fertilizer and urban runoff into the Mississippi River dump nutrients into the Gulf of Mexico. In the spring, higher flows contribute a pulse of nutrients that triggers huge blooms of algae. When the algae dies and sinks to the sea floor, it is consumed by bacteria that guzzle oxygen from the water. If oxygen levels drop too low, shrimp, fish, and other sea life must flee or die, leaving a dead zone that sometimes grows to the size of the state of New Jersey.

According to satellite images, the oil slick overlaps one of the areas where hypoxic zones typically form. The possibilities for what that means are myriad and contradictory.

Some factors might worsen the dead zone. The oil's sheen could prevent oxygen from entering the water, lowering oxygen levels in surface water at a time of year when surface and deeper waters are already stratified. Another negative mechanism: Microdroplets of oil dispersed in the water might set off a feeding frenzy of microbes able to dine on the hydrocarbons, further reducing oxygen levels.

Alternately, the oil could lessen the severity of the dead zone. Oil reflects light, which is needed by the photosynthetic phytoplankton. And toxins in the oil could also diminish the phytoplankton blooms. Both factors could potentially mean fewer dead phytoplankton reaching the bottom, leading eventually to less oxygen depletion. [More]

I'm not trying to be pessimistic, but hoping for two bad things to cancel each other out seems far-fetched to me. What will be more likely is the liability mining is already underway, as everyone from Gulf tourist businesses to environmental groups flood the courts with actions to recover damages.

While they do so they will be funding, along with the government, plenty of new research into the health of the Gulf, and I for one do not think the reports will be happy talk.  In the effort to begin to recover from this disaster, it will be very easy to attach new limits on the runoff issues associated with the previous Dead Zone.

For Midwestern producers this means the possibility of new regulations on fertilizer amounts and  applications.  Erosion will come under even more scrutiny.  In short, the complaints we have stymied to a vague standoff will suddenly be attached to a juggernaut, IMHO.

So first possible consequence: stronger fertilizer regulation in the Mississippi watershed.

     2.  Carbon taxes. 

There is growing awareness that our fiscal problems cannot be solved by the Tax Cut Fairy, and will require new government revenue.  If you don't believe this, send me your list of budget cuts to attack the problem.  Carbon taxes have been my choice, but have fallen into disfavor even though they represent progress on two fronts - energy and debt.

The BP spill has breathed new life into examining the problems of basing so much of our economy on energy sources which do not fully price in the externalities of their environmental impact.  Carbon taxes are a suitable way to do this. 

As legislators run out of ways to avoid addressing the budget deficit, taxing a now VERY problematic energy source to at least recover some of the unpaid costs of their use (and this debacle) could gain momentum.  This would be good for ethanol curiously, but bad for farmers who imagined their political clout would gain them checks for questionable carbon-sequestering benefits.

Because much of the ag carbon footprint is from fertilizer, another tourniquet could be applied to our voracious intake of NPK. 

Second impact:  carbon taxes raising costs considerably.

   3.  NOLA shipping.

The slick has forced the shutdown of the gulf's rich fishing grounds and could also spread to the busy shipping lanes at the mouth of the Mississippi River, tying up the cargo vessels that move millions of tons of fruit, rubber, grain, steel and other commodities and raw materials in and out of the nation's interior.
Though a total shutdown of the shipping lanes is unlikely, there could be long delays if vessels are forced to wait to have their oil-coated hulls power-washed to avoid contaminating the Mississippi.
Some cargo ships might choose to unload somewhere else in the U.S. That could drive up costs.
"Let's say it gets real bad. It gets blocked off and they don't let anything in. They lose time, and they are very concerned about that," said river pilot Michael Lorino. "It's going to be very costly if they have to unload that cargo in another port and ship it back here because it was destined for here."
When a tanker and a tugboat collided near New Orleans two years ago, oil cascaded down the river and some 200 ships stacked up, unable to move for several days while the Coast Guard had the vessels scrubbed. Millions of dollars were lost. [More]

 Third impact: basis turmoil as my markets shift due to transportation cost volatility.

   4.   Big government.

As Republicans smell blood/oil  in the water, they could inadvertently, or very cynically, about-face on the role of government.  Blaming Pres. Obama for not doing enough is hardly a Tea-Party call for smaller, less intrusive government.  Consider one GOP critic of government who has radically changed his tune.

Ben Brooks, a lawyer and Republican state senator from coastal Alabama, says he's no fan of big government but he expects an aggressive federal response as a gunky oil spill threatens the Gulf of Mexico.
"There's nothing inherently contradictory in saying we believe in smaller government and demanding that the government protect public safety," Brooks said.
All along the Gulf Coast, where the tea party thrives and "socialism" is a common description for any government program, conservatives who usually denounce federal activism suddenly are clamoring for it.
Take Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, a Republican elected in 2007 when Democrat Kathleen Blanco opted not to seek re-election after she was widely panned for a bumbling response to Hurricane Katrina two years earlier.
Since April 20, when a gulf rig exploded and blew out an underwater oil well about 50 miles south of Louisiana, Jindal has been a constant presence in the fishing communities and barrier islands along his state's fragile coastline. He's been out on boats and up in Black Hawk helicopters, doors open, to survey the spreading, rust-colored swath of crude.
Gov. Bobby Jindal looks at oil that got past booms on May 21 as he tours a land bridge built by the Louisiana National Guard to hold back oil in Grand Isle.Jindal, a possible 2012 presidential candidate, has demanded a stronger response from the Obama administration, accusing the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers of dragging its feet in approving Louisiana's plans for protective berms -- a plan that took three weeks to approve.
"This oil threatens not only our coast and our wetlands, this oil fundamentally threatens our way of life in southeastern Louisiana," Jindal said last week.
Jindal is a fiscal conservative who made headlines last year by rejecting some federal stimulus money, then distributing other stimulus funds by handing out oversized cardboard checks to local officials.
Louisiana State University political science professor Kirby Goidel said Jindal's call for larger federal involvement in the oil spill management contradicts the governor's usual persona.
"He's governor largely because of Katrina," Goidel said. "He knows that it's important to get out on top of it and be clear if the federal government is not doing what it's supposed to do. It's important for people to know that." [More]

My rule of thumb is modern "conservatives" are staunch opponents of government action that doesn't benefit them. I expect to see more such criticism of the "inadequate" federal response regardless of the budget or expansion of federal responsibility.


Fourth Impact: expansion of the scope of federal responsibility for private mistakes (similar to Wall Street)

This is not, of course, an exhaustive list of possible outcomes, but it gives me some targets to watch.  If forced to bottom line this for my farm, it would be less optimistic medium term for grain prices than I have been.  And more profoundly determined to lower our costs and energy use than ever.

Not thunderously brilliant, I know.  But surprisingly defensive for me.

Just when you thought it was safe...

To ship from NOLA, this happens.

The biggest grain-shipping port in the U.S. may be disrupted by the spread of the BP Plc oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, threatening to depress domestic prices by encouraging importers to buy from South America.

More than half of the grain inspected for export from the U.S., the world’s largest grower of corn and soybeans, is shipped from the mouth of the Mississippi River, according to the Port of New Orleans. Traffic has yet to be restricted through the main deepwater channel, the Southwest Pass, used by ships carrying commodities such as oil, coal and grain.

BP and Transocean Ltd. are struggling to cap a damaged undersea well leaking 5,000 barrels of crude a day since the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded April 20. The edge of the spill began washing ashore in Louisiana late yesterday and may reach Florida’s coast early next week.

“As long as the main Southwest Pass remains open, it is unlikely to have too much impact” on grain prices, said Anne Frick, a vice president of research for Prudential Bache Commodities LLC in New York. “If that is closed and exports are disrupted, it would probably be a bearish development for U.S. soybeans, soybean meal and corn.” [More]

My first thought is that all the locks and dams we can finagle from Congress won't help this type of problem. It's just that grain growers think they understand river problems and focus on them.  It would be helpful to see some comparative risk statistics as to how our export exposure problems rank.  Maybe off-shore rigs constitute a bigger risk event than slow locks. And this particular event looks to be a whopper.

Since an explosion almost two weeks ago on the Deepwater Horizon rig, a disaster scenario has emerged with hundreds of thousands of gallons of crude oil spewing unchecked into the Gulf and moving inexorably northward to the coast. The responsibility for the cleanup operation lies with the owners of the well, led by 65 percent shareholder, London-based oil company BP Plc.

BP said last week that it was spending $6 million a day on the clean up but admitted this figure would rise sharply when the slick hits land.

Neither the company or its 25 percent partner, explorer Anadarko Petroleum, have put an estimate on total costs, although BP CEO Tony Hayward told Reuters in an interview on Friday that he would pay all legitimate claims for damages. [More]

Too much of our policy effort center on issues we like, and which ones provide off-season farmer entertainment - farmers to DC, barge rides - as opposed to market risks that have much greater potential to wrench prices unexpectedly.

And we've plenty to choose from...

It seems more often than not, our choices on policy are ugly, uglier, and OMG. This menu might be shaping the outcome of climate change legislation even while many still think the idea of AGW is dead.

Major players from business are gingerly climbing aboard climate change legislation as the least of the evils.

That's pretty much been the plan all along: use the threat of EPA action to gain support from Republicans and the business community. It seems to be working on the business community, so the only question left is whether it will work on Republicans. Normally I'd say no, but the threat of EPA action is quite real and might prompt the GOP's business wing to put some serious pressure on them to get this bill passed. That will mean standing up to the "carbon taxes are tyranny" crowd in the tea party movement, but in the past the business wing of the party has usually won these kinds of showdowns. It's still not clear if there's enough time on the congressional calendar to pass a climate bill this year, but at least the odds are now a little better. [More]

My view is this boat has already sailed for businesses who cannot afford to look only to next quarter's results. Too many industries have begun investing too much to handle possible climate change mitigation efforts by greening up for this to reverse itself easily.

But it may not be clear how that will play out for farmers, since perversely enough, our "green" jobs may be the most tenuous.

There is no more fashionable solution to the current global recession than "green jobs." President Obama, Britain's Gordon Brown, Nicolas Sarkozy of France, and China's Hu Jintao are all eagerly promoting clean-technology industries, like wind and solar power, or recycling saw grass as fuel. It sounds like the ultimate win-win deal: create jobs, cut down on energy dependence, and save the planet from global warming, all in one stimulus plan. Ever since the recession began, governments, environmental groups, and even labor unions have been spinning out reports on just how many jobs might be created by these new industries—estimates that range from tens of thousands to millions.

Those kinds of predictions, however, may be overoptimistic. As a new study from McKinsey points out, the clean-energy industry doesn't have much in common with old, labor-intensive manufacturing industries like steel and cars. A more accurate comparison would be to the semiconductor industry, which was also expected to create a boom in high-tech jobs but today employs mainly robots. Green-tech workers—people who do things like design and build wind turbines or solar panels—now make up only 0.6 percent of the American workforce. McKinsey figures that clean energy won't command much more of the total job market in the years ahead. "The bottom line is that these 'clean' industries are too small to create the millions of jobs that are needed right away," says James Manyika, a director at the McKinsey Global Institute.

On the other hand, a booming green sector could fuel job growth in other industries. Here, too, the story of the computer chip is instructive. Today the big chip makers like Intel employ only 0.4 percent of the U.S. workforce, down from a peak of 0.6 percent in 2000. But indirectly they helped create millions of jobs by making other industries more efficient: throughout the 1990s, new technologies based on advanced semiconductors helped firms achieve massive gains in labor productivity and efficiency. Companies in retail, manufacturing, and many other areas got faster and stronger.
McKinsey and others say that the same process could play out today if governments focused less on building a "green economy"—by which they really mean a clean-energy industry—and more on greening every part of the existing economy. U.S. efforts to promote corn-based ethanol, and giant German subsidies for the solar industry, for instance, are incredibly counter-productive. In both cases the state is creating bloated, inefficient sectors, with jobs that are not likely to last. [More]

This issue will, like so many this century require exhaustive attention and learning to prepare our farms to cope with sudden economic and regulatory outcomes.

I'm tired already.

This will have implications for fashion...

At least for women, I think.

The Spanish government approved Friday a decree that sets limits on the temperature that air conditioners and heaters can be set to in public spaces such as bars, offices and airports in a bid to reduce energy consumption.

Under the new rules temperatures in public spaces should not exceed 21 degrees Celsius (70 Fahrenheit) in winter and should not go below 26 degrees Celsius (79 Fahrenheit) during the summer, the government said in a statement. [More]

I can foresee more sweaters and slacks in winter, a la England. Moreover, you think sundresses are skimpy now...

I wonder how ice cold (summer) movie theaters will cope. And my church could be a violator as well.

Seriously, I could see such restrictions sweeping both Europe and the US since city councils and similar government bodies can do so at little cost and appear to be doing good. (And maybe they are)

Another take...

Heard from the IL Corn Growers today.  This is the (lengthy headline):

CONSERVATION IS KING: DID YOU KNOW THAT CORN FARMERS CUT SOIL EROSION 44 PERCENT IN TWO DECADES BY TILLING THE SOIL LESS? [More]

OK. Not quibbling with that conclusion, but wait - there's more!

Here's the source data.

 So my take-away (you have to say that frequently in any serious communications discussion) is this graph.

Source: IDOA

As you can see from the IL Dept of Ag survey linked above, there are several esoteric categories of "till".  I lump them together as "not-no-till", because what farmers are always pointing to environment-wise is how no-till answers critic's questions.

Remember Blake Hurst's now famous answer to Pollan's Omnivore's Dilemma.

The biggest environmental harm I have done as a farmer is the topsoil (and nutrients) I used to send down the Missouri River to the Gulf of Mexico before we began to practice no-till farming, made possible only by the use of herbicides. The combination of herbicides and genetically modified seed has made my farm more sustainable, not less, and actually reduces the pollution I send down the river.  [More]

It may be that Hurst is a committed no-tiller on all his acres, but here in Illinois that experiment is running out of gas, I think.  Read the numbers, build your own graph.  I think we are being a tad duplicitous wrapping ourselves in no-till righteousness when the trend to me looks otherwise.

Most of us know why.  No-tilling corn after corn doesn't work for most of us. As we move to more corn, we move away from no-till, at least on corn/corn acres.  To be sure, no-till beans are climbing somewhat, but let's face it, the fragile soil is bean stubble - not stalks.

Even at face value only 1 acre in 7 of corn is no-tilled in IL and it hasn't changed much in 10 years. Trotting out no-till as our answer to every environmental and energy criticism is dubious misdirection.

Could higher corn prices via more ethanol mandates essentially kill no-till?

I think it's possible.

[One curious note is the sporadic occurrence of this survey.  Don't ask me - our state government is um, hard to rationally explain.  Also, the survey is tabulated in fields, not acres. Again, no idea. Finally, national figures more recent than 2004 are hard to find, but IL was the leading state by acres then.]

Make that the chicken salad...

In an example of intransigence in the face of contravening new evidence, the efforts to harvest tuna without inadvertently killing dolphins, fishing regulators have clung to an answer that is arguably worse than the problem.

In other words… the only species that “dolphin safe” tuna is good for is dolphins!  The bycatch rate for EVERY OTHER species is lower when fishing dolphin-associated tuna vs. floating object associated tuna! The reason for this is obvious- floating objects attract everything nearby, while dolphins following tuna doesn’t attract any other species.
If you work out the math on this (and you don’t have to, because the environmental justice foundation did) , you find that 1 dolphin saved costs 382 mahi-mahi, 188 wahoo, 82 yellowtail and other large fish, 27 sharks, and almost 1,200 small fish.
By trying to help dolphins, groups like Greenpeace caused one of the worst marine ecological disasters of all time. Few other fisheries are as bad for groups like sharks and sea turtles as the purse seine fishery, and none are as large in scale.
Here we get into the ethical debate.

Is it worth saving dolphins, who were not and are not endangered, at the expense of sea turtles, sharks, and many other fish species who are endangered? [More]

(The brief post explains the problem in helpful, but not overwhelming detail for landlubbers like me, so please read the backstory)

The lingering issue for environmentalists who seem to be favoring sea mammals at the expense of other species is getting trapped into the same kind of stubbornness they despise in enviro-skeptics. You can bet those outside the Green community will point to this mistake as typical for environmental efforts of all kinds, but getting organizations and passionate followers to recognize errors is really hard.

Unless flexibility and the reality of trial-and-error are accepted as legitimate ways to address problems like this, we are limiting our tool kit to imperfect projections from computer models, hunches and ideologies.  We need to embrace and view unexpected consequences as adding to our body of knowledge, not admissions of fundamental philosophical error.

Finally, the clinching argument...

I have withstood the arrows of climate change skeptics with saintly stoicism, I think, but now I find within my grasp the facts that will convert all to enviro-nuts like myself: climate change could ruin our beer!

You heard me right.

IF THE sinking Maldives aren't enough to galvanise action on climate change, could losing a classic beer do it? Climatologist Martin Mozny of the Czech Hydrometeorological Institute and colleagues say that the quality of Saaz hops - the delicate variety used to make pilsner lager - has been decreasing in recent years. They say the culprit is climate change in the form of increased air temperature.

Mozny's team used a high-resolution dataset of weather patterns, crop yield and hop quality to estimate the impact of climate change on Saaz hops in the Czech Republic between 1954 and 2006. Best-quality Saaz hops contain about 5 per cent alpha acid, the compound that produces the delicate, bitter taste of pilsners.

The study found that the concentration of alpha acids in Saaz hops has fallen by 0.06 per cent a year since 1954, and models of hop yields and quality under future global warming scenarios predict bigger decreases (Agricultural and Forest Meteorology, DOI: 10.1016/j.agrformet.2009.02.006).

It's not just Czech hops that are at stake here, says Francesco Tubiello, a crop specialist at the European Commission and a lead author of the agriculture chapter of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report. "The famous hop-growing regions of eastern Germany and central Slovakia are facing the same situation," he says. [More]

So if you look forward to a world where "lite beer*" is considered a legitimate excuse for lager, scoff at will. But I stand firm in my commitment to beer with actual flavor.

*IMHO, "lite beer" is neither one.

Forget the bang and not even a whimper...

Science writer Ron Bailey, whose work is frequently and admiringly cited by GM advocates takes a look at anthropogenic global warming and throws up his hands.  Bailey is noted by many including me as a former AGW skeptic who was persuaded by evidence and consensus that the problem was real, and he wrote honestly about it.

He has now reached a new, and remarkably hopeless conclusion.

Clearly, econometric models tell us that implementing smart policies could avoid some damage from climate change. But whether or not the benefits outweigh the costs depends entirely on the policies being optimally adopted. But will governments and international agencies be able to sustain smart policies over the next century? The tribulations of the European Union's cap-and-trade scheme and the current political jockeying over the 1,468-page Waxman-Markey climate change bill in the U.S. Congress are not promising. On the international level, rapidly developing countries like China, India, and Brazil are refusing to accept limits on their greenhouse gas emissions.
Along similar lines, numerous econometric models project that while climate change will have relatively minor effects on developed countries it will significantly harm poor countries. One proposed policy soluton is to have rich countries that emit a disproportionate share compensate poor countries. While this idea might seem appealing to some, one must also consider the sorry 50-year record of wealth transfers in the form of foreign development aid. As development economist William Easterly has argued, most of the $2.3 trillion in aid that rich countries have poured into developing countries over the past half century has been wasted. Is there any reason to think that trillions in climate change aid would be any more effectively managed?
Man-made global warming may simply be a negative externality for which the transaction costs are too high. In other words, any benefits achieved from trying to mitigate global warming will most likely be swamped by the costs of distributing the corporate welfare used to buy the political acquiescence of various industries. As much as one might hope to implement good public policy to deal with the problem, policy nihilism might be the only rational response to global warming. [More]

His logic is sound, and is echoed by other serious observers such as Jim Manzi.  His objections have moved on to the fact that addressing AGW would pose a serious political problem, diverting us inefficiently from an optimal form of government.

We are left, then, wandering in exactly the wilderness of mirrors that I described earlier.  There is no analytical basis on which we can really “put a price on carbon”.  It becomes pure power politics.  This isn’t just theory.  Consider seriously the evidence of what really happened in the Waxman-Markey debate.  That wasn’t random.  Even more, consider how such taxes have really been set in the UK.  Matthew Sinclair has a recent paper in the journal Energy & Environment in which he compares the total green taxes paid by Britons to the estimates of external AGW costs created by them according to various well-known and authoritative sources such as the IPCC, Nordhaus, Tol and DEFRA.  Take the example of driving.  According to this paper, Britons currently pay motoring taxes (net of road construction and maintenance) that are somewhere between 5 and 50 times the AGW externalities that they impose.  The paper argues that massively excess green taxes are paid economy-wide.
I yield to few men in my admiration for Hayek and his ideas.  His prediction that the welfare state would lead to serfdom, however, has (thus far) not been correct.  I don’t think that a carbon tax will be the one event that will push the free world into socialist slavery.  But it does seem clear that the same dynamics he described decades ago have re-emerged, simply with a different theoretical justification.  The same problems with planning that he highlighted will also be present now.
Taxing carbon to reflect its social costs seems like a common sense idea.  Unfortunately, it simply provides another excuse to politicians to raise taxes and exert more power over us. [More]

Both posts seem remarkably bleak, even as the authors cogently lay out their reasoning. They marshal more intellectual horsepower than I, of course, but even cursory reading is depressing as heck.

Both points of view rightly deal with conditions and facts as we know them today.  We don't have a cheap technological fix for AGW.  Of course, there is no way to factor future technological or cultural changes (lower energy use by simple choice, for example) right now.  But wouldn't it be curious if this was the first problem humankind simply labeled "too hard" and dropped entirely?  Is there no evidence in history of scientific effort to tackle seemingly intractable problems only to find at least partial and evolving answers?

I would argue that both these points of view would have been just as valid when we began discussion over the Clean Air Act, or the Clean Water Act.  And yet, we have admittedly imperfect solutions in place that at the least have decreased the number of news stories about smog alerts and rivers on fire.  Have the environmental benefits outweighed the costs of those actions?  I believe they demonstrate we can at least mitigate such problems without totally shackling the national or global economy.

The "political nihilism" of Bailey is not the enabling mindset to build a healthy culture around, IMHO. It certainly hasn't been how agriculture has faced its challenges.  It seems to me a short step from all-out despair at the human condition and prospects.

Both positions are not simply downers, but seem to match up with the pattern someone once noted in AGW skepticism.

1. It's a hoax
2. It's real, but not caused by humans
3. It's real and humans contribute to it
4. It's anthropogenic but too hard/expensive to fix.

The evidence these arguments are based on is constantly being amplified by new research.  They could be totally right is their analyses as of this moment, but I think it is a part of the human heritage to tackle the impossible routinely.  Their work is as prone to error as those who take the other side.  If they are wrong, we doom ourselves to living with considerable consequences we needn't.  If the other side is wrong, we slow economic growth and endure imperfect government.  The two worst case scenarios are hardly equal.

For agriculture, the most noteworthy aspect of the above arguments is how both readily agree to the idea of external costs of AGW.  It would seem the agricultural community is blithely unaware of this widely accepted economic concept.  The intense pushback from Farm Bureau and most farmers is based on the naive discovery, "Hey -this won't increase my profits tomorrow!"

On September 1st, Energy Citizens, the combined efforts of 23 Illinois farm, industrial, retail and energy associations will host a rally in opposition to proposed Cap & Trade legislation at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Illinois' capital city, Springfield.

The rally is designed to bring public awareness to cap and trade legislation that will cost an estimated 2 million high paying American jobs, raise gasoline and diesel prices, raise electric rates and reduce global competitiveness of American companies. The groups intent is to point out the widespread opposition to cap and trade legislation that will damage the agricultural, manufacturing, retail, energy and transportation  industries of Illinois which provide the foundation of Illinois' economy. [More]

 At some point somebody needs to 'splain to them the solution to AGW is not supposed to be a profit center for farmers, it's the arrival of a long-overdue bill.  Our profession is acting like some unnamed friends of mine who conveniently slip out to the restroom when the bar tab arrives.

Maybe a dotted line...

Is it logical to connect these two dots?

• Last fall less N was applied across the Corn Belt due to the outrageous price, poor conditions and crop planning uncertainty.
• The Gulf Dead Zone is smaller than expected.

The infamous Gulf of Mexico dead zone looks smaller than predicted this year, but scientists say the reprieve is just temporary, and barely even a reprieve. Some worry that more pollution could cause the Gulf’s ecosystem to collapse.
“We’re in a condition in the Gulf of Mexico that indicates we might be near some sort of tipping point, but you don’t really know it until it happens,” said Nancy Rabelais, director of the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium.

The federal National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released the dead zone data Tuesday. Caused by farm fertilizer runoff that feeds algae that in turn feeds oxygen-gobbling bacteria, the dead zone has covered an area the size of New Jersey for the last several years. This year, unexpected weather patterns — rather than a drop in pollution — have cut its surface area by half. [More]

Of course, whether farmers see a connection is not nearly as important as whether regulators do.

Vermont Fact o' the Day...

It's slowly being reclaimed by forests.

Forests, in comparison, appear to be growing in size. A century ago, woodland covered about a quarter of Vermont. Today that figure is three-quarters — the third-highest percentage in the nation. [More]

Also interesting information about the future of the hard-pressed dairy industry there.

Rethinking W-M...

Thanks for all the criticism and comments.  In fact, one comment has prompted much deep cogitation.

The reader writes:

John, the one question I have for you is this: How rotten does legislation for the reduction of carbon emissions or income inequality has to be for you to be against it? I am not saying that these problems do not exist or not need to be addressed. (Fwiw, I would have a piglovian carbon tax paid back towards payroll taxes.) I am saying that some cures can be very counterproductive and worse than the problems themselves. Let us not rush in pell-mell into "having to do something" that we lay waste to many of the things we do right.

The idea of a deal-breaking point is a good one, but now let's insert the political developments to date. For example, the push for even more ag concessions continues in the Senate.

Attempts to broaden opportunities for farmers and corn-based ethanol could lose some support for the bill from environmental groups, which have been critical of the fuel for the land, pesticides and water pollution involved in its use.

But at least some concessions for agriculture may be necessary to secure the bill's passage. The Senate Agriculture Committee includes some key members that Boxer will need to win over if she is to get the crucial 60 votes needed to pass the bill, including fence-sitters on the bill like Sens. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) and Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.). [More]

As unfortunate as I view the ag concessions to be, I have come round to thinking that ag votes may be the easiest to "buy". Seriously, farmers soon reconcile themselves to equating something that gets them a check as good for them, and since so few believe in AGW to begin with, it may appear as a painless gain.

So if I want a climate bill to emerge, getting the votes from ag interests appears far more likely than coal Senators.  Do the ag concession weaken the emissions control values? Certainly.  But fatally?  I'm thinking no.

Just like the Clean Air Act, from which I dimly remember similar acrimony, our first attempt at regulating emissions will be modified almost continually as time goes on.  Meanwhile, we no longer hear much about acid rain or LA smog.

The goal in my mind, since I believe us to be environmentally headed in the exact wrong direction, is to turn the ship not 180°, but at least 91°.  So my threshold of acceptability is pretty low regulation wise.

To reverse my belief in AGW as a basis for my support of legislation would require a reduction in the consensus among climatologists to around 50-50.  This does not appear to be happening, as even the USDA is now daring to speak up for the science underlying emissions controls.

The world’s climate is getting warmer, and that could have a profound impact on U.S. agriculture, says Jerry Hatfield, supervisory plant physiologist with USDA’s National Soil Tilth Research Laboratory at Iowa State University.
While right-wing pundits and even some Democrats, such as Collin Peterson, may scoff, Hatfield says the world can expect warmer temperatures for the next 30 to 50 years, rising carbon dioxide concentrations and increased variability in temperature and precipitation.
Hatfield isn’t some off-the-wall environmentalist with an agenda. He’s a respected scientist who shared the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 and chaired last year’s USDA Greenhouse Gas Symposium. He also says the phenomenon is not new.

“Climate has changed, climate is changing and climate will change. There is no such thing as having consistent climate around the globe. The real question is what sort of magnitude of change we’re going to see in the next few years.” [More]

I can appreciate the idea of taking our time and writing a thoughtful, clean bill, but I'm not sure that is even possible these days. Bills to fund soldiers become vehicles for special interests, and the need for legislators to be able to point out some impact to constituents ensures even the finest initial bill will look like Christmas tree on the President's desk.

While it is true that without participation from China and India the global impact will be minimal, I am surprised by critics who thus cede global leadership to them.  Making China "go first" is an abdication of our widely-proclaimed status at the head of nations.  Leadership has privileges, but also responsibilities. An emission bill is essential to have any leverage to bring other countries along.

Finally, a failure now would put emissions control on the level of Social Security reform - something no sane legislator would risk for a long time.  And the problem grows worse and more difficult to solve.

[One final note:  I think we will still get a payroll tax reduction anyway, as a further stimulus.]

Bipartisanship at last...

In the thunderous opposition to Waxman-Markey, a curious common note merges.  Everybody is hating on the concessions to agriculture.

From the right at NRO, 50 Reasons to Oppose W-M:

5. In addition to the permits, the bill also allows for the creation of “offsets” — the medieval-style indulgences of the carbon-footprint world. In fact, nearly all of Waxman-Markey’s carbon-reduction targets can be met with offsets alone through 2050, meaning decades before any actual reduction of greenhouse gases is required. That means huge new expenses for small businesses and consumers in return for basically zero environmental improvement. And how does one earn an offset to sell? Get a farm and cash in through such methods as, and we quote, “improved manure management,” “reduced tillage/no-tillage,” or “afforestation of marginal farmlands.” Translation: Plant some trees around the house and claim some extra credits on the land the government may already be paying you not to farm. And do a better job of handling your B.S. — but you’ll never do as good a job on that one as the authors of Waxman-Markey.

6. Because the cap-and-trade regime will disadvantage domestic refineries vis-à-vis foreign competitors, such as India’s powerhouse Reliance Industries, Waxman-Markey is attempting to buy them off with free permits — 2 percent of the national total will go to domestic refineries, at no cost.

7. Agribusiness is exempted from cap-and-trade controls, but the farm lobby will be given permits to sell and to profit from anyway. All carrot, no stick — precisely what this powerful industry lobby is accustomed to receiving from Washington.

8. Waxman-Markey strips the EPA of its oversight role when it comes to managing the offsets associated with American farms. At the behest of Cargill and other big players in the farm lobby, oversight will be entrusted to the USDA — basically a wholly owned subsidiary of the agriculture cartel, one of America’s most rapacious special-interest groups, which already is stuffed with subsidies and sops.

9. Waxman-Markey directs the EPA to ignore the real environmental impact of ethanol and other biofuels. The gigantic subsidies lavished on the farm lobby through the ethanol program encourage farmers to clear forest land to plant corn — a net environmental loss that the use of ethanol does nothing to offset. An earlier version of the legislation that would have accounted for land-use changes was altered at the farm lobby’s demand. Now, the EPA will be forbidden to rain the same pain on the ethanol gang that it’s going to rain on the rest of the economy — a minimum of five years’ (ahem) “study” is required before a ruling on whether ethanol should be treated the same as any other fuel, and the EPA, USDA, and Congress all must agree to act before Big Corn reaps what Waxman-Markey sows.

10. Rural electrical cooperatives are demanding that the offsets be awarded in proportion to historic emissions, and they probably will prevail. This means that high-polluting generators, such as the coal-fired plants typical of electric co-ops’ members, will be rewarded because they pollute more, while cleaner producers, such as those using nuclear and hydroelectric power, will be penalized.

11. The farm lobby will be rewarded for practices that do little or nothing to reduce greenhouse gases. One such practice is “no till” planting, in which farmers forgo plowing and plant seeds directly into the soil. Two peer-reviewed scientific papers suggest that no-till either does nothing to decrease carbon dioxide or actually increases the level of greenhouse-gas emissions by upping emissions of nitrous oxide — a much more powerful greenhouse gas. Now it’s not clear that no-till will reduce greenhouse gases, but the practice does make weed-control more difficult, meaning that it supports the market for herbicides such as Monsanto’s RoundUp. Guess who’s spending millions lobbying for no-till?

To be sure, the point of many conservatives is that W-M is a horrible idea, but as you see many of their objections have to do with the preferential treatment of ag.  This presents a real challenge for ag lobbyists, IMHO.

Waxman, Markey and me...

Those of you who have been reading Incoming (formerly known as John's World) for some time have been participants in my efforts to grasp the truth of the global warming debate and what our response could be.  For those who tuned in late, here are links to previous posts which illustrate the journey I have been on. (Here, here, and here)  [Note: these are collections of various posts sorted by labels like "climate", etc.  Some overlap will occur]

But the time for theorizing is over.  We are faced (or our Congresshumans are) with actually doing something. What is the right decision?

First of all, we may never know.  The time scale involved for this problem exceeds our lifetimes, and almost certainly, our attention span. I think this handicap more than any other induces paralysis by most of my fellow professionals.  In events where neither our education or experience will avail, our first instinct is to resort to skepticism.  We in agriculture have for the most part adopted a methodology of requiring guarantees and insurance for any decision. Oddly, as I have often noted, both the public and government have been happy to oblige.

But global warming requires us to commit to changes and investments that won't payoff in double digits next quarter. In fact, the truth is exactly the opposite: we are being asked to sacrifice, on a very significant scale, for the benefit of generations far in the future.

This is definitely not the pattern of our moral decisions.  In fact, all our lives most have carefully avoided looking at the legacy we will leave behind. On the whole, we have not sacrificed financially.  By eliminating the draft, we have avoided the very real possibility of sacrificing to defend our nation, unless we choose the risk personally.  Meanwhile reams have been written about our inability to let go of the dream to "have it all".

Much of the opposition to climate legislation, I think, centers on the idea of sacrifice.  Crimony, we're still trying to grasp the concept of savings - which is sacrificing consumption now for benefits later.

Lost in this self-concern is the very real possibility of ownership of the problem. GHG emissions are something we excel at and our lifestyles exult in it. Perhaps the perspective we need is not so much a noble sacrifice as finally paying for the damage we caused.

Secondly, although we throw around scientific conclusions and especially the results of computer models, few of us really grasp what these assertions mean outside the laboratory. Such common tools as mean versus median and even ℃ versus ℉ trip us up when constructing a solid logical case for our position.  The result has been rampant cherry-picking of data, and context-free statements.  In short, the science of climate change has to viewed through pretty murky waters.

Third, the confrontation between climate science and economics has been a huge battle, with economists struggling to interpret physical science and express it in terms of wealth and risks.  There is growing pushback against the yardsticks preferred by economists.

There will be no snow left on Kilimanjaro within a few years. The economic cost of that change to US GDP is zero. There will be no year-round snow left in the Himalayas in 100 years. The economic cost of that change to US GDP is tiny. There will be no Everglades in 100 years. The economic cost of that change to US GDP is marginal. There will be no Venice in 100 years. The economic cost of that change to US GDP is tiny. There will be no New Orleans in 100 years. The economic cost of that change to US GDP is extremely small.
There are two issues here. First, GDP measures income, not wealth. If your house burns down, it will most likely not change your income. Does that mean you should spend nothing to protect your house from burning down? Second, GDP only measures things that can be measured in money. But the worth of many precious things cannot be measured in money: Yellowstone National Park, the independence of one’s country from foreign rule, the existence of elephants and polar bears, clean air, the ruins of the city of Ur, the fact that humans have traveled to the moon, etc. [More]

In addition, the computer models in both arenas are imperfect, but perhaps more so in the realm of economics.  The best economic arguments against W-M may be the work of Jim Manzi.  But even so, they are not without troubling problems.

On the one hand, you have the actual science of climate change.  And although climate models are enormously complex and subject to considerable uncertainty, they're fundamentally based on physics, chemistry, and thermodynamics.  We know how much CO₂ we're pumping into the atmosphere and we can project with pretty good confidence how much that's going to increase over the next century if we do nothing to stop it.  We know how the greenhouse effect works, we have pretty good historical records of how CO₂ concentration correlates with global temperatures, and we have a pretty good sense of the feedback loops involved in things like melting icecaps and saturation of the ocean sinks.  Basically, our level of uncertainty is within tolerable bounds here.  And what we know is that if we do nothing, global temps are absolutely certain to rise 2°C over the next century, fairly likely to rise by 4-5°C, and at least somewhat likely to rise by 6-7°C.  The lower number would be bad but, just possibly, manageable.  You could at least make an arguable case, as Manzi does, that the cost of preventing an additional 2°C is higher than it's worth.  The two bigger numbers, however, would be catastrophic.  Unfortunately, the science increasingly suggests that these higher numbers are considerably more likely than we thought even a few years ago, and any serious cost-benefit analysis needs to address that.  Using only the lower number avoids tackling the real problem we're up against.
So that's the climate analysis in a nutshell.  On the opposite hand you have the economic analysis.  And that's simply hopeless.  An economic analysis that goes even ten or twenty years into the future is as much guesswork as anything else.  One that goes a hundred years into the future is just voodoo.  It looks like economics, but you might as well be throwing darts.  Compounded over a century, even minuscule changes in assumptions and operating parameters produce enormous changes in your conclusions, and the result is that you end up deep in the weeds arguing over tiny differences in those assumptions instead of simply admitting that they're flatly impossible to forecast.  That's good for slowing down the debate, but not much else. [More] 

I lean toward favoring this conclusion, as the ability to predict long-range economic activity has been remarkably imprecise in the last say, 18 months. Further, economists are rightfully reluctant to taint their analyses with imprecise, albeit shrewd political projections.

Sure, it’s just like the Iraq War. Decades of science using data freely available to all and leading to a series of rigorous, skeptical, peer-reviewed analyses suggesting that action should be taken culminating in a legislative process that has spanned several years is exactly like the rushed, abbreviated, stove-piped false intelligence fueled push to attack Iraq. Manzi is a smart guy, but this is perhaps the dumbest thing I’ve ever seen him write. Moreover, he’s simply wrong. Decadal defense spending, for instance, is something like $4 trillion. I’d guess that perhaps half of that is pure waste or unnecessary spending. And we’ve been spending like this for decades.
And I’ll reiterate again that a) the costs of the legislation are likely overstated, b) Manzi is assuming that there will be no ancillary benefits to the legislation, and c) Manzi is assuming that after this legislation is passed there is no change in global warming policy in America thereafter, ever, for the next century. I don’t have a problem with people using Manzi’s analysis as a datapoint to consider in determining how they feel about Waxman-Markey, but you’d have to check your common sense at the door to buy his interpretation of it. You’d have to assume that the uncertain costs of an unprecedented climatic shift are likely to be no big deal and well within our ability to handle, while the rather mundane use of government policy to trim a bit off of consumption in an effort to prevent us from killing hundreds of millions of people is bound to be totally debilitating. [More]

Many economists would be more favorably inclined to W-M if the very changes ag was able to insert were not there. The effort could be much better for government finances had writers of the bill stayed with the idea of making carbon reduction a real dollars-and-cents issue immediately.  This means selling permits and granting few exceptions and offsets.

Therefore, the best policy option would be to use the revenues from cap and trade or from a carbon tax to decrease the marginal tax rates of other distortionary taxes, such as the payroll tax and individual and corporate income taxes (or to reduce the deficit, which would encourage capital accumulation and help prevent future marginal rate increases). Using the revenue in that fashion would alleviate much of the economic inefficiency that would otherwise arise from cap-and-trade or a carbon tax.
The allocation of emissions permits and decisions on how to spend the revenue raised from permit auctions are sure to be legislative arguments that will not be easily resolved. However, one thing is for certain: Just as implementing a carbon tax and then giving away all of the profits from the tax to rich shareholders would be a policy that no one would support, "free permit allocation" under a cap-and-trade system should be quickly dismissed as a bizarre policy option. Don't give away the cap-and-trade permits! [More]

A body of critics also hold out for a silver bullet from technology. We've had these things appear in history of course, but two factors suggest this time it will be different.  First, we already know some things we could do to cool the Earth for instance.  The bullets would appear to be more arsenic than silver.

Technology that could redden the skies and chill the planet is available right now. Within a few years we could cool the Earth to temperatures not regularly seen since James Watt’s steam engine belched its first smoky plume in the late 18th century. And we could do it cheaply: $100 billion could reverse anthropogenic climate change entirely, and some experts suspect that a hundredth of that sum could suffice. To stop global warming the old-fashioned way, by cutting carbon emissions, would cost on the order of $1 trillion yearly. If this idea sounds unlikely, consider that President Obama’s science adviser, John Holdren, said in April that he thought the administration would consider it, “if we get desperate enough.” And if it sounds dystopian or futuristic, consider that Blade Runner was set in 2019, not long after Obama would complete a second term.
...
Dyson’s early geo-engineering vision addressed a central, and still daunting, problem: neither sulfur-aerosol injection nor an armada of cloud whiteners nor an array of space-shades would do much to reduce carbon-dioxide levels. As long as carbon emissions remain constant, the atmosphere will fill with more and more greenhouse gases. Blocking the sun does nothing to stop the buildup. It is not even like fighting obesity with liposuction: it’s like fighting obesity with a corset, and a diet of lard and doughnuts. Should the corset ever come off, the flab would burst out as if the corset had never been there at all. For this reason, nearly every climate scientist who spoke with me unhesitatingly advocated cutting carbon emissions over geo-engineering. [More ideas worth considering]

The second fault with hoping for a technological solution to AGW is it will likely not happen without climate legislation.  The penalties of carbon emission are what gives economic value to be pursued by entrepreneurs and inventors.

Finally, it is impossible to overestimate the degree of political leveraging underway with W-M.  On the face of it, why would any politician support a measure clearly flawed with enormous costs in the face of a highly skeptical public? I would suggest one reason is our history is laden with many such efforts that have become major contributors to our well-being as a nation.  Imperfect can work.

Conservatives are continuing to pull the Republican party towards self-immolation today, vowing to defeat the eight House GOPers who backed last week's climate change bill unless they change their votes.
Targeting those eight with the success of the climate bill is a silly and futile task, as the Huffington Post reports, given that Democratic leaders were prepared to twist more arms if fewer GOP votes materialized.
But while we note that most of the GOP climate backers had ties to the environmental community that explain their votes, it's worth pointing out what else all eight have in common: a local investment in transit. [More]

Nonetheless, a strategy of appealing to fears and poorly understood science is not without political risk itself.

But conservatives seem strangely intent on ignoring the power of markets to encourage such innovation. Right now, the emission of carbon is essentially cost-free. Putting a price on carbon would make the development of cleaner energy technologies more profitable. New technologies could be employed, not only by America, but also by China, India and the rest of the developing, polluting world. And it is an added (but not minor) benefit that American resources would no longer be transferred to Saudi princes, Russian autocrats and Venezuelan dictators.
It is perfectly legitimate to argue that the House cap-and-trade system is flawed beyond redemption -- so complex and confusing that it only benefits regulators and the lobbyists who outwit them -- and that Congress should start over with a carbon tax.
It is also legitimate to contend that, while the cap-and-trade system is flawed, it is better than inaction and necessary to spur innovation. And for eight House Republicans who took this stand at great political risk, it is not only legitimate -- it is admirable. [More]

One way to enhance the odds of passage is to load the bill with freebies for everyone.  Ag made sure we got ours, for instance.  In the end, making the leap toward sacrifice was too much for our organizational leadership despite those successes.  In my thinking, Big Ag has not improved its position by choosing this rather dithering and spineless tactic.

What I am surprised about is the agriculture industry’s indignation and opposition to the legislation. Years ago, Kansas State University carbon expert Chuck Rice told me the handwriting was on the wall for some sort of cap on carbon emissions. “It’s critical that agriculture be involved in the discussion so that farmers can participate in a carbon market,” he said.

Well, this bill actually allows farmers the ability to fully participate in a carbon offset program – in other words, to get paid for farm activities that help reduce GHG emissions.

For those of us following climate legislation, this is a real boon for agriculture. Farmers might actually have a seat at the carbon offset table!

Better yet for agriculture, this legislation moves the oversight of carbon-reduction efforts by farmers from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to the Department of Agriculture. Can you imagine the EPA regulating how you practice your no-till to keep carbon in the soil, or how you manage manure to reduce methane gases released into the atmosphere? The regulations would not likely be based in the reality of production agriculture.

“This is the best deal that agriculture could have gotten out of the House,” says Laura Sands, a partner at environmental consulting firm The Clark Group and a member of the Ag Carbon Market Working Group. [More]

In the process, the actual legislation has become a predictably bloated package of unrelated topics, making it repugnant for even long-time supporters to embrace.

In fact, the bill also contains regulations on everything from light bulb standards to the specs on hot tubs, and it will reshape America's economy in dozens of ways that many don't realize.
Here is just one: The bill would give the federal government power over local building codes. It requires that by 2012 codes must require that new buildings be 30 percent more efficient than they would have been under current regulations. By 2016, that figure rises to 50 percent, with increases scheduled for years after that. With those targets in mind, the bill expects organizations that develop model codes for states and localities to fill in the details, creating a national code. If they don't, the bill commands the Energy Department to draft a national code itself. [More]

So why have I decided to support this nasty piece of work?  First and foremost, I believe the science behind AGW and carbon emissions. It is low practice to suggest the vast majority of climate scientists are fools and/or conspirators.  If nothing else, our scientific community has propelled us forward at a staggering rate, something that cannot be done based on faked results and anything short of the pursuit of truth.

Any effort to change the habits of energy consumption built over millenia will be awkward and excruciatingly slow, but they must begin with something. At the minimum, W-M is something.  Tom Friedman captures my position pretty well.

Why? Because, for all its flaws, this bill is the first comprehensive attempt by America to mitigate climate change by putting a price on carbon emissions. Rejecting this bill would have been read in the world as America voting against the reality and urgency of climate change and would have undermined clean energy initiatives everywhere.

More important, my gut tells me that if the U.S. government puts a price on carbon, even a weak one, it will usher in a new mind-set among consumers, investors, farmers, innovators and entrepreneurs that in time will make a big difference — much like the first warnings that cigarettes could cause cancer. The morning after that warning no one ever looked at smoking the same again.

Ditto if this bill passes. Henceforth, every investment decision made in America — about how homes are built, products manufactured or electricity generated — will look for the least-cost low-carbon option. And weaving carbon emissions into every business decision will drive innovation and deployment of clean technologies to a whole new level and make energy efficiency much more affordable. That ain’t beanbag. [More]

Moreover, W-M could be the first of many international building blocks, addressing the complaint of non-participation by China and India.

My impression is that Mr Obama is anxious to do something about climate change, yet realises that America can't halt the process of warming by itself; it must have agreement on emission reductions from basically all of the world's large economies. So perhaps the very imperfect Waxman-Markey bill is best seen as a means to push forward a global agreement on emissions. I have previously argued that carbon tariffs would be counterproductive, but it's difficult for those of us without the full complement of diplomatic tools available to the American government to know for sure. My sense is that wise men might have been willing to tolerate a lot of congressional horse-trading and weakening of the bill so long as it seemed likely to facilitate climate negotiations at Copenhagen and beyond. But those wise men may change their position if the included tariff provision undermines its utility as an international bargaining chip.The extent to which the administration pushes Congress to remove this provision—and the language and ultimata it does or does not deploy—may tell us a lot about the good this bill can do in generating real progress on emission reductions. [More]

The trade provisions are bad news, and I hope the Senate can clean the bill up.  But one huge reason I have struggled to affirmative side of W-M is the growing realization it represents the of the next great technology race.  Right now we are not even in the game.

On energy, a disturbing factlet. (And obviously not the only disturbing observation on the energy-and-climate front.) I heard three people separately observe that when it comes to future sources of "clean" energy, there is not a single field in which U.S. companies are the technical or market leaders. One person gave an informal ranking of the leaders this way:
   Solar-powered electricity (ie, photo-voltaic systems): Norway, Japan, China
   Solar-thermal systems (for heating water or buildings) Spain the leader in getting systems deployed
   Wind power: Holland, Denmark, China
   Geothermal power: nobody
   Nuclear power ("clean" in the carbon-footprint sense): France, Japan
   CCS, "Carbon capture and sequestration" (stripping out CO2 and burying it): Norway, Australia, Canada. [More]

This is the reward to leadership - selling the world the next generation of energy technology. This will not occur without a clear signal to investors and researchers we are serious about changing our energy policy.

But here's what I think is the overriding reason to support W-M despite its flaws: even if it's weak, and even if the rest of the world doesn't join in immediately, it starts to align incentives in the United States
in favor of inventing and deploying green technologies.  (Ditto for the ETS cap-and-trade system in Europe.)  And that's critically important: it's in the advanced economies of the world that new green technologies will be invented.  And it's in the advanced economies of the world that existing green technologies will be proven to work on a wide scale.  Once that happens — once the technologies are proven and economies of scale start to bring down their costs — the rest of the world will start to adopt them too.  W-M, in its final form, may not be a strong bill, but by raising the price of carbon even a little bit, it makes the development and deployment of green tech far more likely in the United States, and therefore, far more likely on a global basis too.
And that's critically important.  Conservation and efficiency and cutting back are all necessary parts of addressing climate change, but human nature being what it is, that's never going to be enough.  We're going to have to invent entire new technologies as well.  W-M makes that more likely, and that's why it needs to be passed.  Warts and all. [More]

Finally, but not least important, W-M offers to me an effort to revive the morale of our nation - a tiny step toward setting aside our immediate desires and owning up to externalities we are passing on with almost malicious unconcern. It is an effort to address a problem, not deny it.  It is a chance to sacrifice for the future.

In short, it is an opportunity to rediscover all those aspects of our nation that many feel slipping away: a can-do mindset and an unabashed desire for ever-nobler goals; an iron commitment to generations unborn; a chance to demonstrate how a fractious and imperfect political system and a diverse culture can do big things. Like always we will recalculate our path as we go, but fixing a goal and direction could add purpose to a culture foundering in self-doubt.