New York Times columnist Gail Collins begins today's piece with a glaring error. She says:
Didn't know we had any goals for curbing global warming? Where were you in 2002 when the president put us on the road toward reducing the growth of greenhouse gas emissions by 18 percent by 2012?
Now, Collins spends the rest of the column deriding that goal, and the new goal Bush announced on Wed., as she should: both goals are worth deriding.
But that wasn't what Bush announced in 2002. He didn't propose to slow the rate of greenhouse-gas emission growth. He proposed to improve greenhouse-gas intensity of the economy by 18% by 2012.
The difference is significant. Falling GHG intensity is perfectly compatible with rising emissions, and even with a rising rate of growth of emissions -- if the economy grows fast enough the efficiency gains can be swamped.
As it happens, emissions did rise, but GHG intensity did fall. Then again, it's been falling for years, and is likely to keep falling. The salient fact, though, is that Bush had nothing at all to do with this. The EIA even admits as much:
The steady decrease in carbon intensity (carbon/GDP) has resulted mainly from reductions in energy use per unit of GDP (energy/GDP) rather than increased use of low-carbon fuels ...
Here's the graph:
My point is: the goal Collins describes is pathetic, but at least it's a goal, a metric Bush could have moved with good policy. The goal Bush actually proposed in 2002 is even more pathetic, since it was going to happen anyway. It's like watching a rock roll down a hill, pointing at a spot lower on the hill, and saying, "my goal is for the rock to be there in a few seconds."
Ah, Bushology: the fine distinctions between terrible and horrendous. Won't we miss it when it's gone.
‘Copenhagen Diagnosis’ offers a grim update to the IPCC’s climate science
Make the kids pay: The economic effects of climate change on future generations
Can EPA regulations on CO2 be blocked?
Comments
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Jon Rynn Posted 5:08 am
19 Apr 2008
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Pompey Road Posted 5:52 am
19 Apr 2008
Stop MTR and save a mountain.
Stop MTR and save a forest.
Stop MTR and save a stream.
For each MTR you stop you save a mountain, a forest and a tree.
Show the people where the coal that is destroying the planet is coming from.
The eons of time and nature was good to us down here. It was not until we become civilized that destroying our habitat become fathomable or fashionable.
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caniscandida Posted 7:15 am
19 Apr 2008
But, yes, it is not all that edifying to re-imagine history with "what-ifs." E.g., what if Cleopatra had not fled the battle of Actium, and what if Antony too had stayed to fight it out to the end? ...
Anyway, Gail Collins likes to paint with big brushes. I generally like everything she writes in her op/ed column, but she is indeed sometimes a bit loose with facts.
And whether Jon is right to foresee a mea culpa, she certainly does not intend to make George W. Bush look any better than he deserves.
Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.
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bigTom Posted 7:24 am
19 Apr 2008
When pressure for actual action builds, rinse, and repeat.
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Delay And Deny Posted 8:34 am
19 Apr 2008
We can reduce CO2 by increasing efficiency and reducing waste.
We are already seeing that in action.
Betting the Globe on some mumbo-jumpo "new technology" that will save the day is far more laughable than simply increasing efficiency and reducing waste. Quite frankly, it's the only way we've curtailed carbon since the ecology movement of the 1970s.
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/359573_gas18.html
Northwest guzzling least amount of gas since '66
Motorists used on average nearly a gallon less each week in 2007 (7.8 gallons) than they did in 1999 (8.7 gallons), the lowest per-capita level since 1966.
J. Bailo
Participant
Texeme.Construct()
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Jon Rynn Posted 2:29 pm
19 Apr 2008
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Sephyrave Posted 2:33 pm
19 Apr 2008
http://environe.blogspot.com
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Tasermons Partner Posted 2:41 pm
19 Apr 2008
Was that an actual drop or a drop compared to economic growth?
I thought it was an actual drop, but I never really thought of it in terms of economic growth comparison, so I could be wrong.
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caniscandida Posted 6:09 pm
19 Apr 2008
Both Gail Collins and Nicholas Kristof have their hearts in the right places (he and his wife Sheryl Wu Dunn, after all, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1990 for reporting on the Tiananmen democracy movement and massacre; and lately, he has been able to get some money together for humanitarian causes in Africa and South Asia, and has engineered a couple of good travel programs for young people).
Whatever we may make of Kristof's vague dependency on Roger Pielke, we should take away that (a.) this is not his field, and he retains an open mind; and (b.) he retains an open mind, because this is not his field.
And Kristof is certainly right, at the end, to worry that, while the presidential candidates may have said promising things on GW-mitigation and energy policy from time to time, it is not at all obvious that they are focused on the problem.
Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.
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Jon Rynn Posted 1:10 am
20 Apr 2008
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Russ Posted 5:38 am
20 Apr 2008
(Of course, I'm not an unbiased observer, given Kristof's despicable hostility to atheists.)
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caniscandida Posted 7:04 am
20 Apr 2008
In general, though, given the prevailing political winds, standing up for atheists takes courage; standing up for religionists looks like pandering. If Kristof does the latter, then that is not to his credit.
And I vaguely recall his petulant complaint to environmentalists, that we should "knock it off already about ANWR." Yes, he definitely cleaves toward anthropocentrism.
The original problem of which Jon complains is perhaps a matter for the excellent Public Editor Clark Hoyt. But realistically, there is only so much fact-checking that one can do, with any op-ed columnist.
One could always just write to Kristof himself, I suppose, and hope that he takes the time to pay attention.
Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.
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Russ Posted 6:59 pm
20 Apr 2008
He's not the only liberal who engages in this false equivalence. I'm trying to come up with a good term for this type, but I haven't thought of anything good yet.
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caniscandida Posted 7:36 pm
20 Apr 2008
And I get angry with my co-religionists, who resent the publications of Dawkins, Hitchens and Harris: "These are intelligent people," I tell them, "and we should be listening to them! We have been the bullies for many centuries! We have been the tyrants, the inquisitors, the executioners!"
Which is not to say that I think we should all become atheist ...
As for Nicholas Kristof, he may have written suggestive things now and again, but I do not know that he is very involved in these matters. Please instruct further, dear Russ, if you have reason to believe otherwise.
Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.
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Russ Posted 8:00 pm
20 Apr 2008
If you want something more relevant to this board, consider that K is also a practicioner of what Paul Krugman calls "McCain rules", whereby whenever McCain says anything stupid or obnoxious (which means pretty much anything he says by now), or backpedals from all his erstwhile "straight-talker" positions, as long as he issues anything remotely like a qualifier or self-correction, the press not only gives him a pass but celebrates it as another display of M's alleged "character".
Just a month or so ago K wrote M a love letter along these lines, even as M makes it more and more clear that if anything he'd be even MORE stupid and irresponsible than Bush, something I never would've thought possible.
(I just read yesterday that M now wants a maximum income tax rate of 20%, while basically doing away with all other taxes. Exactly where does he think he's going to get the money for 100 years in Iraq? Leprechauns? I really think the guy's senile. As for the MSM's love affair with this idiot, it's simply disgraceful.)
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caniscandida Posted 8:24 pm
20 Apr 2008
Chickens deserve our true friendship! So do fish! So do other sentient beings! Let us learn to be kind.
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