Michael Tobis’s Posts

• There is no right word for doom if it's on page 13

  We are what we think: Why the press fails us and how to fix it 6

  Posted 4 months, 2 weeks ago

  Why has climate change not galvanized us? Why are there "pro" and "con" positions on insuring a livable planet?

  The press must accept some of the blame.

• There is no food shortage

  A gap between rich and poor makes free markets fail 34

  Posted 1 year, 6 months ago

  It's really an absurd travesty when starvation gets blamed on "global warming do-gooders," and we haven't seen the last of that. The problem is miscast, though. There isn't a food shortage, at least not yet. There is a food price crisis, which is a very different beast.

  Are its roots in the huge resource gap between the relatively rich and the very poor? If that's true, it has broad implications.

  Here's one way of looking at it, from the Omaha World-Herald:

• Should economics rule?

  The only way to a soft landing is down 54

  Posted 1 year, 11 months ago

  The only way to a soft landing is down.

  In a brief article on DeSmog by Emily Murgatroyd, a Cato Institute type, Jerry Taylor, is quoted as saying

  Scientists are in no position to intelligently guide public policy on climate change. Scientists can lay out scenarios, but it is up to economists to weigh the costs and benefits and many of them say the costs of cutting emissions are higher than the benefits.

  Can we consider this claim, or is it somehow protected by a taboo? Is one a Marxist or even a Stalinist for pointing out that… Read More

• Toxic optimists vs. plaid shirts

  Delusional Beltway optimism about energy 32

  Posted 1 year, 12 months ago

  A couple of weeks ago, I attended a seminar hosted by several departments at the University of Texas on the topic of "peak oil." The occasion was the visit of David Sundalow of the Brookings Institution, who is hawking his new book Freedom from Oil. This was mutually convenient for him and the university, which is trying to carve out a position as an optimistic, rolled-up-sleeves, can-do problem-solver in the fields of energy and water.

  I have no objection to that approach and am pleased to be somewhat distantly associated with it. That said, I did not leave… Read More

• Live Earth party demographics

  Where were younger people at Live Earth house parties? 19

  Posted 2 years, 4 months ago

  Pretty much everyone in attendance at two Austin Live Earth house parties was a boomer. Is grassroots activism still unhip among young people?

  

  I was a bit nervous about attending a Live Earth event. At 52, I thought I'd be at least twice the age of most of the people I'd encounter. I needn't have worried.

  I attended two Live Earth house parties in Austin, Texas, and saw nobody under 30 except the kids of one of the hosts. I… Read More

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Michael Tobis’s Recent Comments

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  I agree with David and respond to Keth Kloor here.On Why Branson and SuperFreakonomics are wrong, in pictures posted 3 weeks, 1 day ago 33 Responses

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  Thanks for comments all. I especially appreciate thoughtful comments by N2Sustain. I agree that many Americans are in the frame of mind you describe, and that there is no obvious escape route for many from circumstances that they might not have chosen, and that they are frantic and worried.

  I actually think there is a whole 'nother article there, which brings me closer to my critiques of our commercial structure and the economic theories (idea cluster) in which it is embedded. Frankly, I think it is in some sense wrong.

  I can't quit my day job either. Even though I'd be doing the world more service as a nonfiction writer (at which I am pretty good) than as a scientific programmer (at which I am burned out and getting too old), the world doesn't have any obvious way to pay me to do what really adds the most value.

  But in the grand scheme of things this is the wrong way to think about it. In the grand scheme, we ought to be looking for ways to reward actually productive activities and discourage activities that use resources pointlessly. On the whole, that might amount to say 50% unemployment, not 10%. We'd have to reorganize ourselves pretty significantly to make that palatable.

  So "putting our attentions into fixing the economy" makes sense to avoid anarchy and confusion, but in the long run it is a bad idea. Let's fix something besides "the economy" the way it is usually discussed.

  To tie it back to my main point here, what we think of as "the economy" and its "healthy" state of "growth" is an example of a habitual state of mind that made perfect sense 150 years ago or 50 years ago, but started to become crazy in the last couple of generations. We have to come up with new ways of thinking about it, and not just intellectuals and activists; everybody.We need new habits of thought about the economy.

  Dave Scott's brief comment is a good place to start.

  Like I said, in the end we have no choice. The sooner we get around to it, the less pain it will cost. And it is too late to get out of this unbruised already; the best we can hope for the next couple of generations is more or less unbroken.

   

   

   

   

  On We are what we think: Why the press fails us and how to fix it posted 4 months, 2 weeks ago 6 Responses

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  Since we've been so far from any legislative action until now, I hadn't thought much about the exact form that action would take. So I'm a novice to this part of the debate, looking for cogent arguments. I am not yet trying to stake out a position; I am just reporting my initial reactions to the positions presented in the Yale article.

  All I have heard from cappers so far, other than the argument that cap and trade creates a cap better than a tax does, is counterarguments to the arguments for the tax, and arguments from expediency ("the document already exists") indifference ("it should be quite possible to reach pretty much the same result from either direction") and failure of leadership ("the general population will not tolerate a tax but  may be fooled briefly by a policy that is not called a tax, which raises energy prices and creates federal revenue").

  So I have four problems:

  1) Frankly, it is dishonest to create a Rube Goldberg contraption that is effectively a tax, call it somehting else, and deny that any taxation is involved. It continues the behaviors that make people distrust politics and politicians and the process that keeps the population confused about cause and effect.

  2) It starts from complexity, leaving it impossible to advocate for simplicity and transparency.

  3) It is presented as a fait accompli, but I have no idea where it came from. Where was the public consultation? Where was the effort to bring the public on board?

  4) It smacks very much of business-as-usual, lobbyists, earmarks, etc. Businesses with Washington insider status get huge giveaways. Startups whose skills are actually in energy technology are placed at a distinct disadvantage.

  In short, all the advantages you propose seem tactical rather than substantive. Even presuming those tactical advantages are true, the origins of the tactical advantage are deeply obscure from where I am sitting. It just feels like something elaborate and unclear is being sprung on me, and that most of the people supporting it are more interested in politics than in science.

  Kevin Drm's rebuttal to Sachs is typical. It states pretty much that if you put the right ingredients into cap-and-trade it can act a lot like a tax. Your caliing Sachs "head-slappingly false" really doesn't seem to follow from that. If you put the right ingredients into a soup it can taste a whole lot like a chocolate cake, but that is still not what I want you to put my birthday candles in.

  So again: it's easy to understand what a simple carbon tax would look like and how it could be tuned to achieve desired objectives. A compelling argument would address the follwoing:

  1) What is cap and trade? Is it better in principle than a tax, and if so, why?

  2) What exactly is the 700 page bill you are putting up as an alternative? (preferably with a link to the text and another link to a plain-english pointwise summary)

  3) Where did it come from? Who drafted it? When? What interests are accounted for?

  4) How are new ideas balanced against established interests? Specifically, given that existing interests are given permits, doesn't it systematically promote large institutional and corporate interests while suppressing startups and innovation? This is a clear weakness: what compensates for it?

  Again, I am just starting to think about this. Honestly, I am nowhere near committed. Although the "head-slappingly" thing seems contrived to wedge me away, I am not entirely decided yet. Maybe all these questions are answered. All I say is that based on the Yale piece, I am becoming nervous that the answers are not going to be very compelling.

   

  On Cap-and-trade vs. carbon tax: a bird in hand is worth two on Alpha Centauri posted 6 months ago 8 Responses

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  arithmetic

  If you multiply the area of Greenland by the average ice depth in Greenland and divide by the total surface area of the ocean you should get about seven meters, essentially the maximum ice melt contribution to sea level from the northern hemisphere alone.

  If you are not in that ballpark, you have a mistake in your data or your calculations.

  Everyone note please that sea level rises under warming even if the glacial balance is neutral due to thermal expansion of the water.

  mt

  On Report from AGU meeting: One meter sea-level rise by 2100 'very likely' posted 10 months, 3 weeks ago 4 Responses

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  Anti-rationalism won't save us

  Well I've been accused of lots of things before but this is the first time anyone has called me a Republican. Even so, that's only the second most irritating part of the article. Consider this:

  "The UN Climate Panel released a report on CCS last year and it was unanimously supported by the research community. It's easy to get unanimous support on UN committees. You just throw off the people who disagree."

  I am sorry. The kindest word I have for that is "terrible".

  Where have we heard that talking point before? Is opposition to CCS reduced to stealing talking points from the climate change denial crowd?

  We need all the technical assistance we can muster for this problem. Social change is hard. Saving the world is more important than ideological purity. We shouldn't count on speculative technofixes but that doesn't mean we should ignore technologies that can help. The situation is too serious to be throwing away useful tools based on some gut feeling.

  Carbon sequestration in one form or another is the only way to reduce CO2 concentrations to natuiral backgrounds in a reasonable time. If we have already overshot safe limits we need to explore every possible path to retreat to safety.

  We have only one planet, and anti-scientific rabble rousing is a threat to it no matter from what quarter it arises. We need to use the information we have, not throw away the parts we find ideologically inconvenient. That counts for non-Republicans too.
  

  mt

  On Science blogger: Hope is not a plan posted 1 year, 6 months ago 2 Responses