Romm writes:

"Ignorantly, S&N write: How might history have been different had environmentalists and their political allies 20 years ago proposed that the nations of the world make a massive, shared investment in clean energy, better and more efficient housing development, and more comfortable and efficient transportation systems?

Here is where S&N are very confused. History wouldn't have been much different, because such a proposal in 1987, during the Reagan administration, would have accomplished nothing. It would have been decried as a big-government, pork-barrel, tax-and-spend liberal plan and disappeared into political oblivion. Same in 1995."

Apparently Romm thinks the same thing would happen today.  Apparently the only way that a "massive" investment program would be politically viable would be for a "massive" grassroots movement to be pushing for it, because evidently without that there is not much environmentalists can do -- at least that is what Romm seems to be saying (by the way, it is not clear that S&N themselves are pushing for that program, but it sounds good to me).

Threats to big energy are actively suppressed and have a snowball's chance in Hell of seeing the light of day.

Think what big coal wants and that is what will happen - ineffective regulations and nonviable technologies.

Do the opposite - shut down coal.

... but now what are you going to do?  The deniers can deny all they want but are marginalized now to trivial little strawmen like "Look, Texas was cooler this spring!"  

As Sunflower hints, is it even possible to turn off the switch on coal and crude oil?  It's like General Sanchez describing the Iraq Theater as a "nightmare."  

I hear a lot about technology and policy manipulation, but I don't see the way to solve the puzzle.  Face it, America is bankrupt now.  

Onward through the fog

The only quibble I have is that there are serious voices in the environmental movement who are still talking about sacrificing our material standard of living- Bill McKibben for example with books like Enough. And many articles in the Sierra Magazine play into the negative stereotype of anti-business and anti-markets that the right uses. While much of the environmental movement has moved beyond the doom and gloom and anti-economic growth rhetoric not everyone has.

It's not like what we WANT is energy.

What we WANT is products and services.

If we can get what we WANT with a dramatically reduced energy debt, then thats just fine.

_

But there are those who view intolerance as more important than moving forward.

the only way to get coal off of everybodies back is to capture and sequestration the carbon dioxide.  

It is not about the economics, science, engineering or good sense.   It's about the politics.    coal companies will have to be allowed to sell coal or they will fight back.

There may be a subtle difference between "gloom and doom" and "we need to consume less".  You sort of need to present the gloom and doom, and then immediately present the solutions -- the gloom and doom is what's driving the need for the solutions, so it's a rational thing to talk about.  Consuming less may or may not be a part of the solution -- or, it may be that you can have a high standard of living, but consuming differnt things and services, produced differently.

as currently defined, coupled with population growth is a major part of the environmental/ecologic/energy crisis.  There can be no glossing over this simple fact.  If this viewpoint diverges from "progressive" environmentalism that many of you promote to sway the masses then so be it.  Most people are accepting of the necessity for some sacrifice and are not that enthralled with the present scenario.  

Many of us can consume far less than we do now and still maintain an adequate standard of living. Cornucopianism is not a sustainable vision.  

How should we talk about energy to interest conservatives?

Instead of calling wind and solar energy renewable, we should call it supply side energy.  Because that's also what it is.  Any energy that we can get from the wind and solar means we use just that much less natural gas which can be then used to heat homes and industrial heating.

Lets's call a carbon tax a consumption tax.   Conservatives would be all in favor a national sales tax over an income tax.   Well, then great, make it a national sales tax, reduce income taxes, but have the national sales tax, tax consumption of fossil fuels.  

renewable energy is now it's going to be supplyside energy.

carbon tax is now going to be a national sales tax.   (and reduce income tax.)

Conservatives might see it as a good way to permanently cripple government.  As carbon emissions go down -- and higher-priced oil might take care of alot of that -- revenues to the government would go down.  Now, if that came out the military, that would be a good thing, but I don't think that's were it will come from.

Joe,

You could have avoided all your phony posturing and intellectually dishonest attacks if you had actually read the book you purport to review.  You admitted over at TPM Cafe that this is more about getting revenge for their criticisms in 2004 than about talking about their book.

You know that S&N didn't come out for a plan that couples regulation and investment after Obama made his announcement or because you challenged them to do so. They did it explicitly in their book. Which was released over a week ago. (Although your hubris -- your willingness to take credit for an argument they made before you posted your "challenge" is kinda funny).

You should pick up a copy of the book and read it. You might enjoy it.

From the book:

"There is no doubt that the effort to reduce and stabilize global greenhouse gas emissions will require a major regulatory effort to make sure that everyone is playing by the same rules, provide regulatory certainty so that nations and businesses alike can play their investments, and increase the cost of fossil fuels relative to cleaner energy sources. But regulation cannot be the sole policy egg in the global warming basket, for without investments to encourage technological breakthroughs, we won't come close to achieving the emissions reductions we need to stabilize the climate." -- Page 119

That's precisely what you've "challenged" them to embrace. And you still attack them for being "dangerous." You've attempted, repeatedly, to attack them as pushing a strategy that only embraces investment (calling it an "investment-only strategy" on TPM Cafe). You've pushed the same thing they propose in the academic literature (remember Physics Today?). You challenge them to embrace the idea they articulate in their book. And when they do, you attack them again.

These series of posts are some of the most irrational arguments I've seen made in the blogosphere (which isn't exactly known for its rational discourse).

You seem to be driven by a kind of personal animus and hatred that is well beyond strange.

S&N make the point that we spend too much time debating past battles than we do dealing with the task at hand.  And you're proving that point.

The other thing that scares me about a carbon tax, is that it might go to "fashionable money pits".

Sure we'd collect all this money

But it would just go to subsidizing:
"Safe" Nuclear
"Sustainable" BioFuel Monocrops
"Clean" Coal Sequestration
"Zero Emission" Hydrogen

i.e. The fake solutions which cost billions upon billions, resulting in nothing.

The scary thing about governments picking technologies, is that they pick whatever "sounds best", rather than what actual is best.

_

The other problem with a tax versus a cap-trade is as mentioned, it would make it that if we substituted it from some other tax.

That ultimately if we shift away from carbon intensive energy use, that the tax revenues would decline.

Much in the same way that the gasoline tax pays for the upkeep of roads.  As people get more fuel efficient vehicles, or vehicles that don't use any gasoline, they are using that road, but they aren't paying the tax.  And as a result our roads go into disrepair.

Good point and I'd like to make an analogy about the Cigarette Tax.  As tobacco becomes more expensive and more information comes out about the dangers of smoking, the tax revenue goes down over time.  I don't have figures but some 60% of Americans used to smoke; since the new taxes and programs were put in, it might be a little less than 30%.  This is a Law of Diminishing Returns (hope I didn't make that up on my own??).

But what you want is a structure that would increase over time because as population grows, you'll need more money to finance clean energy sources.  Think of a program that expands in terms of serving needs and customers rather that one that contracts.  

I think this might require several tools in your toolkit such as incentives, research, revised tax structures, regulations to require IRP, and all kinds of things - nothing should be left off the table unless it truly stinks.  From there, it is a question of balance ... mid-term corrections ... and public / private coordination.  

There are some "decision tree" software programs that can help define breakpoints in the proper balance of approaches. For example, one might identify trade-offs that would not be acceptable, such as consumer tax effect, impact on the GDP, and increases in pollution other than CO2. Such a process continually evolves and is nor a static one-time deal. /sam

Onward through the fog

Here's the problem with S&N.   They say not enough has been said about investments in non-carbon sources of energy from enviromentalists.   But I can remember the 1970's and 1980's.   Many businesses started solar collectors and other ideas.  Most went out of business after the cost of oil went down in 1986.    When a barrel of oil was 20 dollars a barrel a few years ago, a person would have been much less successful in increasing investments in non-carbon energy sources.  Not like now with 80 dollar a barrel oil and Oil Peak quite possibly in June, 2005.    With 80 dollar a barrel oil, everybody wants to get on board.    Just like now, people might be skeptical of flipping houses as a business model, unlike 5 years ago when house prices were jumping.

There has always been a want to make money from non-carbon energy sources, but what has pushed it along in the United States is the stick of global warming and Al Gore's movie and 80 dollar a barrel oil, not because of a book by S&N.   They are just idea opportunists in their criticism of environmental groups and provide amunition to the denier's and delayer's side with their criticism.

What's the worry about a carbon tax? That it would be successful and people would use less fossil fuel energy and then the amount of taxes that brings in would go down? And that would be a bad thing?  Without a carbon tax, we would bring in no money from it, and fossil fuel use would not go down, wouldn't that be a worse thing?    We should be so lucky to have the problem of worrying about the reductions in fossil fuels and reduced revenue from the tax.  Increase the size of the tax.   Remove the property tax for the first 100 000 dollar home pays for property taxes that we live in.  What's the fear?   The taxes at least would go down on people living in the United States and paid by the oil we don't buy from other countries and other fossil fuels we didn't exhaust.   Alaska taxes the fossil fuel that is pumped their to pay their taxes and everybody in Alaska even gets money from it.   does that make them stupid?   We should tax fossil fuel first so we don't tax what we own.  Tax what we buy to pay for government services, not the things we own.

In our state and I think most states, the gasoline tax does not pay for all of the cost of roads, only a portion.  Your property tax probably makes up for most of the rest.

You're right to worry about money going into some of those money pit energy sources, like nuclear, biofuels, hydrogen or whatever.  Government should limit all subsidies to that type of thing and only fund research that's ultimately available to all.    The money from a carbon tax should go into the general government fund, just like income or sales taxes now, especially if we do a tax trade by reducing those taxes.   Energy use should not be subsidized, it's not a prime use like education, housing or public safty.   It needs to be made more efficient and a way to do that is pay some of our government sevices bill with it.    

S&N are not only echoing Bush, as Joseph Romm astutely points out, but are pandering to those numerous Americans who want to protect and rationalize their profligate, unsustainable, inequitable obscene life style. So S&N blow the same rusty horn of a huge energy Manhattan project so that everyone from right to left to rear to neocons can nod her head and then sit back and watch exactly nothing happening. Nothing will happen without mandatory efficiency measures, regulations, carbon caps,  and a carbon tax , as Romm and the rest of us well know. As soon as fossil fuel energy is knocked off the government teat , privately funded technology on renewables will take off. It is offensive to me, a forty-year environmental activist, to read some young naive environmental wannabees with no sense of history, ethics or real politics cashing in by telling Americans they can continue to live high off the hog...on the backs of the undeveloped world primarily..without any consequences. This is a perverse neo-neoconservatism that salutes the flag as if it were sacred, as if the American Way of Life was something that needs not only protection but wider adoption by the rest of the world. This is a dangerous and deplorable deception on the part of S&N, and just because they jumped on the renewable energy technology bandwagon doesn't mean they aren't carrying a deadly disease with them to infect the unknowing members of the public who want to be reassured that they won't have to give up their SUVs, swimming pools, golf games, and Caribbean vacations. If I were paranoid, I would say S&N were infiltrated into the environmental community as moles, to sooth those of us who were starting to feel a bit guilty or contemplating bicycles instead of a second car. S&N can now reassure them that they can continue on the same path. This is disgusting; it is also a Big Lie.