...I remember some post long, long ago, Dave, when you asked the question how transit was going to be built in just such a competitive market system...so I would just append what you're saying by being more specific -- so maybe if you're dealing with utilities, giving them hard goals work, not the path, but when you're dealing with transit, you know you need, say, a light-rail system.  Or, you can mandate automobile fuel efficiency, but you know you need a big honkin' electric grid backbone...something like that.

First: this was written too quickly and reading it over now I think it was kind of muddled. Maybe I'll do a follow-up and, er, probably make the situation worse.

But for now: Jon, I think GNP thinking is a good habit even for planners contemplating public spending, urban design, etc. Say you're planning a community: do you want a community where 30% of the transportation is on bikes, 30% is on public transit, and 40% is in cars? No. You want a community with a strong social fabric, a vibrant economy, a reasonably equitable distribution of resources, and low emissions. You're better off keeping the focus on those goals and not allowing yourself to become too attached to any particular transportation mode or mix of modes. It's a cognitive habit, a willingness to constantly rethink and reassess.

Bart: your comment has a mixed message I find very familiar. On one hand you say we don't have open markets; on the other you say open markets can't do what we want. If A is true, how do you know B? More seriously: Obviously the free market of libertarian fantasy doesn't exist in the real world, anywhere, least of all energy. It is an ideal we can move toward or away from. Secondly, there's no contradiction at all between respecting the power of markets and "planning for the public good." Implicitly or explicitly, we collectively define the public good and shape markets accordingly. The public good is the goal; the best, lowest cost way of getting there is almost always beyond the ability of any small group to suss out in advance. So: via politics we define the public good -- i.e., goals -- and via the market we allow many minds to put themselves to the task of getting there.

Anyway, more later.

grist.org

where one can try to figure out what are the goals, how much can the market be part of the solution -- but eventually, you do need a plan.  So, in your example, if you're "in-filling" a suburban area, say, then you would assume much more automobile use than, say, a neighborhood in Chicago that you're trying to make more walkable.  So it certainly depends on the ecosystem you're presented with -- and the definition of an ecosystem includes the geography and geology, not just the species mix.

At a higher level of abstraction, you also have to consider that when you design for cars, you're giving the market a bigger role, because people can choose which cars they buy, whereas, say, in a light-rail system, they choose, through the medium of their government, which light rail.  I stress "through the medium" because government choices are usually seen as remote and bureaucratic, which they can certainly be, but in fact they are amenable to democratic forces -- whereas what GM, Ford and Chrysler do are not -- except through regulation.

I never quite understand this pessimism.  Responsible, thoughtful environmentalists decry the need to massively reduce CO2 and get away from fossil fuels that imply massive economic and political transformation.  But confronted with the vested interests and the nitty gritty that is modern energy policy, too many throw up their hands and say "well, that problem has too much inertia, so we must work within the existing regulatory framework"

The disconnect doesn't compute.  When the problem is the paradigm, we have to change the paradigm.  Is it easy to do?  Of course not.  But replacing a fraction of the paradigm with a band aid that doesn't address the underlying issues simply on the basis that we're afraid to push for more strikes me as giving up before we've started.

Let's articulate the goal (to stay on a theme) and push for that goal, rather than simply assuming that our ambitions must be limited to some narrow, less politically-risky path.

Removing subsidies for the old energy economy wouldn't be enough.  Those subsidies need to be diverted to the new energy economy.

And the market could choose which path to follow if those paths actually existed.  But to open those paths, like plugin hybrids, government needs to set standards and order millions of units of these vehicles in order to spur mass production.

That means government has to choose plugin hybrids over hydrogen fuel cell, flex fuel ICE, or the other alternatives.  Because there is not the time or capital to follow dead ends.

The way to preserve market efficiency is to throw out the dogmatic free marketeerian philosophy,  like FDR did during WW2 war production.

This whole Reagan revolution religious economics has been proven to be worse than useless.  We have to get over worshipping at the feet of the so[called free market economy.

Plugin hybrids, solar cogeneration panels, ground source heating/cooling systems, biogas digestor fuel cell distributed power plants, and smart grid systems all have to have standards for performance determined by government in order to measure GHG savings and respective subsidy levels.

This effort needs planning, government planning and selection of standards and orders of millions of these devices to push mass production.  Let different suppliers compete on cost, product quality, and marketing.

I watched a history channel presentation about D-day, the rangers that scaled the cliffs at Omaha beach just kept going no matter how many were killed.  If they could do that, why can't we do what we actually want to do now.

Government needs to bulldoze over corporate boardroom resistance and let US manufacture this energy re-evolution.  This isn't a time to fret about defying the religious dogma of the free marketeeerian corporatist political movement that brought us this economic crash and GHG disaster and oil war after oil war on into a dark oily future.

Lobbyists and your think tank shills,get real jobs, you're fired!

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

The first job of governance, and by extension the involved citizens who are the prime movers of governance, is to set goals, starting at the highest level (a normalized climate) and working down from there. All else is backfill.

The true meaning of life is to plant trees, under whose shade you do not expect to sit.

When you say this: But replacing a fraction of the paradigm with a band aid that doesn't address the underlying issues simply on the basis that we're afraid to push for more strikes me as giving up before we've started.

are you referring to radical change?  I remember proposing nationalizing the electrical grid, but you said that was politically impossible.  Are you talking about pushing for things that are now politically impossible, because it's what is necessary in order to avoid the worst of climate change?  Not trying to push buttons here, I'm just confused on what you think is being glossed over.

I beg to differ with your assertion that

Removing subsidies for the old energy economy wouldn't be enough.

Presumably, you have an opinion about how big those subsidies are - do tell!  There are peer reviewed studies showing that the health costs alone of coal-fired power cost 6 - 10 c/kWh.  If they were forced to pay that cost, you would shut down every coal plant in this country, and immediately create an incentive for clean sources that could replace them.  And that is far from the only subsidy that coal plants get.

I don't claim to have knowledge of the total volume of the subsidy either - but I would caution against overstating its size, or it's ability to massively change behavior if removed.  (Look at all the recent fight to get 1.5 c/kWh tax credits for renewables, and compare that to 6 - 10 cents above and it becomes apparent that there is way more value in removing subsidies than in trying to add more on the other side of the ledger.)