By Dave
Fisher. EcoRI.org
I recently spent three days in Washington, D.C., covering
the Citizens Climate
Lobby’s (CCL) 2012 International Conference.
Over the course of the week, some 200 volunteer lobbyists from the United
States and Canada ventured to Capitol Hill to ask Democrats and Republicans
alike to support the Save Our Climate Act, introduced by California Democrat
Pete Stark.
The act includes language that would set up a fee and dividend approach to
taxing carbon. The fee and dividend is a pretty radical departure from the
cap-and-trade approach that has been proposed and supported by many members of
Congress.
Within cap and trade, carbon producers would
be given a cap as to how much carbon they can spew into the atmosphere. When
that cap is reached, emitters would have three options: continue to emit and
pay fines associated with the overage; stop emitting carbon, which would
essentially shutter the business; or buy credits from other emitters that
haven’t reached their cap. The approach is similar to the catch shares that
have been imposed on U.S. fisheries.
The fee-and-dividend approach would place a
progressive fee on the first ton, and all subsequent tons, of carbon emitted by
any producer, and return that money directly back to the American people
through a dividend check. Think of it as a carbon tax refund.
On the surface, the fee-and-dividend
approach seems sound, but within it lies the possibility of the dreaded
positive feedback loop.
If the money from the fee is distributed to
the general populace, more disposable income is in the pockets of citizens.
This translates into higher rates of consumption, which leads to higher
production rates and higher emissions of carbon, which leads to more personal
disposable income, which leads to more consumption.
Another potential for positive feedback
linked to climate change has to do with the melting of the polar ice caps.
Ice reflects the suns energy, while open
water absorbs it. As the ice caps melt, creating more sea water, reflection
goes down and absorbtion goes up. The seas become warmer, leading to more ice
melt, which creates more sea water, which leads to more energy absorbtion.
Positive feedback sounds great on a
Radiohead album, but loses its charm when it comes to our climate and the
acceleration of climate change.
One would hope that the progressive nature
of the fee — increasing at the rate of $10 a ton per year — would be enough to
move the emitters (read: the fossil-fuel industry) from carbon-based fuels for
production to more renewable means. But if consumption goes up, so do profits,
and it may be some time before those producers see a big enough hit to the
bottom line to actually consider less toxic means of production.
So, why is it so important to curtail the
heat-trapping emissions of the fossil-fuel industry?
In the past two years, the United States has
seen manifestations of the dire predictions of climatologists, who have long
warned that accelerated climate change would cause more violent storms and more
rapid shifts in weather patterns.
Let’s hop into the Wayback Machine with Mr. Peabody and
Sherman.
More high temperature records have been
broken this summer than at any other time since the recording of high and low
temperatures began.
According to the National Oceanic and
Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), from June 25 to July 1, some 2,171 record
temperatures were either broken or matched. For June, that number rose to
3,215. In addition to the high temperatures across the country, an anomalous
wind and hail storm — known as a derecho — cut a swath from Chicago to D.C.,
leaving more than 2 million people without power and causing at least 17
deaths.
The hot summer comes on the heels of an
extremely dry spring that saw Rhode Island and many other states on the verge
of drought advisories. Many states in the West and Midwest — where most of
America’s agriculture takes place — are now in the grip of an extended drought
that has driven the price of corn through the roof.
Agricultural economists project
that, by the end of the summer, corn prices may get as high as $9 a bushel. The
average price for the past two decades has been between $3 and $4 a bushel.
The dry spring here is a direct result of a
virtually snow-less winter that preceded it. Though rainfall amounts and
streamflow in Rhode Island have returned to normal, groundwater levels have
been slow to normalize because the snow melt that gradually recharges
groundwater aquifers in New England was basically non-existent during the
vernal season.
The low groundwater levels don’t really affect the northern and
central parts of Rhode Island — due to the fact that most public water in these
areas comes from reservoirs — farmers in southern Rhode Island depend on
groundwater to irrigate their fields.
Near-drought conditions also can wreak havoc
on amphibian and anadromous fish populations, breaking links in the food chain.
Last fall, spring and summer were relatively
normal — as far as the weather and temperatures were concerned — but the
preceding winter saw almost unprecedented amounts of snowfall in much of the
northeastern United States. Some Rhode Island communities were blanketed by
more than 5 feet of snow over the course of the 2010-11 winter, straining
municipal and state budgets and reducing commerce while snow was removed from
roads and highways.
While there isn't a scientist in the world
that would link one specific weather event to climate change, I heard one of
the most compelling arguments connecting the two while I was at the conference,
and it draws a modern parallel to that most American of pastimes: baseball.
 |
| Henry Louis Aaron, the real career home run record holder. |
Barry Bonds was (allegedly) using steroids while he
played in the majors. While he was (allegedly) juicing, he began to hit more
home runs. Enough home runs, in fact, to break the career record of 755 by
Hammerin’ Hank Aaron. Bonds hit 762 in his career.
While one couldn't
definitively tie any particular home run to Bonds’ (alleged) use of steroids,
it’s not a difficult proposition to say that the frequency of his dingers is
directly related to his (alleged) use of steroids.
The same is true for the seemingly anomalous
weather events that we’ve seen in the past several years. While you can't
connect any particular weather event to global climate change, the pattern
suggests that the climate is being juiced.
If our federal government conducted hearings
to determine if steroid use was happening in baseball, which frankly has little
to no effect on the public well-being, why hasn't it convened hearings on the
juicing of our climate by human activity, which affects everyone on the planet?
This makes the work of the CCL all the more
prescient. Real people from all walks of life, standing up and saying, “Enough!
Supporting climate legislation will garner support in your district. Not doing
so means you will lose votes! Big fossil fuel money may fund campaigns, but you
still need the votes to get into office.”
At the end of the day, climate change
— human influenced or not — is about all of the things
that the Environmental Protection Agency has been fighting for since Tricky
Dick Nixon, a Republican, signed the Clean Air and Water acts into law: clean
water, air and soil for all.
Thanks to the turnout for the CCL
conference, I left the District of Columbia on Wednesday with a faint glimmer
of hope that all is not lost. I’ll leave you with this:
When historical weather anomalies become the
norm, what do the anomalies look like?
I shudder to think.
Dave Fisher is the managing editor of ecoRI News. He has
a basement full of wide-brimmed hats and hand fans, just in case.