Baby . . . It’s Warm Outside
The great and good are telling us, in stern tones, that the planet is warming up; that it’s our fault; and that the results will be catastrophic. Some of us skeptics think the projections may be overblown; that the computer models may contain some skewed assumptions; and that a lot of the hype is gorilla dust to obscure the real agenda — a command and control economy run by the great and good (today’s version of the vanguard of the proletariat).
For purposes of this thought experiment, let’s stipulate that the great and good are right. The earth has warmed up. Human actions have contributed to the problem. Something should be done. What should be done?
First, the marketing program needs to be improved. If you make Chicken Little predictions and the sky does not promptly fall, a credibility gap appears. Hurricanes were supposed to be more frequent and more destructive. That hasn’t happened. Say so. Labeling your critics ignorant rubes is not a strategy for winning hearts and minds. Every serious (and semi-serious) critic needs to be listened to and engaged in a logical, evidence based fashion if minds are too be changed. Naming and shaming heretics (deniers) is ineffective. Burning at the stake has been frowned on for several hundred years.
Second, those wishing major changes in life style need to understand that the politics of subtraction is a tough sell, especially if the sales people are comfortable and many of the prospects are struggling. Telling people to drive less, eat no meat and turn down the thermostat is not a compelling narrative. Lots of the world is working every day in order to afford a car, a steak and 72 degrees inside the house.
Most important, the vanguard need to admit that subtraction alone will not get the job done. Volcanoes will continue to erupt. World population is projected to top out at 9 billion. Each and every one of those human beings will exhale every few seconds. Cows will continue to fart. Lightening will continue to strike and forests will burn in the summer time. The vanguard will not be willing to sail to Europe and bike to Switzerland in order to attend the Davos confab.
So . . . let’s start a dialogue with something that is easily measurable. The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has recently passed 400 parts per million. Virtually everyone who got past a grammar school science class could be brought around to an understanding of the validity of that scientific fact. We are informed that we should be in the 250–300 range. Any less than that and we start looking at an ice age (a condition that characterized most of the history of the planet).
Technology currently exists to suck carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. Lots of abandoned mines are available where it could be buried and encapsulated. Let’s set up a bounty with three prizes — say $10 billion, $5 billion and $3 billion — for prototype systems to extract carbon from the atmosphere. Once the three winners were picked, demonstration projects could be set up next to abandoned mines to see if the prototypes could be scaled up successfully. At that point, it would be possible to set up a price per ton for successful carbon extraction. Have the taxpayers pay that price to anybody willing to produce the result. Add a surcharge to the gas tax and utility bills to cover the cost. Anybody able to significantly improve the process or come up with a better method should be allowed to reap the windfall for a few years.
The result would be a grand scientific experiment. If the temperature decreased in lock step with the reduction of carbon concentration, the great and good would be conclusively vindicated. If it didn’t, a new thought process would be in order.
In the next edition, I’ll talk about the irrationality of our current approach to clean energy and propose a logical alternative.
