Gernot Wagner's Blog, page 19

I remember reading my a/c thermostat should be set to 60

ConEd is asking New Yorkers not to buy its products. That's not because they found religion; it's because they have found regulators that understand the value of conserving electricity.

So far so good. But here's how they try to get the message across:

It's hard to take the train in New York without encountering a pop quiz about energy usage.

The trouble with this sort of public advertising campaign? Presenting myths and facts often sows more confusion than it dispels. In one infamous study, social psychologist Norbert Schwarz found that it only takes three days for a third of study participants to confuse myths and facts. "Didn't I read somewhere that my dishwasher gets more efficient the more often I run it?" And 78 degrees sounds awfully high when my other options go from 60 to 80.

Keep it simple.

"Do not hold doors" may not be something every subway rider heeds, but at least it doesn't say: "Myth: Holding subway doors cannot lead to bodily harm."

Over 80% of Americans say the planet is warming

That's up from 75% last year. You can thank record heat and freak weather events this summer.

The bad news? Less than 30% of Americans say humans are responsible. Hold your thanks on that one.

Picking winners is hard

Cutting ribbons has its appeals. It also has its pitfalls.

The sorry case of thin-film solar manufacturer Solyndra going bankrupt despite receiving a half-billion dollar loan guarantee from the government is about as unfortunate as it gets.

One Mr. Jon Stewart, slightly sanitized:

Solyndra's failure doesn't discredit the entire idea of a green energy economy, but:

If you spoke about the growing importance of air travel in front of the Hindenburg, you'd be right about the future of air travel, but you'd still be on fire.

Ironically, this mess is also a sign of a relatively strong solar industry. Solyndra tried to compete against much cheaper photo-voltaic technologies and failed.

Equally ironic, despite Solyndra's failure, solar energy in California represents one of the best case studies to show how government subsidies can play an enormously positive role.

We are dealing with two fundamental problems: too much of a bad thing (pollution), and too little of a good thing (innovation). To get rid of the bad, have everyone pay the full socialized cost of the damage. To encourage the good, subsidize it.

The California Solar Initiative subsidizes the deployment of solar panels on people's roofs. It's not often that a team of academics looks at a government policy and concludes: "nailed it" (or whatever words academics would typically use in that case in a peer-reviewed journal).

Does Europe have strong environmental policies because every European recycles?

Or does every European recycle because Europe has strong environmental policies?

It's the chicken-and-egg question that determines much of what we do, and the answer is a bit of both.

Danes bike not because Copenhagen is such a pleasant place to bike in winter. They bike because biking is cheap: lots of flat bike paths and designated bike lanes; convenient places to safely lock your bike; everyone else does it (the chance of ridicule is low).

Why is biking so cheap? In part, surely, because Danes want it that way. A handful of bikers demanded more bike paths, which in turn cleared the way for more bikers. Enlightened leadership also played an important role. Those leaders nudged Danes along to achieve more rapid change. (Mayor Bloomberg is doing just that now by multiplying the number of bike paths in New York City.)

The link between bikers and bike paths, of course, is an easy one because there is a direct link.

The link between national climate policy and individual behavioral change is not as clearly defined. Few Europeans even know that there is such a thing as a cap-and-trade system guiding their daily behavior and starting to decrease emissions along the way.

24 hours of climate reality

Once in a while, it's good to have a reality check on where we are and where we need to get to. The Climate Reality Project is doing just that over the course of 24 hours with contributions from 24 time zones: climaterealityproject.org. And it's happening right now, September 14-15.

Tune in.

650 ppm isn't easier than 450 ppm

Global warming is largely a bathtub problem. It's not enough to slow the flow of emissions into the atmosphere. The level of pollution would still be rising. We need to stabilize and decrease carbon pollution already in the atmosphere. That requires much more radical steps than even the typical MIT graduate student realizes and poses some real challenges to climate straight talk.

It also leads to some highly uncomfortable conclusions: stabilizing emissions at 650 ppm, a level of concentration that approximates any climate scientist's nightmare scenario of doom and gloom, isn't any easier than 450 ppm, what many see as a reasonable target (albeit still one that likely means rising temperatures and sea levels for generations).

The reason is laid out clearly in the latest report on The Costs of Delay courtesy of the ClimateWorks Foundation, a $300 million venture with the goal of stabilizing concentrations in the atmosphere much closer to 450 ppm than the doomsday scenario of 650 ppm.

The reason is simple: Not just concentrations—the water levels in the bathtub—but also emissions—the flows into the tub—keep going up: The longer we delay, the more fossil-dependent infrastructure will be built in the meantime, and the greater the eventual adjustment necessary:

We can compare these effects to driving on an icy road. It's easier to slow to 20 miles per hour when you're motoring along at 40 mph than when you're doing 60. By the same token, if we wait to reduce emissions, it will be harder to achieve a 650-ppm equilibrium than if we start now and aim for 450 ppm.

This fundamental logic is at the heart of the bathtub analogy and perhaps the most important reason why global warming is one of the toughest problems to wrap our minds around.

I'll notice

If the planet doesn't notice, why do it?

Why buy local and organic, forgo meat, grow your veggies, walk to the farmer's market, bike to work, use compact fluorescents, take cold showers, insulate the home, drink tap water? Why do all the right things when it doesn't matter?

The running joke in our home by now is that whenever my wife or I does anything the other finds annoying, we turn to the stock phrase of: "Why bother? The planet doesn't notice."

The standard response: "I do."

It's true you won't save the planet by eating your locally grown veggies. There's a good reason to believe it may even be counterproductive: if it either causes a chain reaction of unfortunate events—like having the "local" farmer drive his beat-up pick-up to your closest green market from his farm across the state, instead of having a densely packed, relatively efficient 16-wheeler truck in the veggies from across the country—or if that one act of environmental kindness makes you sin in other areas, possibly increasing your total footprint.

But eating your local veggies also happens to be good for you personally. Both because the local heirloom tomato does taste better, and because it actually is better for you: more actual sun, more vitamins, fewer pesticides, more taste.

It also just feels a lot better, foraging for food on foot at the farmer's market rather than relying on pre-packaged, processed "food"-like products to stock your pantry. (Of course, that feeling goes both ways. Some happen to feel good about slicing their ripe summer tomatoes. Others prefer the appeal of 4-minute meals and the ding of the microwave.)

Most importantly, by doing all these good things, you are preparing yourself—and your children—for a future when many more of us will be doing these things—not because we suddenly all turned into environmentalists, but because positive policy change makes many more of these actions profitable for the rest of us.

Daily climate dread

Global warming deserves at least 45 seconds of "real, concentrated panic" a week:

Global warming must be met with immediate, short-lasting feelings of overwhelming dread, or else life as we know it will truly cease—oh, God, there's nothing we can do, is there? Maybe we're already too late. What am I supposed to do? Unplug my refrigerator? I recycle, I take shorter showers than I used to, doesn't that count for something? Devastating famines and brutal wars fought over dwindling resources? Is that my fault? Jesus, holy shit, someone do something! Tell me what to do! For the love of God, what can possibly be done?

There you have it. I've done my part. Now it's your turn.

(Thanks to Andy Revkin for the pointer.)

Deep down, The Onion, of course, knows that individual action won't make a noticeable difference.

Interdependence

Everything's connected. Buying oil at the local gas station funds extraction halfway around the world. Markets create even greater interconnections. Most physical units of oil sold in the United States come from Canada or Mexico. Still, supply disruptions in Libya raise prices in Ohio.

Talk of "energy independence" is pure folly. The only way to become truly independent from foreign oil is to become independent from oil. That's surely a worthwhile goal, but it's a different goal. Domestic drilling is suddenly out.

Oil (or fossil fuel) independence, of course, won't happen by tomorrow. In the meantime, we want greater interdependence: being connected in such a way that Brazilian ethanol can make up for a Libyan oil shortfall.

We are all in this together after all.

You had me at iPad

Yes, I would like to save some time, please.

I venture a wild guess that this ad works a lot better than asking people to sign up just to plant the $1 worth of tree. (Of course, it doesn't hurt that there's a significant overlap between the iPad-carrying and tree-planting subspecies of the typical Brooklynite.)

What the ad doesn't mention is how much money ConEd saves by not having to send out paper bills. But that's just as well. Even utilities are allowed to make a profit every now and then.