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Gore's Energy Proposal: The Apotheosis of Political Arrogance
[Note: I publish this with fear and trepidation. I am not now nor have I ever been a troll or a Republican. If you look at my Blogs here at TPM you will see that. I do not use a thesaurus, so please don't condemn me for using that A-word in the title---I just thought it fit. I would write a similar post if some self-important, pompous right winger proposed a similarly expensive right wing project. Finally, I am fully aware that Bush was born with the same silver spoon as Gore.]
Albert Gore, the Nobel Prize winning climatologist---oh wait! he's got zero training in climatology.
Albert Gore, the Nobel Prize winning meteorologist---oh wait, he's got zero training in meteorology.
Albert Gore, the Nobel Prize winning astrophysicist---oh wait, he's got no training in astrophysics either.
Albert Gore, the born-with-a-silver-spoon-in-his-mouth son of a US Senator has raised the upper limits of audacity and hubris to hitherto unseen heights by calling for a mandated program that would cost the American taxpayers and private investors the tidy sum--even by today's standards--of $1.5 trillion based on a hypothesis he, Mr. Science, believes to be true: Global Warming.
The program would convert the US from a carbon-based fuel economy to a non-carbon-based one, by employing solar, windmill and other non-carbon energy technologies.
The sheer arrogance of a single individual, any individual, proposing a program, any program, that requires the commitment of $1.5 trillion is exceeded only by the financial (and scientific) ignorance that such a proposal evinces.
For instance, what if the price of a barrel of oil were to fall to $80 or $60 or $40 during the life of this program? What then?
For instance, since the prediction even of the next day's weather is such an enormous and complicated mathematical task that the National Weather Service (NWS)_ has the largest collection of Super Computers in the world, more the Pentagon, more than NASA, and the NWS still cannot guarantee with absolute certainty that tomorrow's weather will be so and so; how can a coherent persuasive argument be mustered for such an expenditure based on data whose interpretation may prove erroneous?
And finally, how can a person--Albert Gore, not Albert Einstein--possibly understand any of the physics and mathematics that underlie the prediction of weather and climate changes? I can answer that one for you: He can't. If he were shown the equations, his eyes would glaze over. Without understanding those equations, his guess on the future of climate is no better than yours or mine.
But he relies on "experts," you may say. Yes, that's true. But there is not unanimity on the part of experts, though there may or may not be a general consensus that supports Gore's position.
"A General Consensus" is insufficient grounds to suggest, let alone adopt, a project of this magnitude with taxpayer funds. If the private sector--of which Gore is a part--likes the idea, they are more than welcome to raise the funds and go for it. Otherwise, both Presidential candidates should immediately announce that they have no intention of seizing roughly 12.5% of the nation's GDP based on Senor Gore's beliefs.
The USGovt should never undertake any project of this magnitude, period!
Comments (18)
I'll direct you to this post where we're also discussing this. I will say that, although an amateur, Al Gore has been pursuing this since at least 1976. He's hardly a Johhny-come-lately.
I'm no climatologist either, but I've also been interested in the field for a while. (I do have an MS in physics, so I understand much of the basic science behind it.) Check out what real climatologists over at RealClimate have to say. It's odd when one non-climatologist says that another non-climatologist doesn't know what he's saying about climatology.
What if peace were suddenly to break out across the world? Wouldn't the trillions and trillions of dollars we've spent on weapons programs have been wasted?
July 17, 2008 10:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ben,
1. I never said Gore doesn't have the ability to know whether he is right or wrong on this issue; same with me. That being the case, one doesn't garb $1.5 trillion of other people's money on the chance that Gore may be correct.
2. Your point on peace breaking and oil prices falling are hardly analogous, as even the past several days trading of oil futures shows, prices falling 16% in 3 days of trading.
(As you have knowledge of physics, I have knowledge of trading markets, and remember well what went on in California during the Enron-manipulated electricity "crisis." The State, in panic-mode because of ever-increasing electricity prices, wound up signing long-term contracts at prices that dropped like rocks after Enron was brought to justice. Then too, it seemed electricity was "scarce" and was only going to go up radically in price. That did not happen, quite the contrary, in fact, did.)
3. Science stops being for amateurs when the amateur asks for $1.5 trillion of other people's money.
4. I am somewhat familiar with the non-mathematical debate going on among climatologists; that such debate continues, beyond the one website you cite, is grounds, in and of itself, for the summary rejection of this outrageous Big Brother money grab by what is essentially a special interest group.
July 17, 2008 10:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
Correction:
Point 1 should read:
I only said....
July 17, 2008 10:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
He's only asking for the money. He's not making the decision unilaterally. He has good reasons for making his proposal, but it'll be up to others (including economics, where I am quite ignorant) to decide if the reasons are good enough.
July 17, 2008 11:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Note: I publish this with fear and trepidation"
Now this *did* make me laugh.
I hadn't realised you were so vulnerable to the wrath of bloggers, FB
July 17, 2008 11:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
You have got to be kidding me. Maybe its a big scary sounding number to you, but, when I saw the 1.5 trillion over thirty years figure, my response was "is that all?" Why? Because I can do math.
1.5 trillion over thirty years is only 50 billion dollars a year. We've been spending twice that a year on the Iraq war.
Given the amount of investment capital we sink into energy production facilities every year, fifty billion is chump change. And you're not talking all government dollars--most of that would be private investment, money that would otherwise have gone into new coal fired plants and new oil rigs and LNG storage facilities and the like.
Jesus, T.Boone Pickens reached into his own pocket and pulled out ten billion that he dropped on a wind farm operation in Texas that he'll be bringing online in 2011.
Our GNP in '06 alone was over 13 trillion dollars. Fifty billion is three tenths of one percent of that. Three tenths of one percent of GNP to get us off fossil fuels--along with all the associated economic benefits of jobs and manufacturing orders from building that infrastructure and seriously slashing the the five to seven hundred billion dollars a year we'll be spending on imported oil, and you rush on here calling Al Gore names and do the economic Chicken Little Dance?
Psssh. Next time, try looking up a few statistics and do a little simple division before you get your panties into a bunch on the Internet.
Psssh.
July 17, 2008 11:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Honestly, FB, I have no idea where to start on this. Let me just say this. there is not a single solitary expenditure made by the US or any level of government, which would pass your test of "unanimity." I say this without harshness, or trying to be abusive. Not any military spending, nor health, nor money for cities, or Seniors.
The whole global warming "debate" is deeply hung up on this red herring. But so much hype has been written about it that it's hard to sort out. The bottomlines for me? 1) The fundamental physics of adding more CO2 and methane and CFC's and such to any atmosphere are pretty damned solid. 2) The world's climate is changing (and YES, it has always changed) but overwhelmingly in one direction. 3) The scientists have had at this issue for 20 years. It's perhaps the single most complex, large-scale, scientific effort ever performed by humanity. and the overwhelming consensus is... it's happening.
Beyond that, I have no fear, at all, in how rapidly the new technologies are coming. No, maybe not 10 years. But very fast. Many are already here, already economic. $1.5 trillion? Is that net of what we'd have invested anyway? Is that assuming any further cost reductions from the learning curve? What oil & gas price projections are assumed? I'd have to hack through all that, as a starter, to decide on whether I put weight on that figure.
And even then, I couldn't be 100% sure.
July 17, 2008 11:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Nobody would really expects this to last. Climate issues aside, the future economy will belong to non-fossil fuel energy sources. This should be enough of a reason for people with your line of reasoning.
California-Enron was an economic phenomenon. Scarcity of electricity itself was not the issue. No science involved here.
July 17, 2008 11:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Dude, you are a Republican, no matter how many disclaimers you type in your diary claiming otherwise. Just read yourself.
And yes, there is scientific consensus on GW.
July 18, 2008 12:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
Let's go back to horses and burning wood for fuel. It worked in the 1790's.
July 18, 2008 1:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well said, sir. Indeed, we could back to burning horsechips for fuel, as they did when I was alive in Ireland and Scotland. Just the mention of it brings back a time and a place I thought I had forgotten forever. Nothing perfumes the morning air like a smoldering heap of dung!
July 18, 2008 8:30 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for all of your comments, honestly.
I posted this same blog on DailyKos and was summarily BANNED from the site, presumably for life.
I have decided that posting on sites that forthrightly indicate their ideological biases is not the way to go for me, although here at TPM the culture of tolerance for and debate with views the community disagrees with is light-years more advanced than what I encountered in a mere two post over as Kos.
Again, thanks very much for your intelligent comments, especially those that disagree--sometimes for very good reasons, for sure--with my opinions...and Goodbye.
I have decided to post only on my own blog henceforth: http://ProteanPerspectives.blogspot.com
FB
July 18, 2008 1:23 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for the kind words. But "tolerance" is overstating it. They like agreeing with people. We like making fun of people.
July 18, 2008 8:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
Don't go away mad.
The real application of an "ownership society" would entail individuals owning the means of production of energy, not just large companies in centralized locations pushing it down wires to consumers. Although some houses are poorly situated to generate power, the majority of houses and commercial buildings can do plenty, can use less, and can store enough to smooth the variations in sun and wind.
When we get to that point the price of oil won't matter, and we won't be in wars over it. With roughly 1,000 times the amount of currently used energy falling as sunlight there is room to maneuver.
July 18, 2008 9:45 AM | Reply | Permalink
The one thing conservatives who rail about global warming "alarmists" and recommend drill drill drill policies is this: there is a finite supply of fossil fuels, period. Ain't no way that is going to change, whether that means we only have 5, 50 or 500 years of oil left. Given that, why not invest in a huge and even expensive campaign to find a different way to produce energy, one that will outlast fossil fuels? The only answer conservatives give is it's "too expensive" and/or we don't have to worry about that, yet.
The only "arrogance" I see are conservatives who crap on people like Gore, who are at least trying to find solutions, while sticking to self-centered energy policies that blindly ignore the next generations. The world, and the future of the human race, is much bigger than you, your goddam SUV and your ridiculously overextended exurban lifestyle.
July 18, 2008 11:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
Fact - Oil and its brothers Natural Gas, Shale and Coal are limited Resource.
Fact - Drilling/Mining for these products is becoming increasingly harder and less advantageous for inhabitants for this earth to do.
Fact - as a limited resource gets used up the cost for that resource goes up in price.
Fact - The US uses more of this resource per capita than any other country. Per inhabitant it is a disgraceful use number.
Fact - Either Global Warming as a function of the earth is happening by our actions or by the actions of mother nature is indisputable.
Fact - Stealing from Steve above 50 billion a year is about just double the NASA budget per year. Any notion of the economic benefit to the American people of Nasa these days?
Now we can keep going on with obvious facts all we want. The answer is still the same. Whether its because of global warming or scarcity we need to ween ourselves off of carbon-hydrogen bonds and head in a different direction. Oh, we can do nothing and watch ourselves spend ourselves into oblivion. Its a choice. A dumb one but it is one. What I don't understand is the general publics emtional attachment to oil. Its irrational. Just get the job done is the key to having energy right? ..
July 18, 2008 12:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
@ FB
The problem is knowing how to spend the money wisely. David L. Goodstein, a Cal Tech physicist and something of a self-taught expert of energy, says that no known sources of energy can serve as a substitute for oil. How then can the government intelligently invest such a sum without wasting it?
Much better to support many small research projects which give creative entrepreneurs a chance to test their ideas, and to use the larger sums on well-understood conservation measures such as public transportation, redesigning cities to reduce the necessity of long commutes, population reduction, better insulation for buildings, etc.
July 18, 2008 2:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Funny to ask for a substitute, since the history of life and industry is one of using multiple, local sources of energy, not single sources.
But given the ratio of sun energy to human energy use (1,000:1) it's not easy to maintain that oil is irreplaceable. T Boone Pickens has a plan. The authors of "Solar Grand Plan" (Scientific American, January 2008) have a plan. Lots of plans. No magic bullets needed.
The American Solar Energy Society argues that there is enough home roof area in the US to completely replace our energy use with home solar. Add batteries and stir.
Research is not the issue, marketing is. Right now there are planned solar installations waiting to hear that incentives will be continued. These are necessary to help the market develop. They will not be necessary once the products are ubiquitous and reliable. That takes only building stuff and fixing what breaks.
And of course there is wind. And there are huge efficiency increases possible, such as secondary and tertiary boilers in smokestacks (WOWEnergy of Texas is selling these systems) that could potentially yield the equivalent of 200 nuclear power plants.
And there is methane from trash, and ethanol from sawdust or paper. Those are only engineering problems, too.
You are right we do not need a Manhattan Project, but we need tax incentives or loan guarantees, large government orders or other startup boosters to accelerate the process. Otherwise we are followers, not leaders. The costs discussed are usually referring to tax costs.
July 18, 2008 10:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
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