Published in Environment

In public policy, the trick is to mix intelligence with money; a higher ratio of intelligence is usually efficient and preferable, but all too often the entire apparatus comes to a halt when the mixture is too lean in money.  The real challenge now is to improve our understanding of policy enough to sustain a higher ratio of intelligence to money.

It seems that every time I check in to the Hyatt Embarcadero to visit my peeps at Pacific Research Institute there is some kind of environmental conference going on. Thursday this past week was no exception: there in the lobby were two young ladies dressed up as "orange roughies," a colorful Pacific ocean species that is, as you might guess, bright orange. I've seen lots of them scuba diving in California waters over the years. Lo and behold, yesterday morning the two orange roughie gals turned up in the San Francisco Chronicle's news story about the release of a new "interim" report from the Obama Administration's Interagency Ocean Policy Task Force.

The news story, and the underlying report, are an excellent case study in the weary, used-up character of contemporary environmentalism, and a good indicator of why the public is increasingly bored with environmental issues according to the polls. The head of NOAA, Jane Lubchenco, said, "Today is a historic day for our oceans." Really? All because the government put out another report? That must be some kind of powerful report.   Maybe it has magic spells?

No; rather it contains the usual administrative-state cliches. "The draft report," says the Chron story, "recommended several broad strategies, including improving coordination among local, state, and federal agencies." [Smacking forehead now] Why hasn't anyone thought of that before? Or this: "Boosting water ocean water quality through more sustainable land practices." Genius! The Obama Task Force will now take the report on the road on a "multi-city tour" around America, after which no doubt there will be released a final report to replace this interim one.

This is typical of modern government groupies, thinking their banal cliches represent original thinking because their sentiments are so pure. Lubchenco added the usual coda of the anointed by saying, "For the first time our nation is saying loudly and clearly that healthy oceans matter." For. The. First. Time. Really??

No one seems to recall that the Bush Administration had its own Commission on Ocean Policy (actually set in motion by Congress in legislation passed in the year 2000) that held extensive hearings around the U.S. and issued its own very detailed 522 page report (not counting the appendices) in 2004 entitled An Ocean Blueprint for the 21st Century, containing hundreds of specific policy recommendations, including, naturally, "better coordination" between government agencies. I wonder how many of these were followed up? I'm sure there have been lots of great interagency meetings in Washington. Wouldn't you think we might build on this first before reinventing the wheel? Why have all those "coordination" meetings all over again?

This new effort also shows what cheap dates environmentalists have become. Even though the new Obama effort is still in the "interim" stage, and none of the miracle "coordination" has happened yet, the Chron reports that "Environmental groups, many of which have long fought for a national ocean policy, were thrilled at the administration's quick progress." Yup, a few more reports and no doubt the planet will be transformed back into Eden. And the orange roughie gals can recycle their costumes for San Francisco's Halloween parade.

The Washington Post asked me and my climate studies partner Ken Green for a brief comment on the prospects for cap and trade in the Senate. Here's our answer. We didn't have enough space to propose the obvious solution: combine cap and trade with the health care bill!!

Since health care reform will require rationing, why not give out carbon and health care allowances to everyone, and then let us start trading amongst ourselves. I'll trade a colonoscopy for a month of driving Schramm's Hummer, for example. (Schramm doesn't have to have the colonoscopy; he can trade it for some high-emitting cigars.) Why this hasn't occurred to the same geniuses that gave us cash for clunkers is beyond me.

I'm watching with amazement as the House gets ready to ram through the Waxman-Markey climate change bill that not a single member has likely read all the way through, let alone understands. I spent much of last week and early this week reading through the second iteration of the bill, the mere 946 page version (up from the original 650 page first draft). Then early this week the bill grew to 1,201 pages, and as of this morning, no one knows how long it is. That's because Henry Waxman dropped in a 309 page amendment this morning at about 3 am, and there is confusion as to whether it is substitute language for the existing bill, or 309 additional new pages. (It is apparently the latter, but it is hard to tell.) But why let that hold up a vote?

I'll have a paper out next week analyzing the most salient aspects of Waxman-Markey before it heads off to the Senate (I assume it will pass the House by brute force of the Democratic leadership), but my short summary is thus: It is the energy and climate policy equivalent of Sarbanes-Oxley financial regulation, guaranteeing extensive new bureaucracy and substantial economic cost to the productive economy while achieving few of its stated objectives. Just as Sarbanes-Oxley did little or nothing to expose and prevent the excessive risk and inflated asset values of the housing and financial sector, Waxman-Markey will do little to achieve genuine greenhouse gas emission reductions and curb the risks of global warming. The "cap and trade" system at the heart of the bill is riddled with so many loopholes that it should be considered more of a "hairnet and giveaway."

Stay tuned; this one will be a case study for decades to come if it actually passes the Senate and gets signed into law.

But what may be most troubling, perhaps, to a good number of our readers is a trend developing in Merry Olde England. There, Britons are counseled by the the chief executive of the Committee on Climate Change, David Kennedy, that they need to change their diets in order to effectively combat carbon emissions. This is not, as you might suspect, an exhortation to eliminate the eating of beans so much as it is an effort to eliminate the production of foods and agricultural products that are deemed to produce too many greenhouse gases. Sheep are one of the culprits (along with cows) . . . but beware. Beer and Whiskey are also in the mix. Ben wonders whether there will also be a coming Whiskey Rebellion . . . If so, I think Washington would support this one!

This may be my favorite tidbit from this year's edition:

Elizabeth Rosenthal reported in the New York Times of a recent estimate from the Smithsonian Institution research in Central America suggesting that "for every acre of rain forest cut down each year, more than 50 acres of new forest are growing in the tropics on land that was once farmed, logged or ravaged by natural disaster. . . The new forests, the scientists argue, could blunt the effects of rain forest destruction by absorbing carbon dioxide, the leading heat-trapping gas linked to global warming, one crucial role that rain forests play. They could also, to a lesser extent, provide habitat for endangered species." The next sentence, however, has a drearily predictable beginning: "The idea has stirred outrage among environmentalists," not because it might be untrue, but because it might blunt support for "vigorous efforts to protect native rain forests."

Imagine that: Environmentalists outraged by potentially good news.

Stay tuned to this space: Late today I'm scheduled to testify to the House Energy and Commerce Committee's marathon hearings that I'm calling "climatepalooza."

So I'm back from Germany, having spent a useful week touring alternative energy projects (including the fusion reactor project of the Max Planck Institute, still decades away from working as hoped), and talking with various German officials and unofficials about climate and energy policy. Everyone is Obama-crazy in Germany, naturally; every shopkeeper, beer-hoister, and pretzel-monger wanted to give a shout out to the New Messiah.

Had one good meeting with a provincial environment minister--a very impressive young lady who should go far in German national politics if she wants to, in the CDU (the right-leaning party, such as it is there). After having my fill of nothing but climate issues, I decided to ask, since her department dealt with the environment as a whole and not just climate, what other environmental issues in Germany she thought were important.

"Well, we are doing a lot of work on flooding--flooding brought on by climate change." So you really can't change the subject after all.

Me: "What else? Forests? Toxic waste? Traditional air pollution?"

The minister: "Noise pollution. About 50 percent of our citizens say they are concerned about noise pollution." (And the other 50 percent are presumably listening to their iPods?--Ed. That's exactly what I said.)

Seems to me that when a rich country is worried about noise pollution, their major environmental problems are solved.

Yours truly appears this morning in the Wall Street Journal explaining why the candidates are full of hot air when it comes to fighting global warming. If you are a glutton for punishment, you can find a more complete analysis of the matter in my latest Index of Leading Environmental Indicators, just released last week in time for Earth Day.

Now back to our regularly scheduled Obamamania programming.

UPDATE: Oops--I see Joe beats me to it. I guess I have to get up earlier.

Triumph the Wonder Dog interviews four Republican congressmen about global warming. Must viewing for Earth Day!

Hat tip: The Corner.