Nobody emerges looking good in Hot Politics, a PBS Frontline documentary on the politics of the first Bush, Clinton and second Bush administrations. It aired last night, but the whole thing is available online. Not a lot we didn't already know, but it's sobering to be reminded that the inertia that has prevented serious action on global warming long predates the current federal government. For example...
A lot of us had forgotten how poorly the Clinton Administration scored on the environmental front. Clinton and VP Al Gore (there he is again), started off gangbusters with a radical proposal for a BTU (heat energy content) tax, which would have made inefficient ways of powering the nation more expensive, and cost a typical $40,000/year family just $17/month. But the opposition was fierce and in the end Bill and Al abandoned the idea, just like they would later withdraw ratification of the Kyoto Protocol before it hit the heavily opposed Senate.
I, for one, had also forgotten that W actually promised during his 2000 campaign to introduce mandatory fossil-fuel emission cuts, in a clever attempt to out-green Gore. There's a nice clip featuring W's first EPA administrator, Christine Todd Whitman, admit that her bosses effectively "flipped the bird" at the rest of the world, when they broke that very pledge. A little bitter are we?
The Frontline reporter, NPR's Deborah Amos, held an online Q&A session at the Washington Post this morning. Not too much of note there either, but the questions are always enlightening, in terms of just what it is that still confuses people out there. Amos made at least one important observation:
...we have some serious thinking to do on the issue of "lifestyle" - for example, many Americans commute to work. They could do more to reduce a carbon footprint by eliminating the commute rather than refitting the light bulbs. We don't have to sit in the dark to address the problem, but we do have to rethink "lifestyle" choices.
This is noteworthy in light of (ahem) the current fuss over Canadian, Australian and Californian plans to phase out inefficient incandescent bulbs in favor of compact fluorescents. As Fred Pearce wrote in New Scientist a month ago, you'd have to replace a couple of hundred old-fashioned bulbs with CFLs every year to offset a typical westerner's carbon footprint. Not that anyone's expecting you to do that. The point is that, despite the enormous energy and financial savings that CFLs represent, there are much bigger carbon guzzlers out there, and governments are still loathe to tackle them. Nobody likes a new tax.
Which, I suppose, explains how three successive White House administrations could have passed on an opportunity to actually save the world. And why it's even more important that the next president show some guts.
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Agressive emmisions reduction plans call for a 2% per annum reduction. Our emissions are currently increasing at 1%, so we need a delta (change of rate) of 3%/year. CFLs replacing incandescents would give us roughly two years worth of progress. Useful, especially considering the fact that it actually saves money. If we can defer new power plant construction for a few years, then if by then we have either decent alternative energy choices, or requirements for Carbon Capture and Storage, then we have avoided building carbon intensive infrastructure that will continue to emit for decades -a few percent savings in the short term could have a disproportionate effect on CO2 levels fifty years from now.
I understood that home lighting is about 25 percent of home energy use. CFLs are 4 to 5 times as efficient (use 20 to 25 percent of the energy that incandescant lights use). Using the lower numbers, some 18.75 percent of home energy could be saved.
How is that equal to six percent? Or are we talking about six percent of total consumption - including transport and business?
In Michigan, we have highways with 70 MPH limits. But a cut to 65 MPH saves something like 10 percent of fuel. A cut to 60 MPH saves something like 15 percent. I drive at 63 MPH, since i can do that without changing speed all the time as i go through Detroit, etc., and it feels safe enough. A national 60 MPH speed limit would save alot, and instantly. Trucks are already supposed to go slower.
Canada and Australia have been slow to enact any binding climate or emissions reduction legislation. The bulb ban may be small potatoes compared to automotive fuel efficiency or vehicle miles, but it is a start for two jurisdictions with rapidly rising emissions. To use a baseball analogy, maybe we need to manufacture a run, get on the scoreboard, before swinging for the fences.