The Climate Debate

In the current climate debate, we have two vital initiatives right now in Washington State. Carbon Washington or I-732, which I have written about multiple times, and ST3 for Sound Transit are going to make our state a better place to live. Carbon Washington make our tax code a bell shaped curve as opposed to a simple regressive code, tax carbon, and fund the earning families income tax credit. These are all good things which we need to do right now. ST3 is going to fix the Greater Seattle mass transit mess which threatens our quality of life.

There are several arguments here which have been talked about and I see which are arguing against these propositions.

The first one are signs saying "No on ST3, fund education first". This is a red herring argument. It doesn't have anything to do with the content of ST3 and seeks to get people to vote against the progressive initiative we have right now and focus instead on another important issue. If there is an actual problem with ST3 then the opposition needs to state exactly what is wrong. There are major issues with ST3, primarily that the timeline for construction extends for 40 years. Most of the construction will be done within 20 years, but it still leaves some vital projects off for a long period of time. This however is not a valid reason to vote against ST3. It will set us in motion to get our mass transit funded and then in 3 years or so we can put forward another proposition to speed up the time frame. Voting against ST3 will not cause mass transit to move forward, but it will mean that we will get no additional progress until another proposition on the ballot. A net loss for climate activists.


The arguments against Carbon Washington on the other hand suffers from attacks which are both Red Herrings and Straw Men. The first common argument I see is they complain it is not funding our education. I lobbied for education in college and understand it is a vital issue. This however is a bill focused on three main issues, and three issues only. Inequality, the regressive nature of our tax code, and climate change. Education is not on the list. We need to fund our education system, and we do need to get additional funding for our state, but these are not what Carbon Washington does. Carbon Washington does about as much as one piece of legislation could possibly do and it does the three major issues through one major policy change, which is tax replacement with a more progressive tax than what we have.

The most common straw man argument against Carbon Washington I have heard from people who do not understand economics is that it will not reduce emissions. This is moose shit. Taxes reduce consumption of the good which is taxed, which is one of the most proven theories in all of economics. By taxing carbon it will increase the advantage of renewables making it so more people will move to renewable technology and consume less oil. This is one of the most widely agreed upon issues by economists around the world, and all of the evidence in the field points to this is true.



The other major argument against Carbon Washington is that it will hurt poor people. This is another big truck load of moose shit. When economists have graphed the impact of Carbon Washington on Washington State families vs. the current tax code we find the following results:


The graph speaks for itself. The opposition is lying.

This bill has shown very clearly that a lot of environmental organizations in Washington state are poorly run by people who do not understand climate science. Actual experts in related fields at universities across the state have endorsed I 732, while the people opposing it are not experts and do not do actual research to back up their claims. Their weak arguments only make me want I 732 to pass it even more to fight idiocracy as much as climate change. Good luck finding a professional with a degree in a related field who opposes Carbon Washington. This fight has turned into scientists vs. absolutists who have in their mind that there is only one way to fix a certain problem. Anyone who has ever studied economics knows that this is completely not true, and is what makes economics fun. There are multiple ways to fix economic problems, and often times the differences between solutions, such as carbon taxes vs cap and trade, comes down to small efficiency gains.

When it comes down to it, Carbon Washington is here now. People who only want other solutions have not filed their initiatives. Global warming is an imminent threat to humanity and we need to do what we can now. If there is an improvement to the carbon tax in the future (which will probably be a small technocratic tweak), a bill that funds our education, and possibly an income tax I will support that. Given how those are years away at a bare minimum we need to do what we can today. Not voting for Carbon Washington would have been like voting against gay marriage in 2012 because it didn't include hate crime legislation. Such actions are a fool's endeavor. Carbon Washington is a net gain for working class families, and a net gain for our climate here in Washington State. ST3 is far from perfect but it is better than nothing.

This is why the only pro-climate action this election is to vote YES on 732 and YES on ST3.

Resources:
https://yeson732.org/faq/

Future of Flight

Flying is often seen by environmental activists as a major cause for Global Warming. Many environmentalists get anxious about flying because of the visibility of the greenhouse gases coming out of the plane, and also because it is not something most people do very often. This is why I believe we need to invest in renewable energy for flying to alleviate these fears.

First, some statistics:

The average distance of flights in the United States is currently about 1100 km (700 miles) or about the distance from New York to Chicago.

Out of the most traveled routes in the world, most of them are under 1000 km. The United States is the country with the most passenger miles with 798 million passenger miles flown in 2015. The majority of the passenger miles of these flights were located east of the Mississippi river, like most of the population. A flight with a range of 1000 km would cover most of these routes. A flight with a range of 2000 km would cover every east coast flight.

China has the second largest amount of passenger miles in the world. The Beijing-Shanghai route is the longest and would require a plane with a range of 1500 km to safely make it.  Beijing - Hong Kong is 2000 km which would be sufficient to cover almost every flight in China.

The United Kingdom and Germany are next on the list. 2000 km would be more than sufficient for the vast majority of flights flying from these countries to other European countries and themselves.

Japan’s flights are dominated between its major cities. 1060 km between Sapporo and Osaka is the longest distance between two major cities, so a 1200 km renewable energy airplane would cover almost every domestic flight in Japan.

Brazil’s flights are dominated in the southeast where most of its major cities are. A 2000 km distance would cover most Brazilian domestic routes.

In the United States, transportation was the second leading cause of greenhouse gas emissions (second to electricity generation) composing 26% of total greenhouse gas emissions. Transportation emissions are dominated by light duty passenger vehicles, generating 60% of transportation emissions for around 15% of total emissions. Aircraft generated 8% of transportation emissions, for a total of 2% of total US greenhouse gas emissions. While airplanes are incredibly visible, the biggest causes of emissions in the US are from our cars and electricity generation.

I believe we need to invest in renewable energy for flying, and this would make a proportionally small dent in our total carbon emissions. But stopping flying alone will not do enough. We need to divest from coal now, and invest in clean renewable energy for electricity generation to knock out over a third of America’s greenhouse gas emissions. This is the most effective use of our time, which is increasingly limited. We need to have the Federal government stop issuing permits for coal and gas powered power plants immediately and invest heavily into solarizing every other roof in the United States. We need to build geothermal plants and nuclear across the country to reduce our carbon footprint.

We need to invest in fuel cell and electric cars immediately to eliminate another 26% of our greenhouse gas emissions and build the infrastructure we need to develop this technology as soon as possible. We need to push and make it so that there is a date by which we will ban the sale of gasoline in the United States as soon as we feasibly can. Combined between these two tactics will eliminate over 50% of America’s greenhouse gas emissions. Another 21% can be eliminated by focusing on American industry and reducing the emissions from our factories. Using renewable energy to power our factories instead of the way we do it today. This three pronged approach will eliminate 78% of America’s greenhouse gas emissions as opposed to 2% by not flying.

We don't have a choice if we are serious about combating Global Warming. We must divest from coal now.

References:

http://www.amadeus.com/web/amadeus/en_1A-corporate/Amadeus-Home/Newsroom/Archive/2013_04_17_300-world-super-routes-attract/1319658626891-Page-AMAD_DetailPpal?assetid=1319526516400&assettype=PressRelease_C

http://www.rita.dot.gov/bts/sites/rita.dot.gov.bts/files/publications/multimodal_transportation_indicators/july_2004/html/domestic_flight_availability_and_distance.html

https://nepis.epa.gov/Exe/ZyPDF.cgi?Dockey=P100ONBL.pdf

Global Warning of Global Warming

http://www.npr.org/2012/07/25/157382548/greenland-ice-sheet-melts-at-abnormal-blazing-speed

News has come out today that Greenland is seeing its ice melt at an unprecedented and alarming speed right now. The ice is getting thinner, and the only place it can go is the ocean. We need to start moving off of fossil fuels as a planet right now and we have no time to spare. It is time to start listening to scientists. I am currently working on my associates on my way to getting my Doctorate in Microbiology and have colleagues at my college who work in environmental science, so while I am not an expert par se I do know a lot about the issue and find it to be as critical as the antibiotic resistance crisis, my calling. The webpage I manage is http://blogs.evergreen.edu/phage and I will start running experiments in a few years.

We need to transition to a hydrogen economy as fast as we can. We need government action to create massive incentives in the private sector to produce enough hydrogen to quickly convert the American transportation infrastructure to a hydrogen economy. It is renewable, non-polluting, competitive, less expensive, and the best option for the United States of America. It also works and is currently being implemented in Iceland. Learn more: http://newenergy.is/newenergy/en/

Now, there is another aspect to this story. It is true that ice cores have shown that once every 150 years Greenland has a mass freak melt, but the difference now is that it is coupled with the global warming and higher CO2 emissions so it will be a few years at this point until we know if this is part of the pattern or something more. This is not just my opinion, Lora Koening a Goddard geologist agrees with me. http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/features/greenland-melt.html


The United States can do this. We must do this. Our government must convene an emergency session of the Organization of American States to discuss this issue and start shifting as a continent. President Obama also needs to make it clear to the other nations that the relationship that we are going to have with the other nations, especially Canada, who has a higher GDP per capita and a much lower HDI, and Mexico, Brazil, Chile, and Argentina who have an increasing amount of wealth that we want to work with them as partners and not as we have in the past. He can do this. He must do this. He needs to work with them to formulate a treaty that we will make a continental effort to shift to hydrogen. By doing this we will solve two issues, the issue of our money being sent to the hands of the very few, and the environmental crisis which is so apparent today.

Do it for my generation please!