Remember when 'hummer' meant
something else?
Burn baby burn
Why the Right is way wrong on energy
September 24, 2005
All this time the Left has tried to convince America that driving SUVs is destroying the earth. How wrong we were—it turns out SUVs may have saved the planet from another ice age. And you thought all you got from your gas guzzler was a false sense of security!
MYTH: Americans should keep on guzzling their gasoline—it may even be helping the environment
“We are in an unusually long interglacial period right now, and another interesting but unresolved question is whether humans, without forethought, have inadvertently kept Earth out of the next ice age by altering its energy budget”…. The next time I see an SUV I am going to say a little prayer of thanks that we are not living in an ice age.
-- Adam Rickel, “Humans (and Their SUVs) Have Saved the Planet,” Human Events Online, 9/20/05
In the wake of Hurricane Katrina and the devastation that has followed, consumers are feeling the economic consequences of the disaster. Record gasoline prices are constantly in the headlines, which leaves many asking why prices are so high. While supply and demand are the primary determinants of gasoline prices, a significant portion of the price consumers pay at the pump can be attributed to gasoline taxes. In fact, the federal gas tax alone equals 18.4 cents for every gallon purchased.
The liberal establishment seized upon all these pessimistic data, hinting that an American Armageddon was just around the corner. China's oil consumption has doubled since 1995, India's is following the same path, and together they will soak up the world oil supply and limit our global imports. Jimmy Carter tells us drilling for more oil in Alaska would be too damaging to the environment; Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois insists that we must "stop using our SUVs and trucks and be more economical"; Joan Claybrook of the Naderite group Public Citizen says we need "adjustable price controls" on oil and "an excess profits tax retroactive to January 2005" on oil companies. The New York Times concludes we must reduce our "blatantly excessive demand" for oil. But America is neither doomed nor dumb when it comes to energy production….
Second, we need to drill for more oil in America. For starters, there are 10 billion barrels of recoverable oil in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, making ANWR the equivalent of an oil-exporting nation. Then there are the energy resources off America's coasts.
-- Pete Du Pont, “The Other Recovery,” Wall Street Journal, 9/20/05
REALITY
The Right has never fully comprehended the difference between renewable and non-renewable resources. Maybe that's because this difference involves science and facts. Oil is a non-renewable resource, which means when it is gone, it’s gone. No more. Done. Given this reality, it is mind-boggling that anyone would encourage Americans to keep driving their SUVs.
The world is getting close to reaching its oil production peak. One estimate has this happening in 2007. That means after 2007, the world will produce diminishing quantities of oil in each subsequent year. Some scientists actually believe the world may have already hit its oil production peak. Many individuals theorize that reaching the oil production peak will have dire consequences for the world and its industrial processes. This is only part of the story. A great article was written on this topic in June 2005 and which states:
The few Americans who are even aware that there is a gathering global-energy predicament usually misunderstand the core of the argument. That argument states that we don't have to run out of oil to start having severe problems with industrial civilization and its dependent systems. We only have to slip over the all-time production peak and begin a slide down the arc of steady depletion.
The term "global oil-production peak" means that a turning point will come when the world produces the most oil it will ever produce in a given year and, after that, yearly production will inexorably decline. It is usually represented graphically in a bell curve. The peak is the top of the curve, the halfway point of the world's all-time total endowment, meaning that less than half the world's oil will be left. That seems like a lot of oil, and it is, but there's a big catch: It's the half that is much more difficult to extract, far more costly to get, of much poorer quality and located mostly in places where the people hate us. A substantial amount of it will never be extracted. Add decreasing supply to ever increasing demand, and well, you get the picture.
More and better oil refineries will certainly help this growing problem in the short run, but this is type of short term thinking will necessarily have tragic consequences. If a large chunk of the oil is in fact unable to be extracted, more refineries will be of little help, especially as demand and dependency increase. Gee, wouldn't it make sense to use less oil, and develop other energy sources? You have to wonder about the conservative movement's atavistic vitriol towards conservation.
The other facet of this issue, of course, is the Right’s wrong thinking, complete ignorance, and utter denial about the world’s increasing global warming problem. Americans driving hulking SUVs are not making the Earth healthier. While it is not outside the realm of possibility that some of the warming that the earth is currently experiencing is perfectly natural and a part of the earth’s lifecycle, it is completely naïve to believe that our the use of carbon based fuels (gas-guzzling SUVs, coal-burning plants, and conservative blow-hards) are not speeding up the global warming process. A British scientist (as well as many other climatologists) stated just last week that the global warming may well have increased the severity of the hurricanes currently pounding the United States. The Bush administration should step alongside the rest of the world and recognize this as a real problem.
The Sierra Club’s website features a wealth of information about the existence and persistence of global warming. In particular they have a report on the effect that SUVs have on global warming. This report cites that “America's cars and light trucks alone produce nearly 20 percent of U.S. CO2 pollution.” As America’s cars get bigger and bigger, the amount of CO2 they produce also goes up. This means there is even more CO2 being spewed into the atmosphere, which will in turn increase the greenhouse effect and lead to even more global warming.
Even the Bush Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) admits that global warming is a very real and dangerous problem that the world must face and combat. The EPA states that going forward, the:
rising global temperatures are expected to raise sea level, and change precipitation and other local climate conditions. Changing regional climate could alter forests, crop yields, and water supplies. It could also affect human health, animals, and many types of ecosystems. Deserts may expand into existing rangelands, and features of some of our National Parks may be permanently altered.
If we are lucky, economic forces will help the United States cut its oil use in the long-term. We hope Americans will act like economically rational people. The average price for a gallon of gasoline has already surpassed $3. A simple supply and demand analysis will tell you that when the prices go up, the quantity demanded will fall. Or at least it should in the long-run, after people make automobile purchasing decisions with fuel efficiency in mind. The gasoline taxes also help to keep fuel consumption lower by increasing the sticker price of a gallon of gas, and therefore prompting people to buy less of it, while increasing the demand for alternatives. But we shouldn't be relying on luck on this. Here's what Thomas Friedman said on Meet the Press today about energy and a gas tax:
Mr. Friedman: I just want to say one thing in response to market forces--letting market forces send the signal for you to go buy a hybrid. When market--when you leave that to market forces, what you do basically is take all that money that we could be galvaniz--that we could be gathering with a gas tax, and you transfer it to Saudi Arabia. We are funding, Tim, both sides in the war on terrorism. And we had a gas tax on the morning of 9/12, 2001, a $1 a gallon gas tax--that money would have gone to our deficits, our schools, our budgets, our infrastructure. Instead it has gone to the infrastructure of Saudi Arabia, some of the worst regimes in the world, who are using that money to kill our soldiers on the ground. We are funding both sides in the war on terrorism. That's what happens when you leave it to the market.
Mr. Russert: Is there the political will for Democrats and Republicans to come together and try to wean ourselves off of foreign oil?
Mr. Friedman: Well, there should be. It's obviously the centerpiece of something that could solve many problems at once. It can deal with the climate change issue. It can deal with our status in the world. It can be an inspiration to get young people to go into math, science and engineering, which we're desperate to do. I'm not saying it's the cure-all of everything, but it can be the centerpiece of an administration which, clearly, to me, not only has no agenda going forward but no way to respond to the real problems facing this country today.
What would happen if the US actually instituted tougher greenhouse gas emission standards and a fossil fuel tax? In the short-term, automobile companies that depend on large gas-guzzling SUVs for the bulk of their profits (i.e. Ford Motor Company and General Motors) will probably continue to feel effects similar to those they are experiencing right now as a result of the rise in the price of oil. But in the long-run such companies should be able to adjust production and design in order to accommodate tougher emissions standards and greater fuel efficiency. Wouldn't that be nice? And maybe if a lightning bolt of rational thinking were to strike our country, we might build up our public transportation infrastructure.
The real concern should be what is going to happen in the long run. What happens if we continue the irresponsible energy policies that encourage people to burn energy like it is going out of style? Our most relied upon energy sources (i.e. oil) are diminishing in supply. If we stay on our drunken binge now, before we have taken steps to transition our economy and industries to non-petroleum based energy supplies, what happens when the world starts to run out of oil? Or the price of a barrel of oil skyrockets? What will happen to our economy then? Not to mention the catastrophic side effects, like global warming (external costs to you econ majors). If higher greenhouse emissions standards cause our use of oil to at least flatten, this will only help us going forward. And if the government takes an active role in promoting energy efficiency and the development of alternative energy sources now, our economic future will be much brighter. The longer we are able to enjoy relatively cheap oil, the worse off we are in the long run.
