Question Earthority!

In writing polemic, two usually reliable rules of thumb are to focus on cui bono? (”who benefits?”) and to “follow the money” to divine the true motives of actors on the political stage. The lessons of the last few years — the Iraq contracting scandals, the collapse of Jack Abramoff’s lobbying empire, etc. — have reinforced those rules.

Rules of thumb, however, are just that: “rude processes or operations” (per Webster’s 1913) that can usually be relied upon to get one into the right ballpark … but not necessarily to help one connect swinging bat to flying ball. Cui bono/”follow the money” reasoning can become dangerous when it leads one to jump to final conclusions without additional evidence.

Let’s talk about Howard Rich. But first, let’s get my own cui bono/”follow the money” problems out of the way.

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Last night, the lights came back on. After five days of blackout, my little piece of the St. Louis metro area got its power back.

I can’t say that the affair was a monstrous hardship: A couple of nights sleeping under the stars (we spent three nights out of town, not entirely due to the blackout) were actually very nice. On the other hand, it was a nasty job of fridge-cleaning since we couldn’t buy ice in time to save the contents, etc.

I may be an environmentalist, but I’m not a Luddite. I like being able to flip a switch and have a light come on. I like being able to control the temperature inside my dwelling. I think that most people do. The runs on stores in areas with power demonstrated that to my satisfaction. People will have their “conveniences” (read: modern lifestyle basics); our version of “roughing” it is doing without air conditioning for a few days.

So, let’s keep this in mind: Dick Cheney probably wasn’t quite as pompous as some thought in claiming that “the western lifestyle is not negotiable.” Significantly reduced energy consumption is probably not in the cards, which means that environmental gains are going to have to come from cleaner energy production.

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In QE’s news section, I’ve tried to include the latest “space news.” I thought the reasons for doing so were obvious, but on reflection, they probably require some explanation. Fortunately, Stephen Hawking came to my proximate rescue last month when he noted that getting humanity off this rock is probably a good idea … just in case.

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I should probably start this column off with the nth disclosure that I am neither an economist nor a scientist, and the admission that there are limits to the applicability of “common sense” to economics and science. However, as a libertarian and an environmentalist, I have to address matters of economics and science, and common sense is the tool to which I have access for doing so.

In other words, take this with a grain of salt … I’m feeling my way along through corridors of both vocabulary and fact which aren’t always familiar territory, and the only consolation is that you are probably doing so as well.

So, let’s talk about markets, governments, externalities and pollution. I’m going to fudge on that last one and limit it to pollution putatively related to climate change.

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Ethanol has been the bastard child of fuels for a number of years — its production heavily subsidized and the product used as an oxygenator and/or “filler” for fossil fuels. But maybe, just maybe, ethanol is finally coming into its own.

As with biodiesel, I find ethanol attractive because it looks like it can be a sustainable/renewable replacement for imported fuels — and one that produces less in the way of greenhouse emissions. It seems like a no-brainer: Farmers get a new market for their crops, we get better fuel that’s less dependent on world politics in terms of supply.

Flies in the ointment? Sure. Read the rest of this entry »

Last time around, I posed some questions about the viability of biodiesel as an alternative to fossil fuels. Those particular questions were pointed at general possibilities, costs and opportunities. This week, I’d like to extend the questions in several directions. My topic: The net effects of “environmental action.”

As Henry Hazlitt points out in Economics in One Lesson, many economic fallacies are founded on ignorance (intentional or unintentional) of indirect effects: The effects we don’t see because we’re focused on the front-line, visible benefits. The same could be said of environmental fallacies, in spades.

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Biodiesel has been in its “more than experimental” stage for years, as anyone who’s seen the “Hempmobile” buzzing NORML and other marijuana and hemp legalization events can attest. Now it seems to be moving, ever so slowly, into the mainstream:

- In Los Angeles, an entrepeneur is renting cars that run on biodiesel.

- An Oregon scientist has developed a new “reactor” which produces the stuff more quickly than traditional processes.

- Daryl Hannah’s new eco-blog aims to make biodiesel, among other environmental topics, cool and sexy.

At some point, though, biodiesel proponents are going to have to answer a key question: Is biodiesel a viable replacement for petroleum? Read the rest of this entry »

I had a bad dream the other night.

Usually, I don’t remember my dreams — and usually when I do they were pleasant ones. This one was obviously memorable, if only in a blurry kind of way, and its theme was, as best I could tell, “environmental disaster.” I was wandering through cold unvegetated ruins, under a dark sky.

Granted, some of the material for that dream is already stored somewhere in my brain. I spent a couple of months in just such an environment, under just such a sky — a few miles from hundreds of burning oil wells in Kuwait in 1991. That’s a story from another time, though.

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The devil is always in the details.

I’m a market mechanism fan, of course, and I’ve been encouraged by the efforts of environmentalists to sell, rather than impose, their agenda. Voluntary “carbon offset” schemes, energy-saving household devices … it’s all good.

But how good is it?

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At the time I was transitioning into adulthood, “no nukes” was, if not the mainstream position, the common wisdom. Even those who didn’t necessarily buy into the most panicked claims of anti-nuclear activists viewed nuclear power with suspicion … and who could blame us?

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