This article describes how liberals use their usual dirty tricks to distort President Bush's environmental record. www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commen...1,994903.story?coll=la-news-comments-opinions Just another example of the liberals and their cynical tactics of bashing Bush without taking facts into account.
Sigh...Gregg Easterbrook. He's an environmental writer who isn't so good on writing about, er, the environment. He's frequently wrong in his book reviews, too. I could go on but I'm too hungry to waste my time on him. This is his gig - to be the 'contrarian' environmentalist who tries to tell us that Bushies aren't really all that bad. And it's all total bullshit.
There people smarter than me who can rebut this better than I, but I think Easterbrook is usually partially on and partially full of it. I think his ESPN column has gone to his head lately (check out his horribly misconceived idea in his blog that saying "no" is not a valid defense for rape because men think no means yes). Most of the stuff he mentions are generally declining trends. If Bush slows those trends, he is hurting the environment. Saying that Bush isn't bad for the environment because things aren't getting worse is hardly a defense. People I know who study combustion believe that Bush's policies on diesel emissions and hydrogen fuel cells are not helpful, but just tactics to avoid the fact that he wont create emissions standards. From what I know, the carmakers are glad to make this tradeoff. He can have some credit for those policies, but any enthusiasm has to be mitigated by the fact that he wont create the policy that Easterbrook himself claims would be the most important. Suggesting that we should lavish Bush with environmental praise so that he'll want to make emissions standards strikes me, at best, as hopelessly naive. Do people overexaggerate potential environmental outcomes for general political gain? Duh, sure. Just like everything else. It's called politics. FWIW, Nixon is probably the most important environmental president of the last 50 years - although I'm not sure he knew what he was doing.
Really? I'm something of an expert on this topic. I'd like to know specifically who is doing unhelpful diesel engine research or hydrogen fuel cell research. Has anyone had their budget cut? Has any researcher had his program direction changed in the last four years?
I don't presume to speak for someone else, but I think the point is that when limited resources exist, dedicating them to far-away, uncertain solutions may not be as efficient as devoting them to short-term, measurable solutions. In other words, if a dollar is spent on hydrogen fuel cell research at the expense of a dollar spent improving fuel efficiency for current automobiles, is it a dollar well spent? Tough question to answer.
Lavish praise? That is not what Easterbrook is suggesting. But we could begin by losing the 'worst record in history' bullshit, which is obviously not true, as anyone can tell by visiting China, Russia, Ucraine or many other environmentally challenged countries. But what is important is that environmentailsts try to work together with business and consumers to reach realistic goals. Many well meaning environmentalists hurt their cause by tying their worthy cause to other more radical ideas like rampant anti-business legislation and anti-globalization and anti-free trade ideas. Doing this, they inevitably force business to dig in, and they make the average consumer view the environmentalist as a radical. Environmental issues should not be about political gain. They are too serious for all our future and we should not allow the extreme left to play political football with these issues. That is why I think the voices of Easterbrook and other environmentalist realists should be heard more. What I believe should happen is that we should remove politics from this issue. Right now there is too much lies and exagerations. Too many scientific studies are politicized. We should recruit the most respected scientists in the world to form a commision and tell us the basic ideas which they all believe about the environment. Not the 'sky is falling' version, and not the 'everything is fine' version, but the truth. Then they could give us some practical steps that we can take to make our world safer for us in the future. We then would have some legitimate environmental issues to work with, and we would be able to educate the consumer and work together with business interests to begin implementing the solutions in a practical way.
Okay good point. Now we get to the crux of the energy/enviromental issues. Is all the alternative fuels/energy work, real work or Washington's effort to show that it is "doing something".
I think that searching for alternative fuels has to be a priority. I don't think it should be an either/or issue. But I am not in favor of regulations as the way to force car companies to improve fuel efficiency. The best way to improve fuel efficiency is to stop playing politics and begin to educate the consumer on environmental issues. If the consumer signals with their buying patterns that they want fuel efficient cars, the automakers will comply without need for government incentives or regulations. As to the issue of whether the current efforts on alternative fuel are legitimate, I will defer to someone who knows more about the specifics of what is being done.
But the problem with not forcing Detroit to start making fuel efficient cars is several: 1) Who is going to pay for the massive education campaign that would have to go on in order to make consumers demand higher gas mileage vehicles? 2) Right now Americans are like a weight watchers group stuck in a McDonalds. They may know that deep down that it is not okay to drive a Ford Expedition to the grocery store but it just feels too damn good to stop doing it in the immediate future. Detroit and the lawmakers have to lead on this one. We cannot expect Americans to step up in mass and demand smaller, more efficient cars. The only way that it will happen is if gas goes up to $3.00 plus a gallon (different discussion). To my mind I really can't understand why a President who is so obsessed with fighting the war on terrorism does not see a direct link with our dependency on oil? If you really want to fight this war ratchet up Fuel efficiency rates, give huge tax breaks for purchasing Hybrids and investment billions in alternative energy. Suddenly our need for Saudi oil goes way down.
Bush wants credit for his environmental policy because we haven't had a Chernobyl yet? Fine. Bush's environmental looks good compared to his economic and foreign policies. There, how's that?
C'mon, Dan. Easterbrook's poilitics make you look like Henry Kissinger, and yet he seems to think there is too much criticism of Bush's environmental policies. I happen to think all presidents take too much heat for the environment.
Hey, the only thing Kissinger and I have in common is that we're both soccer fans. Oh, and we both bombed Cambodia.
ASF, Unfortunately, you always seem to ascribe noble motives to business and free markets, even when economists agree that there are times -- like in environmental policy-- where they are inherently inefficient. Automakers are not going to lead the charge on any environmental issue. They have a financial incentive to manipulate the market to favor their current models, whether by preventing regulations or as you say by preventing "educating the public". As a businessman, how would you respond to demand for a product different from the one you make if it would cost billions of dollars in costs to transform your business? Because you're a smart guy, we know the answer is you would try and convince people to buy the product you make so as to save yourself the billions in costs. That's not "evil." But it does mean it's naive to think that the free market will inevitably create the best result for the environment. The Tragedy of the Commons in fact guarantees the opposite result. Your faith is misplaced.
What you say is right, but my faith is not misplaced. I never ascribed noble motives to the automakers. However, I believe that ultimately demand drives supply and not the other way around. Ultimately the consumers are the ones who decide which cars will be made. We as business people can advertise and try to convince consumers to buy our products, but ultimately a business that succeeds is a business that gives its customers what they want. The environmentalist should strive to educate the consumer, instead of fighting business. Their efforts would be much better spent there, because business will inevitably follow consumer demand. (This is not because they are noble, but because it is the only way they will survive).
That's a pretty unrealistic suggestion, for three reasons. First, the resources available to environmentalists for education of the public can't even remotely compete with the advertising budgets of business. Second, even if they could, most issues which might involve government regulation are too complicated to effectively explain via 30-second advertising spots. Considering that a large percentage of the American public is unaware of even basic facts about the US government, it's extremely unrealistic to assume that consumers as a whole will ever have the necessary policy knowledge to make purchasing decisions that favor socially optimal outcomes. People are busy and distracted. We (I include myself in this category) don't have the time or motivation to educate ourselves in detail on the full social consequences of various consumer choices, especially since these issues are often very complex. Third, even if you could effectively educate consumers as a whole as to what socially optimal choices were, that still wouldn't guarantee that individual consumers would base their decisions on what's best for society at large - because of collective action problems. Briefly, suppose that I become convinced that society in general will be eventually be much better off if everyone spends an extra $1000 to buy a car that's environmentally friendly. Even so, there's still a good chance that I'm not going to choose to spend the extra money - since I know that my individual choice will make virtually no difference for the environment as a whole, and that any actual environmental benefits will require full cooperation by the rest of society. By spending the extra money, I'm just volunteering to be screwed relative to the people who go for the cheaper alternative. And, it's logical for me to assume that everyone else will follow the same reasoning as me, and also be reluctant to pay more for an environmentally friendly car. So, even if consumers knew exactly what the socially responsible choices were, there's a strong possibility that they wouldn't opt for them unless doing so involved little or no perceived cost to themselves. In fact, environmental groups do spend resources trying to educate the public, as part of their mission - but I think simple reasoning shows why that alone is most often unlikely to be sufficient, in the absence of government action of some kind.