RUN COAL

The title of this post is the license plate the author is sorely tempted to acquire for the Tesla Model S he has been driving for the last few years.The author of course realizes that in so posting, he’ll cause the hordes of Tesla-driving readers to snap up this plate in all states, thereby frustrating his plan. For that is indeed what his car runs on: coal delivered via high-voltage wires. So the environmental benefits of Teslas are probably non-existent or at least greatly exaggerated.

Moreover, Tesla and its founder Elon Musk have with some justice been criticized for pocketing large subsidies offered by the federal and state governments for electric vehicles. That criticism, while valid, is more properly directed at the politicians for instituting these subsidies, than at Musk for pocketing them.In so far as Musk lobbies for maintenance or extension of these subsidies, he of course bears some contributory guilt. If the government offered large amounts of free cash to the author, he would take it too; as he did, when taking the $7,500 tax credit for Tesla buyers.Some concern has been raised regarding the high cost of fixing dents and scratches on the Model S. That is true because the Model S is mostly made of aluminum, which while stronger and lighter than steel, is also more expensive and harder to repair. But that is a downside that the Model S shares with virtually all cars in its price range.

These points notwithstanding, the Tesla Model S is a very, very good car:More objection can be made to the noun than the adjective. Arguably a Tesla Model S is not so much a car, as a giant iPad that can take you places. This, some discussion elsewhere notwithstanding, is high praise.

Global Warming Addendum

One quick point, to add to my global warming summary from last month.

The constant references to CO₂ as "dirty" or a "pollutant" both in popular discourse and in recent Supreme Court decisions is unscientific and rather annoying. Carbon dioxide (a) has been ubiquitous in the atmosphere for as long as there has been organic life, (b) is absolutely essential for the continued existence of organic, including human, life, and (c) is utterly harmless to humans (and all other forms of life) at current concentrations (or any level of concentration contemplated even in the most apocalyptic scenarios).

If CO₂ is an atmospheric "pollutant," it is difficult to imagine what component of the atmosphere, including oxygen and water vapor, is not a "dirty" "pollutant."

Global Warming?

Ordinarily, I try to refrain from commenting on matters on which others far better qualified than I have already commented at greater length and with far greater authority. Hence, the low volume of this blog.

Environmental Liberaltarianism, Perhaps Not

Recently I had a novel experience: Actual hope that liberaltarianism might have positive future. Even more uncharacteristic than the emotion was its trigger, a perfectly sensible New York Times(!) article praising the success of the 1990 cap-and-trade acid rain program as a model for successful market-based environmentalism:

Most famously, a 1990 bill signed by the first President Bush forced coal plants to buy permits if they were going to emit the sulfur dioxide that caused acid rain. With the price of emissions suddenly higher, the plants looked for innovative ways to reduce pollution — and succeeded more rapidly and cheaply than experts had predicted.

This history is the basic argument for putting a price on carbon today, and the next several weeks are likely to determine whether that happens. The chances of Congress’s passing a permit — or cap-and-trade — system that applies to the whole economy are low. But it could still create a version that covered power plants, if not factories and transportation. That would be no small thing.

David Leonhardt, Saving Energy, and Its Cost, N.Y. Times (June 15, 2010). But the best part of the article was the following quote:

"Instead of leaving it up to the government to identify the solution and tell people what to do, you are leaving that decision to the people who know best," says Nathaniel Keohane of the Environmental Defense Fund. "A bureaucrat would never have enough information to do as good a job."

Id. If hard-core environmentalists at EDF can understand and unashamedly say this, there could be hope for cooperation and sensible policy. However, this week we are informed that:

The original U.S. cap-and-trade market, which succeeded in slashing the power-plant emissions that cause acid rain, is in disarray following the issuance of new federal pollution rules.

The collapse in the pioneering market where power producers trade permits that allow them to emit sulfur dioxide and other pollutants that cause acid rain comes as policy makers seek to establish a similar market to curb the emissions of carbon, a cause of climate change.

The acid-rain market has struggled for the past two years as utilities, states and investors waited for the Environmental Protection Agency to issue new rules. The rules, released last week, put tougher limits on emissions by power plants but rely less on trading. As a result, the allowances that utilities now trade to allow them to emit sulfur dioxide are expected to become worthless.

Mark Peters, Changes Choke Cap-and-Trade Market, Wall St. J. (July 12, 2010). (h/t Greg Mankiw). Apparently they were just kidding about seeking market-based solutions.

If thanks in part to the good-faith support of environmentally inclined libertarians—a small but not entirely uninfluential group— any form of carbon cap-and-trade or Pigouvian carbon tax is enacted, expect to see a Bobby-Bird style command-and-control regime to be imposed on every activity generating CO₂, one of the most common substances on earth, within 15 years.

Al Gore's Revealed Beliefs

It is reported that former Vice President Al Gore just purchased a villa in Montecito, California for $8.875 million. The exact address is not revealed, but Montecito is a relatively narrow strip bordering the Pacific Ocean. So its minimum elevation above sea level is 0 feet, while its overall elevation is variously reported at 50ft and 180ft.

At the same time, Mr. Gore prominently sponsors a campaign and award-winning movie that warns that, due to Global Warming, we can expect to see nearby ocean-front locations, such as San Francisco, largely under water. The elevation of San Francisco is variously reported at 52ft up to high of 925ft.

There being very little reason to suppose that the Pacific Ocean would (or could) rise much less in Montecito than in San Francisco, it follows that Mr. Gore just paid nearly $9 million for property, which according to his professed beliefs, will likely soon be literally under water and hence worthless both as a residence and for resale.

The possible explanations for such behavior are few. One is that Mr. Gore willingly invests millions of his own dollars in property he soon believes to be worthless. That seems very difficult to reconcile with Mr. Gore's past history as it would require a degree of either extreme stupidity, eccentricity, or clinical mental defect inconsistent with that history, even under the most cynical realistic assumptions about the relationship between worldly success and mental aptitude.

In fact, the only explanation I can think of is that Mr. Gore is a self-conscious, witting liar who does not actually believe his predictions of doom, but nevertheless cynical peddles them for pecuniary or psychic gain. In short, it appears that Mr. Gore is a fraud, not in the sense all of us like to accuse our political enemies to be, but in the most dispassionate, common-sense meaning of the term.

Please note that this is far stronger evidence of Mr. Gore's lack of sincerity than his willingness to engage in a very carbon-intensive life-style of multiple mansions, private jets, and the like. It is perfectly possible to sincerely believe in Global Warming and yet conclude that one's own personal contributions are so small compared to the size of the problem that one nonetheless indulges in the comforts one finds so dear. That is not admirable. But it is a common human failing and can be logically consistent with a sincere belief in the problem.

However, it is impossible for a rational person to both believe in imminent rise of sea levels and purchase ocean-front property with their own money, as Mr. Gore has just done.