From his Columbia University web site comes the latest manifesto from ex NASA scientist Dr. James Hansen, who calls for a “centrist” third political party. I’ve republished the manifesto below. h/t to Charles the moderator.
The American Party
James Hansen 29 May 2013
My remarks when receiving the Ridenhour Courage Award were written in Union Station on my way to the event. But my concluding comment — that we are near a point when the American people should contemplate a centrist third party — was not an idle spur-of-the-moment reflection.
I was in government 40 years, long enough to understand how aging organizations can evolve into self-licking ice cream cones, organizations whose main purpose becomes self-perpetuation rather than accomplishment of their supposed objectives. The public can see this tendency in our politicians, our Congress, and our major political parties.
Our government has failed to address climate, energy, and economic challenges. These challenges, addressed together, actually can be a great opportunity. Our democracy and economic system still have great potential for innovation and rapid adoption of improved technologies, if the government provides the right conditions and gets out of the way.
The Solution is Not Rocket Science
Conservatives and liberals alike can recognize the merit of honest pricing of fossil fuels. Fossil fuels today receive subsidies and do not pay their costs to society. Human health costs of pollution from fossil fuel burning and fossil fuel mining are borne by the public. Climate disruption costs are borne by the victims and all taxpayers.
This market distortion makes our economy less efficient and less competitive. Fixing this problem is not rocket science. The solution can be simple and transparent.
I have described a fossil fuel “fee-and-dividend” approach, summarized on Charts 1 and 2. 100% of a continually rising carbon fee, collected from fossil fuel companies at the domestic mine or port-of-entry, is distributed uniformly to all legal residents (electronically to bank account or debit card). 60% of people receive more in the dividend than they pay in increased prices, but to get or stay on the positive side of the ledger they must pay attention to their fossil fuel use. Millions of jobs are created as we move toward clean energy. Economic modeling shows that our fossil fuel use would decrease 30% after 10 years. A rising carbon fee provides a viable international approach to reduce global emissions, the basic requirement being a bilateral agreement between the U.S. and China. A border duty on products from nations without an equivalent carbon fee or tax would provide a strong incentive for other nations to join.
Reactions to this proposal are revealing. When I spoke to a group of international labor leaders, one of them declared “that’s libertarian!”. Yet I have found that most people understand that millions of jobs would be created by a system that moves us in a clear way to an honest price on all energies, far more jobs than provided by continued public subsidies of fossil fuels and specific favored “green” energies.
A self-licking ice cream cone is a self-perpetuating system with no purpose other than to sustain itself. The phrase was used first in 1992 in On Self-Licking Ice Cream Cones, a paper by Pete Worden about NASA’s bureaucracy.[1]
Fee and Dividend: Charts 1 and 2.
After I spoke to a group of conservative politicians, one of them said “that’s income redistribution!” Well, yes, overall fee-and-dividend is progressive, and some ambitious low income people who pay special attention to their carbon footprint will be able to save money for other purposes. Wealthy people who own multiple houses or fly around the world a lot, will pay more in added costs than they receive in the dividend. However, the added cost to them is small compared with change of income tax rates — and lower income tax rates would be much more likely when the economy improves as the system moves toward honest pricing of fossil fuels.
One other experience may be worth relating. I was invited by one Jim DiPeso, policy director of Republicans for Environmental Protection, to give a keynote talk at their meeting. DiPeso had written an article praising my fossil fuel fee-and-dividend proposal as embodying conservative principles. Soon I was disinvited. Rumor has it that DiPeso was last seen being escorted to a boat on the shores of Lake Michigan and being fitted with large concrete shoes.
What Choices Do People Have?
The extreme reactions (libertarian! income redistribution!) do not represent the feelings of most Americans I have spoken with. Most people readily appreciate fee-and-dividend and honest pricing of fossil fuels, once it is explained. They understand that it would help modernize our infrastructure, improve our economic competitiveness, and raise living standards. DiPeso noted that it could be made clear in an elevator talk. The public needs to know, but unfortunately, we do not have a President giving fireside chats on such fundamental matters, despite their importance for the economy, energy independence, national security, and climate stabilization.
The public is rational about such matters, in my opinion. But what present choices do they have? Some Republicans are so well-oiled and coal-fired that they assert that human-made climatechange is a “hoax” perpetrated by scientists seeking research funding (allowing them to work 80 hours a week for a modest wage, after investing 7-10 years in obtaining their higher education). Realistic Republicans, seeing the power of extremists, hesitate to speak.
Well-oiled coal-fired Democrats exist too, but their main problem is addiction to spending our money. Even when they advocate fee-and-dividend, they propose to use much of the fee to “pay down the national debt” (read: “make the government bigger”) and to fund their pet energy technologies.
Energy Research, Development and Demonstration (RD&D)
Government has a proper role in energy technology — it should support RD&D (research, development and demonstration). This topic is crucial to climate stabilization and closely related to the present topic — our currently dysfunctional two-party system — so I briefly digress.
Climate stabilization requires phasing out fossil fuel CO2 emissions, which in return requires a large source of carbon-free electricity. Hydropower is limited in amount. That leaves nuclear power and “renewables” (wind, sun, geothermal, etc.) as principal alternatives to fossil fuels, at least with current technologies.
Unfortunately, proponents of nuclear power or renewables, in promoting their preference, usually attack the other. This helps the fossil fuel industry, but is detrimental to our children’s future. Given the urgency of phasing out CO2 emissions, we need both nuclear and renewables. In the long run, one may win out over the other, but this is no time for mutual destruction.
Solar power and wind power have moved smartly through RD&D in recent years and are beginning to provide significant amounts of electricity, the biggest success story being Germany. In the decade 2001-2011 Germany increased the non-hydroelectric renewable energy portion of its electricity from 4% to 19%, with fossil fuels decreasing from 63% to 61% (hydroelectric decreased from 4% to 3% and nuclear power decreased from 29% to 18%). Germany’s renewable energy is continuing to increase (but the fact that Germany is building new lignite power plants is disconcerting as regards their expectations for fossil fuel phase-out).
Nuclear power has demonstrated a capacity for rapid expansion, e.g., in the decade 1977-1987, France increased nuclear power production 15-fold, the nuclear portion of electricity increasing from 8% to 70%. That was 2nd-generation technology, light-water reactors that use only about 1% of the energy in the nuclear fuel, leaving nuclear waste with a lifetime of millennia. Reactors planned today (mostly 3rd generation, light-water technology) include improvements (such as convective cooling that can operate without external power, thus avoiding the basic problem faced by the Fukushima reactorsb), but they still leave most of the fuel as long-lived “waste”.
Expansion of nuclear power thus depends on introduction of 4th generation technologyc, “fast” reactors, which allow neutrons to move fast enough to utilize more than 99% of the nuclear fuel. These reactors also can “burn” nuclear waste as well as excess nuclear weapons material2. Argonne National Laboratory extensively tested a prototype, the Integral Fast Reactor (IFR), designed with a fuel cycle that minimized the possibility of plutonium acquisition by terrorists or a rogue stated. Using this technology there is sufficient fuel in nuclear waste and excess weapons material to provide our electrical energy needs for centuries without uranium mining.
See discussion of nuclear power, including Fukushima, on page 7 of Baby Lauren and the Kool-Aid.
c Nuclear plants constructed in the next several years will be mainly 3rd generation light-water reactors; nuclear “waste” from these reactors can be used as fuel for the future 4th generation power plants.
Given the awareness of climate change that existed in the 1990s, it was a shock when President William Clinton, in 1993 in his first State of the Union address declared: “We are eliminating programs that are no longer needed, such as nuclear power research and development.” Although this pleased a vocal anti-nuclear minority, it deprived the nation of the ability to examine and compare all potential alternatives to fossil fuel electricity and reduced our potential to provide international leadership in peaceful uses of nuclear power.
This 1993 decision, to at least some extent, has caused a 20-year delay in development and refinement of advanced nuclear power technology in the United States. Just as with solar technology, there is great potential for technology development that reduces costs of nuclear power, especially via standardized modular construction. Bill Gates, who points out that nuclear power is already safer than all other major energy sources, is using a part of his personal wealth to develop a specific 4th generation reactorb, but for the sake of optimizing results and minimizing future electricity costs it is desirable to have more broad-based RD&D.e
Past failure to carry out this RD&D has created a situation in which gas is the likely energy source for continued and expanded electricity generation. In turn, this means that political leaders in many countries will be practically forced to approve hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) for gas on a large scale, unless sufficient effective alternatives are available.
Gas will truly be a transition fuel between coal and clean energies only if better, inexpensive, clean alternatives for electricity generation are developed. Otherwise such fuel-switching could backfire, because usable gas resources are enormous It would be helpful if advocates for nuclear power and renewables would be mutually supportive. Let competition and the public decide what energy sources they prefer on the long run. That decision can be made best as experience allows the full potential of all alternatives to tested. A rising fee on carbon can then be successful, leading to phase-out of fossil fuel emissions.
The American Party
The public recognizes and is fed up with the failure of both political parties to work for the common good. So is it time to abandon them for a third party? Perhaps not quite.
Some conservative thought leaders recognize the merits of a carbon fee, a non-tax, 100% of collected funds distributed to the public on per capita basis. I have mentioned a Wall Street Journal article endorsing this approach by George Shultz and Gary Becker, Shultz having been Secretary of State under Reagan and Becker being a Nobel prize winning economist. It seems worthwhile to work hard to gain support for this approach, with expectation that conservative support would be conditional on liberals not using any of the funds to expand government.
d All uranium-fueled nuclear power plants produce plutonium and there is no expectation that nuclear power will be eliminated by all nations on Earth, so it is important for the United States to stay on top of nuclear technology to help make it as safe and proliferation resistant as possible. The IFR replaces the usual PUREX (Plutonium and Uranium Recovery by Extraction) with a safer “pyroprocessing” approach2.
e Although I am suggesting the merits of further RD&D on advanced generation nuclear power, General Electric says that it is ready to build 4th generation PRISM reactors, a refined version of technology that Argonne National Laboratory developed two decades ago, i.e., they suggest that the technology is ready for demonstration.
However, it may turn out that no matter how we try, such a rational approach cannot gain sufficient support within any reasonable period. The rumor about DiPeso’s concrete shoes is only half facetious. Among potential supporters there seems to be a palpable fear of ostracism if they were to endorse a moderate conservative approach such as fee-and-dividend.
And yet moderation is just what most Americans seem to want.
In such case, the fastest way to progress may be a 3rd party, a centrist party. It is very possible that the United States is ready for a centrist American Party. In 1992 Ross Perot garnered almost 20% of the votes for President. At times he had led in the polls, but he damaged his credibility in several ways, including his assertion that he had once seen Martians on his front yard.
Compared with 1992, a much larger fraction of the people is fed up with the failures of both major parties. If, following the mid-term elections of 2014, there is not a strong indication of bi- partisan progress, it may be time to consider the possibility of launching a major centrist 3rd party effort, not only for the Presidency but for Congress as well.
Citizens Climate Lobby
Implausible dreaming, you scoff. Not so fast. For example, consider Citizens Climate Lobby. If you don’t know about them read today’s article in the New York Times. These are honest, hard- working people trying to educate politicians and the public about the need for a revenue-neutral carbon fee via op-eds, letters-to-the-editor, meetings with editorial boards, meetings with congressional staffers, and meetings with congress people.
Citizens Climate Lobby is made up largely of volunteers, with continual training of new recruits. They have doubled in size each year for the past several years and are active in most states. They are positive, dedicated and respectful, creating a good impression with congress people.
What is the chance that they can compete against the well-heeled fossil fuel lobby? Hard to say. But if they fail to move our present government by 2015, and by then have doubled in size a few more times, they just may be a democratic force to be reckoned with. They seek to persuade and are unfailingly respectful and polite, but determined. So, if in a few years the two major parties remain uncompromising and unsupportive of a carbon fee, it would not surprise me if Citizens Climate Lobby became a major force for a centrist third party.
Everybody is welcome to join Citizens Climate Lobby — a link to an introductory call is at http://www.tfaforms.com/275537. Their summer conference in Washington this year is 23-25 June; registration is at http://citizensclimatelobby.org/2013-international-conference
“A self-licking ice cream cone is a self-perpetuating system with no purpose other than to sustain itself.”
This, of course, makes no sense at all! Any ice cream cone consumer knows that an ice cream cone, no matter how it is licked, will never sustain itself. Eventually, it is gone. Sort of like our tax money…part of which goes towards paying for useless government-fed institutions like NASA/GISS.
Then again, I expect this kind of buffoonery from Hansen…
Hansen’s idea is so incredibly inane it is almost impossible to believe that he himself actually believes what he is claiming. It is simply IMPOSSIBLE to drastically increase the cost of energy and not drive up the cost of living for everyone. The cost of energy affects the price of EVERYTHING, not just the price of the gallon of gas you put in your automobile. Anyone with even half a brain realizes that this is an incredibly bad idea (except for the already rich and powerful who will be have a much more exclusive lifestyle that only they will be able to afford). The government takes X amount of dollars from you, rebates back 50% and keeps the remainder to cover the” implementation and management” costs. In the meantime, not only does your gasoline price increase, which they government will be claiming they are reimbursing you for, what about cost of electricity?? water ?? and literally EVERYTHING ELSE!
Problem is, there really are a lot of people with less than half a brain it seems.
Jimmy reminds me of “Frank the Tank” (played by Will Ferrell), in “Old School”, where, after consuming vast quantities of alcohol he exhorts “come on everybody; we’re going streaking!”, winding up the only one jogging in the nude, still thinking there are lots more behind him. Clearly he’s deluded, and very possibly, insane.
This article by Hansen is a thoughtful essay. It is a window into how the man thinks. I don’t agree with his assertions that 1) fossil fuels are subsidized, 2) carbon fees would stimulate the economy, or 3) renewable energy sources can be successfully implemented to become major sources of electric power.
However, I do agree that the idea of a third political party is becoming more attractive every year, but efforts to create a third party have been going on for as long as I can remember.
Underlying the essay is the idea that CO2 emissions, and thus fossil fuels, are contributing to climate change which he sees as a terrible thing. Hansen’s goal is climate stability, which means that he thinks we can massively influence earth’s climate.
In view of that position I can see how he believes that our society is subsidizing fossil fuels by assigning a current health cost of CO2, and a long term cost of CO2 that will, somehow negatively affect our offspring. Even if he were correct, he did not balance those supposed costs against massive economic disruption without fossil fuels, and the cost in health and deficit in food production we would otherwise experience. His cost/benefit analysis does not consider the entire picture,either. Where are the benefits of fossil fuels?
These type of scientists and green activist types all have financial and political aim with their science and promotional material, they have never done anything productive that has ever made peoples lives better, even their schemes are designed to suck funding from the tax payer, which is particularly stomach turning; when there are children going to bed hungry at night, millions living in poverty, infrastructures needed like schools, hospitals etc..
There is no political opposition to energy efficiency or to the “Environment” no one wants to “destroy” it, but the environmental agenda appears to have hijacked these causes and are influencing the a cascade of damaging policies to both humans and the environment, promoting heavily subsidized low carbon energy schemes without the technology needed is madness.
*wood-chip power stations is deemed carbon neutral, Cutting down a vast amount of forest for wood destroys wildlife on a huge scale and increases the cost of energy for millions while redirecting much needed funding from the worlds poorest into the pockets of rich land owners.
*Wind-farms are deemed carbon neutral, but, which destroy wildlife and are harmful to humans, destroy the landscape and they increases the cost of energy for millions while redirecting much needed funding from the worlds poorest into the pockets of rich land owners.
Oh PLEASE! Oh PLEASE! My DREAM COME TRUE. Create that “third party”. Siphon off 10 or 15% from the “left most party” in the country right now. Despite the claims against the right/center-right party, they WILL hold together. It will be “all over” for the left for as long as Hansen’s party is partying!
James is either intentionally misleading, doesn’t understand economics or is delusional. Enforcing a big tax on energy companies would have a huge trickle down effect on the entire economy. Everything would be more expensive. The access to cheap energy keeps the prices of everything we buy down. Inflation on basic goods would be very high and any economic benefit of the energy welfare checks being handed out would be countered, and more, by the depressing effect of higher prices and higher unemployment. I would guess we would enter a period of high inflation with low economic growth/recession.
But, I guess the end result would be pleasing to James as the lower economic growth/recession would also kill energy demand, and, therefore CO2 emissions. It’s another way of doing it, but it’s a way that makes the uninformed masses cheer (sticking it to the evil corporation while handing out a bunch of free money). “He will bring them death, and they will love him for it.”
“Self-perpetuation rather than accomplishment” is the driving principle behind climastrology.
“The Solution is Not Rocket Science” because there’s no problem that needs to be solved. CAGW is Hansen’s con job. It simply does not exist.
Our dear James Hansen appears to suffer from a malady that’s driven by a fantasy. It would be nice if he had been good enough not to feel entitled to conscript us in all of this but, as the years have informed us he, well, hasn’t felt that necessity.
I’ll try to illustrate this by a story. Now, I’m restricted to writing this from the male perspective because I am, well, a male.
Now, my sister, my older sister, will claim that all males are, in fact, females for whom their development was sadly arrested, forcing them to remain trapped in the male stage. Despite the fact that the only medical expertise she’s ever displayed was in the art of administering torment, I won’t argue this point. But let us disregard it for the sake of the following story.
Consider a somewhat bookish, teenage, high school male. Like every male in that class the object of his adoration, his love, his lust, his male hormones, is a teenage female. But not just any female. She is the one. The only. The most gorgeous girl in class. The head of the cheer leading squad. The Homecoming Queen. All the boys want her.
True happiness awaits. If only he can summon, muster, draw upon every speck, every dust bunny, every sweaty drop of courage and call her and ask her out. He’s convinced a rejection worse than death awaits him. But in the same vein as a not overly wise, but overly plastic surgerized old lady once said: “You have to pass the bill to find out what’s in it”; he knows he must call her to find out what answer is in her. With a trembling hand he fumbles for the phone; tentatively dials the awesome number – the angel answers – then fumbling, barely able to form the words he awkwardly asks her; heart pounding; stammering; he asks her; asks her if she’ll go to the dance this weekend. She says…
…Yes!
Yes! He can barely believe it. Oh, wonderful ‘Yes’, the finest word in the English language. And, hot damn, she says Yes enthusiastically! She means it. Happiness does exist. The arrangements are made. He’ll pick her up on Friday.
Our young male’s walking on a cloud, virtually floating over the ground. Wow. She’s a queen, a princess, and she’s actually going out with me, he thinks. She’s the most gorgeous girl in the class and she could have any guy she wanted and she picked…
The air whooshes out of those Ferrari tires as they instantly deflate.
…me? She’s gorgeous, and she could have anybody, and she said yes to…me? Why? What’s wrong with her? Are her limbs falling off from gangrene and they’re being replaced by prosthetics? Is she the result of temporary plastic surgery that dissolves back to its former state on Friday nights? Worse; does she, maybe, have a different organ then the one I think she does? Is her taste really so bad that she’s willing to go out with just about anybody? Jeez, how do I get out of this?
We’ve all seen this, witnessed it. Now, let us visualize James Hansen as our teenage protagonist in the foregoing story: A floppy hatted protagonist. And let us consider the planet Earth as that gorgeous teenage cheerleader (ok, a couple billion year old version) that James Hansen pines, swoons, dreams, fantasizes about, lusts for (enough Tom). And let us consider ourselves as the Football players that stand in the way of him and his unspoiled planet.
I say, let him make that call. Stand to the side and let him pursue precisely what he wants. I know there’s maybe some risk involved, but in the end, I’ll bet he ends up saying, “Jeez, how do I get out of this?”
Also, who in the world thought this was libertarian. Libertarianism, as I understand it, would have a small government which, which leaves most social, business, and personal decisions to people or local governments. I don’t see how a huge tax on the oil industry and a massive redistribution of wealth by our national governing body to curb the ‘evil’ of carbon pollution is even remotely libertarian.
“If the study of human interactions could become a science, I suspect that an inviolate axiom might be discovered to this effect: Every social disposition creates a disparity of advantages. Further: Every innovation designed to correct the disparities, no matter how altruistic in concept, works only to create a new and different set of disparities.” — Jack Vance (R.I.P.)
Never mind hiding the decline: climb on the backlash?
Rumor has it that DiPeso was last seen being escorted to a boat on the shores of Lake Michigan and being fitted with large concrete shoes.
Death seems a theme with this guy. Death trains, etc
TeaParty voter
Matt,
I also was rather offended by Hansen’s use of the term “libertarian.”
He seems to have no idea, what it means. Or is it an intentional misleading?
Hansen has spent more than a quarter century fixated on something that “is not rocket science.”
Can anyone tell me what the -bleep- he was doing at NASA, then?
I’m all for a “divide and conquer” approach, but when the division involves cracks, I feel a sort of pity for the fellow cracking up, and it appears to me this is what is happening to Hansen. Not that he isn’t reaping what he sowed, but it is pitiable just the same.
I was pwned by JohnWho. It was worth it.
Jimbo seems to have forgotten that the 96000 people who voted for the third party–The Green Party–in Florida in 2000 cost his patron Al Gore the presidency.
The quality of thought in this new piece appears to approach the quality of his climate science.
At least he is consistent…ly off-the-wall awful.
All free thinkers with dogma enforcement skills are welcome. Corporate shakedown artists are also welcome.
Actually, it’s not such a bad idea. Hansen and his Carbon People’s Party could present their “evidence” and let the electorate decide. The question is what percentage of the popular vote they would garner, and would it be statistically distinguishable from background noise? ;->
The UK has already got a “Monster Raving Loony Party”. Perhaps Hansen should create one in the US.
@GlynnMhor says:
May 30, 2013 at 9:29 am
Oh, there is a special place in hell for you for sharing that visual!!
Sort of like the Ba’ath party in Iraq and Syria, only more destructive. Cool. 😛
“aging organizations can evolve into self-licking ice cream cones, organizations whose main purpose becomes self-perpetuation rather than accomplishment of their supposed objectives”
The caps fits you Hansen and you wear it so well?