Climate Change Common Ground

Global warming should not be a great controversy.  The controversy is amplified when political operatives take sides and publishers start discriminating against dissenting opinion.  This is especially bad for scientific publications and did happen a few years back.  Non-scientific publications need to be more open to dissenting thought as well.  Recently the Washington Post initially refused to publish Charles Krauthammer’s column in which he simply put forth that global warming was not settled science.  They did publish the column in an op-ed forum.  The political climate change advocates jumped all over this.  The left is 100% committed to the idea that manmade CO₂ causes climate change and that it is bad.  The far right is resistant because they oppose the left (not a good reason) and because the proposed “solutions” are either draconian or silly (carbon exchange credits, etc.).  Since I advocate that carbon exchange credits are silly, you may conclude that I am more right than left. 

At the same time, we all need to recognize that global surface temperatures are rising and rising more over the last few decades. Artic sea ice and glaciers are generally declining (although there have been some recent increases).  We might disagree on how much  human actions influence climate change but whether you are a climate change advocate or a climate change denier, we should all agree that decreasing per-capita non-renewable energy usage is a good thing.  Reducing vehicle fuel consumption, increasing renewable energy usage, and decreasing home energy usage all contribute to this goal.  Decreasing per-capita non-renewable energy usage decreases our reliance on foreign oil, preserves resources, and helps our global trade balance.  What we have trouble agreeing upon is how much government should be involved in this and upon the more radical (or silly) ideas being advocated like carbon exchanges and carbon tax credits.

I generally agree that mandated reductions in CAFE (Corporate Average Fuel Economy) have been reasonable, so far, and are helpful.  We are now seeing 19-speed automatic transmissions being developed, lighter weight and therefore more efficient aluminum pickup trucks are coming, efficiency and durability improvements in CVTs (Continuously Variable Transmissions), increased usage of higher-efficiency hybrids, and financially-reasonable electric vehicles.  The latter, however, often still rely upon fossil-fuel created electric power for recharging and their overall impact is debated by some.  Generally electric vehicles reduce overall consumption of fossil fuels due to efficiencies but I don’t choose to debate that here.

Increasing the efficiency of home appliances leads to reduced usage of non-renewable energy sources.  Even more might be done in this area by altering the Energy Star guidelines from the EPA.  Now the standards change with changes in the Federal minimum efficiency standards or when more than 50% of the available products fit into the Energy Star classification.  The latter could be altered to 30 or 40% if the available data suggests that we are quickly reaching the 50% level and/or federal minimum efficiency standards could be changed more often.  The only reason for governmental intervention in these areas is because minor efficiency changes will not substantially change price but still have a percentage impact on decreasing non-renewable energy.

Finally, dialog and interaction should become less stratified.  We on the right need to advocate for reasonable changes to decrease consumption of non-renewable energy resources to preserve reserves, to reduce our dependence upon foreign supplies, and to improve our balance of payments; this is just rational economics.  The left needs to stop politicizing the issue and to recognize that some of the things being advocated are for narrow political gain like opposition to the keystone pipeline and carbon tax credits,  and find some common ground.  Both sides need to stop the name-calling.