Many Americans who support the use of alternative energy in the United States believe that subsidizing the cost of producing alternative energy will lead to more alternative energy use.  That may be true in the short run, but in the long run, it might not be the case.  Instead, the subsidies on dirty fossil fuels should be eliminated.

Subsidizing alternative energy use, in the short run, will of course lead to increased use of alternative energy.  If it is more profitable for firms to enter the industry, more firms will enter.  Because subsidizing, all else equal, leads to increased profits for a firm, subsidization of alternative energy will lead to more firms entering the energy sector.  Because more alternative energy firms enter the energy sector, competition will cause prices for alternative energy to drop, so consumers will consume more alternative energy.  The caveat here is that perhaps a subsidy is needed to get a particular industry off the ground.  Well, hasn’t that happened already?  Solar, wind, hydro, and nuclear power are all supposed to be somewhat competitive cost-wise with coal and oil when you net away the subsidization of coal and oil.

However, in the long run, this might be problematic.  Subsidies from the government must be paid by someone, because, as economists like to say: there is no such thing as a free lunch.  How long are American taxpayers willing to pay subsidies?  Additionally, subsidies may allow types of alternative energy that are not actually cost-efficient (read: corn-based ethanol) to stay in the industry when the production of that energy is actually costing society more than the benefit it creates.

Of course, for alternative energy to have any hope, in addition to the elimination of subsidies for alternative energy sources, subsidies for dirty fossil-fuel sources must be eliminated as well.  I don’t know why we’re subsidizing oil or coal anyways.  We have to pay the cost one way or another, why not pay it when we buy it instead of tricking ourselves into thinking its cheaper?  That just leads to overconsumption…

Ideally, if the environmental cost of dirty sources of fuel could be taken into account, as well as the elimination of all subsidies, we could truly choose the best energy source objectively.  However, that’s hard to do…

Wow this is a rambling article.  Please post your thoughts so I can clear mine up.

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Via Greg Mankiw:

A causal relationship between gasoline prices and obesity is possible through mechanisms of increased exercise and decreased eating in restaurants. I use a fixed effects model to explore whether this theory has empirical support, finding that an additional $1 in real gasoline prices would reduce obesity in the U.S. by 15% after five years, and that 13% of the rise in obesity between 1979 and 2004 can be attributed to falling real gas prices during this period. [link to study]

Always take studies like these with a grain of salt.  However, if it makes sense, there could be some truth here.  The cheaper the gas, the less people walk, and the more they drive to eat out at restaurants.  Thus, the cheaper the gas, the more behavior occurs that could result in increased obesity.

It would be interesting to see some more studies on obesity/gasoline prices.

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I drove home from Blacksburg, VA to Arlington, VA this past Monday and averaged 40.75 miles per gallon.  I was pleasantly surprised, as I drive a 1990 Toyota Camry that is rated around 32 mpg highway.

I think the reason for this was drafting off a truck the entire way.  Although drafting off of passenger vehicles is generally not recommended, because if they slam on the brakes, you’re in trouble; drafting behind a truck is significantly safer because trucks take a long time to slow to a stop, so if you see brake lights you’re not necessarily doomed.  In addition, trucks are huge and block a lot of wind.

Anywho, there was a truck driving 75 mph for 200 miles of my journey, so I just sat behind him.  When I filled up upon arriving home, I calculated that I had averaged 40.75 mpg.  My recommendation is if you happen to have a truck driving near you on a highway, it might not be a bad idea to draft off of the truck to save some fuel.

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The reason I care about protecting the environment is not because I love trees, or have a penchant for big furry animals.  The reason I care so much is because I believe protecting the environment is what’s best for human beings.

It seems like the anti-environmental crowd often tends to label those who want to protect the environment as overly extreme.  Most environmentalists aren’t tree-huggers, SUV vandalizers, or animal rights activists.  The reason I, and many other environmentalists, advocate things like responsible fishery management is not because I think fish are cute or have equal rights as humans; it’s because I like to eat fish and don’t want to see their population destroyed.

There are certainly environmentalists out there who are extreme.  Some environmentalists do push for broad animal rights.  Some believe we should protect the Earth for the Earth’s sake, rather than humans.  But I am certain this is a miniscule minority view.

Protecting the environment makes sense.  We rely on the Earth for our food, fuel, air, water, and more.  If we ignore the fact that there are limits to our consumption and activities, it will hurt us in the end.

Environmentalism does not have to be about tree hugging, hippies, or hybrid cars.  Environmentalism, for most people, is about maximizing the environment’s benefit for human beings.  So the next time a famous political figure ask you whether you’d like to have a healthy economy or a clean environment, remind that politician that in the long run, they go hand in hand.

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It’s kind of a running joke among my friends to call me out when I do something that is not 100% eco-friendly.  It isn’t because my friends have particular views about the environment.  Rather, it’s just easy to point out when someone who writes an environmentally friendly blog has to drive somewhere, or accidentally leaves a light on.  It’s all in fun, of course, and I take no offense.  In a first-world country it’s practically impossible to have no carbon footprint.

Yet over the past year, anti-environmentalists have tried – at every opportunity – to accuse Al Gore of being a hypocrite.  In addition, they imply that Gore’s supposed hypocrisy is prima facie evidence that climate science is flawed.  I am writing this article to assert two things.  First, Gore’s actions do not show that he is a hypocrite in the sense that anti-environmentalists claim.  Secondly, even if Gore were a hypocrite, his actions do not prove nor disprove climate science.

The second assertion is relatively self-explanatory.  No principle of climate change has anything to do with Al Gore.  Al Gore could decide climate change doesn’t matter anymore, and this would not change climate science at all.

But back to the first assertion: Al Gore is not a hypocrite.  The claim that Al Gore is a hypocrite became popular after An Inconvenient Truth  hit theaters last summer.  Those who opposed Al Gore’s message claimed he was being hypocritical for flying around in airplanes and driving around in cars spreading his message across the globe.  They said that all of his travels wasted a lot of fuel and created CO2 emissions, and thus, he should be condemned for hurting his own cause.

This is faulty reasoning, because it ignores the fact that sometimes one must use something he opposes to accomplish something he supports.  In this case, Gore opposes excessive use of transportation fuel, but he believes the reward in using it outweighs the costs, so he’s going to go ahead and burn the fuel to accomplish a greater good.  I believe it would hurt his own cause more than help it if he were to stay at home instead of go out and campaign for a action on climate change.

The next major Al Gore hypocrite accusation came when the Tennessee Center for Policy Research (a self-proclaimed conservative Think Tank) somehow got hold of Gore’s energy bill for his Tennessee mansion and it showed he had a high electricity bill in 2006.  As I said before, there are some grains of truth in this report.  However, Gore still has offices for himself, Tipper, and probably still has secret service detail, all at his house, driving up his energy costs.  In addition, his energy bill is really high because he purchases all of his power from green sources which produce no carbon dioxide at all.  Finally, some of the energy use over 2006 was a result of the Gores constructing things like a rainwater collection system at their house, which in the long run is environmentally friendly.  He also buys CO2 offsets to reduce his net CO2 emissions to zero [note: CO2 offsets, when purchased through a respectable source, do work.  This is how.].  In short, the fact that he owns a mansion is a little hypocritical, but he goes through so many steps to reduce his CO2 emissions that he’s doing better with his home than most Americans.

After the energy bill fiasco, Gore decided to launch Live Earth, a 24-hour concert around the globe, intended to raise awareness for climate change.  Before and after the concert, anti-environmentalists pounced on the fact that concerts use energy, and using energy creates CO2 emissions.  That is true.  Yet this is no different from Gore flying across the globe spreading his message.  If he believes that the benefit of this concert outweighs the costs, he should go ahead and have the concert.  Producing CO2 now so that in the long run, less is produced, is a completely non-hypocritical way for Gore to fight for the planet.

The most recent attacks on Gore came when he attended a rehearsal dinner for his daughter’s wedding.  They ate Chilean Sea Bass, a fish which is often caught using unsustainable and illegal fishing methods.  Critics bashed him yet again for supposed hypocrisy, even though he probably didn’t even know what he was eating or whether the Chilean Sea Bass was often caught in an unsustainable manner.  In the end, though, it turned out this Chilean Sea Bass was from a sustainably managed population, so he did nothing wrong.

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The reason I am writing this article is because these attacks have become absolutely silly.  I expect in the next few months to see attacks on Gore because he had to double-flush his toilet after a trip to the bathroom.  The goal of the individuals accusing Gore of hypocrisy is clearly to cast doubt on the climate change hypothesis.  And that is a perfectly reasonable goal.  However, the way to go about refuting the climate change hypothesis is not to criticize one individual messenger’s personal life (which is not even hypocritical).  It is to refute the climate change hypothesis.  In no way is Al Gore’s lifestyle the deciding factor for whether or not the human population needs to tackle the issue of climate change.

Ideally, we as a civilization find that climate change is not a serious issue.  If this is the case, we will be able to avoid some potentially serious costs converting our economy to reduce our CO2 output.  Second best, we find that climate change is a serious issue and address it.  Sure, it will cost a lot economically, but it will cost less than the damages of unmitigated climate change.  Third best, we attack the issue of climate change even though we didn’t need to.  This will cost us a lot of unnecessary money, and hopefully we can avoid this situation.  Worst, we do nothing and climate change causes unmitigated damage to the world.

We want to avoid situations 3 and 4.  The way we avoid these situations is by debating and reasoning, using science, to decide as a civilization whether or not climate change is a serious issue that we should address.  The way to debate and reason is to provide evidence for or against the climate change hypothesis, followed by critique of this evidence.  This evidence has nothing to do with Al Gore’s lifestyle.  Therefore, if one wants to criticize the climate change hypothesis, the best way to do so is to ignore Al Gore’s lifestyle and focus on the issue at hand.

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