Articles by Ken Ward

Somewhere in a parallel universe …

Jerry Falwell, President
Moral Majority
Lynchburg, VA

December 25, 1978

Dear Jerry,

It is altogether fitting and proper that we should be meeting at this holy time of year. Attached is the final version of the focus group analysis. Nothing new in the numbers, but we have added several recommendations since the last draft. What we are proposing is controversial, and we expect a lively discussion at the Executive Committee meeting.

Also enclosed please find our fourth quarter bill. Note that we have yet to receive payment for the first three quarters. As you know better than we, miracles are infrequent and the rent must still be paid!

Sincerely,

Ted Nordhaus
Michael Shellenberger

If we put narrative above policy, how might the energy bill have played out?

Passing an energy bill at any cost made us look weak, reduced climate change urgency, handed a significant victory to President Bush, and accomplished little of significance. If we had chosen an alternative path -- to take a stand with the fledgling U.S. renewables industry and challenge the obscenely rich oil and coal behemoths -- we would have lost, to be sure, but would have built political power, introduced a novel story, and strengthened ties with an important ally.

In acquiescing to a stripped-down energy bill, U.S. environmentalists lost an opportunity to reshape our climate story, strengthen our relationship with the renewable energy sector, and draw a bright line that distinguishes genuine supporters of functional climate action from fair weather friends. Instead, we opted for scraps, gaining emissions reductions of small significance compared to the global problem, displaying political weakness in place of principled courage, and handing a propaganda victory to a president who is singularly responsible for blocking international climate action.

Even environmentalists damned the final Senate version with faint praise. The "landmark" hailed by UCS also, in their words, "failed to take a giant step." NRDC called it a "down payment toward fighting global warming," and was "disappointed," and Environment America (formerly the environmental arm of U.S.PIRG) called the measure "historic," even as they observed, "big oil and big coal succeeded in stripping out ... very important parts of the bill."

Press and editorial reactions were less equivocal, as this sampling of headlines shows:

Candidates reveal their priorities

The difficulty with assessing candidates by how they address climate change is that policy statements and tailored speeches give little insight into the relative importance each candidate places on global warming as compared to other issues. It is particularly difficult to distinguish between Democratic candidates, who employ an almost identical language of urgency when addressing environmentalists.

Tom Harkin, senior Senator from Iowa, hosts an annual barbecue. The September 16 event drew six major Democratic candidates -- Joe Biden, Hillary Clinton, Chris Dodd, John Edwards, Barack Obama, and Bill Richardson -- who spoke between 8-15 minutes each to an attentive crowd of 12,000. Each candidate's speech is displayed in the accompanying chart (below the fold) in the form of a bar, with red indicators of when and for how long climate change was addressed (CNN feed available at YouTube). It should be noted that when the issue was raised, the Harkin Steak Fry crowd responded enthusiastically, so there is little reason to think that candidates trimmed their climate sails for this particular venue.

The winners? ED, NRDC, The Pew Center for Climate Change, and other familiar faces

The first round of grants (PDF) from the $100 million climate fund established last year by the Doris Duke Foundation were announced last week. Funding priorities and grant recipients were identified in an exhaustive 18-month process of extensive literature reviews and interviews with more than 75 distinguished scientists, economists, environmental leaders, investors, energy industry representatives, and public policy experts.

The result?

A total of $3.6 million will be distributed to five environmental organizations -- ED and NRDC ($500K), Pew Center on Global Climate Change ($395K), World Resources Institute ($750K), and Resources for the Future ($750K) -- and two universities -- Harvard ($750K) and MIT ($500K). Three climate action strategies will be pursued:

1. devise "optimal domestic and international pricing policies for carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases";
2. develop policies "that bring available technologies to market more quickly"; and,
3. "identify adjustments" to reduce climate-change impacts.

That the $100 million Duke Foundation fund will be expended on a decades-old strategy that has not worked is no surprise, as no coherent alternative to our present approach is available. However, the Duke Foundation announcement may portend change in two important respects.