The New Republic

Considering how vast the universe, it is probable that "intelligence" has evolved many times, but will have always confronted fouling its nest - probably with unfortunate results.  We seem now to be moving along that track, and there are still many who simply wish to push the mess over away from themselves.

- jemerk

May 24, 2008 at 8:24pm

The quasi-religious characterization of environmentalism wasn't invented by naysayers like Will and Dyson, it arises out of the environmental movement itself.  Just take a look at Barry Lopez's "Arctic Dreams," Bill McKibben's "The End of Nature," or the 1854 oration by Chief Seattle that gets excerpted at Earth Day observances everywhere.

There is to much of environmentalism a kind of religious lamentation over the apparent loss of the natural Other, the loss of something bigger, older, more complex, and more beautiful than man and his petty desires.  I understand where this comes from, but I'm afraid that it is counterproductive.  It invites attacks such as Will's, and makes environmentalist concerns all to easy to dismiss as neopagan mythologizing.

I'm for the codification of a humanistic/materialistic environmentalism, an environmentalism based not upon the worship of some mythopoetic notion of Unspoiled Nature, but a commitment to the preservation of technological civilization.  The naysayers will continue to make their arguments.  George Will will continue to argue that civilization is not under threat and that no changes need be made to the manner in which we power out society, but that is an easier argument to win than the one about favoring a fantasy of inhuman nature over the bread-and-butter interests of real human beings.

- aeromonas

May 25, 2008 at 12:28am

Wow. First I read this sneering, juvebnile blog entry, and then read the Dyson piece, and had to pinch myself to make sure the link was working correctly. Where to begin?

Start with Dayo's evident difficulty comprehending the most basic concept of finance, the notion of discounting future cash flows to arrive at a present value of an investment. This isn't "weeds", or "dullish", it's elementary for ANY evaluation of any investment's attractiveness. It speaks volumes about the simplemindedness and ignorance of the environmentalist movement that its advocates, like Dayo and Dyson's NYRB readers, have to be given a tutorial on DCF and NPV concepts.

Scary, actually. This more than anything else is what gives me pause about the environmentalist movement. We hear sweeping claims about scientific change that are supported only weakly, with inconsistent data. We see juvenile, incoherent, sarcastic attacks by non-scientists on renowned physicists and other scientists who put forth detailed, sober, objective analyses of the data and who reach conlcusions different from the environmentalists' catechism. And when someone dares to suggest that ECONOMIC schemes involving trillions of dollars be subjected to the most basic level of economic analysis of all, we hear sneers that such analysis is "in the weeds" and "dullish" and "not up to NYRB's standards."

Not one of Dayo's better pieces. Next time you undertake to review investment analysis, I suggest you take  a crash course in DCF analysis first. And leave off the sarcasm until you understand the science as well as Dyson or the economics as well as Nordhaus.

- teplukhin2you

May 25, 2008 at 12:56am

teplukhin--

>>"We hear sweeping claims about scientific change that are supported only weakly, with inconsistent data. We see juvenile, incoherent, sarcastic attacks by non-scientists on renowned physicists and other scientists who put forth detailed, sober, objective analyses of the data and who reach conlcusions different from the environmentalists' catechism."<<

This seems unfair. The scientific claims about global warming are very strongly supported, and the data consistently point in the same direction (well, if anything, they tend to suggest that the IPCC understated how bad things are likely to get). Yes, the models have their problems, but that's different from dismissing them altogether. Dyson, along with scientists like Richard Lindzen, seem to have a strong "sense" that the consensus might be wrong, but they've never made a convincing scientific case for why or how it's wrong--certainly not through the usual peer-review process. So I don't know why we're supposed to take what are ultimately their gut feelings about the science so seriously.

(And, mind you, scientific arguments that are skeptical of the prevailing theories on climate change do get a fair hearing: Lindzen's famous IRIS paper, for instance, which cut sharply against the consensus, was taken very seriously by climatologists--but it was later refuted, and since then, he's mainly restricted himself to op-eds pooh-poohing the global-warming consensus without hard evidence. Likewise, the folks who said for a long time that the satellite data showed no evidence of global warming have also been proven wrong. Same with the folks who say it's solar activity and not CO2 emissions chiefly responsible for the rise in temperatures.)

On the other hand, I do agree with you about Nordhaus--his economic analysis is very rigorous and extremely useful, although I disagree very strongly (as does Nicholas Stern) on his choice of discount rate, which is the crux of the matter here. At some level selecting a discount rate for policy issues like these is as much an ethical question as an economic one, since you're asking about how to value future generations. That topic probably warrants a much longer post, though...

- Brad Plumer

May 25, 2008 at 2:46am

"At some level selecting a discount rate for policy issues like these is as much an ethical question as an economic one, since you're asking about how to value future generations."

??? What on earth are you talking about? A discount rate is simply an algebraic factor that incorporates the essential elements of _risk and uncertainty_ into any investment equation. In this vale o' tears, there is no getting around the fact that, the farther out from the present an anticipated benefit, the less value that benefit has-- for anyone, regardless of his political persuasions.

Unless you assume deflation,  or maybe a return of the Plague in the next few months, nearly everyone with a functioning brain would agree that  $100 today is more valuable than $101 a year from now. Bird in the hand, > bird in the bush. "Unethical"? Phooey.

(OTOH if you're willing to accept less money from me in the future for money lent me today, I would like to discuss with you the possibility of my opening a revolving credit line with you in the amount of, well, let's start with 500 grand. In euros, of course.)

In any case, the SAME discount rate is applied to each investment. What exactly is your problem with choosing a 4% discount rate? In your view is it too high, or too low, and why? What rate do you think is appropriate?

I can see an issue with the TIMING of the cash outlays and the cash inflows, but there's no mention of this anywhere in the debates I've heard. I've seen no attempt to smooth these out, ie to compare investments along a simlarly-shaped yield curve, by any of the environmentalists.

The fine intentions and economic incompetence of the enviros leads directly to the kind of bad joke that was Kyoto, whose signatories aren't even in compliance, and whose provisions if adhered to wouldn't even have more than a minuscule impact on the problem even if its signatories did comply with them.

I like this blog, but maybe you can understand my skepticism here. The fact that the signature treaty of the environmental movement-- the one that, for years, was trotted out as Exhibit A in the case for the Wickedness of America by evry European right thinker I know-- was such a colossal flop should induce, I think, a little more respect for those of us who demand real rigor and a more Hippocratic approach to this complex and poorly-understood problem whose remedies are even more complex and less clearly understood.

- teplukhin2you

May 25, 2008 at 4:28am

By "Hippocratic" do you mean, "First do no harm?"

Not a dig.  Just seeking clarity.

- aeromonas

May 25, 2008 at 6:24am

yes

- teplukhin2you

May 25, 2008 at 7:09am

The climate models on which predictions of global climate change are built suffer from uncertainty at many levels: they do not account for all known effects; they are too coarse-grained to model regional variation at all well, and they accumulate uncertainty as they are used to model events further and further into the future.  This is compounded by the fact that these three limitations almost certainly mean that the models will fail to predict the collapse of some presently underappreciated feedback loops, or the emergence of some unanticipated new feedback loops in the climate system. Hundreds of thousands of person hours have been devoted to minimizing these limitations, and yet every honest climate scientist still acknowledges that only at the very coarsest scale, can we expect the models to be truly predictive very far out.

Now comes an economist, attempting to model a different horrendously complex system with a laughably simplistic model that runs for 1 or 2 centuries to reach a conclusion supposedly valid today.  

Climate scientists validate their model by comparing their predictions of today's climate, using historical data - with today's actual climate, thus validating in some sense that they've got the "physics" of the model right.

So, here's a challenge to Nordhous: predict the absolute global value and relative distribution of prosperity in the world today, from first principles, starting with the state of the world in 1900.  When it gives reliable answers at the regional (that is subcontinental) level, we can combine your model with the climate models, and do some work together.

Along the way, answer this question for me: How does your model adjust for the fact that the time value of money, as a concept, assumes that the spender of the dollar today is the same as the one who would spend the same dollar at a later period?  Doesn't the fact that in a 100 year projection, the benefits of the dollar spent today accrue to a different population entirely than the dollar spent in a century, require an adjustment in the concept?  (If you're tempted to answer, no, then as an exercise, consider the dislocation relative to standard economic theory caused in our heath care system, by the fact that the people who choose to spend money are the ones out of whose pockets the money is spent).

And: How is your discount rate affected by assumptions of economic growth?  Doesn't much of the "historical validity" of a 4% discount rate stem from the historical validity in the last century or two of economic growth at a similar rate?  Is a similar growth in economic activity over the next centuries really likely (remembering that humans already appropriate on the order of 1/4 of the net primary biological productivity of the earth, and have enjoyed in the last 2 centuries an exponential increase in the availability of energy)?

So, I don't disagree with Nordhaus, Dyson, or Teplukhin that we ignore economics in our thinking about climate change at our peril.  But from what I've seen so far (and I admit, I haven't finished Nordhous' book yet), the economic modeling in which these commentators put so much stock is orders of magnitude less sophisticated than it needs to be in order to give meaningful predictions more than a decade out.  I wouldn't trust the best climate models past about 2050, except in the most macro of effects, and those models are orders of magnitude more inclusive of relevant effects than Nordhaus' economic model.

- sdemuth

May 25, 2008 at 10:05am

"people who choose to spend money are NOT the ones out of whose pockets the money is spent"

Sorry

- sdemuth

May 25, 2008 at 10:39am

A few things:

I have argued consistently that this whole green thing isn't about bunnies or flowers, but investment and sustainable growth--to the chagrin of some of my environmental bedfellows. I have a great deal of respect for the work of another Nordhaus--Ted--with Michael Shellenberger, whose useful writing on the need to effectively frame environmental debates as economic ones sits on my bookshelf and I've praised here before. I have less respect for Dyson, however, for the reasons Brad notes above, and the new ones I broach here.

If it was not clear, I meant to distinguish W. Nordhaus's model when writing that it "takes as its premise the need to discount future costs..." This is something that is not novel but also not *given* in any approach to climate modeling. There are some (Stern, eg) who doubt the value of discounting, even at an uncontroversial rate like 4%. Thank you, sdemuth, for your breakdown of the blunt instrument Dyson praises as the final word on the costs and benefits of environmental action.

On these blogs we don't attempt to recapitulate entire essays, especially at the length of this piece. But I think what's clear from any lay reading is that there is a "do nothing"/"business as usual" plan that ends up going through Nordhaus's magic machine. It ends up with a neutral (I believe therefore ethically negative) result over time. The only difference between the "do nothing" plan and the "extremely advantageous" backstopping "strategy" is that with the former we aren't crossing our fingers and hoping for some unicorn technology to bail us out. That backstop is going to cost us, too. That's half the reason for all of the bellyaching among drug companies, for example, who (somewhat fairly) tout R and D expenditures as the lifeblood of innovation and a justification for their price-gouging. I agree that better future tech would be wonderful (carbon sequestration that facilitates crude oil extraction, eg). But I don't see the needed investment accounted for in Dyson's telling.

Also, I've called time and again for a market-based approach to the problem of global warming, featuring major public/private investment in renewable energy technology and infrastructure--rather than simply regulation. Forget Bloomberg's silly transportation tax--sinking money into energy efficiency auditing and retrofits is a major ask from many, many environmental groups that, as I've written in TNR, are shifting from the defense-of-nature "catechism" that prevailed in the 20th century. If that entails deficit finance spending, so be it. They realize we're certainly not going to be building any new houses or developments with the current economic downturn in America. Will we let our builders, engineers and skilled tradesmen lie fallow, or will we come up with economically and environmentally sound ways to keep the wheels spinning?

So, as it irks me that George Will would use not economics but ginned-up moral arguments to place us *all* in the fourth quadrant of Pascal's little box, it irks me that both authors apparently discount these investment options in favor of the cap or tax schemes that, while good policy, don't reflect the breadth of responses to the looming crisis. It infuriates me that the "winner" of this race is no better than a leap of faith. It's also clear to me that greens can speak economics as well as any armchair pundit; it's belittling to cast the whole debate in the hippie/hardhead frame of the past.

Lastly, I know for a fact that NYRB is continually looking for ways to write about science in palatable, well-edited form. I think this fell short.

- Dayo Olopade

May 25, 2008 at 12:17pm

tep-- I do know what a discount rate is, and I'll pass on the loan. And, yes, it's common when doing cost-benefit analyses to use market interest rates for discounting (although even different government agencies will pick different interest rates--the CBO and OMB, for instance).

But a higher rate can also imply a very low value on the welfare of future generations when you're looking out over centuries, as sdemuth points out, and so that choice tends to create a fair bit of controversy in welfare economics--it's one reason why Nordhaus and Stern come to such radically different conclusions. Questions of ethics do factor in here (though it's obviously not *entirely* an ethical question--I agree with you, ignoring the economic aspects would be foolish, and we've tried hard on this blog to pay close attention to the flaws and pitfalls with grand schemes like Kyoto or Lieberman-Warner or what have you).

Anyway, here's a good short paper analyzing (and defending) Stern's choice of lower discount rate here. It's hardly the last word on the subject, but it helps clarify things a bit:

johnquiggin.com/.../sternreviewed06121.pdf

- Brad Plumer

May 25, 2008 at 12:27pm

Teplukhin2you: I was absolutely astounded by your framing of the debate on climate science as one between enviromentalists and reputable scientists. From your telling one would think that we have Richard Lindzen, William Gray and Freeman Dyson in one corner and the Sierra Club and the Nation (minus Alexander Cockburn) in the other. The vast scientific consensus on global warming is left out in this extremely odd characterization of the climate debate. I don't know about you but I am not a climate scientist. I  have made a very unPascalian wager that it is uberlogical to go with the consensus because the consequences of global warming will be so severe. Further: Freeman Dyson is not an expert on climate. That does not mean that he might not have useful things to say on the subject, just probably not what he wrote in the NYRB. Even scientists in their own fields are not infallible. I recall a review by Dyson a few years ago of, I believe, a biography of Isaac Newton in which he made numerous factual errors, which elicited a corrective response that NYRB printed without a rejoinder by Dyson. I had given my copy of Dyson's review to my friend Gary and when I encountered the reply, I told Gary not to put any credence in that essay. Dyson is not the best guide to religion, either. He consistently lowballs the bad that religion has accomplished in very similar fashion to the highballing of its evils that is characteristic of the so-called new atheists, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, and Daniel Dennett. I think that you owe an apology to Dayo. She is one of the best writers at TNR and even when I disagree with her, she is provacative and sophisticated in her thinking. You write as if she had never collided with an Econ 101 course, as if she just emotes and suspends her critical thinking when it comes to enviromental topics. There are people who worship at the church of enviromentalism but Dayo certainly isn't one of them. This is a frequent conceit of the right, lumping all those together who have substantial enviromental concerns. It reminds me of the absurd concept put forth a generation ago by the ridiculous Joseph Sobran and the even more ridiculous Tom Bethell, who postulated something called The Hive, from which pretty much all liberals and leftists emananated, as if the likes of the old(definitely not the new) Christopher Hitchens and Marty Peretz took marching orders from the same queen bee.

- liberal reformer

May 25, 2008 at 12:59pm

Thanks for the respectful and thoughtful replies.

Brad, I'd like to see links, if you could, to the purported refutation of the sunspot theory, also the others you reference. The skeptics include reputable experts; I'm not an expert but I'm skeptical of airy dismissals of their claims, especially when, as sdemuth points out, our ability to forecast and to model with real precision or accuracy is so lame.Thanks in advance.

Dayo, if and when your technical colleagues deliver a website that offers functioning community and forum, and even (perish the thought) chat, bookmarking and other features that became de rigueur years ago for any decent website, then we can discuss this in its proper context: not blog entries but full-blown articles surrounded by lots of links, wiki-style knowledge dumps etc.

As it is, the *only* place to have a real discussion within my favorite website is the blogs-- E&E, Plank, Spleen etc.-- and blogs by their very nature bring out the superficial, the sarcastic, the hit-and-run mentality. As your courteous and detailed, intelligent replies here indicate, this topic is way too important to leave up to the snarkfest and tribal atmosphere of bloguery.

libref - I want more rigor, precision,a nd respect for dissenting views than the partisans in this debate normally show. We're all in it together, etc. Ni conservative wackos ni enviro-wackos. I want a practical and rational approach that recognizes the trade-offs we face, and little things like the fact that ordinary people, not Maybach-driving or bike-riding green bandwagoners, will be absolutely slammed if we don't get this balance right.

I'd love to bike to work. I can't. I'd love to live in a fabulous, green central city with great cultural amenities and mas transit, as I did before I had kids and began working in suburban office parks. That's not possible anymore. So please, please heed the opinions and concerns of those of us with our feet on the ground and with a very real vulnerability to the costs of solutions that offer little social gain for great pain.

- teplukhin2you

May 25, 2008 at 5:49pm

Re the discount rate, 4% strikes me as ridiculously low. That's close to the risk-free, US government-guaranteed rate. We're talking about enormously risky, untried, untested projects here. Something in the 10% (minimum)  range would be more appropriate for solutions that offer very uncertain prospects of generating positive social returns, as Kyoto's failure has shown.

- teplukhin2you

May 25, 2008 at 5:52pm

tep—No prob. On the sunspot hypothesis, the best place to go is the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report, which concluded that the radiative forcing due to increased solar activity since 1750 was about +0.12 watts/square meter, as compared to +1.6 watts/square meter for all human activity.

ipcc-wg1.ucar.edu/.../wg1-report.html

Alternatively, there's this 2006 overview of the relevant literature in Nature by Peter Foukal, which concluded that the evidence is solidly on the side of the idea that there's been no net increase in solar brightness since the mid 1970s, and that changes in solar output within the past 400 years are unlikely to have played a major part in global warming. (They also note that there's a lot we don't know about how changes in UV output affect things and so forth.)

www.nature.com/.../nature05072.html;jsessionid=47F9D97268D1453D72F40086BB69507D

More recently, Danish scientist Henrik Svensmark has been going around with his theory that changes in cosmic rays coming to earth determine the cloudiness and temperature. (This theory played a major role in the movie, "The Great Global Warming Swindle.") So a team at the University of Lancaster used three different methods to try to verify his theory and couldn't. Other researchers have found a great deal of contradictory evidence, too. Maybe someday Svensmark (or others) will come up with some smoking gun, but he hasn't yet.

news.bbc.co.uk/.../7327393.stm

RealClimate also has a good compendium of posts on this topic:

www.realclimate.org/.../sun-earth-connections

As for the early problems with satellite data, strangely enough (or maybe not so strangely) Wikipedia has a really good short history of how it was eventually reconciled:

en.wikipedia.org/.../Satellite_temperature_measurements

- Brad Plumer

May 25, 2008 at 7:05pm

Teplukhin2you: Thank you for your reply. Science is not a democracy, though.  Politically speaking, a Noam Chomsky can stand up and shout that two plus two equals five. Z will publish his palaver and people will ignore it or imbibe it as recieved wisdom, as they choose. Science demands rigor; it is a harsh taskmaster. Of course, dissenting views are sometimes right. Look at plate tectonics. But more often cold fusion is the color of dissent. Eccentric views do not deserve funding and peer-reviewed slots in scientific journals just because they are dissenting views. No one is going to get a grant to study the ether any longer. The science of global warming isn't exactly in that category but for years and years the evidence has been trending increasingly in the direction of anthropogenic causes of this phenomenon and the reality of it, as well. Any number of scientists who were tentative on global warming ore even sceptical a decade or more ago have come around, citing the preponderance of evidence. Gray and Lindzen strike me as bitter enders. The fact that the whole world is against them only steels their resolves. Michelson-Morley crashed the paradigm of the ether, the paradigms sof G. and L. strike me as nonfalsifiable.

- liberal reformer

May 25, 2008 at 7:46pm

"A discount rate is simply an algebraic factor that incorporates the essential elements of _risk and uncertainty_ into any investment equation."

"4% strikes me as ridiculously low. That's close to the risk-free, US government-guaranteed rate. We're talking about enormously risky, untried, untested projects here. Something in the 10% (minimum)  range would be more appropriate for solutions that offer very uncertain prospects of generating positive social returns"

----

I think these comments are based on a misunderstand of the notion of discount rate as applied by Nordhaus.  Teplukhin is talking about a financial notion of discount - basically a risk based pricing mechanism for investments.  Nordhaus' use of time value of money is, if I understand it correctly, based on the fact that money declines in value as the economy expands, because as a claim on the gross product of a society, a fixed amount  represents a decreasing share of the overall product, and is thus worth less.   The two are related, but one is a pricing or financial consideration, and one a macroeconomic argument.

Nordhaus has to choose - guess really - a discount rate, because we can't know the overall growth of the economy in the future, but he is not pricing risk - he's estimating a free parameter of his model.

- sdemuth

May 25, 2008 at 11:18pm

In 2010 the Giant Flying Spaghetti monster will destroy the earth. Now you can take your pascals wager on that...

- cthulhu2008

May 26, 2008 at 1:36am

Giant Flying Spaghetti monster...is that something out of H.P. Lovecraft, cthulhu?

- aeromonas

May 26, 2008 at 7:36am

I imagine that you, of all people, would be able to tell us.

- aeromonas

May 26, 2008 at 7:37am

And just so you know, you're in the running to be the thompsondavid of the E&E blog.  

Come to think of it, you might actually BE thompsondavid.  TD didn't seem to survive the web revamp last October, which makes me suspicious that he/she took the opportunity to go underground under a new handle.  

In any event, WELCOME!

- aeromonas

May 26, 2008 at 7:42am

lol, but still, the wager applies equally to the Giant Flying Spaghetti Monster as it does God and as it does Xenu.

This is why the argument that we should enact global warming policy on a Pascal's wager is absurd.

- cthulhu2008

May 26, 2008 at 10:46am

And it is from Lovecraft, as I refuse to vote for the lesser of two evils:P

- cthulhu2008

May 26, 2008 at 10:48am

Aeromonas: Who was thompsondavid?

- liberal reformer

May 26, 2008 at 11:12am

As some one who considers himself an environmentalist I get very frustrated when people qualify their proclamations on climate change with "I'm for the protecting the environment / reducing man-made emissions / addressing global warming & climate change as long as it costs me nothing or I don't have to change my lifestyle."

I find it highly ironic that those with "pure faith" in free-market solutions can deride those who would put "faith" in environmentalism.

Usually the arguments made to invest little in current technology solutions or actual action-based solutions is wrapped up in Return in Investment requirements. Many feel that we should have clear economic actuary tables that quantify the investment risks of climate policy proposals based on economic modeling (that they assume is more accurate) while at the same time implying that the current climate models are lame, weak and inaccurate. Yet these same people who "pooh-pooh" the notion of scientific faith in climate modeling put their faith in market/economic modeling and forecasts. Yet forecasting and modeling future market performance and ROI is nearly impossible because it can't model in the psychological factors of human nature when it comes to the market. As clearly seen by the "forecasts" of the sub-prime debacle.

The parsimony of the free-market approach to environmental and climate change is faulty because it makes assumptions using 19th and early 20th century assumptions about human impacts is already clear. The "value" of raw materials is calculated in the same manner as it was 60 years ago. So the people who criticize the science of climate modeling as being nebulous should also question the rigorousness with with economics is applied to future outcome modeling. Sdemuth mentions this fact.

I can give an example of how current economic assessment is applied to environmental cleanup which I think will help. During the Rocky Flats Weapons Facility (RFWF) clean up and conversion to a wildlife reserve the stakeholders (of which I served on the citizen advisory board) discussed and reviewed economic analysis as well as environmental assessments on the costs of total background clean-up (TBC) versus cleaning up to a minimum standard clean-up (MSC). What this meant according to the DOE which was ultimately footing the bill that "clean" meant MSC was the preferred method as it meant they could do the minimum amount of clean-up to make it reasonably safe for the least amount of money and then spend a set amount of money in yearly monitoring in perpetuity and come back at a latter date to cleanup when technologies appeared to negate the radioactive and toxic waste to be left in place. Sound familiar?

The EPA, State, Local and Citizen advisers of the RFWF clean up pushed to have all the radioactive and toxic wastes packaged and shipped to the WIPP facility. This also included remediating all contaminated soils down to levels that were within background radiation levels and contaminate free.

The DOE's proposal was to leave soils and buried wastes in situ, cap and then remediate at a much later date because the current proposal was too expensive. In other words the cost of clean up today was more than they were willing to spend but their economic models would not or did not include the cost of future clean up at future dollar inflation levels.

In the end the DOE, EPA, State, Local and Citizen advisers were able, through consensus, using current scientific modeling scenarios for subsoil, ground and subsurface water and other surface conditions to clean up the site to the background levels and complete remediation at the higher current cost. The reasoning was that the stakeholders had no idea what future technologies would be, or that on site monitoring would continue until such technologies occurred or that the monitoring mechanisms would be in place 50, 100 or 1000 years from now. It was decided to proceed and clean up rather than take the cheaper approach now and wait for future generations to fix the problem. This also meant that monies were saved later down the line in having to address forecasted cleanup of radioactive plumes, increased treatment of local groundwater for adjacent communities, and reduced monitoring costs. RFWF is now Rocky Flats Wildlife Refuge.  

In essence the excuse to exclude the implementation of current technologies and action solutions to human linked activities now because it's considered too expensive is taking the short-term investment approach to this. Taking the market approach, one can make the argument that waiting to do something later will cost more than doing something now if the decisions are based on current data. Waiting for the next big report, future and increased accuracy of climate modeling allows for a do-nothing approach. What evolving research capabilities can do is tell us if the previous solutions were effective and what can be done better.

Tep...you cite your suburban lifestyle and children as a factor for your doubts about applying methods to addressing the myriad issues associated with climate change without taking into consideration the costs of that remediation investment will cost. While I don't discount this, I think it also behooves us all (including those of us who plan on having children soon) to pay a particular price tag based on current scientific evidence that points to human causalities in the exacerbation of climate change but the key factor missing in this is not your ROI in this it is the future generations benefit from your investment.

Usually where environmentalist can go wrong is making just the pure moral persuasion argument about "doing the right thing" now versus tomorrow without basing that action on sound scientific data.

However in the last 15 years, as someone who follows the environmental news and literature as closely as I can, I have seen a remarkable increase in scientific data being generated, analyzed and used to support making marked and clear actions that reduce environmental damage and restore the environment. It also means that as things change on the ground, we have to adapt to those changes and act accordingly.

It's clear that many, if not most of the posters to E&E are concerned and passionate about the human impacts on climate change and the environment as a whole. As someone, who's profession is linked to a big part of that human impact, I take the issues very seriously. Finding design solutions to the built environment that reduce the upfront costs of building and increase ROI while at the same time reducing the total environmental impact both locally and regionally is a difficult task but one that is getting easier as more people get on board that the initial, higher up-front costs of a building design solution are outweighed by the future regulatory, operating and maintenance costs associated with taking the status quo approach. So I am sensitive to the market aspects of addressing climate change on a local level and the short-term aspects of that, but I also take into consideration the long approach with developing solutions and the holistic view that the complexities of the climate and environment are still being discovered and expanded upon.

I don't think anyone is fooling themselves that addressing human causalities in climate change are easy and in some respects gets more complicated and complex as scientists discovery and reveal the inherent complexities of the natural world and our interdependency and interactions with it. What was just a simple landscape is now a complex biological and bioclimatic system of which we operate in.

But this is issue is more than just deciding if you buy cheap white bread now while hoping that in the future you can buy whole wheat bread later.

- singlespeed

May 26, 2008 at 12:26pm

Singlespeed: Excellent post. Externality is the name of the game here. Companies and people can foul the commons - and here I mean the entire biosphere - with impunity because it does not cost them to do so. I sometimes humorously call myself a market leftist because i have an enormous appreciation for the productive power and allocative strenghts of markets.  And contrary to many ubergreens, the enviroment generally and broadly improves under capitalism. But the market fetishists of the right can't stop at such appreciation, they have to go whole hog and deride almost any intervention in the marketplace. The bean counters may be excellent at counting beans but somewhat less than astute at a holistic approach to our natural world.

- liberal reformer

May 26, 2008 at 1:28pm

libref - thompsondavid was a frequent TNR poster who seemed to enjoy the role as resident blog troll.  He would often let fly with well reasoned arguments along the lines of "Democrats just can't help channeling their inner Alger Hiss" and other such classics.  Wasn't the easiest person to have a fact or data-driven discussion with.

- Nari224

May 26, 2008 at 2:21pm

Nari224 : Thanks much. "... channeling their inner Alger Hiss"?  What happened to him? Was he a Pat Buchananite, or beyond? It sounds as if it may be so.

- liberal reformer

May 26, 2008 at 2:41pm

Global warming is Satan.  If we don't all make sacrifices, we'll burn in hell.

The whole climate change debate has been turned into a new religion, or boogie man, with would-be leaders stoking the debate in order to gain political power that they exercise for their own benefit, or to the benefit of their wealthiest or most influential supporters.  Science is of secondary importance in this debate.  

Before we solve the problem, we need to think seriously about one of the underlying underlying assumptions - that the status quo is worth preserving.  If you don't accept that notion, then the rest of the debate makes no sense.

We need to focus on a solution that makes the world a better place to live for everyone.  If sacrifices are necessary, the first sacrifices, and the biggest sacrifices, should be made by those with the most to lose, or those with the most to give.

Any solution that taxes consumption, or where the cost of the tax would be transferred directly to consumers, should be rejected as it would unfairly shift the burden for solving the problem to those who have gained the least from the fossil fuels revolution, the poor and the working class.  

- fwslusser

May 26, 2008 at 3:10pm

I, too, am eager to disassociate environmental policy from unthinking pantheism. I'm all for hard-headed cost-benefit analyses. And yet, whenever I hear a version of Dyson's argument, I can't help wondering if there are costs and benefits that cannot be assessed economically. For instance, how do we reckon  the value of a species or even an entire ecosystem from which we derive no economic benefit?

It seems to me that there are four or five core reasons for being an environmentalist:

1. Aesthetics (these are easily dismissed as so much nostalgic Romanticism--too easily, perhaps).

2. Animal welfare (easily dismissed as sentimental anthropomorphism, but again I wonder. I once asked a NOAA cetologist why we should care about the excruciation of a juvenile humpback entangled in fishing line. Yes, it was gruesome to imagine, the way the line slowly wore through flesh and bone as the whale grew, but since the humpback population on the whole is recovering, why should taxpayers and policymakers care about inflicting a little collateral damage on the natural world? Struggling to answer, she fought back tears. Were those tears sentimental? Or perhaps an expression of a more noble emotion—a kind of love?).

3. Ecology, which teaches us that in an almost unfathomably complex system, there may well be larger consequences in the fall of a species of sparrow, even if people incur no perceivable cost.

4. Our own well-being, economic and otherwise. Unless I've misunderstood, this is the only value the Nordhaus model takes into account--the cost and benefit to both people living today and those to come. I'd agree that human well-being should be the paramount consideration, but not the only one.

- Nippers

May 26, 2008 at 3:16pm

"Any solution that taxes consumption, or where the cost of the tax would be transferred directly to consumers, should be rejected as it would unfairly shift the burden for solving the problem to those who have gained the least from the fossil fuels revolution, the poor and the working class."

The wealthy do need to sacrifice more, if only because they on average consume more--true of wealthy individuals and wealthy nations alike. And you're right, sometimes a tax on consumption is a regressive tax on the poor, and good policy would need to find ways of fairly distributing the burden (with rebates for the poor, perhaps).

But in many cases all that a tax on consumption imposes is a cost-free change of behavior. Note, for instance, Ireland's levy on disposable plastic bags (around 30 cents a bag). No one has to pay it, not even the working poor. They simply have to bring a reusable bag or basket to the grocery store. In just a few years the levy has cut Ireland's consumption of disposable plastic bags by more than 90 percent.

- Nippers

May 26, 2008 at 3:32pm

The big problem is that it's easy enough for rich nations to give up industrialization for the environment but for the poor nations its a hole different story.

We already have industrial production, industrial agriculture, ubiquitous sanitation ect... We got these things by causing serious damage to the ecosystem.

The impasse comes when liberals who ordinarily scream bloody murder night and day about the plight of poor nations are now trying to implement ecological protections that will prevent them from coming out of poverty.

Want to eradicate malaria? Destroy all wetlands and spray every home with DDT.

Want to feed the populace? Plant GM crops and spray everything with ecological harmful pesticides.

Want to have clean water? Erect dams and dig canals and destroy water habitats.

You have to make the choice. Its either the third world humans or the ecology. You just can't have both. And if you do fall on the Green side at least be honest in what you think of the material aspirations of the Africans.

- cthulhu2008

May 26, 2008 at 4:51pm

thompsondavid is NOT back. He would have ranted against Harvard, as he did in every other post of his. The man had a real obsession with Harvard. ctulhu has had several posts here, and none resemble thompsondavid - neither in the style of arguments nor in the Harvard obsession.

- sleepyavl

May 26, 2008 at 5:57pm

ctulhu "You have to make the choice. Its either the third world humans or the ecology. You just can't have both. And if you do fall on the Green side at least be honest in what you think of the material aspirations of the Africans."

Or of the Chinese and Indians. Well put, thank you.

- sleepyavl

May 26, 2008 at 6:00pm

ctulhu,

Seems messier than that to me, since per capita consumption of resources is still greater in rich nations than in poor ones. And wasn't it the Bush administration, not environmentalists, who complained that Kyoto demanded more of developed nations than developing ones?

An ecological world view does not have to privilege nature over civilization. One could see economics as a subset of ecology. After all, they both share the same prefix, which, if memory serves, derives from the Latin for "home."

- Nippers

May 26, 2008 at 8:18pm

For the poor nations of the world to have similar standards of living to us they will have to consume similar amounts of resources.

I mean, we didn't get this way by not consuming resources.

This is what makes the scientific reality of global warming so important. If it is actually real then one is making a very grave call in retarding the industrial progress of the world to rescue humanity from a real, material disaster. If global warming, however, proves to be a component of some natural cycle, say solar variations, then it would be cruel and senseless to confine the third world to poverty as part of some sick bonfire of the vanities.

- cthulhu2008

May 26, 2008 at 9:34pm

It's all about the trade-offs. Which is why the economic analysis is even more important than the scientific analysis.

In certain ways this debate reminds me of the runup to the Iraq invasion. In trying to inject some skepticism into this debate, and in asking for a solid, through, sober assessment of consequences, trade-offs, unintended consequences etc of the AGW crowd's proposed remedies, I feel a lot like one of those f-p realists who in 2002 agreed that the status quo re Iraq was untenable, that Saddam posed a very serious risk, but who nonetheless argued that invasion was bad medicine, that it would unleash too many unknown consequences, and a few devastating predictable ones.

First do as little harm as possible. There are a thousand ways that our proposed remedies can f*** this up and make a bad situation worse. Be cautious, and have some respect for dissenting voices.

- teplukhin2you

May 26, 2008 at 11:08pm

Teplukhin2you:: So economic analysis is even more pertinent than scientific analysis? So we can just map the scientific matter at hand on a economic grid and then we will know how to proceed? Economic analysis is a means to an end. This reminds me of the implicit reductionism that disfigured a post by sleepavl earlier today on another thread. Why not then just make the National Science Foundation a subsidiary of the economics department at the University of Chicago?

- liberal reformer

May 27, 2008 at 12:18am

tep,

Which of the AGW crowd's proposed remedies seem dangerous?

Seems to me there is a hell of a lot that American taxpayers and policymakers can do to reduce emissions that will pose little threat to the livelihood of Americans or of strivers in the third world. As I said before, even now, despite all the growth in China, our per capita environmental impact is still the greatest in the world.

That said I also question the assumption that industrialization of the future must resemble that of the past. China, India, et. al, have technological advantages--including environmental advantages--that weren't available to Western industrialists of yore. They also have their own home-grown environmentalists to contend with.

- Nippers

May 27, 2008 at 1:23am

Once again some people are making the assumption that they would have to give up certain things in their life like ipods, riding lawnmowers, disposable kitchen appliances, tupperware, plasma TVs, and their cars when, not if, we have to start reducing and repairing the human causalities in climate change and global warming. Well that would be true if we continue to design and buy all the things we consume now the same way we've been doing that. Of course I wouldn't feel sad if leaf blowers when the way of the Dodo.

There are ways to design and build consumer goods that don't cause negative impacts on the environment and also maintain a high standard of living for humans. All the technological achievements of man have had negative impacts on the planet and the environment. Not one  discovery, development or aspect our existence on this planet has resulted in any positive or neutral impact once the human race outpaced the natural carrying capacity of the planet.

Don't confuse technological and cultural achievements with biological / environmental improvements. We spend more time and money extracting and doing damage to the natural world and then we spend more time & money trying to repair or undo the damage done by those achievements. But that is because we've been stuck thinking in terms of resources and their uses in 18th Century fashion.

Instead of negating our cultural and technological achievements we need to rethink how we use the finite resources we have now. Instead of throwing plastics in the trash after unwrapping a new electric hair dryer or discarding the burned out coffee maker or outmoded Macbook Pro, we should be designing these products to be kept in the industrial chain of materials. Develop the materials to maintain their usefulness by having manufacturers maintain ownership of the product and lease it's use to you the consumer. At the end of it's life span it's returned to the manufacturer and remade into the newer product version without loss of raw material quality. Purely disposable products can be designed to actually be soil nutrients and biodegradable but those products have to be universal not just an item at Whole Foods.

These industrial changes can be done and it's being done now in certain industries but it'll have to ramp up and change more quickly as resourced become scarcer and more expensive. You'd think for all the scientific, cultural and technological achievements of mankind that we're still not able to think in a way that ensures we're managing ourselves first and our impacts on the planet so that the planet can still support our sorry butts for next million years. It's time we start thinking we're a part of the environment and animal kingdom and not apart from it.

- singlespeed

May 27, 2008 at 11:07am

What moral obligation do we have to the natural world? This natural world is not sentient, it came about by chaotic cosmic and evolutionary forces. It has no ego, will, or personality. It is simply the sum of self sustaining systems.

We, the living, have minds and wills. The betterment of humanity enriches an actual living, sentient life. Our ability to exploit nature for our own good is what makes us human and the more we do it the greater our sentient lives become.

As for the management of finite resources, we have already devised a system known as prices to deal with that. Prices reflect the actual scarcity of a good compared to its demand. Resources that are overused experience higher prices that naturally encourage conservation and recycling. Price information is so powerful because it is generated by the spontaneous order of open markets and reflects real time information about wealth and desire at the micro level. To replace this with centralized planning to control to distribution of finite resources is to take a giant, Soviet step back in time to the tired and utterly failed notion that a planning committee can make better price decisions than networks of actual market actors.

- cthulhu2008

May 27, 2008 at 1:15pm

Cthulhu: Nobody except the fringies talks about Soviet-style central planning. We have a moral obligation to ourselves, as regards the natural world. It is what we - as humans - do, have moral obligations. Either, that is, we have them or they have us, the latter being the case if determinism is true. You make the same wrong move that sleepyavl does concerning reductionism when you exalt pricing mechanisms, which is to say for you two, if A is a good, then is infinitely good and infinitely applicable. Hedgehogs!

- liberal reformer

May 27, 2008 at 1:45pm

Do you believe the world will be poorer as a result of continued exploitation of the natural world? If you do, what actual resources will be depleted that have no substitute on earth or the nearby planets and moons?

There is nothing necessarily absurd about a thing being infinitely applicable. The Pythagorean Theorem is as such, despite the fact that it relies on Sixth Century (BC) notions of logic. That is another strange idea that I keep hearing, that the free market is flawed because it relies on old knowledge. I would imagine the failure of skeptics to falsify an idea becomes only more impressive with time.

Finally I have an honest question for liberal reformer, what is reductionism?

- cthulhu2008

May 27, 2008 at 2:05pm

Cthulu...where did you get the idea that we're talking about price controls? And as for you argument about humans not having a moral obligation towards the natural environment because "This natural world is not sentient, it came about by chaotic cosmic and evolutionary forces. It has no ego, will, or personality. It is simply the sum of self sustaining systems.

We, the living, have minds and wills. The betterment of humanity enriches an actual living, sentient life. Our ability to exploit nature for our own good is what makes us human and the more we do it the greater our sentient lives become."

Ah yes...The "we're humans" so we can do whatever we want because we're the cognitively operating apex species on the planet. Where have I heard that before? Oh yes...Judeo-Christian theology about making the earth and its creatures the domain of man. The very philosophy used to separate ourselves from the animal kingdom because it bruises our ego to think that we're animals. So we pray to a God and hope the earthquakes don't bury us in the world of our own making.

But the fault in that logic lies your "thinking" that exploitation equals sentience. When it doesn't. The parasite exploits the host thus it must be sentient! You insist that because humans think, reason and feel (as implied by your use of sentient lives) we are therefore the apex species. But you're still part of the animal kingdom despite the latent speciesism.  Like I said, don't confuse cultural / technological achievements with positivistic aspects of our inhabiting the planet. We've evolved to live here and as the cognitive beings that currently dominate other species through brute force we have a moral obligation to ourselves and the natural world to maintain the planet so that it can continue to support us. You must have missed that part.

I see your faith in the market is strong young Jedi but then you seem to imply that only through market gambling can we get ourselves out of the warming pot of water. I'd argue that as humans, we have the capacity to rethink how we design and do things so that less materials are used and by doing so the finite source can be shared across all societies. Again, I'm not talking about top-down market to consumer restriction of products, I'm talking about rethinking the way in which we make things so that they either stay in the industrial resource stream (never entering the natural resource stream as waste) or are designed as a product from natural resource streams that remain in the natural realm. THAT my friend is how we can address the issues of finite resources and "waste" instead of exploiting and using of resources in the archaic manner in which you prefer to defend through market status quo.

Meanwhile, I'm bringing all my trash and dumping it on your front yard because as a sentient life, I have no moral obligation to the natural world in which you inhabit. Plus it makes my life better.

- singlespeed

May 27, 2008 at 2:42pm

Nothing wrong with intelligent energy conservation. I'm all for it, the more the better. But if you're going to insist that emerging (re-emerging, actually) powers like China, India and Brazil accept regimes that would quash their dreams of actually offering their populations a shot at a dignified, non-backbreaking existence for the first time ever, I think you're asking for backlash that won't do us or them much good.

I love bicycles. I wish I could ride to work. But I'm realistic enough to realize that the fondest aspiration for any poor person in any decent sized city on this planet is to have his own car. Cars are central to this problem, and yet it's cars that at least a billion poor people on this planet are determined to have and enjoy. Good luck proposing that a billion Chinese Indians Russians Brazilians Iranians Turks Mexicans Indonesians Vietnamese Thais et al give up their dreams of owning a car.

- teplukhin2you

May 27, 2008 at 2:45pm

"f you do, what actual resources will be depleted that have no substitute on earth or the nearby planets and moons?"

It's pretty hard to take you seriously when you argue that we are going to be mining nearby planets for resources.  We have yet to bring an ounce of soil from Mars and we are going to mine it or the moon? Laughable. Clearly you have no idea of the amount of energy that would take.

"The Pythagorean Theorem is as such, despite the fact that it relies on Sixth Century (BC) notions of logic"

It's math. It doesn't rely on "Sixth Century" notions.  As far all ideas being infinitely applicable, it's self evident that is not true for all ideas.

"Finally I have an honest question for liberal reformer"

is also a pretty poor construction since it implies that you have dishonest questions.

- bsdespain

May 27, 2008 at 2:52pm

cthulu...there isn't anything wrong with something being infinitely applicable. But Pythagoreas' Theorem is not a tangible resource. And what I mean by the existing resource market is outdated is because it was predicated on the idea, at the time, that all natural resources were infinite and prodigious. That was the case until the human population grew beyond the natural carrying capacity of the natural habitat. Soil, potable water sources, trees, rock potassium, oil, natural gas...all of these can be considered finite resources if the demand outstrips the capacity to naturally produce them.

For arguments sake let's use Easter Island as a a microcosm of the planet. An island that was historically covered in trees was systematically deforested and rendered the island unable to sustain the original island population. A complete collapse of over-use of a finite resource (trees) had a devastating impact with no resource to repair/build boats, bird species disappeared or went extinct due to nesting loss. Islanders lost another resource for protein and fishing hooks. Complete soil erosion so that the only species able to sustain the islanders for a period of time were imported rats and chickens. As a record of outstripping a local ecology, we modern humans can look to that and develop other methods to achieve quality of life without outstripping the carrying capacity of the planet.

I don't understand your contrariness to developing technologies that would allow us to do more with less resources (even if they seem infinite to you now) they won't necessarily be so. And I keep bringing up the idea of a broken resource market because in a sense it is. It uses older presumptions of infinite resource extraction and exploitation and brute force as the standard for determining the value of systems as we understand them today. You don't rely on 500 year old medical techniques do you? Would you like to hunt with a bronze axe? So why insist on using outdated means and methods for understanding how we value the natural and industrial world as it relates to today's understand of ecology, material sciences, climate change, environmental degradation, cancer treatment, etc.?

As a modern, sentient being, I thought you'd be up to that challenge.

- singlespeed

May 27, 2008 at 3:23pm

Tep...you bring up a valid point. But I pose this question in return. What use is a car to someone if they don't have clean water, a safe house or air they can breath without a dust mask on? I suspect some people would forego the car if they could have the former. Be that as it may, the proposal of intelligently redesigning the things we use is so that folks in all the emerging 2nd world countries can do just what Americans do! Drive to the mall, shop at Bed, Bath and Beyond and grill in the backyard.

China's already got that down... query.nytimes.com/.../fullpage.html

Like I've been saying, to solve the issues of infinite desires versus finite resources we have to rethink how we use and create things so that we're not needlessly wasting. These ideas are based on the premise of Cradle-to-Cradle. http://www.c2ccertified.com/

Albert Einstein said "the world will not evolve past its current state of crisis by using the same thinking that created the situation."

- singlespeed

May 27, 2008 at 3:36pm

Cthulhu: Reductionism is the attempt to explain a complex set of phenomena, facts, events, etc. by reducing them to a simpler set of facts or algorithims. An extreme example would be Ed Fredkin, who believes (or at least used to believe) that the totality of everything can be reduced to a single algorithim. Reductionism has been an extremely productive scientific tool but the whole cosmos cannot be reduced to, say, particle physics, in order to understand higher-order phenomena. I see you as a reductionist in your mania for pricing, to the exclusion of any other approach. I am an evangelist for markets and for pricing because they are enormously effective. But a prominent problem in economics is externalities; in ecological terms we are fouling the commons and pricing does not lend itself to solving the pollution problems.

- liberal reformer

May 27, 2008 at 3:56pm

singlespeed - one of the most annoying things about the enviro-zealots is their constant, sneering references to "suburbia", to children, to American brands and suburban accoutrements. It bespeaks cluelessness about the realities of life for those of us who still believe that an essential part of being human is bearing and raising children.

Like you I spent my entire single life as an urban hipster taking mass transit and disdaining malls, big-box stores, backyard grills and suburbia generally. Now, as a parent dreaming of that elysian, snark- and irony-filled urban existence, I come up against three immoveable, massive walls: 1) sh*tty air quality 2)  no green space  3) unaffordability of housing. Living in a downtown core is simply out of the question for me and about 20 million other households in this country. Can't ruin my kids' lungs, can't surround them with concrete, can't force them to squeeze into a shoebox in a high-rise while their daddy spends their college funds on a ridiculously overpriced mortgage.

The point here is that those of you who sneer at the obvious, huge advantages created by green space and  suburbs -- ie the car culture-- are either naive and callow or else clueless about how the choices faced by every parent on this planet. And just as I insist on green space for my boys, and will ensure that I save for their education rather  than mortgage it so I and my wife can continue our yuppie idyll, there are a billion other households on this planet that are desperate for development and all the extraordinary advantages it brings to them and their children.

- teplukhin2you

May 27, 2008 at 3:59pm

Tep....

Here's the science & chemistry-based side of cradle-to-cradle. http://www.epea.com/index.php

In case the other touchy-feely link wasn't doing it for you.

- singlespeed

May 27, 2008 at 4:05pm

Tep...

I have lived in rural, urban and suburban areas and I am fully aware of all the advantages and disadvantages to them all. So I'm not trying to be snarky about the suburban lifestyle. It has many advantages...of which you have listed and the urban lifestyle has many negatives. I'm not denying that. But what I am saying is that the simply because you or I presume our current chosen lifestyle choices are what everyone else in the world wants is well...presumptuous. I linked to the China development because it was a reference to your positing that the Chinese aspire to the American suburban lifestyle. While as the same time it is the reverse, economically. The wealthy elite live in Orange County China not the working poor. So don't proclaim to speak for all the other billion parents out there that chose to live in the outlying suburbs and then wish you didn't have to drive everywhere.

I had 20 acres in the country and loved it but at the same time the 80 mile round trip commute killed me. I accepted that and decided if I ever did it again I would work close to where I live. I still have my back yard grill where I live now. It's just that I have more neighbors. Just because I currently live in the city doesn't mean I disdain the suburban lifestyle. I mean Alexandria, VA isn't exactly Manhattan let alone Dupont Circle but it isn't Springfield either. There are kids playing safely at the park nearby, kids walk to school, people hang out in their backyards. It's suburban yuppy idyll ten minutes from DC proper.

But because I think that redesigning aspects of the suburbs, most specifically the commercial aspects, so that people are less reliant on their cars all the time and they're less bland to the eye I'm being callow? What about you that presume anyone living in the city is loaded to the gills, makes love on concrete and frivolously pisses away their children's college savings being ironic hipsters?

But then with the dystopian city you seem to be describing I can understand why you prefer not to live there. I would never live in NYC. I like visiting it but I find it to be not very livable at all. I like green space, I love the outdoors and I also like going two blocks over to get a good beer. If I can do that without having to drive everywhere to do it then great.

But I think we're talking past each other on the suburban/urban thing. I'm not proposing an either/or solution. I'm saying that with the way things are going and the presumptive nature of the consumer lifestyle we Americans have grown accustomed that we need to rethink how things are done. Can the suburb being a better more compact and walkable environment while still maintaining the aspects of open space and back yard grilling? Yes. Can the urban lifestyle have more open space and clean air and be more affordable. Yes. Will these solutions take time, energy and hard decisions? Yes. And I think they're doable.

- singlespeed

May 27, 2008 at 4:38pm

Tep,

One of the most annoying things about your posts is the way you invoke a kind of paternal essentialism: It's a parent thing, you wouldn't understand.

I'm a parent, and an environmentalist, a commited one, perhaps even a zealous one, but not so zealous that I go around moralizing to others, not so zealous that I presume to treat my own choices as some how universal as, in this instance, you do. I live in the city. My son has green spaces in walking distance. I don't own a car. My wife and I plan to have a second child. I wish I had a garden, and some day, if I'm lucky, I might be able to afford a terrace. I grew up with open spaces and almost every day feel the constriction of my world as a loss, but an acceptable one.

Note, however, that I have not previously mentioned these biographical details. I understand why you and your family would have made the choices you did. I have not yet asked you to follow my example and suck it up, learn to love the commons, and abandon the automotive life. Hell, if I did that, I'd have to answer for the jet planes I fly in for work-related reasons.

But can we not assume that all parents are obliged to make the same suburban choices you did?

- Nippers

May 27, 2008 at 10:22pm

Nippers, my post was focused on the economic and other realities that constrain people's choices. Like you, I conclude that it's wrong to demonize or stereotype categories of people because of associated taste badges that one finds odious, be they American big-box retailers or third-world diesel-fuelled, smoggy buses, or whatever.

btw, I forgot to add that another reason the vast majority of parents leave the city soon after having kids is the atrocious quality of most urban public schools. If new high-density housing were well built, as opposed to mass market DR Horton etc trash, and located in excellent school districts, then my family would be first in line to buy. In reality, most high-density housing is either out of reach for all but the top few %, by wealth, of families or else affordable but in sh*tty school districts.

If a high-density green plan doesn't deal with these huge economic and social constraints, it will fail. Which is the case with all of the green solutions: listen to ordinary people, understand their motivations and constraints, instead of demonizing them.

- teplukhin2you

May 28, 2008 at 2:47am

tep,

So we are mostly in agreement--about the cost of housing, the bad public schools, the air quality. It's just that I couldn't recognize my own life in the caricatures you invoked of urban yuppies and urban hipsters sneering at parents like yourself who cared more about their chid's education and lungs than life without a car. I know plenty of parents here in New York who are neither rich nor  "urban hipsters" and are figuring out ways to make it work. We don't tend to sneer about children, and some of us periodically contemplate a move to the suburbs or exurbs. As for green spaces, the Brooklyn Botanic Garden is a glory this time of year, far more glorious than your average back yard.

Yes, it's a hell of a lot harder financing a home in New York than it would have been thirty years ago, but it's also a hell of a lot more family-friendly than it was thirty years ago. Deduct the cost of car payments, car insurance, and car maintenance, and the cost of living goes down considerably. The big sacrifice we make: square footage. We're raising a family in what is technically a one bedroom apartment. It works. Every room has two uses. The kids will share a bedroom. My office is in the bedroom. As for schools, my wife and I are lucky enough to live in the district of two pretty good public schools--one reason why moving to a bigger apartment is not an option. We're okay so long as we stay put. The real secret advantage we have is my wife's extended family. Lots of free babysitting. But maybe that's what the future will look like: the past.

- Nippers

May 28, 2008 at 11:10am

Tep...I think you've hit upon a good point "If a high-density green plan doesn't deal with these huge economic and social constraints, it will fail. Which is the case with all of the green solutions: listen to ordinary people, understand their motivations and constraints, instead of demonizing them"

In my line of work, designing and getting projects that are affordable, green, a pleasure to look at and live in are hard to get through the status quo of review boards, zoning regs and most importantly the developers and banks who aren't used to doing things differently. However, the environment has changed in the last 5-6 years where once there were many barricades to doing better, greener, high density developments, those barricades have diminished greatly. Many of those are happening in older, first growth suburbs and in some instances newer outlying bedroom communities, but the density in commerce, services and residential isn't quite there yet. A quality mixed-use development doesn't appear out of thin air but requires hundreds of hours of design, client meetings, zoning meetings, public hearings, and community meetings.

The days of getting developers to pay up for new schools might be gone with the credit crunch and aversion to large-scale developments of just housing. But high to mid-density mixed-use development does offer the advantages of getting the critical mass in place sooner so that school districts can plan and expand accordingly. But even suburban schools suffer. Any urban or suburban school can suffer or prosper based much on the involvement of the parents, teachers or facilities. And much of that parent involvement is also tied to socio-economic status of the parents.

I'm a strong proponent of revitalizing the older neighborhoods and older, first ring suburbs because much of the community density and infrastructure is in place. It's greener to infill and recapture land than plow over farm land for new leap frog developments.

I'd recommend a couple of books that I found to be very interesting in regards to how and why America developed and develops the way it does. By the way these are very readable for the non-urban planner/architect and I think you'd find them interesting in regards to your posts above.

Building Suburbia  by Delores Hayden. A great contemporary history of how, who and what shapes the American suburb.

The Regional City by Peter Calthorpe. New urbanist book on planning communities around mixed-density and multi-nodal transportation.

A Sense of Place, A Sense of Time by J.B. Jackson. A look at the everyday American landscape and the vernacular of the everyday.

The Limiteless City  by Oliver Gillman. Very objective view on the urban/suburban interface.

- singlespeed

May 28, 2008 at 11:53am

Nip, sing -- yes, we're basically in agreement here, Everyone wants green space, good cultural amenities, a decent standard of living, a short commute, ideally on foot.

Appreciate the civil and constructive dialogue,

best,

t

- teplukhin2you

May 28, 2008 at 12:24pm

teplukhin2you writes:

-- btw, I forgot to add that another reason the vast majority of parents leave the city soon after having kids is the atrocious quality of most urban public schools. If new high-density housing were well built, as opposed to mass market DR Horton etc trash, and located in excellent school districts, then my family would be first in line to buy. In reality, most high-density housing is either out of reach for all but the top few %, by wealth, of families or else affordable but in sh*tty school districts.

This paragraph was sufficiently predicatable I almost wrote a post yesterday suggesting its imminence but didn't want to divert the thread away from the environment. Indeed, teplukhin2you's arguments for living in the suburbs - environment and education - are the monthly fodder of the aspirational city magazines which thankfully no longer pollute my house.

Many of the people who decry the poor quality of public schools as a motivation to use private schools do so because it is a much more socially acceptable excuse than "because they want to meet a better class of parent."  They are the type of parent who might refer to hispanics as "campesinos" - frankly the type of parent I would rather not have in my childrens very urban public schools.

And, quite frankly, at a time when the US has hundreds of thousands of military personnel off risking their lives I view sending my children to public school where they can share their experiences with other Americans, regardless of wealth or class, as a small enough personal sacrifice. And a sacrifice they will be all the better for.

- ndmackenzie

May 28, 2008 at 2:27pm

mac - getta blog.

I refer to hispanics by their given names, like anyone else. I refer to mexican peasants by the mexican spanish for peasant.

Here's more brilliance from our resident race-baiting, jew-hating, straw man expert:

"Many of the people who decry the poor quality of public schools as a motivation to use private schools do so because it is a much more socially acceptable excuse than "because they want to meet a better class of parent."

There are plenty of sh*tty, overpriced private schools patronized by people who have more money than taste or commitment to learning. The schools sought by most people who "decry the poor quality of the public schools", at least by the (overwhelmingly nonwhite, non-American) parents I spend much of my time with, are TEACHER-centric, not student-centric. Has f-all to do with "a better class of parent" and everything to do with curriculum, mode of instruction, expectations of the kids etc.

Nice try, though.

- teplukhin2you

May 29, 2008 at 1:04am

tep - get twitter

The 140 character limit will stop you making such a big fool of yourself.

- ndmackenzie

May 29, 2008 at 2:18am

Mac, even a ten character limit wouldn't help you. Run along, now, and go natter on about your "evil darkness" that is Israel and such

- teplukhin2you

May 29, 2008 at 3:16am