Reporting on the economics of climate change in this country is terrible, as made clear in the searing new report by leading journalist Eric Pooley (see How the press bungles its coverage of climate economics — “The media’s decision to play the stenographer role helped opponents of climate action stifle progress”).
The NYT economics reporter, David Leonhardt, made a big splash last week with his big piece on the stimulus, “The Big Fix.” But like many economics reporters, he is both poorly informed and thoroughly confused about clean energy — and most every other aspect of energy, as his extended discussion of green jobs makes clear:
Sometimes a project can give an economy a lift and also lead to transformation, but sometimes the goals are at odds, at least in the short term. Nothing demonstrates this quandary quite so well as green jobs, which are often cited as the single best hope for driving the post-bubble economy. Obama himself makes this case. Consumer spending has been the economic engine of the past two decades, he has said. Alternative energy will supposedly be the engine of the future – a way to save the planet, reduce the amount of money flowing to hostile oil-producing countries and revive the American economy, all at once. Put in these terms, green jobs sounds like a free lunch.
Green jobs can certainly provide stimulus. Obama’s proposal includes subsidies for companies that make wind turbines, solar power and other alternative energy sources, and these subsidies will create some jobs. But the subsidies will not be nearly enough to eliminate the gap between the cost of dirty, carbon-based energy and clean energy. Dirty-energy sources — oil, gas and coal — are cheap. That’s why we have become so dependent on them.
The only way to create huge numbers of clean-energy jobs would be to raise the cost of dirty-energy sources, as Obama’s proposed cap-and-trade carbon-reduction program would do, to make them more expensive than clean energy. This is where the green-jobs dream gets complicated.
No, no, and no. Leonhardt would seem to be completely unaware of the fact that in 2008 U.S. wind energy grew by record 8,300 MW. It was responsible for 42% of all new U.S. electricity generation installed last year. In fact, two weeks ago, Fortune reported:
The wind industry now employs more people than coal mining in the United States. Wind industry jobs jumped to 85,000 in 2008, a 70% increase from the previous year, according to a report released Tuesday from the American Wind Energy Association. In contrast, coal mining employs about 81,000 workers.
The 35,000 jobs the wind industry added in 2008 are almost certainly the single biggest source of new jobs created in the entire energy industry last year.
And they were all created by government incentives and state renewable standards. So much for Leonhardt assertion that he knows the “only way to create huge numbers of clean energy jobs.” He apparently doesn’t follow the renewable energy industry at all — or even bother to do a simple Google search. So why is he writing about it?
By the way, does he really not even have a clue that for the last few years including most of 2008, oil, gas, and coal were anything but cheap? You’d think a leading economics reporter for the paper of record who would at least know the price of the things he writes about. You’d think.
The rest of the piece spins off into an alternative universe, as he continues:
For starters, of the $700 billion we spend each year on energy, more than half stays inside this country. It goes to coal companies or utilities here, not to Iran or Russia. If we begin to use less electricity, those utilities will cut jobs.
Huh? He was talking about how the stimulus couldn’t create jobs in the alternative energy sector without a carbon price. Now he is worrying about the country actually using less electricity, which no one involved in the stimulus is talking about.
The modest amounts of energy efficiency in the stimulus would certainly create jobs retrofitting buildings and making energy-efficient equipment. But it wouldn’t cause an absolute reduction in electricity demand that Leonhardt is trash-talking.
This is just a straw man, pure and simple.
Worse, did you notice how he glossed over entirely the hundreds of billions of dollars a year that US consumers and businesses spend on energy that leave the country and end up in the hands of OPEC? Congress and Obama have been aggressively pursuing more fuel-efficient vehicles and alternative fuel vehicles, both of which hold the potential to reduce the money flowing out of the country for oil and use some of it to pay for American made technologies and hence create domestic jobs.
Why is the economics reporter for the NYT peddling an argument that is essentially indistinguishable from that of conservative think tanks (see The intellectual bankruptcy of conservatism: Heritage even opposes energy efficiency and “Oh My God, They Admitted It”)?
Leonhardt presses on:
Just as important, the current, relatively low price of energy allows other companies — manufacturers, retailers, even white-collar enterprises — to sell all sorts of things at a profit. Raising that cost would raise the cost of almost everything that businesses do. Some projects that would have been profitable to Boeing, Kroger or Microsoft in the current economy no longer will be. Jobs that would otherwise have been created won’t be.
Again, it is Leonhardt who thinks the only way to create renewable energy jobs is through the government boosting energy prices. And again, he seems painfully unaware that energy prices have been rising all by themselves up for a number of years (see “Power plants costs double since 2000 — Efficiency anyone?“).
And it apparently never occurred to him that the government might help companies use energy more efficiently, so that their energy bills did not rise even as energy prices and electricity rates do rise — even though California has been doing that for three decades now (see “Energy efficiency is THE core climate solution, Part 1: The biggest low-carbon resource by far“).
As Rob Stavins, a leading environmental economist, says, “Green jobs will, to some degree, displace other jobs.” Just think about what happened when gas prices began soaring last spring: sales of some hybrids increased, but vehicle sales fell overall.
When you run out of your own ignorant comments, that’s when it is time to quote a card-carrying voodoo economists, a MEOW (Mainstream Economist who Opines on Weather) who thinks it’s not possible or even a good idea for government policies to address two issues (jobs, energy/environment) at the same time, a man who can’t walk and chew gum at the same time.
Just think about what happens when oil prices soar over the next decade because we have run out of the cheap stuff (see “Normally staid IEA says oil will peak in 2020“). The sales of the big vehicles are going to collapse no matter what the government does. The only question is whether the government can help spur Detroit to build the only vehicles anybody will want to buy when gasoline is $5 a gallon and higher.
The ungreen jobs are doomed to disappear because they are unsustainable and are destroying a livable climate for our children and the next 50 generations. So the issue isn’t whether green jobs will be the biggest single source of new jobs in the coming decades. That is a done deal. The issue is whether the green jobs will be created in this country or in places like Europe and Japan and China where economists and economics reporters don’t waste a lot of time trying to convince the public they are a bad investment.
Previous in TP Climate Progress
Language Intelligence: Lessons on persuasion from Jesus, Shakespeare, Lincoln, and Lady Gaga
also coal pollution generates birth defects, cancer, and asthma, which create jobs. clean energy hurts our hospitals!
also, “you kids get off my lawn!”
Joe,
when you have the time check this out from our favorite Exxon-Mobil PR flak Steve Milloy.
The Futility of Hybrid Cars
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,488546,00.html
Joe, you make some excellent points. I’m wary of those wind job numbers — we have to import some of the machines, a lot of the jobs are in construction and will drop off (wind farms don’t need that much work once built) — but you’re on the right track.
Not to hijack anything, but you could go the other way on the argument: green blogs don’t know anything about economics. Cutting gasoline imports will stop the outflow of cash — and that loss of cash is causing of lot of our macro economic problems (trade deficit). Moving people to more efficient solutions will save the average American household money, which helps them get out of debt.
I realize that an energy efficient agenda doesn’t track 100% with a carbon free agenda, but we are sending $500 million a day in cash overseas to buy oil. We can’t afford to keep draining dollars like this….
charlie
those machines that are imported now can and will be built here. if we’re going to take the safe course of clean electrification, the number of wind turbines to install in the next 20 years is very big; averaging faster than 2008.
energy efficiency is fuel neutral. it works for wind, it works for gas. joe talks about cutting fuel imports all the time and has energy efficiency as his number one priority tool for saving our butts because it’s the cheapest, cleanest, fastest energy source out there.
this means the “carbon free agenda” isn’t a scam to build turbines everywhere and drive up energy prices, it’s a whole package of costs and savings that is affordable and works a lot better than the business-as-usual.
(“green blogs don’t know anything about economics” — neither do a lot of economists — if you hadn’t noticed. they sure talk a good game, tho.)
I read that whole article a couple of days ago and thought it was, overall, informative and interesting, particularly his discussion of interest groups. I think calling him ‘painfully unaware’ of and ‘poorly informed’ about a variety of energy issues is a little harsh. Perhaps he is aware of a considerable amount but draws different conclusions than we might.
Philip:
I find many journalists seem great on every issue I’m not knoweldgable about. I talk to other people in other fields who tell me the same thing. Hmm.
He had all the space he needed to explain himself clearly.
Great post Joe! Didn’t know that about the Wind Jobs vs. Coal.
There is a lot of people waiting for those green jobs…
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/02/06/job-loss-chart-what-36-mi_n_164828.html
Joe: Be more careful when telling people to google. Finding truth on the web: Don’t believe the top articles Google gives you. They are paid for. Go to the bottom of the list.
Reference: “Google and the myth of universal knowledge” by Jean-Noel Jeanneney 2007 The original is in French.
When you do a Google search, you get “sponsored” links on the right side and “non-sponsored” links on the left. The “NON-SPONSORED” links on Google ARE LISTED IN THE ORDER OF THE HIGHEST BIDDER to lowest bidder. Companies pay dollars to Google to get web sites other than their own that lie in favor of the paying company to be at the top of the “non-sponsored” list. Google search results in your getting nothing but corporate propaganda. Since the coal industry has a $100 Billion per year income at stake, they can and must share a lot of money with Google.
Page 32: 62% of internet users questioned make no distinction whatever between advertising and other information, and only 18% proved capable of telling which data were paid for by companies for their promotion and which were not.”
“92% of users of search engines have full confidence in the results of their search, and 71% (users for less than five years) consider that information from this source [Google] is never biased in any way.”
Suggestion: Use only Google Advanced or Google Scholar. On Google Advanced, specify either the .gov domain or the .edu domain. Otherwise, use only web sites that http://www.RealClimate.org uses or the IPCC.
George W. Bush messed up as many government web sites as he could get away with, but your chances are still clearly better than going to the richest propagandist .com or .org.
Better yet: Get a degree in science so that you can figure it out for yourself.
There should be a law requiring Google to disclose the above and the donors and the dollars for each “non-sponsored” link. Environmentalists should work on Google legislation first.
Yes, we have a problem with journalists because of what is taught to journalism students. Being an innumerate journalist interviewing a scientist is like being a blind person watching a movie. The journalist and the blind person both miss most of it. One number is worth many words. One equation is worth many numbers. If you don’t understand the math, you are just not going to understand the science either. A little math can replace a whole book full of words. Math is the language of science. If you want to communicate with the natives, you have to understand the local language. Journalists don’t, in general.
Innumerate humanitologists, like preachers, rabbis, priests, imams, iatolas, historians, journalists and politicians, are dangerous. They may lead us into our own extinction. They led us into Iraq. George W. Bush’s degree is in history.
In a technological society, all college students, including humanities and fine arts students, should be required to take the Engineering and Science Core Cirriculum + 1 computer course + 1 laboratory course in probability and statistics. The E&S Core Cirriculum is 1.5 years of calculus, 2 years of physics and 1 year of chemistry. In addition, I would explicitly say to all non-E&S students: “Nature isn’t just the final authority on truth, Nature is the Only authority. There are zero human authorities. Scientists do not vote on what is the truth. There is only one vote and Nature owns it. We find out what Nature’s vote is by doing Scientific [public and replicable] experiments. Scientific [public and replicable] experiments are the only source of truth. [To be public, it has to be visible to other people in the room. What goes on inside one person's head isn't public unless it can be seen on an X-ray or with another instrument.]”
All high school diplomas should require 4 years of physics, 4 years of chemistry, 4 years of biology and 8 years of math at the high school level. Why? So that people would know enough to be responsible citizens of a technological society. Instead, we have people who are paranoid/irrationally afraid of all things nuclear. We have people who try to prevent the teaching of evolution and science in general.
Voodoo wind energy? The existence of some wind energy for a few poeple doesn’t mean there is enough wind energy for everybody. See:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=18090
minus the graphics.:
Large images [On the original web site. If you look at the images, you see that the best wind is at very INconvenient locations, like near Antarctica and in the North Pacific ocean.]
“Wind energy has the potential to provide 10 to 15 percent of the world’s future energy, according to Paul Dimotakis, chief technologist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Once windmills are installed, wind can be converted to electricity inexpensively. But not everyone likes wind farms. The giant collection of whirling blades mars scenic views and can kill birds and bats, particularly if located in a high-traffic flyway. To minimize these risks, one solution may be to place wind farms in the ocean. Wind tends to blow stronger over the ocean than over land. The ocean presents a smooth surface over which wind can glide without interruption, while hills, mountains, and forests tend to slow or channel wind over
land.
But, as any sailor could tell you, wind over the ocean isn’t consistent. In some places, the air is still, while in others, the wind blows fiercely. To identify potential wind farm locations, NASA scientists Tim Liu, Wenqing Tang, and Xiaosu Xie, all at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, mapped out average wind intensity over the ocean between 2000 and 2007. They created their maps from data collected by NASA’s Quick Scatterometer (QuickSCAT), which measures wind speed and direction over the world’s oceans. The satellite sends pulses of microwave energy through the atmosphere to the ocean surface and measures the energy that bounces back from the wind-roughened surface. The energy of the microwave pulses changes depending on wind speed and direction. The scientists averaged QuikSCAT’s measured wind speeds by season, and then calculated the wind power density, the amount of energy that could be derived from a wind turbine in a given location. Their maps for the winter and summer seasons are shown here.
Wind strength is influenced by seasonal patterns, land-ocean interactions, land topography, and ocean temperatures. All of these interactions are evident in this pair of images. Areas of high wind power density, where winds are strongest, are purple, while low power density regions are light blue and white.
The largest patterns shown in the images are seasonal patterns. In December, January, and February, winter storms fuel strong winds in the mid-latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere. In June, July, and August, winter reigns in the Southern Hemisphere, and the pattern is reversed. The Asian monsoon also controls the seasonal distribution of wind. In June, July, and August, strong winds gust across the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea. From December to February, the monsoon winds blow over the East China Sea. Finally, the trade winds trace their way across the tropics, stronger in the winter than in the summer.”
In places where the land and the ocean interact to generate strong winds, the wind power density is more consistent. Winds accelerate as they deflect around a bit of land sticking into the ocean. This feature is most obvious off the southern tip of South America, which has high wind potential in both summer and winter. The effect occurs in other locations, such as off Tasmania, New Zealand, and northern California, and is easiest to see in the summer when seasonal winds are calmer.
The spot of brilliant purple in an otherwise calm ocean off the Pacific coast of Central America in December, January, and February is an example of strong winds created by the topography of the land. In Central America, as in other places, mountains channel the wind, creating a natural wind tunnel that sends strong gusts over the ocean.
The final wind pattern shown in this image is the wind created by the ocean itself. Warm ocean currents naturally warm the air above them. When ocean currents carry warm water into an area of cool water, or vice versa, the temperature difference in the air generates wind. The clearest example in these images is the Gulf Stream, which snakes up the east coast of the United States and east over the North Atlantic. In both winter and summer, winds are stronger over the Gulf Stream than the surrounding ocean.
References
Liu, W.T., Tang, W., and Xie, X. (2008, July 8). Wind power distribution over the ocean. Geophysical Research Letters, 35 (L13808).
NASA. (2008, July 9). Ocean wind power maps reveal possible wind energy sources. Accessed July 15, 2008.
NASA image created by Jesse Allen, using data provided courtesy of Timothy Liu,
Wenqing Tang, and Xiaosu Xie, NASA/JPL. Caption by Holli Riebeek.
[JR: Uh, OK, but nobody is talking about 100% of our power from wind.]
Joe, are you reaching out to the reporter to lend him a hand? Usually a simple conversation with a reporter can go a LONG way toward improving his future articles!
Yes, reporters are like delicate glass flowers, who shatter at the slightest whiff of criticism.
GreenPolitics, I don’t disagree with what you say, but why should others help those who shun helping themselves? Reporters are supposed to have ethics, work colleagues, mentors and bachelors degrees (at least), and journalism schools full of professors to help them do their jobs. There are universities full of economists, who even if they disagree with what, say, Joe Romm thinks, ought to at least be able to fairly present, to anyone (especially reporters) who asks, the debate, the people and the facts around any issue in environmental economics. Do you think, generally, that reporters have made good use of all that has been given them?
Sometimes a kick in the head with a slushy moccassin is a better tactic.
Want to delve a bit deeper into ‘voodoo economics’ as it relates to climate? Take a look at this 2008 article on the origins of neoclassical economics. According to the author, the founders of the field literally copied the equations of classical physics, replaced the parameters (substituting economic “utility” for “energy,” for example), placed parallel but absurd constraints on those new parameters (such as the notion that markets are closed systems), and called it ‘scientific’ economics.
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=brother-can-you-spare-me-a-planet
Somehow the moment we’re living through makes this seem more believable….
I agree. The future is in renewables. We need to change what we’ve been doing, or down the road, we’ll be paying $200 or $300 a barrel for oil, and we’ll be importing the majority of it. For American businesses, that’s not sustainable, in any sense of the word.