Romm Doubles Down on Egypt/Climate Link
I have a few questions for Joe Romm.
1) When you discuss the 2007-2008 economic meltdown, do you focus on what triggered it (such as the housing bubble burst or underlying root causes (such as deregulation)?
2) When you discuss BP’s oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, do you focus on what triggered it (such as the blowout preventer) or systemic root causes (such as industry-wide practices)?
3) When you discuss the recent uprisings in Tunisia and Egypt, do you focus on what sparked it (such as the suicide of a Tunisian man), a contributing factor (such as rising food prices), or underlying causes (such as social inequity, injustice, and government repression)?
Romm need not bother stopping by with his answers. I found them at his blog.
1) He goes with mega-root causes, as this Ponzi scheme post demonstrates.
2) He identifies larger, industry-wide attitudes and practices as the main reasons for the BP spill.
(So far, we’re two for two, in that Romm explores underlying causes to major events.)
3) He focuses like a laser beam on a single contributing factor (here and here)–high food prices, apparently so he can make a larger, causal connection to global warming.
In his latest post, Romm concedes that
major historical events have multiple causes. Some are underlying causes, and some are precipitating or triggering causes.
Then he makes an interesting statement:
Those who believe they understand the underlying causes are only revealing their ignorance if they shout down or dismiss those who are trying to explore some of the precipitating or triggering causes.
That’s precious coming from a guy who has done more than anyone to shout down and dismiss others who have explored climate solutions that have differed from his own. In any case, I’m not opposed to rising food prices being part of current Tunisia/Egypt conversation. I’ve just suggested it be put into some proper perspective, which is captured in these opening lines from an op-ed in today’s WaPo:
The demands for change sweeping across the Arab world are the manifestation of unrest that has festered for years. The status quo is unsustainable.
Hmm, “status quo” and “unsustainable”– two terms often invoked in the climate change debate. Maybe there’s a connection to be made somewhere there for those in the climate community who want to expand their frame of reference beyond rising food prices and global warming.
Rahm Emanuel’s 2008 comment that politicians should “never let a good crisis go to waste” has applicability to many causes.
Hmm. If Roger Pielke Jr. waits round long enough, Romm will debate himself and lose both sides of the argument…
This is a stretch, even for you.
ClimateProgress is an energy and climate change blog. If energy and climate change are a contributing factor to a major event, then that’s what I write about.
So when they are underlying factors, I write about that. When they are triggering factors, I write about that.
Specifically, I believe I did as many if not more posts that discussed the triggering causes of the BP disaster than discussed the underlying causes. Even the one post you cherry-picked out of the many dozens I wrote has an extensive discussion of the triggering causes.
Try a search for “BP preventer” [no quotation marks] in ClimateProgress. Same for “Halliburton cement” [again no quotes].
I probably have more posts on the triggering causes of the BP disaster than you have posts of any kind on the BP disaster.
What does this prove? Not much, other than that your critique is baseless.
To repeat, ClimateProgress is an energy and climate change blog. If energy and climate change are a contributing factor to a major event, then that’s what I write about. When they are underlying factors, I write about that. When they are triggering factors, I write about that.
You claim your biggest objection to this line of discussion is that it is “opportunistic.”
The problem with that charge against ClimateProgress is that I had previously published two full articles in January on this very subject:
Extreme weather events help drive food prices to record highs (1/6)
and
Washington Post, Lester Brown explain how extreme weather, climate change drive record food prices. (1/20)
I wrote in the latter, “I have been concerned about food security for a while (see links below). But Brown’s work has persuaded me that genuinely destabilizing food insecurity may occur as soon as this decade “” assuming 1 billion undernourished people isn’t already a crisis. So I’ve decided to add a new category, “food insecurity,” to ClimateProgress and will be doing a series of posts in the coming weeks and months.”
So it is hard to make your charge of opportunism stick. Quite the reverse. So this was part of a promised series that was all too timely, much as Brown had warned.
Indeed, back in August, I reposted a “Foreign Affairs” piece by CAP in a post titled
The Coming Food Crisis: Global food security is stretched to the breaking point, and Russia’s fires and Pakistan’s floods are making a bad situation worse.
That piece noted that the last food crisis led to deadly riots.
So I’m afraid that your effort to find an inconsistency in my approach to the subject of food insecurity just doesn’t fly.
I just noticed your Tag cloud. Funny how “Joe Romm” figures more prominently than almost any other subject….
Reading Romm’s comments I noticed this one:
<i>How long before we start asking openly about the ethics of the US turning 34% (yes, 34%) of its corn crop into ethanol?
[JR: I’ve been asking it for a while now: “Can words describe how bad corn ethanol is?”]</i>
I wonder why Romm didn’t mention that enthanol production is ALSO a contributing factor for higher food prices. From his reply it appears he believes so.
How much affect on higher prices is ethanol production in comparison to any extreme weather events.
What is the motive for diverting food sources to fuel?
What is the current US policy on ethanol as a renewable fuel?
supposedly you argue for a resilience-focused approach. but now that foreign policy people are noticing their precious balance-of-power’s vulnerability to weather-related price shocks, you want people to back off resilience. it looks like your shift is because suddenly romm’s long argument that adaptation is more expensive than mitigation is gaining elite traction.
also: meh.
dp Says:
February 2nd, 2011 at 11:46 am “but now that foreign policy people are noticing their precious balance-of-power”
Serious foreign policy people rejected balance of power as a viable solution to anything decades ago.
Stability via repression creates a brittle society with substantially radicalized sub populations. Sooner or later a triggering event will occur and the radicalized sub populations end up holding the reigns of power.
Of course there is no shortage of talking heads that believe governance without the consent of the people is easy and preferable.
Keith..
Like the advice to Mubarak..just drop it..you have made your point and it’s pointless..
This blog episode illustrates why the alarmists have adopted the tactic of refering to “climate change” or “climate disruption” instead of “global warming”. This shift allows them, by verbal sleight of hand, or by stringing together non-sequitors, to tie every event, no matter how implausible the connection, into an argument about controlling CO2. What we are waiting for, is some piece of solid evidence that any sort of extreme weather is occurring in greater frequency. What we get instead is (from Tobis) “I know a weatherman who said he doesn’t remember things being so bad”.. And we are the anti-science folks. Right.
It would be tempting to go over to Climate Progress and engage with Mr. Romm on this issue. Sadly, his moderation policies make that impractical. Perhaps he is interested enough to engage here, but probably not.
I am unaware of any work tying observed climate change to agricultural output, either globally or regionally (except the Sahel area, famously prone to extended periods of inhospitable weather).
Food prices are high. There have been localized reductions in yield in places like Australia and Russia. However there are three other reasons that seem to outweigh these problem areas:
1. Diversion of grain to storage (in response to localized problems)
2. Diversion of grain to fuel (34% of America’s corn crop?)
3. Diversion of grain to animal feed to meet increasing demand for meat.
I think these outweigh localized crop shortages and I don’t think they have anything to do with global warming.
I asked yesterday for pointers to sources that discuss this, and I’ll repeat that request now.
Any help?
Tom,
You have asked twice now and I (somewhat) did earlier.
Is this an avoidence on Romm and his backers part?
DCA, where is your reply? (Thanks, btw…)
“<i>How long before we start asking openly about the ethics of the US turning 34% (yes, 34%) of its corn crop into ethanol?
..”
The Greens seem to have no problem starving people to reduce oil usage. After all, the more that starve, the less impact on the earth they have. Reduces population pressure don’t you know.
The sad fact is that in the US it takes about the same energy to grow and process the corn into fuel as they get out of it.
Countries like Brazil that has a climate and water to grow sugar cane to produce fuel somewhat on par with oil based fuel is bared ( very high tariffs) from entry into the US.
What is the motive for diverting food sources to fuel?
Profit, which in turn is driven by the need for economic growth.
If food and energy prices remain high or go even higher, there will be more riots. This is only logical. There are several reasons for this, of which weather effects shouldn’t be understated (to say that the influence of climate change on these effects is 0% is as silly as saying the influence is 100%). But to really understand the systemic weaknesses you have to look at the way modern agriculture functions with its total dependence on fossil fuels and subsidies that encourage huge corporations to overproduce for a population that is hooked on carbohydrates. This in turn completely wrecks the global playing field when it comes to markets and global ecosystems when it comes to environmental impacts. The whole set-up is doomed to fail one way or the other, due to a combination of speculation, biofuels and weather effects (with an increasing influence of climate change). We are seeing it fail now.
Romm is pretty much on the ball. More than most of you. But ask yourself: why is there a need to subsidize overproduction and dumping of that overproduction in developing countries, killing off local agriculture? Why is food a source of Wall street speculation? Why the biofuels? Why the further genetic engineering of monocultures?
Again: because of profit, which in turn is driven by the need for economic growth. Cui bono? Oh yes, of course, the poor, the starving. Right. So they can riot for justiceâ„¢ and freedomâ„¢.
The economy needs to grow forever. The dominant economic theory demands it, says it’s possible. Can we change that economic theory to something more rational, equitable and sustainable if we want to? Is that a taboo? Shall we continue bickering over symptoms?
Oh, Neven… bless your heart…
Thanks, grandpa! 😛
Neven, I am probably to the distinct left of you politically. However, it does seem to me that in the U.S., conversion of corn to ethanol is driven by politics (and heavily influenced by rent-seeking behaviour from two politically connected companies, Cargill and Archer Daniels Midland), and is antithetical to the operation of market dynamics, as ethanol is more expensive than that which it seeks to replace, must be combined with its competitive products by force of law, and is not something that anyone except environmentalists were asking for.
Am I making sense here? Would we be making ethanol if all we were seeking was profit?
Tom, you sure are making sense here. But are you trying to tell me that Cargill and ADM aren’t making a profit out of ethanol?
If you have a situation where environmentalists ask for solutions to a problem such as AGW in a system where everything revolves around growing GDP, this is what you get. Environmentalists are stupid for directing their energy and attention towards the symptoms, instead of the root cause. The powers that be (in this example Cargill and ADM) are very willing to oblige. Nothing changes.
So what do environmentalists need to do?
Neven, I suppose you would consider me facetious to say this, but I think environmentalists should play in the marketplace.
In all honesty, I think they should at the very least start buyers’ clubs to reward companies who play by green rules and punish those that do not.
I also think they should start companies to compete with companies that pollute or emit.
What we have now are multinational companies taking a flyer on green energy as a handwave to corporate social responsibility issues and actively campaigning to keep green solutions as expensive as possible.
Back in the sixties when I not only had hair, but long hair, they sneered at the idea of working within the system. But guess what? Working within the system… worked. Take a look at what’s happened in the world since then and marvel at the wonder and glory of the Baby Boomer’s accomplishment. Okay, a little hyperbole there…
You aren’t going to beat the market. So use it.
For once I agree with you, Tom. It’s very difficult to accomplish, but can be done.
The buyer’s clubs is a good idea (generally speaking). I particularly like the idea of setting up companies that can compete with regular ones, but are much more sustainable in every aspect of business. The difficulty is: how do you find the right people? You will never be able to offer as much salary as corporations who don’t care about their impact so you need a completely new brand of humans who would do such a thing because they think it is cool, good and/or useful. The same reason that people get involved in open source projects (which makes me optimistic). You’d also have to be non-profit oriented and be extremely transparent about what the profit is used for.
You aren’t going to beat the market. So use it.
I actually tried to set up such a company a few years back (bless my heart, it didn’t work), thinking the exact same thing. ‘Use the system’ was my motto back then. But I quickly was faced with a Catch-22. To be able to compete with large companies I had to have a very low margin, but because of that low margin I hardly made any money with it. So I had to do the job I already had, and on top of that do the other job for free, losing money actually. These things don’t work out if you have a family to take care of, the other job doesn’t pay all that well and success doesn’t come. I had to quit after three years of trying.
A few things disappointed me: the group of people who is willing to pay a bit extra for something that is more sustainable is really quite small, despite the Al Gore propaganda and everything. Second, I came in contact with people in the world of environmentalist organisations and it struck me how many of them didn’t get ‘it’. Third, as I learned more and more about environmental and energy issues, I had to face up to the fact that my product would never really become sustainable despite my efforts. Even if I would have been able to change the industry (which was absolutely impossible) it would’ve been a Pyrrhic victory.
So now I try to create a situation where I can do something because I think it is cool, good and/or useful, by lowering costs and becoming less dependent on the system (so I can actually afford to do that without jeopardizing my family). That’s a sword with two edges.
Once I accomplish that I’ll be probably trying to set up a company or a buyer’s club.
You aren’t going to beat the market.
But I don’t have a problem with the market. I have a problem with what drives the market and policies attached to it: a theory of perpetual growth. Buyer’s clubs or greenish companies don’t stand a chance as long as this doesn’t change. No chance in hell. Just like the techno-fix or the green energy revolution is absolutely useless if the economic concept of infinite growth isn’t replaced by something more rational and realistic.
Well, Neven, I hope you get the chance to try again. FWIW, you might remember that much of the fabled perpetual growth that you think is a prerequisite for adequate market function is pretty virtual, and growth in many areas actually reduces resource consumption. New products using few resources can often render obsolete clunky bigger ones. (And let’s not get too involved with Kuznets here…)
Chinese kids earning advanced tokens for computer games and selling them to lazy American gamesters is growth… but doesn’t use much in the way of resources. Record players used more energy than iPods, USPS trucks more than emails.
In theory this is true, Tom, but in practice those kids will still need to eat (especially the American ones) and have clothes, etc, etc. And then there’s Jevon’s Paradox. Yes, record players use more energy than iPods (though we’d have to look at the whole LCA to be sure, production of electronics is very energy intensive), but there are way more iPods/mp3-players now than there ever were record players. The same goes for e-mails: they led to much more communication. Or did you use to write 20 letters every day?
Last question first–No, but the energy consumed by all my communications is probably about 5% of what it was 20 years ago. Honestly. Think of the energy required to deliver a letter as opposed to an email. The same for faxes. Even phone calls are more efficient today than in days gone by. The amount of energy (not to mention other resources) consumed by printing a document as opposed to sending it as an attachment to an email is incredibly larger.
We see this pretty clearly in the statistics–the amount of energy used in America per capita has been going down consistently, while the amount of communications has increased dramatically.
I know this doesn’t prove the larger case (that growth doesn’t have to mean infinite expanding consumption of resources), but it is not radically different to the discussions we would have on other specific cases.
As another example, (and I don’t have the link that would nail it down), I’m pretty sure that growth in agricultural production has been dramatic over the past 50 years and that this has happened without using more land in cultivation (on a net basis).
You have a point wrt emails vs letters, Tom, but don’t get me started on agriculture. 🙂
I’ve been reading some books on that (such as <a href=”http://www.amazon.com/Vegetarian-Myth-Food-Justice-Sustainability/dp/1604860804″>this one</a>, a bit radical, but still useful), after watching a lot of documentaries, and the conclusions are mindblowing. Modern agriculture is an atrocity, society’s weakest point by a stretch.
Perhaps it was necessary to get to this point, but practically everything in agriculture will have to change if we want to avoid large scale collapse somewhere in the future. I don’t know how yet. It’s extremely difficult, a bit like that movie Speed. If we slow down, we blow up. If we continue at neckbreaking speed, we blow up. Maybe we need to blow up first and take it from there? 🙂
Hey, I didn’t even notice, but we’re back on topic! Hurrah!
Agriculture as it is, is extremely vulnerable. A few weird weather events and it’s a matter of time before the food riots begin. Like in Egypt (which is just an appetizer). 😉
@ Tom.
“We see this pretty clearly in the statistics ““ the amount of energy used in America per capita has been going down consistently, while the amount of communications has increased dramatically.”
Well, according to the EIA, U.S. per capita energy consumption (in millions of BTU’s, second data column). 5-year averages:
1970-1974 1,714
1975-1979 1,754
1980-1984 1,629
1985-1989 1,651
1990-1994 1,691
1995-1999 1,716
2000-2004 1,723
2005-2009 1,646
Er…
This is one of the problems I have with many/most of your contributions. They tend to be made very authoritatively, aggressively even. But if one makes cursory checks, there is often little substance behind them. (That, and the fact that you seldom provide reliable references…) Then it’s usually a quick jump to the next remarkably encouraging factoid, and so on…
Now, yes, if you actually run a regression on the underlying data, there is a very weak negative trend. For what it’s worth, the R^2 looks to be a whopping 0.004. And it’s quite sensitive to the 2009 number. And the preliminary 2010 indicates that usage picked up significantly again.
But I really don’t think it’s making your case that all these admittedly amazing advances in communications, I.T., and other technologies are achieving much if anything in terms of per capita or absolute energy use…
And look, I’m not saying that the energy usage needs to go down (I suspect it does because of practical considerations, but I don’t see that it has to…). I’d be happy if we could keep the energy levels the same and get the emissions down by 90+%… And I’m not arguing that we aren’t doing “more” per btu… But there really isn’t any compelling evidence that the US is making meaningful progress in reducing overall energy or energy per capita…
So, while it is a soothing narrative that as we grow, grow, grow and invent, invent, invent that our resource use and waste products reduce, reduce, reduce… it’s for the most part just that… a narrative without comprehensive empirical support across a broad range of objective measures – as I’ve detailed several times now…
Well Rust Never Sleeps, first–this is the comments section of a weblog, not an academic paper. The figures are negative, the DOE says they’re negative, everybody says they’re negative. (Don’t ask me to define negative. Just find someone who says they are not. Ask Lester Brown, why don’t you?) US per capita consumption of energy was 376 million BTUs 10 years ago, now it’s 323 (or something like that–don’t have time to check again, but google it for chrissakes–don’t moan about my lack of substantiation in a comment).
I know those figures are roughly right because I used them in a report and had to use footnotes and quotes and citations. I don’t have the report handy. Look it up if you don’t believe me. Google DOE per capita emissions. They also have it by country, if you’re interested.
Blah, blah, if you’re going to run a regression, do it on the appropriate data–BTU per capita per year. It’s on the DOE website. Now quit interrupting a real conversation.
Neven, it may seem that way, but if you look at the frequency and intensity of famines historically, I think you’ll find that this modern, wasteful, cornucopian, market-oriented world is doing better than at any time in human history…
“Blah, blah, if you’re going to run a regression, do it on the appropriate data”“BTU per capita per year.It’s on the DOE website. Now quit interrupting a real conversation.“
Hmmm. That’s exactly what I ran it on. What do you get? Do you disagree with the numbers I linked to? They’re sourced from the most recent DOE/EIA data…
Oh, and drawing the line from an arbitrary single year (and a value you appear to have just made up, by the way) to the final year??? Ok, gotcha… And “Look it up if you don’t believe me. Google DOE per capita emissions.” Er… emissions? Where did that come from??? I mean, yeah, it’s good and all, but that was not your point…
Why am I reminded of what I just said upthread:
“This is one of the problems I have with many/most of your contributions. They tend to be made very authoritatively, aggressively even. But if one makes cursory checks, there is often little substance behind them. (That, and the fact that you seldom provide reliable references”¦) Then it’s usually a quick jump to the next remarkably encouraging factoid, and so on”¦”
Rust Never Sleeps, go back and check your data. It looks to me very much as if you are using five year totals, not averages.
I will of course gracefully accept your apology if you prove to be mistaken (and will proffer a humble apology and doff my hat if the error is mine).
I did a trend and the regression on annual data, largely just for my own curiousity. I grouped the data in 5-year chunks when I presented here largely as a convenience, rather than just core-dumping 40 years at the readership… Would you like to see the annual data? It’s in the link I gave…
Peaked at 350 ten years ago, 326 in 2009
Neven, it may seem that way, but if you look at the frequency and intensity of famines historically, I think you’ll find that this modern, wasteful, cornucopian, market-oriented world is doing better than at any time in human history”¦
In absolute or in relative terms?
Certainly in relative, but getting close (I think..) in absolute. We used to lose a lotta humans to starvation, and even more to contributory malnutrition.
I will take an opportunity to question the coverage given to North African affairs.
I can only describe the recent media coverage as extensive. In terms of quantity I could not ask for more. It is a level of focus that has bordered on the overwhelming.
How has this come about?
I ask this due to the wierdness that I experienced during the Algerian Crisis, not the revolutonary war for independence which was by the standards of the day well covered but the period centred around the mid 1990s.
On the radio, there was a major conflict going on, on the TV one (I mean I) could have easily missed it. Perhaps the story simply lacked footage. Some photo-journalism coverage did occur, two TV journalist/camera people are listed as fatal casualities on the Rory Peck site. one independent and one state TV.
On the one hand I (perhaps I mean we) may have missed an opportunity to learn something that could have informed us as to the possibilities afforded to post invasion Afghanistan and Iraq. On the other hand we did not pour fuel on the fire.
I must say I whinced when the “Domino Effect” was recently highlighted. To me, this seemed a little ahead of the game and a message that was likely to be picked up by the dominoes and taken to heart. This I had coupled with a suspicion that toppled dominoes could well look rather like another crisis torn Algeria. Perhaps I think that the opportunity for speculation is best taken early, when blood runs cold not hot.
I am struggling to get a grip on this but I fear that we may be being exposed to too much coverage but too little journalism at the present. This view may well be a minority opinion and is not a criticism of foreign correspondents, more likely an appeal for greater numbers to bolster their dwindling ranks.
Alex