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TODAY Tuesday 4 November 1997 Each weekday. Conn Nugent on what's new in the world, on the site.

 

TODAY IN THE WORLD: Reality Check

Nowhere have I seen a summary on climate change and how to predict it as clear-spoken and judicious as that found on the front page of the science section of this morning's New York Times. I don't know who nominates Pulitzer winners, but William K. Stevens has had an award-winning year. This morning he tops himself.

Stevens reviews the issue of computer climate modeling (on the whole, he reports, the modelers have predicted global changes well, regional changes not so well). There's no reason for me to summarize an already-compressed story in the most widely available newspaper in the world, so please go out and buy the paper or stay put and visit their website. If you live west of Binghamton, I will be happy to mail you my Manhattan edition should you want bulky coverage of the Jets quarterback quandary or today's mayoral election. I am willing to speak by telephone about the quarterbacks.

Two facts implicit in Stevens' coverage bear explicit emphasis. One is that the predictive abilities of the computer models will not, in the foreseeable future, be precise enough to persuade those who don't want to be persuaded. For some time to come, it seems, we will have to live with some scientific wiggle room as to what exact weather changes to expect in which particular parts of the world. And that wiggle will always complicate the political problems of coming to grips with climate.

The second fact to note is that nobody says that there's much of a chance of reducing the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere before 2040; many analysts predict a doubling of CO2 by 2100. If the Kyoto conference were to produce a climate treaty as tough as the toughest proposal on the table (and it won't), the forces of inertia, population growth, and economic development would still preclude a reduction in overall global emissions for a long time to come. It is almost certainly the fate of anyone born before 1950 to die in a world significantly warmer and stormier than the one into which they were admitted. If you want to retire amidst the sugar maples, buy a plot in Vermont, not Connecticut. If you prefer the shore, don't build on a barrier beach.

Even those who decry "technical fixes" to ecological problems will say that the world needs technologies that use less fossil fuels. And in that regard, there have been some very hopeful developments over the last few years: auto manufacturers (Toyota and Daimler Benz in the lead) are rolling out impressive prototypes of hybrid gas-electric cars and hydrogen fuel cell cars; solar photovoltaics are becoming less expensive and more reliable each day.

But so long as oil, coal, and gas stay cheap, it will be hard for these new technologies to become economically competitive. Oil, in particular, is successfully straining to match supply with skyrocketing demand. Today's Wall Street Journal features an article on the boom days of the oil-field equipment business. Maybe a dollar invested in a software company in 1993 would have given a return on investment higher than that of a dollar invested in a drill-pipe company in 1993, but not by much.

Oil is so cheap now and so readily available that there is hardly any pressure at all on a new car buyer to worry about fuel economy. In October, auto sales were disappointing overall (disappointing to the manufacturers) but sales of gas-inhaling pickup trucks and sports utility vehicles remained brisk. Chrysler, for example, announced that this October's sales were down 8.3 percent over last year's, but that the new "brawny" Dodge Durango SUV and the four-door Dodge Ram pickup were both moving quickly. Oy.

You couldn't get elected dogcatcher for saying so, but the time is overdue for some market meddling on the price of fossil fuels. Yes, taxes. Let's promise to keep tax revenues at the same level as they are today, but radically change what we tax. Let's stop taxing employment and investment and let's tax the hell out of fossil fuels. As a matter of fact, let's follow Denis Hayes' idea and set things up so that revenues from a carbon tax go directly into the Medicare and social security funds. That way we boomers will be able to have some home health care professionals come to those little photovoltaic-powered retirement cottages on hillside or shore.

 

TODAY ON THE SITE

"I generally take the industry side of things," says political consultant Gene Ulm. What's disconcerting about that statement is that it comes from a young man with hair as long as the guy who played lead guitar for Big Brother and the Holding Company. Live and learn. Ulm is a keen observer of things political and a dispassionate analyzer of public opinion. Look into his answers to our Five Questions.

 

Recent "Today" columns:

11/03: Green Loafing
10/31: Guilty Nationalist Pleasures
10/30: Europe Alone
10/29: Duck! (Again)
10/28: Civil Society and Conservation
10/27: Who Owns the National Forests?
10/24: Meanwhile, Back at the Infirmary...
10/23: "Heading Down the Right Path"
10/22: Markets and Medium-Greens
10/21: The Silver Republic and the People's Republic

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