Politics and Reality of Energy in 2008 (...and beyond)
In the continuing a discussion about energy , I turn to a new Cato article
on the future of energy.
I found this passage worth a mention to further buttress the point about uncertainty in energy (or anything for that matter) and the futility of trying to centrally plan based on the limitations of current knowledge:
Says Jerry Taylor of Cato:
Before you confidently hold forth about the future of energy markets, you really ought to pick up a copy of Vaclav Smil's 2005 book, "Energy at the Crossroads,"
and direct your attention to Chapter 4. There you will find a thorough review of the most prominent energy forecasts that have been offered over the last several decades by various blue-ribbon commissions, government forecasting agencies, top-flight academics, energy trade associations, think tanks, policy advocates and energy corporations. One can't help but conclude that drunk monkeys would be just as reliable as "the best and the brightest" when it comes to soothsaying about the future of technology, market share or price.
The point here is that we don't know what the energy future may hold and we should accordingly treat the periodic energy crazes that sweep the political landscape more skeptically than we have in the past.
Personally, Id love to see a book that scans editorials, political speeches, "hot books" and the like on "pressing issues" and socio-economic prognostications of yesteryear from the leading lights and then puts them all into sharp relief. It would be a good exercise to show how myopic and incapable we are to fully conceptualize future conditions to the point of being to make iron clad plans based on them. The book could be the called "The Reincarnations of Malthus".
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Comments :
Good Post John... n/t
"A society that puts equality before freedom will have neither. A society that puts freedom before equality will get a high degree of both." ~ Milton Friedman
I think the Invisible Hand is about to punch us in the head
I would be OK with letting the market decide what the best energy sources are, if there was any real way to put a monetary value on the hidden costs associated with them. The Cato article closes with:
OK, that's fine, although ideally I'd like to see more than just "some relationship to the harms being addressed." And I don't know that anyone has a good idea about what the costs of emissions really are, so it would end up being set by political motivations - subject to the heavy influence of those who already have the money to spend on it (like, say, oil companies). I don't see that as obviously preferable to the "central planning" strategy of providing research money to alternative energy research.
So yes, I agree that good emission rules and regulations are absolutely necessary for the market to work properly in guiding our energy future. But we certainly don't have that now. In their absence, it seems like the market is just as likely to guide us over a cliff (or punch us in the head). Talk to me about eliminating governmental alternative energy initiatives after we have those rules and regulations in place, not before. I'm not any more convinced that the government can create fair and functional emissions regulations than you are that they can decide which energy solutions to support.
The problem I have with the article, and it seems Cato in general, is that it emphasizes getting rid of the things we currently do to "police the public environmental commons." It's like someone on a bus saying, "This driver is no good, let's throw him out, then we can get a better one." Uh, no thanks, let's get that other driver in place first, and try him out, before we toss the old one.
We are the environment. There is no distinction. What we do to the earth we do to ourselves. —David Suzuki
"getting rid"
is not really the right way to consider it. The better way to view it is "changing".
Often when they talk of "getting rid", the context shows a failure in practice of what they want to get rid of. They then propose a different way to achieve the end result or at least get closer to it..."change".