Jimmy: When we chose the recently-passed Senate Energy Bill for our Red, Green and Blue discussion this week, I really didn’t expect it to be such a great illustration of what not to do to secure our energy future. Since this is the same crew who left our last shot at reasonable immigration reform this decade to die on the vine, I guess I shouldn’t be surprised.

This bill is all about government and the main word is ‘control’. It bumps the CAFÉ standards up, controlling the type of car we will be able to buy in the future… it imposes greater control on domestic oil/refinery capacity… it imposes ethanol production mandates (thank you ADM and the farm lobby)… and generally says to America "We and our lobbyists know what is best for you."

Alternative energy research is up and that’s a good thing but the overall effect will be an energy bill that is not responsive to any of the expected advancements due to imposed inflexibility.

Sadly, the whole thing could be simply scrapped and replaced with an energy and geo-political tax on oil to cover alternative fuel development and to cover the tab for sending our soldiers across the globe every decade or so to protect world oil interests. Such a tax indexes the cost at the pump to the real cost of fuel, and, at the same time, gives us the resource and incentive to invest in winning alternatives. No bloated government programs and no cash-cow lobby paybacks for big agriculture. Suddenly, it just makes more sense for the consumer to vote with his/her dollars in a way that advances US energy independence without the peak and valley market effects of regulatory nonsense.

So the Energy bill is our topic today. We invite your thoughts in the comments below.

Photo Credit: Whitehouse.gov

Jimmy: Well… since President Bush is SOARING in the polls with his approval rating hovering in the 30% range I thought it might be interesting to take a look at his environmental record and his perceived Turn-Around on the environment, particularly on climate change.

As I have noted before Bush doesn’t always earn the enmity the environmental community harbors against him. One personal anecdote that would be funny if it wasn’t sad is this walk-the-walk vs. a talk-the-talk comparison of residence between George Bush and uber-conservationist Al Gore. Now Big Al has since made amends and is LEEDing the way by giving his place an environmental make-over… but it sometimes makes me wonder where his heart really is.

Bush does live somewhat conservatively to the extent any president can but what about Bush’s policy? I find it hard to cut through the rhetoric with the environmental community attacking every policy as not enough and Bush seemingly unwilling to aggressively defend his policy for fear it might hurt his street cred as an evil capitalist.

I guess some research is in order.Though some will dismiss Whitehouse.gov as biased tripe, I do encourage you to visit the site here and look at the many accomplishments we have made during the Bush administration. It’s a vast contrast to what you will read anywhere else where only controversy and strife make seem to make the news.

Anyway, I’ve made the case before that economics are tremendously important to the environment and I’ve defended Bush on these grounds. The purpose of this thread though is to debate actual actions and accomplishments so I open up the comments and invite you to share your perceptions of how good or bad Bush is doing and I’ll again try to defend the seemingly indefensible: Bush’s record on the environment.

Image source: WikiMedia Commons: Photographer: Dider Gentilhomme

Editor's note: Fair Trade is a topic that GreenOptions.com has been covering for some time now, so we thought it might be interesting to debate from the progressive vs. conservative perspective. Brady and Alicia offer us some excellent background on the discussion. Now, it's Jimmy and Shirley's turn…

Jimmy: Although I am generally conservative on fiscal matters and would normally lean toward unfettered free trade, I understand the importance of Fair Trade to our country’s interest and as a humanitarian influence on the world. Fair Trade levels the playing field. Where we have certain standards for the treatment of our workers and environmental restrictions, while other countries do not; therefore, they have a competitive advantage. In circumstances where slave and prison labor is used to compete with American labor the need for Fair Trade standards is obvious. But what about circumstances where the cost of living in undeveloped countries is simply so much lower that this allows the country to clobber the US with low cost labor?

Free trade would seem only fair given willing workers and willing employers. Also many of our increasingly stringent environmental standards are a testimony of our wealth. Although basic health and sanitation standards are a must, do we hold other developing countries to the high environmental standards that only our wealth can support?

These are important questions that we will consider. Please add your thoughts as well so that we can determine what might be the best form of Fair Trade policy to live and support.

Editor's note: In the newest edition of Red, Green and Blue, writers Jimmy Hogan and Shirley Siluk Gregory take a look at the "big issue" of environmentalism vs. humanitarianism.

Jimmy: I was thinking the other day, and it struck me that I don’t have a very well-formed stand on the distinction between environmental and humanistic issues. Is there a point where being green comes at the expense of human welfare?

The statement seems a contradiction, but in the future, as in the past, we will discuss and debate issues relating to this fundamental choice. Is it morally wrong to use food-stuff like corn and soy in biofuels while other people around the world are starving? Do our lofty environmental goals sometimes have negative unintended consequences?

Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring sparked a major environmental movement, but at the same time has contributed to increasing malaria deaths in the developing world because many countries cannot afford the more expensive alternatives to DDT. I really don’t know the answer to this question. Sometimes population concerns meet human concerns, and it’s likely many (including myself) will be surprised where I stand on the matter.

Have you considered this balance before? In the spirit of open discussion and debate my challenge today is to ask our readers to contribute their thoughts on the matter in the comments thread below and to see where there is common ground and where society needs work.

Image from Blood Diamond

Jimmy: I really love Leonardo DiCaprio. In addition to being a great performing artist, he is sincere in his effort to champion the world environmental cause. And not only is he an excellent spokesman, he also walks the walk even to the point of flying commercial rather than by private jets. He ranks with Ed Begley Jr. and others who live by example, and that says something to me.

Other people don't get me as excited. Now I understand that artists, entertainers and world environmental leaders have different security needs and are often bound by this, but where does the line cross between a machiavellian end justifies the means soot-belching locomotive to environmental Shangri La compared to life by example? What is sincerity and what is sophistry? And does all of this help or undermine the cause? That's the topic of our discussion.

Image source: LeonardoDicaprio.com

ShowerStart: Shower Smart!Editor's note: Red, Green and Blue will take a break this week, but that doesn't mean Ryan and Jimmy are! RG&B will return, though, in a new format that we really think you'll like…

It is not often that you run across a green item that is painless to use, inexpensive, and such a simple idea that you hit yourself and say, “Darn, why didn’t I think of that?”. The new ShowerStart is that item.

This neat little gadget saves time, energy and money without one ounce of sacrifice. The idea is to minimize wasted hot water that results from turning on the shower and purging the cold water from the waterlines. You simply turn on the shower and ShowerStart monitors the water temperature for you until it’s hot; then it slows the flow to a slight trickle. All of that expensive wasted hot water that might otherwise continue to run is conserved, as is the time you might have wasted monitoring the water while heating up. Once you are ready for the shower you then climb in, flip the convenient switch on the side of the device and you are showering as normal with the same pressure as your ordinary shower head.

After two weeks of use my wife and I have had the same reaction: this little guy is the most innovative thing since Tivo and has now replaced our toaster oven as the top rated green appliance of the household. She likes it for the convenience in that she saves at least 5 minutes a day during her critical morning routine by just turning on ShowerStart and letting it monitor the hot water; after she’s brushed her teeth, she returns to a hot shower and a hot water tank that’s not already half empty. I like it for the energy savings in that restricted flow shower heads are not one of my green sacrifices. Without ShowerStart, several gallons of precious hot water a minute can be wasted literally down the drain.

One of the nicest things about ShowerStart is that there are no complicated electronics and no batteries. The design is so simple it is astounding. I’ve been tempted to take it apart to see how it works, but I’m afraid I wouldn’t be able to put it back together again and we just can’t take the chance! I suspect what I would find would be a simple bimetallic or Nitinol valve that responds to the temperature of the water by shutting down the flow to just a trickle. After the water is hot, flipping the convenient switch on the side releases the flow. The whole process resets automatically when the shower is turned off. It’s conservation you don’t even have to think about!

For those interested in aesthetics, it is a beautiful and unobtrusive design. From the fit and finish to the attractive but minimal packaging (perforated for easy opening – thank you very much) this is a top quality item you will enjoy and want to give as a gift. ShowerStart is inexpensive and easy to install. It saves time, it saves energy, it saves money and requires no sacrifice to use. As the Rational Environmentalist, this is my top-rated green item so far this century!

Editor's note: Red, Green and Blue is Green Options' weekly take on politics and the environment from both sides of the aisle. Jimmy Hogan represents the conservative position. Ryan Thibodaux's progressive take on this issue is here.

I’ve run the numbers and done the math. Because of our progressive tax structure I could easily quit my job and do just as well financially as I do now. My wife and I are a pretty typical two income professional household. Given income tax, social security taxes, sales taxes, etc. about one half of the second income ends up going to taxes in one form or another. It would be easy to fire the housekeeper, clip coupons, mow my own grass, change my own oil, dine out less and basically play defense with the family budget to the point where our lifestyle would actually be improved over the way we live now.

So what is it that drives me and everyone else like me to continue on this gerbil wheel of production and consumption? I’m not sure; but whatever it is, it is good for society. As of the 2004 data available here (table 6) over 68% of the federal income taxes are paid by the top 10% of earners in this country; and the top 50% of earners pay 96.7% of the total federal income tax bill. These taxes go to fund many programs including education, health and welfare and, certainly not least important, our federal government’s contribution toward environmental research and conservation. Given also that charity and private contribution to environmental causes must come primarily from those who actually have money, the higher income groups also fund private efforts disproportionately. The spending of this group also keeps all number of service jobs going that would not exist otherwise.

So back to the question. What is it that drives us to produce such that we may continue to residually benefit our own society and the world in such a large way? Top earners don’t have to work. Most could get by on much less than they earn now. It is a fact that our society is funded by people who choose to work, not by people who have to work. I believe that two basic freedoms contribute to this. The opportunity to earn a living doing what we want to do and the opportunity to spend surplus earnings in the way we see fit. Without these two factors our huge economic engine, upon which all public and charitable efforts depend, collapses.

Since I can only control my own desires and excesses, who am I to judge the excesses of others? If ownership of a big, honking, gas guzzling SUV motivates someone to get up and go to work every day then I’m not going to judge. I might question his intelligence given current gas prices, but that’s up to him. If I limit that which motivates him to produce, am I not harming the overall economic cycle? There’s nothing evil or wrong with overt wealth. As distasteful as it may be to some, the fact that Rush Limbaugh had about a million dollars to spend on a bionic ear actually blazed the trail for others and made the technology more affordable for less fortunate people with hearing loss.

If we index the cost of jet fuel and electricity to their real environmental and geopolitical costs then I say good for him that he can afford it. I’ve got a good friend who is a very strong environmental advocate but if I green-rate his BMW Z3 against my miserly 4 cylinder Honda Accord I’m sure I would win the contest hands-down. Does that make him a hypocrite? I don’t think so. I admire his environmental advocacy and enthusiasm (… plus, I must say that Z3 is a pretty sweet ride). The point is that it is fine to be an advocate for conservation, but we must also understand that, in the ultimate definition of unintended consequence. the opportunity for overt consumption is a motivating factor that keeps people working who might not otherwise work. This motivating factor serves our economy and everything that depends upon our economy including the environment.

Myth 1: Ethanol costs substantially more than gasoline.
There are many studies that have placed the whole cost of ethanol including cost to plant, fertilize, harvest and refine crops; higher than gasoline. There is some truth to the studies but what they fail to consider is the WHOLE cost of gasoline.

Currently oil energy imports represent 40% of our trade deficit. Worse, we are spending this money both directly and indirectly in a way that supports regimes that are hostile America. At the same time we are subsidizing our farmers to keep U.S. agriculture viable; often paying farmers not to grow various crops. Now I don’t know what the added geopolitical cost per gallon of gasoline is but I do know that if we consider these facts it substantially narrows the gap between the cost of ethanol and the cost of gasoline.

Add to this the obvious benefits of CO2 mitigation with renewable energy resources and I think we have a pretty even comparison between gasoline and ethanol.

I personally would rather our farmers profit from our energy demands rather than continue to contribute to a market that underwrites the Mad Mullahs in Iran or U.S. hating communists like Hugo Chavez. Shifting the world energy market to ethanol can solve these problems and make the U.S. a net energy exporter; and this is a good thing.

Myth 2: Every acre in the U.S. will need to be planted in corn to meet our energy needs at the expense of food crops.

Given the data at the time of many of these studies this is somewhat true but technological bioengineering breakthroughs in crop yields have helped and continue to help this problem. The most promising technology, though, is in cellulosic ethanol technology where enzymes are used to break down hard fibers from agricultural wastes and very hearty native grasses into fermentable sugars. This technology is proven and available and only suffers a capital infrastructure disadvantage to gasoline and conventional ethanol. Once this is overcome spinning gold from straw will become as common as an every week fill-up at the local service station.

Myth 3: Ethanol has a substantially lower energy yield than gasoline.

This is a myth I really hear often so it deserves a good bit of attention. It is true that the potential energy yield of a gallon of gasoline is higher than a gallon of ethanol. Most of the figures I’ve seen give gasoline about a 20% advantage. The problem with this statistic, however, is that the conventional internal combustion engine is unable to consume all of the energy that is available in a gallon of gasoline. Even in the most efficient engines we have today pump gasoline begins a process of pre-ignition or detonation when compression ratios get much higher than 9 to 1. This detonation occurs when the air and fuel mixture explodes prematurely in the combustion chamber and this limits the amount of energy we can derive from a gallon of gas. Under the same compression ratio ethanol has a lower energy yield than gasoline but at higher compressions (around 13:1) ethanol has a comparable energy yield without the problem of detonation. Our current generation of flex-fuel vehicles that burn both gasoline and ethanol are limited to the least common denominator of the lower compression. Once E85 ethanol blends are readily available across the country, however, cars manufactured specifically for this blend will get comparable mileage/performance.

Myth 4: Transportation infrastructure inadequate.

Again, in order to compare apples to apples we must consider the capital infrastructure advantage that gasoline has over ethanol. It is true that the corrosive nature of ethanol prevents it from being transported in the existing pipe-line network. Is it a fair to use gasoline’s existing playing field as a benchmark against one that has yet to be built for ethanol? If the other advantages merit a shift to ethanol as our primary transportation fuel source then shouldn’t the one-time capital infrastructure costs of transportation be negated in comparison to gasoline?

In any case it does not make sense to think of ethanol with the same centralized distribution network. Ethanol lends itself to a smaller distributed network where small immediately adjacent rural areas feed the urban areas next door. This has the further advantage of economic development and self sustainability of communities that many times rely on the welfare resources of urban economies. Ethanol can allow us to target depressed rural areas where unemployment is high with useful industry rather than health and human services handouts.

In summary…
Although I disagree with production mandates and certain tariffs that tend to cause vast price fluctuation and inflation of ethanol costs, I do believe that we should index the cost of gasoline to its real geopolitical and environmental costs. If we’re going to fight a war every decade or so to protect world oil interests, this cost should show up in the price at the pump. When it does, ethanol will quickly become a very appealing alternative. I also think it is important to protect our fledgling ethanol industry and certainly invest in cellulosic research but eliminating the sugar tariffs and encouraging open trade across the Americas in sugar is also a step in the right direction at least in the short term.

Photo Credit: TCSDailyThere is a vast perception in the environmental community and the population at large that George Bush is a slash and burn industrialist who destroys the environment for pleasure. Nothing could be further from the truth. Bush’s environmental record, though highly criticized, is reasonable and right; and is contributing greatly to the well being of Mother Earth.

Much of Bush’s criticism comes from undoing many of the things Clinton/Gore never really did in the first place.

Do you believe Clinton removed the arsenic from the water? Not only did he NOT do that, not only did he make us drink arsenic-laced water for the last 8 years, this order he signed stipulated that the arsenic was not to be removed from the water "until 2004." That's right. Look it up. Clinton's big environmental do-good act in the last minutes of his term guaranteed that we would be drinking the same levels of arsenic we've been drinking since 1942 — the last time a REAL Democrat had the guts to stand up to the mining interests and reduce the levels of this poison. The Canadians and Europeans did it long ago. Clinton made it official that we would all be drinking arsenic during the entire Bush administration. Maybe he was doing us a favor.

And how about those COO emission regulations that Bush II overturned? Did I say "overturn?" Overturn what? All Bush did was maintain the Clinton status quo. He said, in essence, that "I'm going to pollute the air at the very same levels Clinton did during his entire eight years, just as you are going to drink the same arsenic in the water under my watch as you did under Clinton's." And, like the built-in three-year delay in his arsenic reductions, Clinton's orders on the toxic emissions in his last days specified that they were not to be totally reduced '"until 2008, per the Kyoto agreement."

So, after violating the Kyoto accords he had signed by doing NOTHING about CO2 in the past few years, he then tries to look good by doing NOTHING about CO2 for another seven years! So the air that was dirty is still dirty and will remain dirty, just as Clinton had ordered.

 

I don’t share the writer’s contempt for Clinton. I just think that the standards were reasonable and that staying with earlier standards and working toward gradual improvement is a smarter tack. Sandbagging Bush with these unreasonable last minute executive orders was a pretty dirty political trick though and the media played along as anyone could have predicted.

Another misnomer is that Bush has not acknowledged global climate change and is deaf to the issue. This letter from March of 2001 would indicate otherwise:

Consistent with these concerns, we will continue to fully examine global climate change issues — including the science, technologies, market-based systems, and innovative options for addressing concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. I am very optimistic that, with the proper focus and working with our friends and allies, we will be able to develop technologies, market incentives, and other creative ways to address global climate change.

The U.S. has made vast improvements toward CO2 mitigation and is on track to lead the world with policies refined by this administration.

Also there is a difference between talking the talk and walking the walk on energy and the environment. It seems World Conservation Superstar Al Gore has a little problem with energy consumption in his 10,000 square foot mansion. Bill Hobbs over at Ecotality.com notes a Tennessee Center for Policy Research article:

The average household in America consumes 10,656 kilowatt-hours (kWh) per year, according to the Department of Energy. In 2006, Gore devoured nearly 221,000 kWh - more than 20 times the national average. Last August alone, Gore burned through 22,619 kWh - guzzling more than twice the electricity in one month than an average American family uses in an entire year.

Evidently his Crawford Winter White House has 25,000 gallons of rainwater storage, gray water collection from sinks and showers for irrigation, passive solar, geothermal heating and cooling. “By marketplace standards, the house is startlingly small,” says David Heymann, the architect of the 4,000-square-foot home. “Clients of similar ilk are building 16-to-20,000-square-foot houses.”

George Bush also gets demerits from the environmental community for his general Fiscal Conservatism. For some reason fiscal conservatism is unhitched these days from environmental conservatism as if only running money through an inefficient, often corrupt and politically motivated bureaucracy will save the world. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Take Venezuela for example. Hugo Chavez is conducting the ultimate fiscal liberalism experiment by nationalizing all the oil, telecommunication and other private infrastructure. In doing so he is developing a new populist socialistic economy… with predictable results:

At this moment there are serious food shortages in Venezuela as he has increased government control over production and established unrealistic price controls for foodstuffs. Inflation in the food sector is running at 36% for the year. At the same time, unemployment and inflation rates are the largest in Latin America.

I predict Venezuela will continue to decline economically and the inevitable environmental rape will follow as they will have the economic means for nothing else. It’s a melodramatic melt-down of Ayn Rand proportions and it’s as predictable as the sun rising in the east.

In summary, a Google search of Bush + Environment will result in a legion of articles and commentary assailing the president on his environmental policy. In every article they take one small fragment issue to try to discredit the whole of a complex and effective environmental policy. The truth of the record shows that Bush has made steady progress on the environment while at the same time balancing reasonable economic concerns against environmental hysteria. He is a true Rational Environmentalist.

Want to discuss Ryan and Jimmy's posts further? Visit the Red, Green and Blue discussion forum.

Editor's note: Please welcome our newest writer, Jimmy Hogan, publisher of The Rational Environmentalist. We brought Jimmy on to begin a new feature: Red, Green and Blue. Every Tuesday, Jimmy and current political writer Ryan Thibodaux will address a specific green political topic. Ryan will take the progressive/liberal position, while Jimmy will take the conservative side. We hope you enjoy their commentary and their friendly debate, and that you add you thoughts to the discussion.

The earth is warming. There is no denying this and CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere are increasing. These are facts that are studied and proven. The question before the world today, though, is “does this represent a cause and effect relationship?”. The consensus at last count was around 90% in favor of the idea of CO2 as the major contributing cause to global warming. I happen to be in the 10% of people who are not yet convinced.

Why is this question important? It is important because this issue, more than any other places the free market, capital economy, in square opposition to our environmental well-being. This might not seem like a new idea for most people because the perception of industrialization has always been a villain and arch-enemy to Mother Earth. The truth, however, is that the environment has no greater friend than our free market capital economy.

Consider for a moment what the world would be like without our thriving and robust economy. We don’t need to use our imagination really. Instead, we can simply look to the poverty-stricken Third World countries: open trench sewers in the middle of the streets… slash and burn forestry for the sake of inefficient agriculture… roasting endangered species over open cook fires… these are the real signs of environmental rape. In these places survival is the only concern and, except for the assistance of more wealthy nations, no one ever climbs above Maslow’s first step.

Contrast that to our modern economy that rewards hard work and innovation. Although we are indulgent, our excess is enough to feed much of the world’s hunger. Our market-driven medical advances save the world from infection and disease, and our free market for medicines provides the profit incentive that underwrites the cost of these drugs for the entire price-controlled world. And it is all of this wealth that gives us and the world the luxury to even consider our relationship with Mother Earth in the first place.

The Rhine River in Europe is the cleanest it has been in centuries. This is because of innovations in water treatment systems and hundreds of billions of dollars spent on waste-water treatment. Would this have been possible without thriving industrial-based capital economies? I don’t believe it would.

These are just a few examples, but no one can deny the improvements in life, air quality, water quality, and the environment in general in just our lifetimes. Yet the better things get, the more we become concerned.

This time CO2 is the enemy. Is it causing the warming? Not all by itself , but it can be a contributor. Most of the models point to a greenhouse gas tipping point where the smaller effect of CO2 and other lesser greenhouse gasses is causing increased water vapor in the atmosphere, and the additional water vapor becomes a primary cause for warming. Well, that’s OK in a Rube Goldberg sense I guess; but I don’t think we can call it science yet. It, instead, is consensus. I personally believe particulate reduction is an equally compelling theory to explain the recent spike in warming trends especially over the last 30 years. There is a very big problem with my theory though: our successes in fighting pollution help explain Global Warming? That’s scientific heresy! And worse, the solution to this problem requires of us the worst thing possible for an environmental activist (or scientist needing more research dollars)… absolutely nothing.

Well ‘nothing’ really is an exaggeration but what I do fear is that our efforts at CO2 mitigation might soak up the resources that could be better used in other areas of environmental science and other social issues at large. Additionally, I fear that it will be burdensome on the world economy as a whole, and the US economy in particular. Trust me, the world has quite enough people willing to blame their countries’ failures on US successes. Kyoto is a fine example of the world’s remedy to this, and the US senate should be praised highly for not ratifying this economic wealth redistribution treaty. We are already blamed for world hunger, poverty, sickness, unrest, etc. Do we really need to add “Acts of God” to the list, and take responsibility for thunderstorms and tornadoes?

As in anything, there is a win/win in the global warming debate where goals of proponents and opponents overlap. This is where I think we should spend our energies. Over 40% of the US trade deficit is in petroleum costs [9/06 Federal Reserve Article]. A lot of that money goes to foreign countries that are hostile to American interests. Plus we send our armed forces out every decade or so to help protect the world oil market from tyrants who wish us harm. None of these tangible intangibles are seen at the pump on a gallon of gasoline though. Even negating the strong ecological advantages of biodiesel and ethanol and their benefits in CO2 mitigation, a compelling case can be made for a gasoline tax that indexes the price to the real costs and helps level the playing field between imported oil and environmentally-friendly renewable fuels. For some reason, though, instead of agreeing about common ground, the pundits on either side prefer to dwell in the fringes where there is only polar disagreement. I suggest that every reasonable person wants a clean and healthy environment. Typically what we argue about is the means to that end. The environmentalists should be lauded for their enthusiasm… and the industrialists should be lauded for their pragmatism.

In summary, I really couldn’t care less if Joe Lunchbox wants a new CO2-belching, gas-guzzling Corvette if that is what motivates him to get up and go to work every day. He’ll be paying taxes on the purchase, he’ll pay taxes on his income, he’ll pay taxes on his gasoline, and he’ll help provide jobs to others up in Bowling Green, Kentucky, who in turn will do the same. This cycle of indulgence, along with healthy continued common sense progress on the environmental front, will ultimately benefit the environment by providing the resources we need to attack the big environmental issues and mitigate the impact of a growing population on Mother Earth.

Want to discuss Jimmy and Ryan's posts? Leave a comment, or go to the Red, Grenn, and Blue discussion forum.