The Continuing Battle Between CO2 Puritans and Pragmatists
An update on Al Gore's carbon neutrality
11 Mar 2007 in Regulatory Economics
In July 2006, we posted an article in response to news stories about a speech former vice president Al Gore delivered at the Chautaqua Institution. According to Associated Press reporter Carolyn Thompson, Gore's "conscience is regularly challenged by a consumerism that contributes to the global warming he has made it his mission to reverse. After saying that he and his wife, Tipper, had adopted a "carbon neutral" lifestyle, he acknowledged that it was a difficult thing to do. " 'We've fallen into this pattern of consuming more and more and more and I'm part of it, I understand,' he said."
We were intrigued by the acknowledgment of personal responsibility in the news article (the speech itself does not appear to be online. So we did some research and learned that there is no generally accepted definition of "carbon neutrality." Nevertheless, the but the premise is simple. For every ton of carbon dioxide you emit, whether directly by your actions or indirectly by your consumption decisions, you undertake a compensating action or consumption decision that reduces carbon dioxide emissions by the same amount. In principle, your ledger of carbon debits would equal your ledger of carbon credits.
It's a pragmatic personal response to global warming that enables individuals to choose the optimal mix of actual CO2 reductions they want to make and how much cash they are willing to forgo instead. This is the standard economic theory prescription for solving a host of public policy problems that are defined by the existence of a negative externality in which the market price of an activity does not capture the full social cost.
We provided links to several nonprofit organizations that sell "carbon offsets" to people who want to mimic Gore's pragmatic approach. We noted that there are many other environmentalists who are highly critical of this pragmatic approach to global warming abatement. In their view, only actual reductions in CO2 emissions are legitimate and purchasing carbon offsets is not. We described this argument as being between CO2 Pragmatists and CO2 Puritans. The pragmatists are happy paying others to reduce greenhouse gas emissions on their behalf. It is no more a moral issue than paying someone else to mow the lawn. For CO2 Puritans, however, everyone must make a personal sacrifice in lifestyle, to personally share in the burden of reducing greenhouse gas emissions even if that means reducing energy consumption by (say) 60%.
The subject arose again in August when Peter Schweitzer published a commentary in USA Today claiming that Gore's professed carbon neutrality was hypocritical. Schweitzer was raising the banner of the CO2 Puritans (though it seems unlikely that he is one) because Gore had not actually reduced his "carbon footprint" in a manner consistent with his policy recommendations. Schweitzer's objections appear to have focused on the apparent disconnect between Gore's actions (which befit a CO2 Pragmatist) and his moralist rhetoric (which often tends toward CO2 Puritanism). Indeed, there is a significant disconnect between moral issues and economic remedies such as carbon offsetting, which are unambiguously amoral.
We were curious how well Gore was doing as a CO2 Pragmatist, so we posted an article estimating, based on limited information, what it required of the Gores to achieve a pragmatic form of carbon neutrality. For residential carbon-neutrality, we calculated that an annual payment of about $2,400 to one of these nonprofits would be sufficient, and noted that such an expenditure should not be a burden for Gore. For air-travel carbon neutrality, we used the conservative assumption that Gore's private air travel utilized an aircraft as fuel efficient as a Piper Seneca V. [A commenter doubts that Gore travels by Seneca V or its equivalent because it's a non-pressurized piston-driven aircraft. He also says corporate jets carrying 8 to 30 people burn 320 to 385 gallons per hour versus the 22 gph for the Seneca V. These changes would significantly increase our rule of thumb estimate of CO2 emissions from private aircraft, and of course, Gore's carbon footprint from air travel and the cost of carbon offsets necessary to neutralize it.]
Gore's carbon footprint is back in the news since the Tennessee Center for Policy Research distributed a press release containing actual electricity and natural gas consumption for the Gores' Nashville home. Subsequently, the political aspects of the story have been covered more than adequately.
Now that that aspect of the story has died down, we use it to address -- again -- the dispute between CO2 Puritans and CO2 Pragmatists. This dispute has serious ramifications for public policy on global climate change.
TCPR says energy consumption at the Gores' Nashville home in 2006 was "more than 20 times the national average." This included 221,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity costing $16,300 and an unstated amount of natural gas costing $13,000. The Center identifies itself as a free-market oriented nonprofit organization. However, criticism of Gore also could have come from CO2 Puritans.
The Tennessean's Anne Paine reports that the Gores bought 108 blocks of "green power" from renewables "such as solar, wind and methane gas" through the Green Power Switch program sponsored by Nashville Electric Service. NES says each block of 150 costs $4 extra per block, or $432 per month for the number of blocks purchased by the Gores.
Purchasing enough "green power" to offset the Gores' entire 2006 electricity bill would have cost $5,893, an increase of 36% in their electric bill. This difference in price reflects the higher cost of electricity from renewable sources. NES says "[g]reen power cost [sic] more because the technology used to capture these renewable resources is more expensive than traditional power generation methods."
Therein lies the conflict between the CO2 Puritans and CO2 Pragmatists. Whereas the Pragmatists consider it acceptable to make cash payments in lieu of actual reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, with the actual reductions being made cost-effectively somewhere else by someone else, CO2 Puritans believe that it is a moral imperative for everyone to reduce their actual emissions irrespective of economic efficiency considerations. If the Gores purchased all of their electricity from Green Power Switch, they would occupy an intermediate moral space between the CO2 Puritans and CO2 Pragmatists. They would not be "paying someone else to reduce greenhouse gas emissions on their behalf, but they also would not be adopting the ascetic lifestyle demanded by the Puritans. We shall call it the CO2 Hybrid approach.
PURITANS AND PRAGMATISTS
Sheryl Eisenberg wrote about the controversy in an online publication of the Natural Resources Defense Council, siding with the CO2 Pragmatists:
Some people question whether buying offsets isn't like paying for the right to pollute. They think we should focus on bringing our individual emissions down instead. I don't see it that way. Sure, we should do what we can in our personal lives. But dealing with global warming requires something more -- a change in the technologies that power our world. In my view, offsets will get us there quicker.
CO2 Pragmatism comes with a certain amount of discomfort, as fellow environmentalist and freelance environmental writer Erica Gies recently observed:
Taking a vacation to the other side of the planet is the ultimate luxury, but it's one laced with guilt. On top of developed-country remorse, a new form of shame is beginning to stalk those of us taking "unnecessary" airplane rides: What about all that carbon dioxide spewing into the friendly but beleaguered skies?
She also sided with the CO2 Pragmatists rather than give up international travel, then struggled to make sense of the market for CO2 offsets:
When I returned from a trip to India last January, I resolved to buy offsets, and promptly hopped on Google. There was no shortage of organizations lining up to take my money, although quite a few wanted euros or other foreign currencies. However, even those dealing in dollars quickly left me flummoxed, because they calculated my flight at dramatically different costs. Sure, I'd love to pay $12 rather than $92, but would I be cheating the environment? Where do they get these figures? And then there was the profusion of projects I could help fund: wind energy, traffic remediation, tree planting. As if that weren't enough, I found many a watchdog site dedicated to explaining why certain projects were No Good.
Gies discovered that CO2 Puritans (e.g., see here, here, here, and here) are dead-set against offsets on he ground that they are immoral (links below embedded in Gies' original):
Many vocal people would answer no to both questions, arguing that offsets are just a way for polluters to ease their guilt. "Carbon trading leads to privatization of the atmosphere," Jutta Kill of Forests and the European Union Resource Network told Z Magazine last year. "Those who have caused this terrible problem are now supposed to save us from it while continuing to pollute and making a lot of money." Critics argue that both industry and individuals should change their habits instead of relying on retail therapy.
Some offset opponents liken the purchase of CO2 offsets to the sale of indulgences, though we have not found any that explain the historical allusion. Most notoriously during the 16th Century, senior clerics in the Roman Catholic Church (including Pope Leo X) promised release from sin for the exchange of money, with the amount of money that was required a rising function of the perceived scale and scope of the sin. Martin Luther's 95 Theses condemn the clerical practice of claiming the authority to remit sin, especially in return for the purchase of indulgences. This may have been the most controversial market in Western history, spawning as it did the Protestant Reformation. When one side of the debate invokes the primary historic schism in Christianity, over which millions of lives were lost in centuries of warfare, it is hard to understate the degree of potential animosity involved.
Paine reports that Gore "helped found Generation Investment Management, through which he and others pay for offsets." Their website confirms that Gore serves as Chairman and describes the firm as performing "sustainability research" organization. It is located in the United Kingdom and regulated by its Financial Services Authority, with a US subsidiary located in Washington DC and registered with the Securities and Exchange Commission under the Investment Advisers Act of 1940. It says it is a carbon-neutral firm:
While we are still a small firm with only 23 employees, Generation is committed to reducing the energy use of operations, both direct and indirect. We do this by minimizing non-essential air travel and by managing our building operations (lighting, recycling, and procurement). We have also had conversations with suppliers about energy efficiency. For the remainder of our carbon footprint, we work with two offset providers (The Chicago Climate Exchange and the CarbonNeutral Company) to ensure our London and Washington D.C. offices are fully carbon neutral. In addition, Generation has sponsored a full energy efficiency audit for each employee's residence, including suggestions for ways they can make home energy improvements.
As an Associate member of the Chicago Climate Exchange, Generation has made a legally binding commitment to purchase Carbon Financial Instruments (CFIs) sufficient to 100% offset the greenhouse gas emissions caused annually by our firm's electricity use and business travel for the period 2005-2010.
The CarbonNeutral Company is a voluntary offset provider with whom Generation works to offset emissions, particularly for the partners and families of Generation's 23 employees.
This tells us one place to look to learn how the Gores offset their personal carbon footprints. The CarbonNeutral Company says the Gores' 221,000 kWh of electricity consumption generates 95 metric tons CO2 per year (104.5 tons). To offset the carbon footprint from the Gores' electricity use, CarbonNeutral offers three offset alternatives:
- A futures portfolio costing £885.40
- An international communities portfolio costing £781.85
- A one-world portfolio costing £703.00
At current exchange rates, these offsets cost $1,738, $1,535, and $1,381, respectively. That's $16.63 per ton. (Carbon Counter's CO2 emission estimate is 137.58 tons, but because they charge $10 per ton for offsets the total cost of offsets is less, at $1,376). All these prices are well below the cost of alternative energy purchased through the Green Switch Program.
U.S. policy responses to global climate thus fall neatly into three categories:
- Establish a carbon tax or cap-and-trade regime in which the price of energy is increased (say) 60%. This is the preferred policy of CO2 Pragmatists. By increasing the price of energy, individuals can decide for themselves how much they want to reduce their consumption (thereby avoiding the price increase) and how much they'd prefer to pay others to reduce emissions on their behalf. Because this policy alternative permits (and indeed encourages) diverse individual choice, it avoids attaching any moral stigma to energy consumption. For that very reason it is unacceptable to CO2 Puritans.
- Uniformly reduce greenhouse gas emissions by (say) 60%, with perhaps greater reductions required of the wealthy than of the poor. The is the preferred policy of CO2 Puritans. By imposing greater hardship on the wealthy, it passes moral judgment on their prior conduct. Instead of allowing them to "purchase indulgences," it requires penance. CO2 Pragmatists can be expected to resist policies that require mandatory individual reductions, and some will reject the moral opprobrium directed their way by CO2 Puritans. Still, many CO2 Pragmatists feel guilty about wanting to maintain their current living standards and will not object too loudly.
- Combine a carbon tax or cap-and-trade regime with explicit opportunities to buy offsets or electricity from sources that do not generate greenhouse gases. This is the preferred policy of CO2 Hybrids, and it's consistent with the revealed conduct of former vice president Gore. Where non-GHG energy is available, it can be purchased without moral sanction because it does not add to global warming. Where it is not available, carbon offsets are entirely acceptable alternatives. Nonprofit charities (including the one promoted by Gore) imply that offsets are tax deductible, which for wealthy purchasers shifts 30 to 50% of the cost to taxpayers at large. Where new technology is needed, government should step in and subsidize it. In broad terms, this is the policy prescription set forth by An Inconvenient Truth and so must reflect Gore's views.
One of the strongest criticisms of An Inconvenient Truth is that energy supply and the certain disruption of our present greenhouse-gas-generating lifestyle were not mentioned. It would be nice if petrocollapse suddenly erased the greenhouse gas threat, but it’s not that simple. For one thing, every day that the economy rolls along, the climate - and possibly Earth’s life force, despite the Gaia theory - is bled to death. So the race between greenhouse hell and petrocollapse seems to being won by the former...
The proverbial elephant in the living room is nuclear power. The nuclear industry is avidly promoting nuclear power as the solution, with support from environmentalists who used to passionately oppose it. The AIC website does not mention, never mind endorse, the use of nuclear power to generate non-GHG emitting electricity, and comments Gore has made suggest he is at best ambivalent about it. Nevertheless, opposition to nuclear power remains strong among environmentalists -- especially among CO2 Puritans, who oppose all technological solutions. Nevertheless, policies that would encourage massive increases in nuclear power are fully consistent with AIC, and it is hard to believe that Gore would reject a deal in which he could secure his public policy vision in return for his active and aggressive support for nuclear energy.
UPDATE April 8, 2008
On April 7, 2007, Erica Gies wrote us with an unusual request -- that we change our description of her from "environmentalist" to "reporter" or "journalist." Our review of her work indicates that she displays a high level of affinity for the values, goals and objectives of persons routinely described as "environmentalists" ("one concerned about environmental quality especially of the human environment with respect to the control of pollution"). Thus, we believe that retaining this descriptor gives a more objective description than readers would gain if we removed it. That is especially so in this case because the article in question recounted a personal experience that Ms. Gies acknowledged was motivated by environmentalism ("advocacy of the preservation, restoration, or improvement of the natural environment").
We generally do not use the terms "journalist" and "media" because they are insufficiently descriptive and sometimes used with affectation to capture prestige. Our goal is to use terms that provide the most objective description possible. We take account of how writers are described in the articles they publish, but we do not adopt those descriptives unless we consider them adequately objective. We distinguish between reporters (who are employed by recognized news gathering organizations and whose duties revolve around news), and columnists and editorial writers (who are either syndicated or employed by a news gathering organization for the purpose of disseminating opinion). We acknowledge that problems arise with this taxonomy when columnists and editorial writers do news reporting, and when reporters inject editorial opinion in their news stories. Finally, there is a gray area occupied by feature writers, some of whom are employed by news gathering organizations and some who work freelance.
In any case, Ms. Gies does not meet the definitions of reporter, columnist, or editorial writers. She was identified as a "freelance environmental writer" in the Grist article we cited. We should have used that term in our original post, and we have modified the text accordingly.
