Intimations of 0481

Hilarious. But somehow not so funny.

Friedman's column today hypothesized what China's diplomatic cables might say if they were Wikileaked. The Chinese appear mostly gleeful that America is doing itself in, and not waking up to the need for national renewal. A sample:

the Americans are oblivious. They travel abroad so rarely that they don’t see how far they are falling behind. Which is why we at the embassy find it funny that Americans are now fighting over how “exceptional” they are. Once again, we are not making this up. On the front page of The Washington Post on Monday there was an article noting that Republicans Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee are denouncing Obama for denying “American exceptionalism.” The Americans have replaced working to be exceptional with talking about how exceptional they still are. They don’t seem to understand that you can’t declare yourself “exceptional,” only others can bestow that adjective upon you.

Also:

Most of the Republicans just elected to Congress do not believe what their scientists tell them about man-made climate change. America’s politicians are mostly lawyers — not engineers or scientists like ours — so they’ll just say crazy things about science and nobody calls them on it. It’s good. It means they will not support any bill to spur clean energy innovation, which is central to our next five-year plan. And this ensures that our efforts to dominate the wind, solar, nuclear and electric car industries will not be challenged by America.

So actually, in China "nobody calls them on it" either. Because, you know, there are things like censorship and state control of media there. In fact, plenty of bad projects go forward for political and ideological reasons, scientific advice be dammed. Pun intended. "Oh details, details," Friedman seems to think, as he glosses over such issues to fit his "China v. U.S., China-is-winning" narrative.

But overall, the message is still pretty stark. We are falling behind, and the most depressing thing is our refusal to acknowledge it. If you cannot even make note of the problem (and it's unclear to me whether it's actual blindness or just willful ignorance), then how can you possibly fix it? Yet we continue to delude ourselves, and our leaders refuse to call out the problem in clear terms, in order to focus the energy and talent of this nation. And so we will remain in this downward spiral, never rising to meet the challenge.

It means America will do nothing serious to fix its structural problems: a ballooning deficit, declining educational performance, crumbling infrastructure and diminished immigration of new talent.

Sigh... I wonder if the tone of this cable qualifies as 幸災樂禍. I title this post 0481 because that is the year 1840 in reverse -- for instead of the West's ascendancy over the Middle Kingdom (kicking down the doors to sell opium, baby!), now we see China rising as America decays, oblivious to its faltering position. I don't mean to be melodramatic, but some of the parallels are clear. And I'm a little apprehensive that America's refusal to reform, its insistence that it is the best-most-superlative everything, even as the world changes around us, could signal the beginning of a decline. I dearly hope not -- but to avert that outcome, we need to get our act together and start moving again.

UPDATE (12/5/2010)
Here's a round-up of a few other folks who take issue with Friedman and his PRC worshipfulness, lol.

Psych: Global Warming & Just World Beliefs

My friend GC just posted a link to a paper by two UC Berkeley scholars, which he says "details how the Just World Fallacy prevent[s] people from believing that their innocent children will bear the consequences of their parents' dirty industries." He further commented: don't those people "of the Just World inclination, who believe in a magical world of order, stability and good-guys-win-bad-guys-lose tend to be ... fundamental religious types?"

It's an interesting paper, so I'm glad that he posted it. However, I don't exactly agree with his assessment. Aside from his irreverence toward "fundamentalists" (so yeah ... he could have been a little bit more respectful, because they have a right to their beliefs, even though many people might not agree with them), I also have a couple of issues with the paper's assertions -- or at least would like to add to GC's interpretation of it.

First of all, there are plenty of religious people who believe in global warming and who are strongly in favor of taking action to mitigate it. Second, I don't know if a Just World theory requires you to put your trust in a deus ex machina swooping in to save the day -- or proclaim that the world could never even be in danger in the first place (as some GOP candidates for chair of the Energy and Commerce have.)

There may be some irony here, but I actually thought the Just World types were the environmentalists -- who believe that humankind will somehow get its act together, despite the odds, and unite to save the planet because it's the right thing to do for our generation and for future generations. The polluting industries that refuse to take responsibility for their harmful impacts, as well as the corrupt politicians who enable them, will get what's coming to them. We'll recognize our connection to the Earth, its ecosystems, and the many living creatures that share the planet with us; and we'll be more thoughtful about development, more sensitive in our actions and how we choose to structure our societies.

I'm not even kidding: at the end of the day, we have to believe in a brighter future like that to keep on doing what we're doing, to persevere in this line of work. But while we remain optimistic that as human beings gain greater understanding, growing wiser and more empathetic, we'll get there one day, neither do we have illusions about the numerous obstacles and difficulties that remain. We see the problems every day -- the ignorance, short-sightedness, or outright greed, that causes people to sacrifice the planet and the future for short-term gain.

My point: even if you recognize the threat of global warming, perhaps you can still believe in a Just World. But you may also believe that you have to work to establish and/or maintain such a world.

So I agree with the paper's authors, in terms of the necessity of reframing some aspects of the issue, and reaching out to the demographic segments who currently shrink from acknowledging the potential severities of climate change. But perhaps in all of this, another world view could be raised: a belief that justice can prevail in the long run, but that you must act to secure it in the present.

Finally, as Martin Luther King Jr. once said:The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice. This phrase of Dr. King's was also referenced in a speech by Barack Obama (who remains a champion in the fight against climate change), who notes, "It bends towards justice, but here is the thing: it does not bend on its own. It bends because each of us in our own ways put our hand on that arc and we bend it in the direction of justice."

_____________________

"Apocalypse soon? Dire Message Reduce Belief in Global Warming by Contradicting 'Just World' Beliefs"
By Matthew Feinberg and Robb Willer

ABSTRACT

Though scientific evidence for the existence of global warming continues to mount, in the U.S. and other countries belief in global warming has stagnated or even decreased in recent years. One possible explanation for this pattern is that information about the potentially dire consequences of global warming threatens deeply held beliefs that the world is just, orderly, and stable. Individuals overcome this threat by denying or discounting the existence of global warming, ultimately resulting in decreased willingness to counteract climate change. Two experiments provide support for this explanation of the dynamics of belief in global warming, suggesting that less dire messaging could be more effective for promoting public understanding of climate change research.

URL:
http://willer.berkeley.edu/FeinbergWiller2011.pdf
http://open.salon.com/blog/arthur_howe/2009/01/18/the_arc_of_the_universe_is_long_but_it_bends_towards_justice

Let's keep our lead!

Protect AB32, California's landmark climate legislation! Now that action has been waylaid at the federal level, it's more important than ever that our states move ahead. As this editorial in The New York Times recounts:

"Four years ago, bipartisan majorities in the California Legislature approved a landmark clean energy bill that many hoped would serve as a template for a national effort to reduce dependence on foreign oil and mitigate the threat of climate change." However, a "well-financed coalition of right-wing ideologues, out-of-state oil and gas companies and climate-change skeptics is seeking to effectively kill that law with an initiative on the November state ballot."

The harmful measure these polluters are pushing is Proposition 23, which will delay implementation of AB32 until California's unemployment drops to what are nearly historical lows. (According to Kristin Grenfell-Eberhard of NRDC, when these politicos first submitted the bill, they proposed quashing AB32 until the state had a level of unemployment that had never even been attained in California's history! They realized this would just look really obvious (i.e. they just don't want to stop polluting), so they adjusted the number upward by a little bit). As written, Prop 23 effectively guts AB32; climate change legislation might simply never be implemented in our state if these greedy energy companies have their way!

These polluters are trying to scare people by warning of higher energy prices and the loss of jobs, but completely ignore the new jobs that are being created and the clean technology industries whose growth has accelerated. Many of these jobs cannot be exported -- for instance, solar installation on rooftops has to take place in state. And if California becomes a leader in developing clean technologies and innovating low-carbon lifestyles -- in other words, if it it leads the way it does in IT, computers and semiconductors -- then countless employers would stream into our state, attracting talent from around the world.

These oil companies and greedy, out-of-state rich people (from Texas for instance) should not be allowed to drag California down and prevent us from capturing the jobs, economic opportunity and sense of renewal that accompany our state's pioneering effort. It is heartening to see that in response, "AB 32’s many friends — led by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California — have therefore mounted a spirited counterattack in defense of the law. Another respected Republican, George Shultz — a cabinet member in both the Nixon and Reagan administrations — has signed on as a co-chairman of this effort. Mr. Shultz credits AB 32 for an unprecedented “outburst” of technological creativity and investment."

Let's keep our lead! Protect AB32 and promote innovation and green jobs in California! Don't let these oil companies win. Vote NO on PROP 23!

I Love My State

Two nice pieces on how Republicans in California have to tread carefully when discussing climate change legislation, because two-thirds of voters (including over 70% of independents) support AB32, our state's pioneering climate change bill.

Global warming bill a lose-lose issue for GOP candidates (Los Angeles Times)
"Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina have wavered on Proposition 23, trying to appease their conservative base without alienating independent voters ... Those voters tend to be fiscally conservative but socially and environmentally liberal"

In California, Climate Politics Are Tricky... For Republicans (The New Republic)
"Republicans are actually getting into trouble for opposing the state's climate law"

P.S. Remember to vote against Proposition 23, the naked attempt by oil companies (primarily Valero Energy Corp and Tesoro Corp) to gut AB32 and avoid paying for their pollution. I'll post a couple of editorials on that soon.

Luckily, other businesses are not lining up behind them. Indeed, "a number of well-funded tech companies in Silicon Valley want AB32 to go forward—they have a lot invested in the state's burgeoning renewable and efficiency industries." Even the California Chamber of Commerce has "said it will remain neutral, and the Bay Area Council and the Silicon Valley Leadership Group both oppose Prop 23."

Go California!

World turned upside down.

Grist post asks "Did China block Copenhagen progress to pave way for its own dominance in cleantech?"

A little far-fetched ... but point well-taken. I don't think it was active blocking, so much as China already was going to pursue its unilateral carbon intensity goals, national action plan on climate, and far-reaching energy and green technology policies. No skin off its nose whatever came out of Copenhagen. If the US was going to be idiotic and still not take any action (in reality, it's not COP15 that matters for the US, it's what happens in the Senate this spring), then so much the better -- they'd be even slower off the block and slower to catch up.

Did China block Copenhagen progress to pave way for its own dominance in cleantech?


22 Jan 2010 6:31 PM
by Geoffrey Lean

You hear it all the time, one of the most frequently voiced excuses for Western countries failing to radically cut carbon dioxide emissions: Taking any such action would hand a massive competitive advantage to fast-industrializing China.

Yet evidence is piling up that the very opposite is the case. The main challenge from the world’s new industrial superpower is not that it will continue to use the dirty, old technologies of the past, but that it will come to dominate the new, clean, green ones of the future.

As developed nations fail to put an adequate price on carbon, and thus to stimulate clean-technology development themselves, they risk handing market supremacy to the rival they most fear. Indeed, it could even be hypothesized that China’s blocking of agreement on rich-country emission targets in Copenhagen was intended to hold back the development of cleantech by its Western rivals.

Visitor after distinguished visitor to the world’s most populous country returns home shaken, if not stirred, by the speed and determination with which it is adopting these technologies, especially in renewable energy. David Sandalow, the U.S. assistant secretary of energy for policy and international affairs—a longtime expert in the field, both in and out of government, who has trekked across the Pacific five times since last summer—says, “China’s investment in clean energy is extraordinary. Unless the U.S. makes investments, we are not competitive in the cleantech sector in the years and decades to come.”

The Case for a Climate Bill

The New York Times editorial board is calling on President Obama to forge ahead with a climate bill, despite the loss of the Democrats' 60th Senate seat. According to conventional wisdom (and some pundits), the chances of Congress taking action on energy and climate this year are now "somewhere between terrible and nil." However, the editorial challenges Obama to "prove the conventional wisdom wrong by making a full-throated case for a climate bill in his State of the Union speech this week."

Some of the reasons action cannot wait? In addition to concerns about climate change (which only continue to mount in severity), the editorial cites issues of national competitiveness that are at stake:

• China is "moving aggressively to create jobs in the clean-energy industry. Beijing not only plans to generate 15 percent of its energy from renewable sources by 2020, but hopes to become the world’s leading exporter of clean energy technologies. Five years ago, it had no presence at all in the wind manufacturing industry; today it has 70 manufacturers. It is rapidly becoming a world leader in solar power, with one-third of the world’s manufacturing capacity."
• American credibility is on the line. At COP15, the US pledged to "meet at least the House’s 17 percent target. Success in the Senate is essential to delivering on that pledge. Failure would undo many of the good things [Obama] achieved in Copenhagen, and it would give reluctant powers like China an excuse to duck their pledges." [Not sure about this last sentence with regard to China, which agreed to a voluntary carbon intensity reduction unilaterally ... and they probably mean to keep it.]
• Finally, the editorial notes, "the 'jobs argument' should impress the Senate ... The climate change bills pending in the Senate would not begin to bite for several years, when the recession should be over. The cost to households, according to the Congressional Budget Office, would be small. A good program would create more jobs than it cost."

Unfortunately, things still look a bit hazy, despite Harry Reid's earlier announcement that the climate bill was on the agenda for March. The editorial worries that "many Democrats as well as Republicans seem willing to settle for what would be the third energy bill in five years—loans for nuclear power, mandates for renewable energy, new standards for energy efficiency. These are all useful steps. But the only sure way to unlock the investments required to transform the way the country produces and delivers energy is to put a price on carbon." (This presumably refers to private capital markets rather than government-sponsored programs or large-scale federal investment).

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A couple other relevant notes:

1) Tree Hugger asks: Could Scott Brown's Victory Be Good for Clean Energy Reform?

2) As we saw at COP15, international action on climate often seems to hinge on U.S. domestic politics.

As Reuters AlertNet reports, "It's hard to imagine an upset in one U.S. Senate race could derail plans for a new international climate change treaty." But "the U.S. Democratic party's loss of a long-held Senate seat in Massachusetts this week, to Republican Scott Brown, means getting key climate change legislation passed in the United States just got a lot harder. And without willingness by the U.S. -- the world’s historically largest carbon emitter -- to commit to ambitious cuts in emissions, few other nations will feel pressure to be ambitious in their own plans."

Canada, for example, is concerned about the legislative stall in its southern neighbor and what it will mean for their own energy system.

There are real worries that a minority in the Senate -- 41 people -- can simply hold the entire world's efforts hostage, either by preventing action at home by the world's second-largest emitter (reduces incentives for others to act, makes agreement harder to reach by not living up to "common but differentiated responsibilities") or simply refusing to allow the U.S. to take part in an international regime.

It should be noted that those 41 senators would not all be from the same political party, as support for climate action is coming from both sides of the aisle. John Kerry (D), Lindsey Graham (R), and Joe Lieberman (I) recently visited the White House to discuss a bipartisan climate bill, and a coalition is in the works that may be able to pass it.