The great, great Tom Lee on the ineffable problems of trying to lower your environmental footprint:
Doing this stuff is impossibly difficult, as is amply demonstrated every time someone tries to figure out the comparatively narrowly-defined problem of biofuels' net energy balance. This is the first problem: literally every human endeavor consumes energy — and of course, it's very hard to reduce any action in civilization to just one step. It's tough to figure out how much energy something took, very tough to accurately guess, and nearly impossible to know how much carbon it took to generate that energy.This came up when I was out in San Francisco for work (a trip that was unambiguously environmentally awful, I'll be the first to admit). Over beers Michael told a story about a passenger on his flight jealously guarding his trash, refusing to surrender it to the flight attendants unless they promised it would be recycled.
But it's not that easy, right? Last I heard, metal is unambiguously beneficial to recycle; glass takes more energy to recycle than it's worth; and plastic — well, who knows? It probably depends on the type of plastic and where the recycling plant is.
Or take the great coffee cup debate: if a given ceramic mug is likely to get less than a thousand uses, you're better off drinking from a styrofoam cup. Probably, anyway. I'm sure it depends on your dishwasher, or its settings. Or if you don't have a dishwasher. Or the detergent you buy. And probably how far you are from the water pumping station, right? Maybe how much rain your area gets, or has gotten this year, or what floor you live on.
Which is the other problem: as individuals it seems like we all pretty much live within the margin of error on these questions. It adds up over the population, of course, but for one person it's nearly impossible to know what the right thing to do is. There are unambiguous things, of course: don't leave the water running when you brush your teeth, and minimize electricity use, and don't leave your car idling. Although sometimes even those wind up ambiguous: I've heard that restarting a car takes about as much gas as running it for a minute.
But then, I probably heard that from someplace like Wired. So who knows? This is the real problem, the meta-problem: while the only people with an incentive to really figure this out are academics, the only people with an incentive to talk about it are those who sell ad space to people targeting an audience that likes green content or an audience that likes counterintuitive content (both detestable in their own ways). And the press is more than comfortable enough with their anecdotes and innumeracy to continue publishing hunches they had while shopping at Whole Foods, as if a half-day's worth of googling and algebra was sufficient to untangle the world's unimaginably complicated economic and energy-use web (a pursuit that I admit I've indulged in myself — but at least nobody paid me for it).
Oh, no, seasoned readers are already saying to themselves; I see a Hayek fit coming. Yes, my friends, you are right, like those dogs that can sense an epileptic seizure minutes before it actually appears. It is too late to force the pills down my throat; you'll just have to hang on and hope I don't hurt myself. Hayek on why prices are so, so great compared to command-and-control:
Fundamentally, in a system in which the knowledge of the relevant facts is dispersed among many people, prices can act to coördinate the separate actions of different people in the same way as subjective values help the individual to coördinate the parts of his plan. It is worth contemplating for a moment a very simple and commonplace instance of the action of the price system to see what precisely it accomplishes. Assume that somewhere in the world a new opportunity for the use of some raw material, say, tin, has arisen, or that one of the sources of supply of tin has been eliminated. It does not matter for our purpose—and it is very significant that it does not matter—which of these two causes has made tin more scarce. All that the users of tin need to know is that some of the tin they used to consume is now more profitably employed elsewhere and that, in consequence, they must economize tin. There is no need for the great majority of them even to know where the more urgent need has arisen, or in favor of what other needs they ought to husband the supply. If only some of them know directly of the new demand, and switch resources over to it, and if the people who are aware of the new gap thus created in turn fill it from still other sources, the effect will rapidly spread throughout the whole economic system and influence not only all the uses of tin but also those of its substitutes and the substitutes of these substitutes, the supply of all the things made of tin, and their substitutes, and so on; and all his without the great majority of those instrumental in bringing about these substitutions knowing anything at all about the original cause of these changes. The whole acts as one market, not because any of its members survey the whole field, but because their limited individual fields of vision sufficiently overlap so that through many intermediaries the relevant information is communicated to all. The mere fact that there is one price for any commodity—or rather that local prices are connected in a manner determined by the cost of transport, etc.—brings about the solution which (it is just conceptually possible) might have been arrived at by one single mind possessing all the information which is in fact dispersed among all the people involved in the process.
This, of course, leaves us with the problem of setting a price. But as long as we are sure--and I think we're pretty sure--that the price of greenhouse emissions ought to be higher than it is, a modest start will be adding valuable new information to a system that is very good at handling information.
But individual efforts are probably quixotic, and even more centralized regulatory efforts are doomed to failure. Organic is not a net energy/environment saver, and neither is a carbon trading regime that allows widespread use of offsets. Eating local seems to be a bust (only a few percent of the total energy emissions come from transporting the food to its final resting place.) Private offsets are even stupider than government offsets. This is one of those rare moments when it's probably best for the government to do something--as long as that something is raising the price of carbon--rather than rely on individual guesses.
There is one thing you can do, if you care about global warming: eat lower on the food chain. More plants and less meat is a pretty sure-fire winner, because it takes so many pounds of grain to make a pound of meat, and because animal methane is itself a significant source of greenhouse gasses. But will you do it? In most cases, no you will not, because chicken legs are tasty. (Or at least, they were before I apparently lost the enzymes to digest meat). About all you can do right now is not complain so much about gas prices.
It's the chicken wings that are tasty.
Increased gas prices (and related rises in other energy prices) offer us a kind of simple natural experiment here, right? For goods and services on which other conditions have stayed about the same, stuff whose price has gone up a lot in the last five years is probably using a lot of energy, relative to stuff whose price has stayed about the same. What we're really getting from this is a sense of the fraction of the cost of providing each product which is taken up by energy.
IMO, the biggest practical problem with addressing this politically is that it can't be done in any kind of gentle, or even politically acceptable, way. From 2003 to the present, oil prices have more than doubled, without having anything close to the needed effect on CO2 emissions to address global warming. Imagine running on a platform of making the cost of oil $200/barrel, or $300, so that we can get the desired level of conservation. Would even that price do the job? And even if it would, could any politician stay in office while putting it there artificially? Cap and trade has to be just as disruptive and painful, in order to work. (The prices we pay must go up enough to encourage conservation; it just won't directly be attributable to government.)
There is one thing you can do, if you care about global warming: eat lower on the food chain. More plants and less meat is a pretty sure-fire winner, because it takes so many pounds of grain to make a pound of meat, and because animal methane is itself a significant source of greenhouse gasses.
You just couldn't help yourself, could you? But your throwaway remark about avoiding meat undercuts everything that came before it. If you are right about prices, adding new information about greenhouse externalities to the market price of fossil fuels will make meat expensive enough so that eating less of it is something we do automatically. If the new information does not cause meat to become expensive, then your support for the free market should constrain you to STFU about chicken wings.
I think if you are going to be in the business of setting carbon prices, the first step would be to figure out the price of global warming. How much does it cost to have the global temperature a few degrees higher in a century? You can simply say that it is catastrophic, and that it will shut down the world. Once you have some reasoned cost, compare that to the cost of the various proposed solutions, and go after the lowest hanging apples first. Underground coal fires produce as much CO2 as all the worlds automobiles and are much cheaper to extinguish. That is just one example. In the most drastic sense, slowing down the global economy to drop everyones standard of living to that of third world nations is not worth maintaining the current temperatures, even if it does work. Once you see real number I imagine geo engineering approaches will make a great deal more sense.
But for many, environmentalism evolved into some guilt ridden religion, where success is measured not by temperature, but by personal sacrifice made. While such feelings are understandable, they are hardly constructive.
This is a wonderful excerpt from Lee and a wonderful tie-in to Hayek. Unfortunately, it's all at least at the 11th or 12th grade reading level, and the average voter is at the 8th grade reading level. So, this information barely registers in the market for knowledge that affects voting.
Megan argues that one sure thing we can do to fight global warming is eating lower on the food chain. I was surprised that such an argument would be made by an economist. Exactly because it takes so many pounds of grain to produce one pound of meat, meat is more expensive than nourishment lower down on the food chain. In order to determine which diet will lead to less of an effect on the global climate, we would need to know what the vegetarian does with the savings. Surely, if the vegetarian spends the savings on other consumables, the climate change effect of that may be greater than if he had just purchased the more expensive meat. If the vegetarian invests the saving directly or indirectly, the potential effects could be even less desirable. Due to the lack of information and the extremely complex interactions that various courses of action could trigger, I would argue that it would be impossible for even the smartest person in the world to figure out what the effect on the climate or the environment will be.
I think there are two ways that someone could be fairly certain of helping the environment. One is to cut back on the number of hours you work so you produce less and become a drag on the economy. Second is to send in your income to an organization that buys up land for preservation purposes.
If you think that the carbon is being priced incorrectly, the relative price of meat to grain is still too low. If you believe that not warming the planet confers a sort of Kantian moral obligation, then eat less meat. If not, not.
But those with an economics bent will surely want to know how the tradeoffs work between different CO2 reducing strategies, right? Maybe I'll be happier turning the AC up to 78 F and having my cheeseburger, maybe I'll be happier leaving the AC at 72 F and eating a salad. There's not some inherent reason why one of these is more right than the other.
More fundamentally, if many people change their consumption toward less-CO2-emitting things (higher AC settings to consume less electricity, less meat), the prices of those high-CO2-emitting things will go down. What will the result of that be?
Actually the advice should not be to eat less meat but to eat more range fed animals, if you're concerned about the environment.
Range fed animals allow the vegetation to be culled, and reseeded/grown the next year. Younger plants absorb more C02 than older plants, the older growth is more established and not growing as much.
Eating a plant only diet takes a tremendous amount of energy to till the land, water, pesticides, harvest the the plants, distribute them etc. With cows you just have to let them roam free, eat some vegetation, round them up with some horses, and truck them to the butcher. Little to no watering if you are able to graze properly (move them from pasture to pasture over the spring-summer-winter months)
And please don't mention organic. The amount of food that can be produced from organic farming compared to "inorganic" (snark) farming is laughable. If the entire world started farming "organically" only the wealthiest would be able to eat while hundreds of millions starved.
Has anyone figured out the proper average global temperature? Certainly there has been a recent warming trend, but in the past the average global temperature has varied quite a bit... so what's the correct number?
The global warming alarmists typically point out how much carbon production must be stopped to prevent the catastrophe. The numbers I've seen are typically impossible to achieve without a massive, global reduction in CO2 output that would result in a massive decrease in standard of living throughout the world.
Based on that, I think we should be looking at how we would manage higher average global temperatures...
Ditto Sam, but also:
There is one thing you can do, if you care about global warming: Drive less. This is a fairly easy thing to do, will result in more savings for the consumer to be spent on energy saving devices like more efficient dishwashers or whatever, and will result in less greenhouse gases.
The fundamental problem of climate change is that for the last 1 billion years hydrocarbons have accumulated under the earth's surface, and for the last 100 years humans have been releasing them into the atmosphere. Cow's methane isn't a problem, cows are a part of the carbon cycle. Cows eat grass that accumulate hydrocarbons and release it into the atmosphere, but the grass is part of the sequestering process. By that same logic humans who eat vegetables are equally part of the problem as they consume calories from plants that sequester hydrocarbons and release them as CO2.
It is fundamentally the burning of hydrocarbons stored up under the earth that are not a part of the carbon cycle that is causing climate change. There are then logically 2 solutions to this: 1. stop using the stored up hydrocarbons or 2. put them back. #2 seems rather unlikely since they were mined to release energy in the first place, and putting them back will require energy. The laws of entropy seem to dictate that it can't really happen, so the best bet seems to be #1. The problem then is where do we get all our energy?
"I think we should be looking at how we would manage higher average global temperatures..."
How would we do that?
There is one thing you can do, if you care about global warming: Drive less.
I would also add, live and work in smaller buildings. High rise buildings are the largest emitters of CO2 in the U.S.
If you believe that not warming the planet confers a sort of Kantian moral obligation, then eat less meat. If not, not.
That makes sense. I do and do.
The one sure thing you can really do to fight global warming: kill yourself. Seriously. Just kill yourself. Imagine the reduced emissions, the lowered footprint. Isn't that the logical conclusion toward which this argument follows? Or am I mistaken and is this just another way for bourgeois white people to keep score with their peers? Another obscure movie list, if you will. If you really, truly cared about the environment, population reduction is your most efficient solution. Start at home. Look at that man (or woman) in the mirror.
Sorry, I just spent my entire Saturday at a BBQ listening to this exact argument (whose footrpint is smallest) at a $5 miilion Brentwood home that probably takes more energy to run than an average African nation. Among people who use private jets like I use taxi's. Idiocy.
FreddieMac:
The thermodynamics argument you made is flawed. Releasing CO2 is just a byproduct of making energy. It does not, necessarily take the same energy to trap those gases underground as the energy that was released during the burning of fossil fuels. The argument would be true if we tried to store CO2 in the ground in the form of oil, but we don't.
Aside from that I agree with most everything else.
One more note. Supposedly, a single active volcano releases more CO2 (that is not part of the carbon cycle) than all the activities of the human race combined. If this is true (and if it isn't someone please post a link) than trying to reduce our carbon footprint seems a touch pointless.
more savings for the consumer to be spent on energy saving devices like more efficient dishwashers or whatever, and will result in less greenhouse gases.
Here we are again getting at one of my evergreen questions, to which nobody seems to know the answer: what is the carbon cost of buying a new, efficient (fill in the blank)?
How much energy does it take to make a CFL compared to an incandescent? How long does it take the CFL to make up the difference? How much gasoline-equivalent does it take to build a Prius, and how far do I have to drive to break even, carbon-wise? Can I save the planet more efficiently by driving my 8-year-old Escort instead of replacing it with a hybrid?
That is to say, any "energy efficient" wideget comes with a carbon debt attached; if it can't pay that debt off over its service life, then you're better off just sticking with your old (or old-style) widget.
Great post, and great discussion. While I may be a little more sympathetic to some of the strategies raised (i.e. people are usually into the local food thing for other reasons in addition to climate change), I think there's definitely some zeroing in on the "big ticket" changes that will make a substantive difference at a personal level. Drive less (per Freddiemac), inhabit smaller buildings (Mishu), and look at the unambiguous energy costs of your diet (Megan). The one other thing I'd raise is energy efficiency. Even keeping the analysis at a sub-institutional, sub-governmental level, the personal energy use of an efficient home versus an inefficient one can be fairly dramatic.
But individual efforts are probably quixotic, and even more centralized regulatory efforts are doomed to failure...There is one thing you can do, if you care about global warming: eat lower on the food chain.
While I agree with much of the thrust of what you're saying, to say there is "one thing" you can do is overreach. In addition to eating your veggies, biking, walking or taking public transit unambiguously produces a lot less CO2 than driving a car (John Tierney's contrarian fantasy life notwithstanding). So that's three things. And, on the transit end, government action and "centralized regulatory efforts" have a huge role to play. Making carbon more expensive does not magically generate subways, and to imagine that federal and state governments that spend hundreds of billions of dollars a year on roads and highways and legislate and regulate everything about how and where those roads will be constructed are not engaging in "centralized regulatory efforts" entails massive status-quo blindness.
But other than that, yeah, pricing carbon emissions works a lot better than trying to establish regulations restricting each individual form of carbon emissions, if anyone were thinking of trying that.
Ken Magalnik,
the "volcano releases more CO2..." comment is certainly in conflict with what I see at the USGS Volcanic Hazards: Gases ...
Supposedly, a single active volcano releases more CO2 (that is not part of the carbon cycle) than all the activities of the human race combined. - ken magalnik
I will not bother looking for a link to disprove this claim. (Note that you have reversed the polarities on your logic-ometer: it is up to you to substantiate a claim you pluck out of your ass, not up to everyone else to prove it wrong.)
But off the top of my head, the claim is proved ludicrous thusly. Atmospheric CO2 concentrations have more than doubled since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution 150 years ago, and are now at levels not seen in about a million years. Has volcanic activity increased astronomically in the past 150 years? No. And so, we bid your ridiculous claim farewell.
"But as long as we are sure--and I think we're pretty sure--that the price of greenhouse emissions ought to be higher than it is..."
Oh? Isn't your suggestion that you can know this undermined by all the material you quoted?
What is obviously underpriced is the price of sunlight, currently free, which is warming the planet and not warming it in pretty regular cycles. If only we could raise that price and lower the amount of solar energy during heating cycles (e.g., from the '70's to the 90's), all would be controlled. Then we could lower the price, or somehow provide sunlight subsidies, to increase sunlight production during the cooling cycles (e.g., from the 50's to the 70's, or for the last decade) to bring the earth back to whatever the loonies in power then think the "right" temperature may be (assuming the concept of the "temperature" of the earth has any scientific meaning at all).
Then we could lower the price, or somehow provide sunlight subsidies, to increase sunlight production during the cooling cycles (e.g., from the 50's to the 70's, or for the last decade) to bring the earth back to whatever the loonies in power then think the "right" temperature may be (assuming the concept of the "temperature" of the earth has any scientific meaning at all). - JohnF
When we are all frying, there will be some small consolation in the knowledge that some of us actually asked for it.
brooksfoe,
I'm sorry, but has there been some new information on the effects of Climate Change? While it will cause problems if those estimates are born out, in your lifetime you won't experience anything like 'frying.'
Using hyperbole like that only cheapens your argument.
in your lifetime you won't experience anything like 'frying.' - Skullberg
True. And Nadal did not actually "crush" Federer in the French Open finals: Federer is still the same height he always was.
This is the best you can come up with? Seriously?
Which is why the proper response to the occasional "look, $greenproduct isn't actually so green!" story is not derision for environmentalists, but empathy - they only have to be a bit less than omniscient to get this stuff wrong.
brooksfoe,
Yes, apparently it is. When the discussed solutions to a problem can include reductions in global standards of living, population controls, 50's era taxation or the prevention of 3rd world countries modernizing, the problem needs to be clearly and rationally defined.
Using hyperbole may make you feel better, but it only lets people tune you out.
But while we're on this topic, can you impart your wisdom to us on why Hansen's NASA data is adjusting raw data upwards increasingly and thus diverging from the RSS or UAH (Here)
, while at the same time not recording data from Africa or Canada which are cooling.
brooksfoe,
biking, walking or taking public transit unambiguously produces a lot less CO2 than driving a car (John Tierney's contrarian fantasy life notwithstanding).
Biking or walking, maybe. Taking public transit, no. Are you driving a hybrid Toyota Prius, or a big SUV with a conventional gasoline engine? Are you driving alone, or is your vehicle full of passengers? Is your mass transit alternative a diesel-powered bus, or an electric train running on nuclear-generated power? Is the transit vehicle 90% full, or 90% empty? Does it take a longer route than driving, or a shorter one? Does it involve more stopping and starting, or less? Does mass transit take longer than driving, or less, and what is the impact of that time difference on your other CO2-generating activities? And so on and so forth. It's very complicated, as Tom Lee points out.
Atmospheric CO2 levels have more than doubled... to .038%? Save us before we all die!
(And "not seen in millions of years"? You mean, according to the latest guesses of proxy data?
And by frying you mean "being very slightly hotter, maybe by a degree or two over a century"?
I'll take my chances.)
(And I totally leave the water running while I brush my teeth.
Because, you see, my water is from a reservoir, not an aquifer, and there's plenty of it and therefore it is cheap. Prices in action!
You see, not all of us live in deserts or hyper-metropolises that lack adequate water supplies...)
I would also add, live and work in smaller buildings. High rise buildings are the largest emitters of CO2 in the U.S.
this is a great example of things not being as simple as they seem:
-Large buildings hold more people than small; what are the per capita emissions of each?
-Large buildings require less land, leaving more room for green space, etc.
-The higher density of large buildings makes mass transit more appealing, and reduces the number of required stops.
-The higher volume to surface area ratio implies less energy is used to heat and cool large buildings, although there may be tradeoffs I'm not aware of.
-Multilevel parking garages at large buildings (or underground parking) reduce the total area of asphalt required for parking, reducing the urban heat effect.
The point of the initial post stands - things are almost never as simple as they seem.
Is the transit vehicle 90% full, or 90% empty? Does it take a longer route than driving, or a shorter one? - Mixner
You seem to be confused here. The public transit vehicle runs whether or not I decide to take it. So my decision to take the subway will increase the energy used by virtually nothing. If you wish to consider the question at a social level -- should we all, together, decide to build highways and buy cars, or should we all take subways? -- then you have to start looking at how to ensure high ridership levels. But think for five seconds about the CO2 implications of putting the entire 5 million person per day ridership of the NYC subway into cars. There's no question here. Particularly since much of the subway's electricity is nuclear.
I recall on a previous thread you claimed that commute times in the US had been falling in recent years, which as far as I could find was also false. The only data I could find showed that from 2003 to 2005 average commute times rose from 30.2 minutes to 30.8 minutes in Maryland and from 30.8 minutes to something over 31 minutes in New York state. This despite the fact that the number of people leaving to drive to work before 6 am rose from 1 in 9 to 1 in 8 in just a few years, so people are basically holding down their "commute" time by opting to waste time sitting at work early. Other reports ("the number of U.S. traffic bottlenecks — places where highways can’t handle all the cars — rose 40 percent over five years to 233 in 2002."...) present a similar picture.
To answer your other question, I'm in the US every year at least once for at least several weeks, mostly in NYC and Western Massachussetts. Congestion on Route 7 in Western Mass has reached the point where it now has a recognizable rush hour to be avoided. NYC basically remains the same as it ever was -- totally unmanageable for cars.
I was hoping these comments would include a discussion of whether CFLs are better than incandescents. Does anyone know what the latest estimate is, given the mercury involved with CFLs? I've been experimenting with LED bulbs, but they're expensive, not as bright, and often a noticeably different color (more cool, which takes some getting used to). Still, I plan to buy more, for light fixtures that are so high up on the ceiling that changing the bulbs is a real nuisance.
One added cost of incandescents is that they produce more heat. This might not get factored into many analyses, but could make a difference on air conditioning bills in the summer.
I mean, obviously cars are basically a lot more convenient than taking a train -- when you have lots of room for cars and they're affordable and don't cause unacceptable environmental harm. But to argue that widely-distributed exurban models of living don't create more CO2 than dense urban public-transit models is just delusional. Why is it, again, that Europeans have a carbon footprint half the size of Americans? Because they live close together, right? And living densely, rather than in exurbs, means at some point you run out of room for cars.
I grew up in DC in the 80s. I got my first car at age 17 and loved it. Getting downtown from upper Connecticut Ave. back then took 20 minutes by car and a good 35 minutes by subway. Of course then you'd spend 5 minutes finding a parking spot but it was still a good deal. Last time I was in DC was 2001. Traffic was so awful around Dupont Circle that it's added probably five minutes to that drive, and of course the parking issue is even worse. So your drive time plus parking time is heading up over 30 minutes. Meanwhile, the Metro takes...that same 35 minutes. At some point urban areas get dense enough that driving just starts to seem like a pain in the ass. And at that point, if you have public transit solutions in place, you can start to increase density a lot without increasing your C02 footprint much at all.
I don't see the exurban model surviving so easily in an era of $4-6 a gallon gas.
brooksfoe,
You seem to be confused here. The public transit vehicle runs whether or not I decide to take it. So my decision to take the subway will increase the energy used by virtually nothing.
You're the one who's confused. Your choice contributes to the overall demand for different transportation modes and that demand determines the load factor of the subway train (how empty or full it is), and whether there's even a subway service at all. That in turn influences the amount by which CO2 emissions are changed by your choice to take the subway rather than drive.
You're simply not looking at the big picture. There is very little scope for reducing CO2 emissions through increased use of mass transit. The mass transit market share of total passenger miles in America is minuscule, about 1%. Even if we were to double or triple the rate of mass transit use, the effect on CO2 emissions would be negligible.
If you're serious about reducing CO2 emissions through changes to transportation, your focus should be on accelerating the shift to cleaner cars (biofuels, hybrids, plug-in hybrids, fuel-cells, etc.), not on hugely expensive boondoggle mass transit systems.
You mean, according to the latest guesses of proxy data? - Sigivald
As I understand it historical atmospheric CO2 levels are determined by checking ice core samples, which are a "guess" in the sense that every scientist in the world agrees on them. Don't quote me on this but I believe the last time CO2 levels were this high was about a million years ago (not "millions") and at that point sea levels were 80 feet higher than they are today. Climate is a complicated thing and it takes a while for the greenhouse effect to do its work, so the best guess is we'll only see between a 1- to 3-foot rise in sea levels this century. Or maybe not; so far every estimate has been on the low side, and if that big ice shelf in Antarctica slides off into the sea, that'd raise world sea levels over 15 feet in one big jump.
Obviously it can be very hard for some people to give up longstanding arguments in which they have invested a lot of themselves -- witness the people who are still arguing Hillary Clinton was robbed. But you'd be doing yourself a favor by giving in a bit on this issue, because for the scientific community and the rest of the world, the debate is over, and you don't want to end up like Thabo Mbeki.
Your choice contributes to the overall demand for different transportation modes and that demand determines the load factor of the subway train (how empty or full it is)
Mixner, no, I'm sorry, this is confused. To oversimplify, there are two possibilities. Either the train isn't full, in which case it may be running wastefully and by taking the train I make it less wasteful without increasing CO2 emissions at all. Or the train is close to full, in which case by taking the train I am participating in a system that does have high ridership and is thus efficient.
What you're saying is that when people take the train they create demand for trains, which is bad because trains aren't efficient because there isn't enough demand for them. That doesn't make any sense. If enough people are taking the train that they're increasing demand for it, then it is, pretty much by definition, running efficiently.
brooksfoe,
I don't see the exurban model surviving so easily in an era of $4-6 a gallon gas.
A Toyota Prius gets about twice as many miles per gallon as a conventional car of comparable size and power. The plug-in Prius, which is expected to be on the market within 5 years, along with a variety of other plug-in hybrids from the major carmakers, will get quadruple the miles per gallon. That $4/gallon gas effectively becomes $1/gallon gas. Adjusted for inflation, that's cheaper than a gallon of gas at any time during the past century.
The exurban model is likely to remain the dominant model for the indefinite future, thanks in part to new auto technology that allows us to use gasoline much more efficiently and to substitute other fuels for gasoline in our cars.
brooksfoe,
I think mixner is comparing the "there is a train" universe with the "there is no train" universe.
In the former, we have 1) tons of cars on the road and 2) a train sucking up energy (and possibly a right of way that could be used for cars). In the latter we have a few less cars on the road.
Mixner is saying that the CO2 cost of the former is higher than the latter, because of the high fixed CO2 cost of the train and its small impact on auto traffic. Therefore, public transit is a net CO2 generator. (Have I got that right, Mixner?)
Obviously the marginal cost of your decision to ride the train is minimal, and the marginal savings is more substantial.
brooksfoe,
Once again, no, you are confused. First, any one trip by any one person has only a minuscule effect on total CO2 emissions. And the size of that effect for any particular trip for any particular individual will depend on the kind of variables I listed. A full subway train obviously emits far less CO2 for each passenger on the train than a near-empty subway train. Hence, the amount by which you would reduce CO2 emissions by taking the subway rather than driving depends on, among many other variables, how full the train is. This isn't exactly hard to understand.
But the more important point, as I said, is that mass transit offers very little potential for reducing CO2. It is only through large-scale shifts between transportation modes that any significant changes in CO2 emissions would occur. And for the reasons I explained in my last post, under any remotely realistic scenario shifting from cars to mass transit could produce only a negligible decrease in total CO2 emissions.
Hence, the amount by which you would reduce CO2 emissions by taking the subway rather than driving depends on, among many other variables, how full the train is.
Mixner, you're mixing up fixed and marginal costs. Taking the train means brooksfoe isn't driving, so the amount it reduces emissions is simply the amount that his car would have emitted. But unless brooksfoe is an unusually Large-Diameter-American, the train's CO2 cost will be unchanged by his ride.
I agree with you that in many places and at many times, the fixed CO2 costs of running the train are not justified by reductions in automotive CO2. But that's not the same as saying you can't prevent emissions by taking the train; of course you can.
There is a rather simple way to conteract the atmospheric C02 issue. Use other energy sources, nuclear, wind, solar, etc. to remove C02 from the air and to create hydrocarbons, such as oil, or gasoline. This allows storing the intermittently available energy for later use, which is one of the shortcomings of some of these other energy sources. It also creates a closed cycle of carbon with release upon burning and generationg C02 and capture by using the other energy for conversion back into useable fuel. The question is whether this can be done economically, but when compared to some of the other proposed drastic solutions to save the planet, it would seem this could compete very well.
If you're serious about reducing CO2 emissions through changes to transportation, your focus should be on accelerating the shift to cleaner cars (biofuels, hybrids, plug-in hybrids, fuel-cells, etc.), not on hugely expensive boondoggle mass transit systems.
We are having about five and a half different arguments here. I started out with the simple statement that you are definitely saving CO2 if you take mass transit rather than drive. I stand by that statement. I haven't seen an example yet of a mass transit situation in which under any circumstances your decision to take mass transit would create more CO2 than deciding to drive your car, unless you own an electric car. I can't imagine how it could happen. I don't care what mileage a city bus gets or how many people are on it: your decision to take that bus will produce an immeasurably tiny additional amount of CO2. For subway or light rail it's even more obvious.
The other questions have to do with 1. how you prefer to organize your society, and 2. where people trying to cut CO2 emissions in the US should focus their energies at the national level. On the latter question it's true that electric cars would make a much bigger difference than public transit improvements. I hope we'll have massive adoption of them in 10 to 15 years. On the former question, it has a lot to do with land-use and smart growth policy and insuring you don't end up as one of the failed American cities where no one wants to live, or a zone of nondescript exurbs with a dead core, like the suburbs around Detroit. A comparison of land values around Detroit with those around Chicago may be useful in understanding the value of a city with a strong public transit system anchoring it. But that's a separate issue.
the amount by which you would reduce CO2 emissions by taking the subway rather than driving depends on, among many other variables, how full the train is.
No, no, you don't want to argue on these grounds. You want to pick other grounds. This just doesn't make any sense. The amount by which I would reduce CO2 emissions by taking the subway rather than driving my car is equal to the amount of CO2 emitted by my car, full stop. It doesn't matter how many people are on the train. If there is a train, the train will run, regardless of whether I am on it or not. By taking the train, I am, in terms of CO2 emissions, hitching a free ride. That is the end of the story.
I think Rob is correct that what you're really talking about is the "there is a train" universe vs. "there is no train" universe. But I don't think you can discuss that question in the same terms, because it becomes a national-level collective decision about transportation policy which I will be happy to discuss some other time, but now I need to go to bed.
brooksfoe,
I don't know why you can't understand the simple fact that the amount of CO2 you emit by taking a vehicular form of transportation depends on the number of people in the vehicle. The more people in the vehicle, the lower the emissions per passenger. You agree that carpooling is a way of reducing your CO2 emissions compared to driving alone, right? How does carpooling achieve that reduction? By spreading the vehicle's emissions across a larger number of people. Exactly the same principle applies to every other kind of vehicle, including a subway train. If you substitute taking the subway for driving at rush hour, when the subway train is full, you're going to reduce your CO2 emissions a lot more than if you substitute the subway for driving late at night, when the subway train is largely empty.
Mixner, you can't fairly ascribe the full CO2 emissions of the midnight subway to brooksfoe given that the train is running whether he's on it or not.
How does carpooling achieve that reduction? By spreading the vehicle's emissions across a larger number of people.
No. It achieves it by taking those other people's cars off the road. The same CO2 reduction could be achieved if I drove alone and they stayed home, or if I drove and they bought electric cars, or if I drove and they rode a bus.
brooksfoe,
The other questions have to do with 1. how you prefer to organize your society, and 2. where people trying to cut CO2 emissions in the US should focus their energies at the national level. On the latter question it's true that electric cars would make a much bigger difference than public transit improvements. I hope we'll have massive adoption of them in 10 to 15 years.
It's not just "electric cars," it's all sorts of new automobile engine and fuel technologies. And the potential for reducing CO2 emissions through cleaner cars isn't merely "much" bigger than the potential through substituting mass transit for car trips, it's astronomically bigger. Mass transit is only 1% of total passenger miles, and its market share has been falling for decades. Private autos are 96% of passenger miles. Under even the most optimistic scenarios of increased transit use, transit could produce only negligible reductions in pollution.
It is not enough to determine if prices have been established by market forces or by “force”. Other transparency issues such as negative externalities must be measured meaningfully in order to matter. There are indeed several challenges when it comes to this.
First of all, climate change itself is a symptom and not a cause of ecological problems. It is difficult to price a left-over if you do not know how to value the main dish? And we truly do not know how to value the only infrastructure that is literally essential for our survival.
For example – we do not have the slightest idea what nature is made of and how it works. Yes we can map DNA but we do not know what it does and anyway – we only know 10-15% of species on earth. Please watch E O Wilson on why we know that we don’t know how nature works. This by the way is also the main argument against releasing newly “invented” GMO into an old, complex, essential and unknown ecosystem.
Now – apart from not knowing how to value the only mission-critical infrastructure for humans in the universe – we have problems understanding a price tag when it is presented to us.
For example – the Scientific American has recently published one the most thorough studies on the costs of switching America to green energy. It is possible, the Scientific American argues, that we generate 100% of energy with zero-emissions if we subsidized solar or other greens for four decades. Over the course of four+ decades that would amount to ca $11billion per year.
Currently we are subsidizing meat alone in the US by more than that. How come that oh so many scream “we cannot risk future economic growth of our children only to mitigate climate”? Again – we are subsidizing meat alone here and now with more money than a switch to oil-independence and environmental security would require.
You do not have to understand Einstein’s relativity to grasp how strange it is to write 10 articles about the costs of climate risk mitigation without putting it into perspective.
Again – otherwise intelligent people at The Economist, Reason etc pretend they have never heard of relativity or prioritization etc. Why do they argue like the worst statists when it comes to the ecology but claim to be libertarians? They often get it right on the economics and policy side – but have heard about their “technological solutions”?
Again – I argue – it is because they do not understand the ecology and approach it like John Doe or Hillary Clinton does the economy. How else do you come up with a Malaria vs Climate Change discussion like Mr Lomborg etc or how else can so many people who do not understand the ecology nor genetics – be so convinced that GMO is the solution for everything and that the greens who are fighting it want to kill all humans?
We all know more or less some economics – the laws of supply and demand, like them or not, have been heard. Compared to economic literacy among red-necks, hipsters, soccer moms and dads , yuppies etc ecological understanding must be sought with a microscope…
Coming back to prices. Nothing benefits future human generations more than the current rise in oil and food prices. If governments really wanted to help humans – make sure not to introduce any measures that would attempt to lower prices.
Artificially lowering prices at this point is like increasing the dosage of an already addicted heroin junky. Give it another 2 years and we will not have to wait for a CO2 tax – prices for unsustainable production will become high enough all by themselves. Again - those bloody laws of nature.. arrghhh!
NB: Sustainable living is not about train vs car or city v suburbia!!!! It is about not consuming more than can ever grow back. We could all live and drive whatever we wanted to as long as it is sustainable. In theory – the whole world could drive clean cars and live in suburbia.. but certain things, like Western diets, we cannot do even in theory and THOSE are the real low-hanging fruits.
Let us concentrate on those consumption&production patterns first that are mathematically impossible to sustain, that are utterly unethical and unhealthy. It is rather easy to make progress when we prioritize accordingly. It is not "driving" per se that is bad.. it is not "eating" per se that is bad.. it is how and what we do!
Rob Lyman,
No. It achieves it by taking those other people's cars off the road.
You're just restating my point in a different way. A subway train also reduces emissions by taking cars off the road. And the number of cars it takes off the road depends on how full it is. A full subway train takes more cars off the road than an empty one. Carpooling and subways both achieve CO2 reductions in comparison to driving alone in the same fundamental way.
"On the latter question it's true that electric cars would make a much bigger difference than public transit improvements. I hope we'll have massive adoption of them in 10 to 15 years."
I would like to point out that most of the US electical grid is powered by coal fired power plants, which expel more CO2 per kwh than any other form. That is why I don't believe in electric cars, because the electricity for the cars has to come from somewhere, and that somewhere is most likely coal (the US is the Saudi Arabia of coal).
http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/page/co2_report/co2report.html
brooksfoe,
The amount by which I would reduce CO2 emissions by taking the subway rather than driving my car is equal to the amount of CO2 emitted by my car, full stop. It doesn't matter how many people are on the train.
Then according to you, the amount by which you would reduce CO2 emissions by joining a carpool is also equal to the amount of CO2 emitted by your car, and is independent of the number of people in the pool. That's seriously your position, is it: That you wouldn't be reducing CO2 emissions any more by joining a 4-person carpool than by joining a 2-person carpool?
freddiemac,
I would like to point out that most of the US electical grid is powered by coal fired power plants, which expel more CO2 per kwh than any other form. That is why I don't believe in electric cars
But CO2 emissions per kwh of generated electricity by power plant fuel type is obviously not the relevant comparison with respect to the effect of electric cars. The relevant comparison is CO2 emissions per vehicle-mile of travel for electric cars vs gasoline cars. How does that comparison come out?
Mixner,
Brooksfoe is right. If I join a 4-person carpool rather than driving, I eliminate the emissions that would be produced by my car ride. If I join a 2-person carpool, I also eliminate my car ride's emissions. The same is true for the subway or the bus. In all these cases, my decision only removes the emissions that would have been produced by my car. That amount does not change.
You're thinking of the average emissions per person rather than the incremental emissions change. You are correct that the average emissions per person on a full subway car are less than the average emissions on a nearly empty subway car. But that's a whole different issue, and it doesn't address the impact that my individual decision makes. To get the incremental impact, you would have to multiply the change in the average emissions by the number of riders in the vehicle, which then gives you the change due to one more or less person driving.
On your other point, I agree that more efficient cars will make a bigger impact in the US currently than public transportation. It doesn't change the overall result, but you should also consider the emissions caused by producing the car. If I don't buy a car at all because I always use public transit, none of the manufacturing-related emissions for the car occur.
I would like to point out that most of the US electical grid is powered by coal fired power plants, which expel more CO2 per kwh than any other form. That is why I don't believe in electric cars, because the electricity for the cars has to come from somewhere, and that somewhere is most likely coal (the US is the Saudi Arabia of coal).
Given an either/or choice, would you rather have a limited number of coal-fired plants operating at about 31% efficiency on native fuels and having their stack emissions tightly monitored 24/7 for noxious pollutants, or would you rather have millions of small gasoline engines operating at 20% efficiency (or less in city driving) on partially-imported fuels and constantly emitting noxious pollutants on cold-start, while regularly cycling through multiple hydrocarbon support fluids and ethylene glycol? (And gradually leaking copious quantities of same into the environment?)
Even if it were strictly a question of going from the fire to the frying pan, that's not necessarily the worst possible option, and in this case, there's an option for getting out of the frying pan as well (gradually transitioning baseload to nuclear). The only $64,000 dollar question is how the energy intensity of manufacturing large battery packs ultimately compares to the energy intensity of manufacturing and supporting internal combustion engines.
Greg,
Brooksfoe is right. If I join a 4-person carpool rather than driving, I eliminate the emissions that would be produced by my car ride. If I join a 2-person carpool, I also eliminate my car ride's emissions.
Brilliant. If each member of the 4-member carpool eliminates the emissions that would be produced by his car ride, then the emissions of all four members' cars are eliminated, and the emissions reduction is 100%. Ditto for a 2-member carpool, or whatever the size of the pool is.
Apparently, you've magically turned the pool car into a zero-emissions vehicle.
Cows are tasty. Someone should invent a way to feed beef to hens so we can save carbon by eating hamburgers that will become lower on the food chain.
1. Drive less
2. Drive less aggressively
3. If public transportation is available, use it
4. If you can choose electricity providers, choose one that uses more renewables and less coal/gas/oil
5. if your vehicle is due for replacement, choose a more fuel efficient one (try not to trade in an almost-new one though, it uses a LOT of energy to manufacture a vehicle)
6. Move closer to work
7. insulate your house
8. Replace or repair doors and windows
9. Install solar, it actually works now unlike in the 1970s
10. If you're building a new house, do it energy efficiently; e.g. lots of insulation, in-floor heat, good windows, lots of windows on the south side if you're in a cold climate, shutters to keep the sun out in the summer and yet still have the windows open etc. etc.
11. Take less personal travel
12. Get your employer sold on teleconferencing rather than business travel
13. As already stated, eat lower on the food chain -- meat is terribly inefficient.
14. Move to a smaller house
15. If your zoning allows it, take in a renter
16. Recycle (but you didn't need to tell me that). Most important is stuff that is actually efficient to recycle, like aluminum cans.
17. Avoid using stuff that is inefficient or difficult to recycle or dispose of, e.g certain plastics.
18. Buy stuff that will last, and keep it a while -- not junk.
19. Set the thermostat higher in the summer, and lower in the winter. Enjoy fresh air.
20. Put the "conserve" back into conservative.
And while you're at it, lobby your politicians to help make it easier for you to make these choices.
There's already more than a THREE FOLD difference in carbon footprint between the most efficient part of the country and the least. That shows that both individual and group choices are important in tackling this problem. In particular, it is idiotic for icebox Minnesota to have less carbon footprint than the relatively temperate and more densely populated Ohio Valley -- but it comes down to choices again; the Ohio Valley is sprawly and has lots of coal-generated power.
And remember there's a silver lining. A lot of this is about making do with less, and that also means you'll end up spending less.
Apparently, you've magically turned the pool car into a zero-emissions vehicle.
Nah, that's merely what you misconstrued Greg's claim into for purposes of releasing a pent-up zinger, and it involved something a lot less formidable than magic. It was obvious that he was talking about the case where he rides in someone else's car on a given day. His car is parked in the driveway whereas it would have been on the road taking Greg to work, hence, the emissions from that extra vehicle have been eliminated.
Greg,
It doesn't change the overall result, but you should also consider the emissions caused by producing the car. If I don't buy a car at all because I always use public transit, none of the manufacturing-related emissions for the car occur.
You're right: it doesn't change the overall result. And of course, a full accounting must include not only the emissions caused by producing the car, but also, among other things, the emissions caused by producing the train or bus or whatever kind of mass transit vehicle it is.
"The relevant comparison is CO2 emissions per vehicle-mile of travel for electric cars vs gasoline cars. How does that comparison come out?"
There is a comparison of the energy required to power the US auto fleet with hydrogen derived from coal power plants vs. gasoline fired vehicles. The hydrogen vehicles require twice the energy (32 vs. 16 Quads) with a 2.7 fold increase in CO2 emissions.
Here's the link:
http://cato.org/pubs/briefs/bp90.pdf
I would not expect current battery technology to do any better than the hydrogen/fuel cell combination, otherwise, why bother with the fuel cell?
The problem with electric or hydrogen powered vehicles is there are neither electric or hydrogen wells. You need some other source of energy which is then converted.
Has anyone noticed that there has been no global warming for at least ten years despite steady CO2 increases? It now appears that the solar cycle may be responsible for quite a bit of the warming and cooling in the last century.
The only $64,000 dollar question is how the energy intensity of manufacturing large battery packs ultimately compares to the energy intensity of manufacturing and supporting internal combustion engines.
As I said above, the energy cost of manufacturing any "green" technology should be part of the calculation, but information is hard to come by.
mouse,
It was obvious that he was talking about the case where he rides in someone else's car on a given day.
If that's what he meant, it's irrelevant. I said "joining a carpool," not hitching a ride in someone else's car on a given day. Do you think that the emissions reductions from joining a 4-person car pool are no greater than the emissions reductions from joining a 2-person car pool? How would propose to calculate the emissions reduction attributable to each member of a carpool in a way that was independent of the size of the carpool?
If plug-in electrics become more common, we will need to massively increase the power generation and distribution infrastructure... that will cost a lot of money and generate environmental harm, as well. Increased power lines will require us to mine more copper. Power poles will consume forests. Etc...
Do you think that the emissions reductions from joining a 4-person car pool are no greater than the emissions reductions from joining a 2-person car pool?
Yes. Emissions go down by one car for each member who joins; if I bring the total up to 3 or up to 5, it's still one less car than before.
Now, emissions reductions from creating a new 4-person carpool are obviously greater than from creating a new 2-person carpool, just as emissions reductions from running a full train are greater than from running an empty one. But this entire discussion is premised on the marginal decision of just one individual: joining a pre-existing carpool, or riding a train that will be running anyway, whether you get on it or not. We are not discussing optimal transit scheduling, where total ridership obviously matters.
If you want to argue that midnight trains are wasteful and it would be better, CO2-wise, to force everyone on them to drive, no one disagrees with that particular premise.
How would propose to calculate the emissions reduction attributable to each member of a carpool in a way that was independent of the size of the carpool?
Given that AGW presumably depends not on per capita emissions, but rather on total emissions, why would I want to "attribute" the emissions reduction to anyone? Having 1 less car on the road--whether achieved by carpooling, transit, telecommuting, or, as suggested above, suicide, means 1 less car's worth of emissions in the air. No fancy calculations or attributions required; it's one less car.
There is a comparison of the energy required to power the US auto fleet with hydrogen derived from coal power plants vs. gasoline fired vehicles.
Mass-market, competitive hydrogen-powered vehicles are still many years away, and no one is seriously arguing that the hydrogen should be generated using conventional coal power plants anyway, so this isn't terribly relevant. The dominant new automotive technologies in the near-term future will be hybrid, PHEV (plug-in hybrid) and biofuels.
If plug-in electrics become more common, we will need to massively increase the power generation and distribution infrastructure
Eventually, yes. But there is currently huge idle capacity at night, and taking advantage of this capacity to recharge plug-in hybrids may actually reduce the unit cost of electricty by increasing the return on capital for electrical system infrastructure.
Hey, DBX, great list. Wanted to chime in with one or two other easy, no-brainers:
1. Don't drink bottled water unless the EPA says your area's water is dangerous. Most bottled water is no safer or cleaner than tap water. But it makes a huge carbon footprint to bottle it, label it, advertise it, and ship it to your house. You'll also save lots of money. Bottled water=ultimate stupidity. Spread the word.
2. For much the same reason, buy frozen concentrate juices. Much more efficient delivery of the same dang thing.
3. Finally, lobby your politicians to increase the gasoline tax, or even better, a carbon tax that would include gasoline. The goal is NOT to increase aggregate government revenue. Payroll taxes should be reduced by an equivalent amount (as both carbon taxation and SocSec are regressive, that's the best way to go, not general income taxes). Charles Krauthammer made the point about a gas tax quite well a few days ago in the Wpost. I dream of what the world would look like if Bush, speaking to Congress on Sept 20, 2001, had proposed a 1 dollar gas tax phase in to pay for the war on terror. Friedman was right (Milton, not the guy at the NYtimes, though he agrees)--what you tax, you get less of. There is a marginal loss of productivity with income/wage taxation, as it makes leisure more attractive. Let's tax gas, not work.
But there is currently huge idle capacity at night
The crucial thing here is regulating when plug-ins draw power. Most power will be drawn when the batteries are lowest, i.e. when the car is first plugged in. Once they're close to full charge, the current drops. The natural thing to do is plug it in when you get home from work. That corresponds to a pretty high usage time; the TV on, the stove on, refrigerator being opened a lot, heat/AC on, etc. The idle time comes hours later when everyone's in bed. So if we want to actually take advantage of the idle capacity rather than just take a peak usage period and make it a higher peak, we need to pre-program the cars not to charge until hours after being plugged in.
Rob Lyman,
Now, emissions reductions from creating a new 4-person carpool are obviously greater than from creating a new 2-person carpool, just as emissions reductions from running a full train are greater than from running an empty one. But this entire discussion is premised on the marginal decision of just one individual: joining a pre-existing carpool, or riding a train that will be running anyway, whether you get on it or not.
The argument is nonsensical when applied to either a train or to a carpool. On your argument, each person riding the train may correctly assert that he is not contributing any of its emissions, on the grounds that it would still be running if he had chosen not to take it. On your argument, each rider has reduced his car emissions by 100%, and increased his train emissions by 0%. Meaning that all the emissions have somehow disappeared and everyone is getting an emission-free ride. Since this conclusion is absurd, there is obviously something wrong with your argument. Can you figure out what it is?
Why not have no or fewer children?
Isn't that the surest way to limit one's carbon footprint?
Since this conclusion is absurd, there is obviously something wrong with your argument. Can you figure out what it is?
Yes, but it's not with my argument. As I said above, you are neglecting the difference between fixed and marginal costs. The train is presumed to run, empty or full, so its emissions are a fixed cost. My car emissions, on the other hand, are a marginal cost; the cost of one car trip from A to B. I can reduce my car emissions by 100% without increasing the train's emissions. Thus, the train trip has a zero marginal emissions cost.
Total emissions are always going to be Train Emissions + Car Emissions. If I take the train, I reduce total emissions by 1 car without increasing train emissions; this is an unambiguously good thing to do (assuming we believein AGW, yadda yadda). The number of other riders has nothing to do with that particular decision.
Now, it might be that the train's fixed cost is so high relative to ridership that you should just cancel the train service. That's a perfectly respectable argument. But given a train schedule that I don't control, I can cause unambiguously lower total emissions to occur by taking the train.
Another way to put it:
If I drive instead of staying home, I increase total emissions.
If I take the train instead of staying home, I do NOT increase total emissions.
So in that sense, the train ride is "emissions free."
Megan and others,
It's probably way too late, but I don't understand why Hayek is invoked here.
If only some of them know directly of the new demand [of tin]...the effect will rapidly spread throughout the whole economic system and influence not only all the uses of tin but also those of its substitutes...The whole acts as one market
Should lead me to believe that if I am concerned about eating meat, or landfills, small changes I make to my lifestyle shouldn't disappear into the margins of the market (as the manifest destiny excerpt indicates) but instead get aggregated outwards. Let's say meat - our production is linked to the social consumption of it.
Hayek should be invoked to prove the opposite point - that acting on "faith" in green energy should make the planet more green even if I can't see it, as producers I'll never meet will absorb my information, no? Prices are just an aggregation of technology and desire (or utility), however desire is generated exogenously of prices. Changes our desires, even on a small scale, should influence the overall market.
Hayek shouldn't be invoked for a "But individual efforts are probably quixotic" argument. That tin consumer in the example probably views his tin information as quixotic as well...
Rob Lyman,
As I said above, you are neglecting the difference between fixed and marginal costs. The train is presumed to run, empty or full, so its emissions are a fixed cost. My car emissions, on the other hand, are a marginal cost; the cost of one car trip from A to B. I can reduce my car emissions by 100% without increasing the train's emissions. Thus, the train trip has a zero marginal emissions cost.
You have completely evaded the problem I just described. If everyone riding the train can correctly claim to have reduced his car emissions by 100% without increasing his train emissions, then everyone's total emissions are reduced by 100% and everyone is getting an emission-free ride. But that conclusion is obviously false. Since the train is obviously producing emissions, no one is getting an emission-free ride. Therefore, the riders cannot have reduced their emissions by 100%.
thinking about it, I think I see in relations to we don't "know" what our carbon footprint is when we consume, thus we need prices to be adjusted by taxes to reflect this.
That's still a weird reason to invoke Hayek, especially that part, if our first argument is that carbon information isn't dispersed widely among the population (we don't "know").
mike, I think Megan's point is that if (and this is a big if) the price of carbon was "right", there would be no need to do these difficult carbon calculations. Carbon-intensive goods would have the cost of carbon reflected in their price, and less of them would be purchased. Essentially, changes in price communicate information to a disaggregate populace making millions of decisions each day. A change in price of carbon would cause everyone to use less of it, which is precisely the outcome we want.
A little bit of historical context on this: The article is in many ways a pushback against a group of economists who thought that they could eliminate prices and just calculate the "optimal" production of each good and service in the economy, and use the government to control production. Hayek's point was that it's impossible for an economist or a central planner to have all the information to accurately calculate that optimal production schedule. Thus, "the man on the spot" is best equipped with the particular information of time and place to make the "correct" decision taking relative prices as given. Of course, all of this assumes that the "price is right," which is almost never true for environmental goods in general, but Hayek's point about the power of the price mechanism stands.
Getting back to some loose ends...
brooksfoe writes:
I recall on a previous thread you claimed that commute times in the US had been falling in recent years, which as far as I could find was also false.
Commuting times get shorter
Quote:
Now, admittedly, a national average reduction in commute times of 0.4 minutes is trivial, but it does rebut the oft-repeated bit of left-wing folklore that commute times keep getting longer and that this is a serious reason to promote mass transit and denser development.
In fact, according to the Census Bureau, the average commute time by mass transit is almost double the average commute time by car.
Of course, in some parts of the country, for some types of commute (e.g., Long Island to midtown Manhattan) mass transit is (usually) faster than driving, and mass transit in those places may make sense. But in general, the idea that mass transit will save time just isn't supported by the evidence.
everyone is getting an emission-free ride. But that conclusion is obviously false.
Quite the opposite. As I said, everyone is getting a marginal-emissions-free ride. The train is, by hypothesis, running regardless of whether anyone rides it or not. Therefore, the choice is between train emissions + car emissions or train emissions alone.
If you want to shut the train down because too few people are riding it, that's probably a good idea. But given that it is running, I can eliminate 100% car emissions by taking it. My taking the train is the emissions equivalent of my staying home rather than going out; it costs no more, carbon-wise.
brooksfoe,
But to argue that widely-distributed exurban models of living don't create more CO2 than dense urban public-transit models is just delusional. Why is it, again, that Europeans have a carbon footprint half the size of Americans?
Many reasons, probably. A few that immediately come to mind:
1. They're poorer than we are, so they consume less products and services in general.
2. They live in smaller houses and apartments than we do.
3. Europe is much more geographically compact than the United States, meaning that travel distances tend to be much shorter.
4. The climate of Europe is much more temperate than that of the United States, meaning lower carbon emissions from heating and cooling.
Europeans could of course reduce their carbon footprint by reducing their living standards. They could live in even smaller houses. They could travel less. They could lower their electricity consumption. I assume they don't do these things for the same basic reasons that we Americans don't want to lower our living standards.
it's true that electric cars would make a much bigger difference [in reducing CO2 emissions] than public transit improvements. I hope we'll have massive adoption of them in 10 to 15 years.
Electric cars (and before that, hybrids and PHEVs) will not only reduce CO2 emissions, but oil consumption too. As I said, with new auto technology $4-6 gasoline will effectively become $2-3 gasoline. Or less. This will allow people to maintain their current car-oriented, exurban lifestyle in the face of rising oil prices without suffering an economic penalty. It will reduce the incentive for people to substitute mass transit for car travel, and denser housing for sprawling suburbs. So your hope that we'll have massive adoption of these new cars is at odds with your desire for denser communities and more public transport. Ironic, isn't it?
Rob Lyman,
Quite the opposite. As I said, everyone is getting a marginal-emissions-free ride.
I don't know what "marginal-emissions-free ride" is supposed to mean. The train is emitting CO2. Therefore the ride is obviously not emissions-free. Therefore the riders of the train have not reduced their emissions by 100% by choosing to ride the train.
The train is, by hypothesis, running regardless of whether anyone rides it or not.
Of course it isn't. It's running because there's a demand for it. Governments are not in the habit of running trains that no one ever uses.
But given that it is running, I can eliminate 100% car emissions by taking it.
So can everyone else who is riding it. Eliminating car emissions is not the issue. The issue is the train's emissions. Each rider contributes to the demand for the train. The train runs only because there's a demand. Therefore, each rider contributes to the train's emissions.
The crucial thing here is regulating when plug-ins draw power. Most power will be drawn when the batteries are lowest, i.e. when the car is first plugged in. Once they're close to full charge, the current drops. The natural thing to do is plug it in when you get home from work. That corresponds to a pretty high usage time; the TV on, the stove on, refrigerator being opened a lot, heat/AC on, etc. The idle time comes hours later when everyone's in bed. So if we want to actually take advantage of the idle capacity rather than just take a peak usage period and make it a higher peak, we need to pre-program the cars not to charge until hours after being plugged in.
This is a trivial concern. Power companies offer a discounted non-peak electric rate, typically starting at 9pm on weekdays, precisely to discourage excessive peak-time use and reduce the risk of overloads. PHEV drivers would therefore have a strong economic incentive to wait until non-peak hours to recharge their cars. If the existing incentive proved inadequate, power companies could adjust the hours or the price-differential to achieve the right balance, and if even that didn't work the problem could be resolved by a timing mechanism that would add just a few dollars to the vehicle's price.
I don't know what "marginal-emissions-free ride" is supposed to mean.
The same thing that "zero-marginal-cost" is supposed to mean. Having health insurance means that many of my medical decisions come at zero or low marginal cost to me; it costs me about the same to get an expensive procedure as to not get it. But obviously there is a fixed cost, i.e., the premium, so it isn't "free." But economists figured out a long time ago, most decisions are (and should be) made on marginal costs, not fixed costs. Here, once the train is running, taking it rather than driving is a zero-marginal-emissions decision.
If the demand for the train is so low that its emissions are greater than the cars it takes off the road, then perhaps that train should cease to run. But that wasn't the question as I understood it.
Governments are not in the habit of running trains that no one ever uses.
I think you may have governments confused with markets. Governments are very much in the habit of running trains that few or even no people actually use. Certainly they are in the habit of running trains (and buses) whose ridership does not justify their costs, either in cash or CO2--which is, I believe, your point.
The train is, by hypothesis, running regardless of whether anyone rides it or not.
Of course it isn't. It's running because there's a demand for it.
Now you're just fighting the hypo. Brooksfoe was looking at the question "should I take the train for this trip?" which presumes that the train does not run only for him, but will in fact be running whether he rides or not. Against that backdrop, the train is the lower-emission choice.
If you want to talk about optimal transit scheduling, and not running trains empty, and not building tracks which will have empty trains on them, you will find that I do not disagree with you at all.
Rob Lyman,
The same thing that "zero-marginal-cost" is supposed to mean.
Sorry, that's not an explanation. Define the term "zero-marginal-emissions" as you are using it here.
I think you may have governments confused with markets. Governments are very much in the habit of running trains that few or even no people actually use.
No, I'm not confusing them at all. Please give me an example of a train that the government would run even if there were no demand for it. No demand at all. None whatsoever.
Now you're just fighting the hypo. Brooksfoe was looking at the question "should I take the train for this trip?" which presumes that the train does not run only for him, but will in fact be running whether he rides or not.
No, brooksfoe was making a claim, not asking a question. His claim was that by taking a train he would not be contributing anything towards the train's emissions, on the grounds that the train would still run even if he weren't riding it. If that is true of brooksfoe, it's true of every other passenger on the train too. If none of the people riding the train is contributing to the train's emissions, who is?
Define the term "zero-marginal-emissions" as you are using it here.
A ZME travel decision is one which is emissions-equivalent to not traveling at all.
Please give me an example of a train that the government would run even if there were no demand for it. No demand at all. None whatsoever.
Stop by a Portland MAX station early mornings on weekends. Or, if you can tolerate a vehicle that has more than zero demand, but so very little ridership that it can't cover operating costs and/or greater emissions than the cars removed from the road, then virtually any off-peak public transit system qualifies.
I'm actually agreeing with you that these are total boondoggles and a waste of resources. I'm just saying that by getting on board the wasteful boondoggle, you're reducing total emissions. Which, incidentally, you are. The fact that we could reduce total emissions more by ceasing to operate the boondoggle is a separate question.
If none of the people riding the train is contributing to the train's emissions, who is?
None of them. Again, the train's emissions are a fixed cost, a product of the decision by the transit authority to run the train at all, not of the individuals who ride it.
I'm not sure why you seem to have a mania for assigning emissions to people, but if you must do so, then assign the train's emissions to the people who decide that it should operate, and perhaps to the political activists who agitate for the train, but not to the riders, who have little to do with it. It's not their fault the transit planners irrationally runs almost-empty trains when they should just tell everyone to drive.
Sorry, the phrase of yours I need defined is "marginal-emissions-free ride." Please explain clearly what you mean by this.
A "marginal-emissions free ride" is a ride which has zero marginal emissions.
That is, a ride which produces no more emissions than not traveling at all. Like me getting onto a train which was going to run either way.
Mixner, do I understand your argument to be of the form of a Kantian moral imperative?
That is, if literally nobody took the not-quite-empty train, the transit authority would cancel it, thus saving emissions. Therefore, taking the train, although it produces less total emissions than driving while the train runs without you, in fact causes the train to run wastefully, and is therefore emissions-immoral.
Is that it?
Y'all are arguing about a solution to a problem that doesn't exist.
First, the world has cooled over the last decade, despite IPCC predictions that it would rise by about 0.3 degrees C over that time span. Instead, it's down about 1 degree C since 1998.
Second, all the predictions are based on computer models that simply don't work. For one thing, most of them assume Total Solar Irradiance to be a constant, when actually it's a variable.
Third, the data on which various people have relied to find evidence for global warming are simply bad. Wander through surfacestations.org to see how official temperature readings in the United States Historical Climate Network have been affected by things like a 100-watt light bulb next to the thermometer. As you do so, remember that the USA has the best weather reporting stations in the world.
Fourth, both Goddard Institute of Space Studies and Hadley Center for Climatic Research Unit "adjust" historical data in order to prove that global warming is actually occuring. That is, historical records from long ago are adjusted downward, while those from the recent past are adjusted upward, so as to give a nice trend line.
Fifth, CO2 is good for plant growth. Cut it, and people starve.
Sixth, all the plans for reducing greenhouse-gas emissions require expenditures on the order of $50 trillion dollars. And all they will do is reduce world temperatures by about 0.1 degrees C.
Oh, and Rob Lyman? The more people you put on a train or a bus, the more fuel that train or bus will consume.
Rob Lyman,
None of them. Again, the train's emissions are a fixed cost, a product of the decision by the transit authority to run the train at all, not of the individuals who ride it.
So the only people who contribute to the train's emissions, according to you, are the members of the transit authority that decided to run it. Not the people who ride the train. Not the people whose demand for the train persuaded the transit authority to run it. Not the politicians who appointed the transit authority members. Not the people who voted for those politicians. And not any other group of people? Is that it?
If I'm on the transit authority and vote to run the train, but the "marginal" contribution of my vote is zero because there would still have been a majority in favor of the train even if I had voted against or abstained (just like the train would have run even if brooksfoe had decided not to take it), does that mean I haven't contributed to the emissions (like brooksfoe)? If so, why has anyone else on the transit authority contributed, either?
I think you're wrapping yourself in knots here in your attempts to deny that the riders of a train contribute to its emissions.
Oh, and Rob Lyman? The more people you put on a train or a bus, the more fuel that train or bus will consume.
Yes, but the difference between "Bus with Rob" and "Bus without Rob" is vastly smaller than "Car with Rob." So much smaller, in fact, that it's silly to bring it up.
Mixner, I once again lack time to get into this thoroughly, but the problem here is that you are sliding back and forth between two kinds of questions: "What should I do?" and "What should we do?" If you ask "What should we do?" to reduce CO2 emissions, form 4-person carpools or form 400-person subway train pools, then the answer is obvious: the 400-person subway train creates vastly less CO2 than 100 automobiles. If you ask "what should I do?", join a carpool or take the subway, then the answer is it doesn't really matter: either way you pretty much eliminate your carbon contribution (except that the carpool will probably mean the driver goes a bit out of his way to drop you off, creating a little more CO2, but we'll waive this off as unimportant -- maybe you would've caught a cab from the light rail, it cancels out.)
So we can add "travel by carpool instead of driving yourself" to the list of ways you can save CO2 emissions, besides going vegetarian. Okay?
Rob Lyman,
A "marginal-emissions free ride" is a ride which has zero marginal emissions. That is, a ride which produces no more emissions than not traveling at all. Like me getting onto a train which was going to run either way.
Then unless the train would still be run even if there were no demand at all (and I do mean no demand at all), rather than cancelled, this contradicts your claim that all riders are "getting a marginal-emissions-free ride." If none of those riders had travelled at all, and the train had therefore been cancelled due to lack of demand, there would have been no emissions. So it would not be true that their rides "produce no more emissions than not traveling at all" and therefore their rides would not qualify as a "marginal-emissions free ride" as you define it above.
I think you're wrapping yourself in knots here in your attempts to deny that the riders of a train contribute to its emissions.
I suppose it depends on what you mean by "contribute." I'm counting marginal contributions, and the marginal contribution of a single rider is very, very close to zero.
I don't understand your mania for parceling out fixed costs, because they simply aren't easily divided. You're getting all mixed up in questions of demand, and whether politicians would be unwilling to run literally empty trains, but find trains with 1 or 2 riders acceptable, or whatever. I'm sweeping all of that away because--again, at the margin--my decision to be 1 more guy on the train is unlikely to be pivotal in the decision to run that train or not. So I don't see how you can pin the fixed costs on the riders of under-used trains. Simply put, they don't cause the trains to run, and if they don't ride, the trains run anyway, so don't pick on them.
There's no need to get into such a massive analysis to answer brooksfoe's question, anyway. Living in the real world, you can reduce total emissions on any given trip by riding a pre-existing train or bus (even if that turns out to increase your personal Mixner emissions count). If you're looking for a way to personally try to cut total emissions, transit is the clear winner.
Unless you're going for the Kantian argument I mentioned above.
brooksfoe,
Mixner, I once again lack time to get into this thoroughly, but the problem here is that you are sliding back and forth between two kinds of questions:
I'm not talking about "questions." I'm rebutting your assertion that by taking the train instead of driving, you have completely eliminated your emissions (other than the infinitesimal amount attributable to your additional weight on the loaded train), on the grounds that the train would have run even if you had decided not to take it. Since every other person on the train could make the same argument, it leads to the absurd conclusion that no one riding the train is contributing to its CO2 emissions (other than that infinitesimal amount I mentioned). This is what you are seriously claiming, is it? If none of the train's riders are contributing to its emissions, who is?
If you ask "what should I do?", join a carpool or take the subway, then the answer is it doesn't really matter: either way you pretty much eliminate your carbon contribution
No you don't. Again, if you seriously believe this, who do you claim is contributing the carbon emitted by the train? If it's not you, and not any of the other riders, who is it?
Then unless the train would still be run even if there were no demand at all (and I do mean no demand at all), rather than cancelled, this contradicts your claim that all riders are "getting a marginal-emissions-free ride."
So we are going for the Kantian analysis of public transit! Thank you for clearing that up. It all makes sense now.
Rob Lyman,
I'm a member of the transit authority you just mentioned. You claimed the transit authority contributes the train's CO2 by deciding to run it. I voted to run the train, but the "marginal" effect of my vote on whether the train runs was zero, because there was a majority for running the train even without my vote. Am I contributing to the train's CO2 by voting to run it, or am I not contributing because the "marginal" value of my vote was zero?
If it's not you, and not any of the other riders, who is it?
Just to get at the hidden assumption here, why do we need to figure out to whom we assign the CO2? I mean, who cares? Are you planning on sending nasty letters to people whose Mixner CO2 value goes to high?
m I contributing to the train's CO2 by voting to run it, or am I not contributing because the "marginal" value of my vote was zero?
I'll say "no" just for the hell of it, but under your Kantian analysis, the answer would be "yes." But I also don't care, because I don't understand (and you haven't explained) why we must find somebody to pin the emissions on. What is the point of this exercise in carbon-blame?
Again, I agree with you that transit is often wasteful boondoggling. I support the idea of canceling nearly empty train/bus runs. I am in no way whatsoever enamored of either public transit or the public which rides on it. I hate dense living and I merely tolerate cities because I need to work in one. And indeed, now that I understand your moral-imperative approach to transit scheduling, I can appreciate that, given the assumption that politicians will run trains with one person but will not run literally empty trains, it is carbon-immoral to ride a train which is not densely packed.
I simply have chosen to adopt a utilitarian approach to the transit/car/emissions problem, in contrast to your Kantian approach. Also, I reject the carbon-puritanism which requires us to assign carbon-sin in the way you insist. I'm not sure that further discussion is fruitful given our fundamentally different philosophical approaches to the problem.
If I sound drunk, I'm not, I'm just tired.
Rob Lyman,
I'll say "no" just for the hell of it,
"Just for the hell of it."
Never mind, then. After your last few posts, I'd pretty much given up expecting any serious responses from you anyway.
Mixner, maybe if you would explain why we're engaged in the (to me) pointless task of assigning carbon-blame, I could muster a more serious response; it's hard to take hypotheticals seriously when you think they're silly. Or perhaps you could acknowledge the difference between Kant and Mill, which tracks closely the difference between you and me. It might be nice to separate the quesitons of "we" vs. "me" as brooksfoe defines them too.
Also, you might consider that your moral-imperative argument runs both ways: perhaps we should all take transit, all the time, because if everyone does it, total emissions go down. That's at least as sensible as your "don't take transit when trains are empty because you're causing politicians to irrationally run trains for which the demand doesn't justfy the cost" argument.
Well, I'll say one thing for Mixner's response: it leads to the interesting question of whether NYC could save money and CO2 emissions by shutting down the subway between 1 am and 5 am, creating a fleet of Prius taxicabs, and subsidizing them to carry passengers between those hours for $2 a ride to whatever subway stop in the city they want to go to (i.e. directly replacing subway service).
Does the CO2 and expenses math work out? I don't know, I'm sure it's "complicated" (as Tom Lee would say), and in fact it might not even come close. You'd have a lot of major events you might not be able to handle -- rock concerts, late games going into overtime at the Stadium, etc. It may be that while one could eliminate a lot of wasteful train service if one knew ahead of time which trains would be empty, it's impossible to know that ahead of time, and overall the trains are still more efficient than cars. Or not. It's an interesting question anyway.
I'm an environmental quietist - do my little part and pray for my colleagues who drive 45 miles each way to work. Funny that the two out Republican professors on campus both live within walking distance and do actually walk.
The Mixner vs. brooksfoe/Rob Lyman debate is the funniest damn thing I've read in a long time!
The two questions "What should I do today to reduce emissions?" vs. "What should we do today to reduce emissions?" are obviously different, and deserve different debates. Either Mixner doesn't get it, or is being purposefully combative for kicks. Either way, it's funny to follow!
Mixner, the difference between variable and fixed costs is a pretty well-established concept in economics. Let's put it in the context of a movie theater. The theater runs a certain number of shows a day, and if I decide to see the movie, the theater doesn't incur any additional costs. Perhaps the additional cooling load due to my body heat, but that's negligible. There's zero marginal cost because all of my costs are fixed, not variable with volume. The theater owner still has to pay rent even if that additional person doesn't show up. Now, all of this depends on time scale and unit scale. If enough people show up, the owner may need to hire more ushers or even rent more theater space. Things that are fixed in the context of one additional movie-goer are variable if a thousand more people show up. So in reality, it's a step-function.
The same thing goes for the carpool or the subway car. If the carpool's half full and I decide to ride it, I've avoided the emissions of my car ride without significantly adding to the carpool's emissions. Now, if the carpool is already full, I need to add another car to the carpool. At that point, the entire cost / emissions of driving one more car are incurred.
The issue of subway demand is similar. If the subway's already running, my riding it does not appreciably increase demand. No one is going to start running another subway car because one more person is riding it. So under the assumption that my decision doesn't affect anyone else's, I'm not measurably increasing demand. If we look at the issue from the overall system perspective, yes, every subway rider is "responsible" for the overall subway emissions divided by their share of ridership. But that's an entirely different question.
And yes, the marginal impact of your vote is zero. That's why economists don't vote.
DBX and others with lists,
Just to take one item on your list, you suggest that we should drive less. I personally like to go out for a drive during lunchtime just for the sake of driving around, without going to any place in particular. This habit obviously costs me money. If I eliminate this habit, I will have more money left over. In order to say whether or not driving around less would be good for the environment, we would have to know what the alternatives are. If I use the savings to purchase an extra vacation each year for example, the alternative could be even worse, not only from a global warming perspective but also maybe from a destruction of habitat perspective. If I save the money and it indiectly becomes invested, the long-term effects could be dire environmentally speaking. Do you agree?
I personally belive that we both as an individual and as a society should do much more to protect the environment and wild spaces, but I am always skeptical of people arguing that they can know what effect a lifestyle change will have on the environment.
Oh, no, seasoned readers are already saying to themselves; I see a Hayek fit coming. Yes, my friends, you are right, like those dogs that can sense an epileptic seizure minutes before it actually appears. It is too late to force the pills down my throat; you'll just have to hang on and hope I don't hurt myself.
I can't read all the comments now to make sure you haven't already received enough plaudits, but this passage was early-morning-hand-over-mouth lol all the way. Your blog is always a pleasure, and I never get tired of re-reading that quote.
Oh, and Rob Lyman? The more people you put on a train or a bus, the more fuel that train or bus will consume.
True, but sufficiently small as to be negligible. According to this:
http://www.lightrail.com/photos/portland/portlandstreetcar/portlandstreetcar.htm
...the empty weight of a light rail car on the Portland system is 24,200kg (53,352 pounds, or just under 27 tons) and has a maximum loaded weight of 39,740kg (87,612 pounds, or just about 44 tons). That provides for 34,260 pounds of passengers and their effects, less than doubling the weight of the car alone. If we divide that by the maximum seat configuration of 41 positions, that allows for 836 pounds of flesh and baggage per person at maximum occupancy -- somewhat unlikely IMO.
In fact, even if the car could be loaded to capacity with passengers averaging 200 pounds each and carrying fifty pounds of baggage, they would only add 20% more weight above the weight of the car itself. This is not going to make large changes in the car's total energy consumption and each rider's contribution is effectively negligible.
Never mind, then. After your last few posts, I'd pretty much given up expecting any serious responses from you anyway.
So Rob won, then?
Let's put it in the context of a movie theater. The theater runs a certain number of shows a day, and if I decide to see the movie, the theater doesn't incur any additional costs. Perhaps the additional cooling load due to my body heat, but that's negligible. There's zero marginal cost because all of my costs are fixed, not variable with volume. The theater owner still has to pay rent even if that additional person doesn't show up. Now, all of this depends on time scale and unit scale. If enough people show up, the owner may need to hire more ushers or even rent more theater space. Things that are fixed in the context of one additional movie-goer are variable if a thousand more people show up. So in reality, it's a step-function.
A movie theater is another clear illustration of the absurdity of brooksfoe's argument. His argument is that since the costs of running the theater (including its CO2 emissions) would be the same whether he personally showed up or not, he's not contributing to those costs and emissions if he does show up. The problem is, every other person in the theater could make the same argument. If no one in the theater is contributing to the costs of running it, if no one in the theater is contributing to its CO2 emissions, who is responsible for these costs and emissions? The only reason the theater is in operation is because there is a demand for it. Everyone who buys a movie ticket is contributing to that demand, and is contributing to the costs of running the theater. The fact that the theater would still be open if any one individual did not show up is irrelevant to this point. Exactly the same is true of people who use train services.
The two questions "What should I do today to reduce emissions?" vs. "What should we do today to reduce emissions?" are obviously different,
Another completely irrelevant observation. brooksfoe is not advocating taking the train instead of driving merely for one trip on one day by one person. He's advocating it as a broad change in behavior for lots of people and lots of trips on lots of days.
brooksfoe,
I stand by that statement. I haven't seen an example yet of a mass transit situation in which under any circumstances your decision to take mass transit would create more CO2 than deciding to drive your car, unless you own an electric car. I can't imagine how it could happen.
As you can see from Exhibit 3-13 in this report, even just on the average, cars use less energy per passenger mile than light rail, trolleybuses and transit buses, and only about 25% more than heavy rail (subway and elevated rapid rail) and commuter rail.
Again, these are just averages. Switching from driving, say, a Toyota Prius or a particularly fuel-efficient conventional gasoline car to a subway or commuter rail service that typically ran with a below-average load factor (i.e., lots of empty seats) could easily result in using more energy per passenger mile of travel and possibly more CO2 emissions as well.
Well, I'll say one thing for Mixner's response: it leads to the interesting question of whether NYC could save money and CO2 emissions by shutting down the subway between 1 am and 5 am, creating a fleet of Prius taxicabs, and subsidizing them to carry passengers between those hours for $2 a ride to whatever subway stop in the city they want to go to (i.e. directly replacing subway service).
If the subway load factor is low enough during those hours, a subsidized Prius taxi service might well be cheaper, more fuel-efficient and less polluting.
I think the long-term future of public transport in general is most likely to be some kind of automated taxi service. The taxis will be fully-automated, driverless, zero-pollution electric vehicles. Rail and buses will mostly disappear. Only conventional transit systems that are really hard to completely replace with road vehicles (e.g., the New York subway) will likely survive. I would be surprised if the United States does not have an extensive automated taxi system by, say, 2040 or 2050.
Ahh, the unanswerable question of How many carbon-accountants does it take to smash a lightbulb?
In case you don't get it, how the hell do you raise the cost of something without counting it? If you can't account for it, you can't control it and you can't raise its cost.
So we can set the price of cocaine, and keep it illegal... great!