LANDSLIDE WINNER, PRESIDENT-ELECT OBAMA TO FIGHT PLANET EARTH LANDSLIDES

As the U.S. transitioned from a President that would not acknowledge global climate change to a President that intends to fight it, a furor erupted over a supposedly “suppressed” interview President-elect Barack Obama gave the San Francisco Chronicle some weeks ago.

President-elect Obama, who triumphed in the presidential race by a landslide electoral margin (338-163 and counting) and a convincing popular vote majority (52% to 46%), admitted in the Chronicle interview his plan to cut greenhouse gases (GhGs) and join the world’s fight against global climate change might put short-term upward pressure on utility prices.

President-elect Obama: "Under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket. Even regardless of what I say about whether coal is good or bad. Because I'm capping greenhouse gases…they would have to retrofit their operations. That will cost money. They will pass that money on to consumers…you can already see what the arguments will be during the general election. People will say, 'Ah, Obama and Al Gore, these folks, they're going to destroy the economy, this is going to cost us eight trillion dollars,' or whatever their number is."

The interview was not suppressed but made public on the Chronicle's website and at Brightcove TV. Obama's opponents simply did not make use of it.

As reported by representatives of the conservative Cato Institute, Obama’s candor was welcome.

Jerry Taylor and Peter Van Doren, senior fellows, Cato Institute: “…Obama's frank confession about what his climate change policies will mean to electricity consumers is one very good reason why so many conservative and libertarian intellectuals are gravitating toward his candidacy. It's not that right-wing thinkers necessarily endorse his climate change policies. It's that right-wing thinkers are increasingly tired of Republican hypocrisy and make-believe policy fights.”

By the numbers: President-elect Obama’s goal is to cut GhGs 80% by 2050. Had the U.S. joined the fight against global climate change 8 years ago, the process might have been more gradual. As with the economic circumstances the nation now faces, it is too late to escape the pain and win the prize.

In fact, the plan proposed by President-elect Obama’s opponent Senator McCain would have necessitated some cost burden as well. The Warner-Lieberman (formerly McCain-Lieberman) bill now awaiting action by the U.S. Senate cuts GhGs 70% by 2050 but could raise yearly energy costs $30-to-$325 per household by 2020 (with another bump to 2030). It also might cut U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) 1%-to-3% to 2030.

Like the newly elected President, these numbers are realistic. Many studies, however, suggest the costs for developing New Energy and Energy Efficiency will be offset by economic expansion.

President-elect Obama has spoken boldly about developing a New Energy economy, more boldly than any sitting President. He wants to “strategically invest” $150 billion over 10 years to create 5 million New Energy and Energy Efficiency jobs. He wants to put 1 million plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs) on the road by 2015. He wants the U.S. to get 10% of its electricity by 2012 and 25% by 2025. And he wants a cap-and-trade system to make doing the right thing smart and doing the wrong thing expensive.

More Obama straight talk from the Chronicle interview: "If somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can; it's just that it will bankrupt them because they're going to be charged a huge sum for all that greenhouse gas that's being emitted…"

Coal industry advocates rose in righteous indignitation at this, but here’s the question: If it was either supporting the dirty coal industry or stewarding the earth (and it is), which comes first?

There are New Energies but there is no new earth.

Moreover, President-elect Obama is not putting the coal industry out of business. He is simply inviting it to put up or shut up: If there is a way to the “clean” coal the industry keeps promising, it will be a spectacularly profitable undertaking - so bring it!

The Obama plan, meanwhile, will bring dramatic economic change. There is opportunity everywhere the sun shines, everywhere the wind blows, everywhere the oceans and rivers flow, everywhere the cars and trucks of the nation roll, everywhere the creative, productive engine of the American people goes.

No debate is the same today as it was yesterday. Not the oil drilling debate, not the nuclear or coal debates, not the climate change debate.

The only thing that is the same: Debate itself.

Taylor and Van Doren, Cato Institute, taking up the new argument: “How much would global temperatures go down if we put [the Obama] plan in place? Computer models suggest that the answer is only a small fraction of one degree Fahrenheit…Would the economic benefit of reducing global temperatures by that virtually immeasurable amount exceed $238-983 billion by 2030 (EPA's estimate of the cost of Lieberman-Warner that year)?”

Answer (1): According to the PREPONDERANCE of computer climate models, a cut of 80% in GhGs by mid-century will likely avoid the worst impacts of global climate change. A mere 2-to-3 degree average worldwide increase would likely have profound economic and human impacts.

Answer (2): According to the UK government’s Stern Review on the Economics of Climate Change, if the world is unwilling to invest 1% of GDP to fight climate change, climate change will cost the world up to 20% of GDP.

What every business person knows: You've got to spend money to make money.

New Energy for America. From everittjames via YouTube.

Obama’s The Candid Candidate On Energy
Jerry Taylor and Peter Van Doren, November 3, 2008 (Forbes)
and
FACTBOX—U.S. presidential candidates on energy issues
Ayesha Rascoe and Chris Baltimore (w/ David Gregorio), November 4, 2008 (Reuters)

WHO
President-elect Barack Obama; Energy Information Administration (EIA) of the U.S. Department of Energy; Environmental Protection Agency (EPA); Jerry Taylor and Peter Van Doren, senior fellows, Cato Institute; Senator Joe Lieberman (I-CN) and retiring Senator John Warner (R-VA), co-sponsors, climate change legislation

WHAT
Taylor and Van Doren applauded President-elect Obama for having the courage and honesty acknowledge the potential costs of his plan to fight global climate change.

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WHEN
- November 4, 2008: The first day of the rest of America’s fight against climate change.
- President-elect Obama’s energy plan calls for cutting GhGs 80% by 2050.

WHERE
- Global climate change is only a threat to earth at this time.
- There is no nation known to be exempt from the effects of global climate change.

WHY
- Per DOE’s EIA: The Lieberman-Warner climate change bill would cut GhGs 70% by 2050 with an annual increase in household energy costs of $30-to-$325 by 2020 and $76-to-$723 by 2030. Gasoline prices will be 22-to-49 cents/gallon higher in 2020 and 41 cents-to-$1.01 higher in 2030.
- Per the EPA: gross domestic product will be reduced 1%-to- 3.8% by 2030 and 2.4%-to- 6.9% in 2050.
- Per Taylor and Van Doren: The costs of the Obama and McCain plans to fight climate change would be comparable.
- The Obama New Energy For America plan:
(1) Provide short-term relief to American families facing pain at the pump
(2) Help create five million new jobs by strategically investing $150 billion over the next ten years to catalyze private efforts to build a clean energy future.
(3) Within 10 years save more oil than we currently import from the Middle East and Venezuela combined.
(4) Put 1 million Plug-In Hybrid cars -- cars that can get up to 150 miles per gallon -- on the road by 2015, cars that we will work to make sure are built here in America.
(5) Ensure 10 percent of our electricity comes from renewable sources by 2012, and 25 percent by 2025.
(6) Implement an economy-wide cap-and-trade program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 80 percent by 2050.

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QUOTES
- Senator Joe Lieberman (I-Conn), author, Liberman-Warner bil: "Two separate government analyses have now come to the same conclusion…Our bill curbs global warming without harming the U.S. economy."
- President-elect Obama: “The challenges that tomorrow will bring are the greatest of our lifetime…There’s new energy to be harnessed…We will get there. I promise you that we as a people will get there…”