Winter storm Uri’s merciless assault on the United States this week resurrected climate change as the meme du jour. Joe Biden’s revocation of the Keystone XL pipeline permit provided the perfect backdrop for these attacks on the so-called “green agenda,” some of which were so ridiculous one would wonder if they were actually satire. Many of them seem styled in the same rhetorical methodologies we have seen proliferated during the Trump era; meaning, mostly a direct denial or complete ignorance of the reality that is evident before our eyes. It has become clear that climate change denial was never about skepticism of the science, it was always about lining the pockets of oil companies and big businesses that rely on them.
Mixed in with the “big oil” agenda pieces are some ideas that indicate genuine misunderstanding. Neither I nor anyone else will ever convince someone to change their minds on this topic if they have already cemented their opinion, but I do seek to help clarify these facts for anyone who may be undecided or just want to learn more about what is being discussed in the bowels of social media. In this piece, I will discuss some of the most egregious internet memes related to climate change and explain where they are wrong and where they are right. Hopefully, we will dispel the real climate change hoax… the one that says “nothing is wrong.”
The Winter Weather Proves We Need Fossil Fuels
First, this was never in dispute. Plans for climate change mitigation (Green New Deal, for instance) have ALWAYS included some amount of fossil fuels. Until we develop efficient and long lasting electricity storage (i.e. batteries), we will always have a need for the flexibility afforded by natural gas plants in particular.
Electricity generation is difficult because the production must closely match the demand, and the demand is constantly changing. During surge times, fossil fuel plants will be required to take up the gap. The goals of climate change remediation are to REDUCE the amount of fossil fuels we use, not necessarily to eliminate them entirely. Saving natural gas for the times in which it is truly needed is smart economically and ecologically.
We have long known that we will never be able to reduce our carbon footprint to zero. It’s impossible. But we CAN achieve NET zero emissions, meaning we may still produce carbon dioxide, but we remove the same amount that we produce from the atmosphere. That way, we can burn a limited amount of fossil fuels for times they are truly needed without increasing our contribution to climate change.
Green energy can’t keep up
This is simply not true. There are dozens of countries that are “greener” than the United States, including our neighbor Canada (whose territory provided us with this lovely polar vortex). In Canada, fossil fuels make up only 18% of electricity production. In the United States, 80% of our energy consumed comes from fossil fuels. If Canada can do it, so can we. Even if we only get down to 20% or so, that will make a huge difference in preventing us from further warming of the planet.
We can’t afford renewable energy
Not true. Wind, solar, and hydro are cheaper than any other energy source at about 2.9 to 4.2 cents per kW-hr. The next closest is natural gas at 4.4 to 7.3 cents per kW-hr. Solar technology has come a long way, and it is now the cheapest method of energy production that we have. Hydroelectric has the added advantage of adaptability; the water discharge rate can be readily adjusted up and down to account for demand.
Biden killed thousands of jobs by cancelling Keystone
Most of these jobs were temporary jobs. These contractors will be free to take up other contracts building other projects that won’t have a detrimental effect on society. Yes, it would have created about 3,900 – 1 year FTE jobs at a cost of almost $1 billion in wages – to produce something that in a few years could have little or no value to society. In total, the Keystone pipeline would only create 35 permanent jobs, some of which are in Canada. The pipeline’s main purpose was to bring Canadian oil to the Gulf for export. This project really doesn’t even benefit the United States. We would be better off to take those 3,900 FTEs and $1billion in wages (which, by the way, is only $25,000 per year – more than minimum wage, but not exactly high-paying) and put them to work rebuilding our crumbling railways, bridges, power grid, and telecommunications. If they really are specific to pipeline building, put them to work replacing our miles and miles of deteriorating and lead-lined water mains throughout the country instead.
Texas is FROZEN, therefore Global WARMING is a myth
This seems logical given a superficial understanding of what 2 degrees of warming actually means. When climate scientists talk about atmospheric warming, they are talking about a change in the average temperature across the globe. While it may be true that temperatures and climate hasn’t changed dramatically in Missouri, smaller changes near the poles can have a dramatic effect that extends out past the local area. For instance, in the past 50 years, the average temperature in Antarctica has increased by 5 degrees Fahrenheit compared to a global average of 1.6 degrees Fahrenheit. Ocean temperatures in this region have gone up accordingly. This means more ice melts each year, causing rising sea levels. In the Artic, sea ice minimums have decreased every year, as you can see in the fascinating video from Nasa below.
Ocean temperatures are also directly responsible for almost all weather events on Earth. So, as the oceans grow hotter, they have more energy to dissipate via the weather. It’s no wonder some of our largest and most destructive hurricanes and weather events have happened in the last decade.
This is the point. Small changes on the Earth can have magnified affects that far outsize the reported “2 degrees.” Because that is an average, if Texas is 30 degrees below average, but Siberia is 40 degrees above average, that could indicate a problem. The increase in global temperature averages means more energy to create more extremes in weather. Though the average may not seem to change a significant amount, the minimums and maximums could make life on Earth unlivable one day. After all, a world with a nighttime temperature of -100 degrees F and a daytime temperature of 250 degrees F would average out to a comfortable 75 degrees. Even so, that is not an Earth that I would want to live on.
Environmental regulations cost too much and send jobs overseas.
Admittedly, this one is not really specific to the current moment, but I feel like it is relevant nonetheless. My first rebuttal to this complaint is simply, “do you want to live in a world that looks like this?”
The Great Smog of 1952 in London killed at least 4,000 people and prompted the British government to pass their Clean Air Act, prohibiting the burning of coal in urban areas and incentivizing homeowners to switch to cleaner forms of heat. Before similar legislation in the United States, smog would bath cities like Los Angeles and New York in a toxic layer of soot. This is the world that deregulationists would have us return to.
Things like air and water are public goods. We all have access to them and they cannot be completely controlled by a private market. Because we all own the air and waters, the costs of a polluting factory are borne by all of society in some form. If a factory is allowed to pollute without restraint, it will most certainly make that factory more productive and more profitable, because they are allowed to ignore a sizable portion of the cost of production.
Pollution is an example of a “negative externality,” or a cost of production that is laid on a third party. Someone must pay the cost of pollution, whether it be citizens with their decreased health, or the government in form of restoration efforts, or the factory in the form of preventing it in the first place. If the factory doesn’t have to account for these externalities in the cost of their product, the free market will overproduce the product compared to how it would if all relevant costs were factored into the price of the product.
Regulations take these negative externalities and force these costs to be accounted for. Regulations do usually make prices go up and quantities demanded to go down, but this only resets the market to the proper equilibrium point given all relevant costs. Paying more for a good or service because of regulation is a necessary evil to prevent the free market from destroying those resources that we all have access to.
It’s time to face reality
Whether we like it or not, climate change is real and our actions are directly contributing to it. Doing something about it will be hard, no doubt, but doing nothing will be harder.
This is the classic folly of supposed “fiscal responsibility” that Republican leaders have let us fall into. Local leaders (Dent County, Missouri, included), are often lauded and elected on their promises for a balanced budget and to decrease spending as much as possible. This often comes at the expense of paying for every day maintenance on public buildings and services. For instance, instead of spending money on a yearly basis to maintain the county jail, leadership waited until it was completely dilapidated and in need of total replacement, which ultimately cost taxpayers nearly $13 million when the new facility was constructed.
The same principle is true of climate change. We can start paying now by reducing our usage of fossil fuels and changing out habits, or we can pay with interest in the years or decades to come by rebuilding entire cities as they are engulfed by rising seas or destroyed by more intense storms. We will pay as hundreds of millions become climate refugees and need financial support. We will pay as billions starve or die of dehydration as the farmland shrivels and the aquafers dry up.
We can continue to live like things will never change, or we can live to make sure they won’t.
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