Rethinking the Economy » Green Economy

Michael Pollan: Stopping Subsidies for Less Healthy Food Isn’t Enough

RethinkEcon — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 06:08:41 +0000

One of the reasons why most folks in the US eat lots of dairy, meat, and junk food instead of organic, locally grown fruits and vegetables is because it’s a lot cheaper – the government subsidizes the cost of meat, dairy, and junk food. What if we flipped those subsidies around? Michael Pollan says it might not make as much of a difference as you’d think.

Though crop subsidies certainly helped to make corn (and its boon companion, soy) the mainstay of our food system, eliminating those subsidies might not by itself be enough to topple king corn. Decades of crop breeding, advances in farm machinery and the building of a rural infrastructure all devoted to these crops means a Midwestern farmer can produce a bumper crop of corn with just a couple months of work while at the same time holding down another job. Growing anything else would mean a lot more time and work in the fields, and at this point that farmer probably depends on the other source of income.

As for subsidizing vegetables, that, too, is trickier than it seems. Subsidies tend to result in surpluses, which in the case of grain is fine: you can store surplus corn or soy in a silo for years. Try doing that with broccoli. In the case of “specialty crops” — the U.S.D.A.’s term for crops you can actually eat — we would be better off subsidizing demand rather than supply: giving vouchers to the poor to buy fresh produce, say, or incentives to retailers to lower prices in the produce section.

So then what do we do if we want to make organic, locally grown fruits & vegetables affordable?

This is the $64,000 question. There are certainly steps the government can take to make healthful food somewhat less expensive: underwrite farmers’ transition to organic and other kinds of sustainable agriculture; support the renaissance in local meat production by making it easier to build and run small slaughterhouses; use crop subsidies to reward farmers for diversifying their fields and growing real food rather than “commodity crops” like corn and soy; enforce federal antitrust laws to break up the big meatpackers and seed companies.

But these measures will never make high-quality food as cheap as industrial food, some of which will only get more expensive if we take the steps needed to civilize feedlots, clean up water and protect farmworkers from exploitation. Faux populists in the food industry battle such measures on the grounds they want to keep food prices low for the poor. But the institution of slavery kept crop prices low, too — at a cost we ultimately decided was too great for a democratic society to pay. (Come to think of it, slavery still exists in parts of the food system, according to reports out of Florida.) Cheap food has become a pillar of our low-wage economy, one reason Americans have managed to stay afloat as their wages have declined since the 1970s. In the end, if we want healthful and conscientiously produced food for everyone, we’re simply going to have to pay people enough so that they can afford to buy it.

I don’t know enough about the economics of food to know if he’s right. But even if he is, I think we could do better than “we’re simply going to have to pay people enough.” I bet a smart Agro economist could figure out a way to subsidize vegetables that didn’t result in massive surpluses. And there’s an awful lot we could do on the demand side on a large scale if we wanted to.

For example, when I used to work in downtown DC, due to government subsidies my employer automatically added $50 a month to my Metro card, which basically made going to & from work by mass transit free. What if we are to create something similar for organic, locally grown fruits & vegetables? We already have Health Savings Accounts that subsidize you by not taxing money you put into the account. Why not Food Health Savings Accounts where the government would put in a certain amount every month into your account? If it’s set up like a debit card, the way my HSA is, it shouldn’t be rocket science to make it work well for consumers, grocery stores, and farmers (assuming we also tackled the “food desert” problem in poor neighborhoods).

But Michael Pollan is right about one thing: figuring out how to Stack the Odds in favor of healthier diets will definitely take some work.

You Just Can’t Make This Stuff Up

RethinkEcon — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 07:23:16 +0000

I really would like to stop writing about the Solyndra pseudo-scandal, but the Republicans are making it hard. The latest: House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa, who’s been leading the charge, explains why denouncing the idea of government loan guarantees while fighting hard to get them for your district isn’t hypocrisy:

Issa defended Republican lawmakers who sought the loan guarantees on behalf of constituents.

“Members of Congress will always ask for money from whatever pool is available to help their constituents,” Issa said. “The question is—and Solyndra is an example—is the process one in which it is truly competitive and is without political interference.”

I think we have a new definition of chutzpah.

Engineers to Pols: Stop Pretending We Can’t Solve the Climate Crisis Because We Don’t Have the Tech

RethinkEcon — Tue, 27 Sep 2011 07:13:20 +0000

This just in: engineers are pissed off enough that they are calling politicians on their shit around the climate crisis (hat tip to Jess Zimmerman):

The technology needed to cut the world’s greenhouse gas emissions by 85% by 2050 already exists, according to a joint statement by eleven of the world’s largest engineering organisations.

The statement was presented on Friday 23 September to the South African Deputy High Commissioner ahead of December’s COP17 climate change talks in Durban.

The statement says that generating electricity from wind, waves and the sun, growing biofuels sustainably, zero emissions transport, low carbon buildings and energy efficiency technologies have all been demonstrated. However they are not being developed for wide-scale use fast enough and there is a desperate need for financial and legislative support from governments around the world if they are to fulfil their potential.

Dr Colin Brown, Director of Engineering at the Institution of Mechanical Engineers – one of the eleven organisations supporting the statement – said:

“While the world’s politicians have been locked in talks with no output, engineers across the globe have been busy developing technologies that can bring down emissions and help create a more stable future for the planet.

“We are now overdue for government commitment, with ambitious, concrete emissions targets that give the right signals to industry, so they can be rolled out on a global scale.”

The statement calls for:

•A global commitment at Durban to a peak in greenhouse gas emissions by 2020, followed by substantial reductions by 2050;
•Governments to ensure that green policies do not unfairly and unintentionally act to the detriment of one particular industry or country;
•Intensive effort to train and retrain workforces to ensure we have the right skills for the new industries that will spring up around green technologies;
•A heavier emphasis to be placed on boosting energy efficiency, which is the best available measure to bring down emissions in the short and medium term.

The eleven organisations include the Danish Society of Engineers (IDA), India’s Institution of Engineers (IEI), Germany’s Association of Engineers (VDI), Australia’s Association of Professional Engineers, Scientists and Managers (APESMA) and the UK’s Institution of Mechanical Engineers (IMechE). Collectively they represent over 1.2 million engineers spanning four continents.

10 out of 23 Republican Reps Recommend Do as I Say, Not as I Do

RethinkEcon — Mon, 26 Sep 2011 07:07:54 +0000

The dustup over Solyndra’s failure is getting more entertaining. Courtesy of a NYT editorial, a great stat. Even by Republican standards, this is pretty impressive:

at least 10 of the 23 Republicans on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee — including Mr. Issa — have lobbied the Department of Energy to approve green projects in their own districts

These are the same House Republicans who have been fiercely arguing that the failure of Solyndra, which got government loan guarantees, shows the futility of picking winners and losers. ‘Nuff said.

Silver Lining for Enviros in Bad Budget News?

RethinkEcon — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 22:54:02 +0000

What will the deficit-cutting mania mean for the environment? In a sick, twisted way, says Jeff Goodell, it might be good news:

environmental and clean energy activists have no choice now but to reevaluate their strategy now the federal government is being strangled to death…

As Joe Romm of the Center for American Progress points out, the deficit deal means that federal spending on energy and environmental issues will be slashed for years to come.

So maybe this is the “fuck ‘em” moment. Maybe this is the moment when enviros and clean-energy advocates stop being quite so polite and deferential. Maybe more people will climb trees located on mountaintop-removal sites in an effort to stop the blasting. Maybe more climate activists will think about the climate change not as an international problem to be resolved in an air-conditioned meeting hall, but as a guerilla war to be fought in the streets. (That’s certainly how the Sierra Club is thinking about it with their Beyond Coal campaign, and it attracted the attention – in the form of $50 million – from New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg.) All the real action is in the states now anyway: the northeast has a carbon-trading system up and running, California is pushing hard to speed the adoption of electric cars, New Jersey is pioneering innovative ways to finance solar power, and many states are adopting increasingly aggressive renewable portfolio standards.

Yeah, it’s a bleak time. And if the economy continues to tank, all bets are off. But for years, climate activists have been wondering what it would take to wake people up to how much is at stake in these climate and energy battles. Some thought an epic drought would do it. Or a series of freak hurricanes. Or the sudden calving of a massive ice sheet in Greenland. But the one thing nobody considered was a budget battle.

Color me skeptical — but I hope I’m wrong. Changing direction is really, really hard. I hope they can pull it off.

Google Says: More Clean Energy Now or Fewer Jobs & Profits Later

RethinkEcon — Thu, 30 Jun 2011 07:29:08 +0000

Does pushing for cleaner energy kill jobs & growth? No, says Google (via Grist’s Stephen Lacey). In fact, waiting will cost us dearly:

Google, a leader of innovation in the digital economy, says that without a private and public focus on innovation in renewables, storage, and electric vehicles, the cost of delaying the clean energy economy could be in the trillions of dollars to the U.S. economy.

Using McKinsey’s macroeconomic tool for modeling energy costs, they found that

by 2030, innovation in the modeled technologies alone could have a transformative impact on the US, adding over $155 billion per year in GDP and 1.1 million net jobs, while reducing household energy costs by $942 per year, oil consumption by 1.1 billion barrels per year, and GHG emissions by 13% relative to BAU. By 2050, annual gains in GDP increase to $600 billion, net additional jobs to 3.9 million, and emissions reductions to 55%.

And if we don’t? Lacey summarizes Google’s findings:

delaying this “innovation arms race” by as little as five years with inconsistent policy that slows private investment (a delay not unlikely in the U.S.) could result in $2.3-$3.2 trillion in unrealized GDP gains — costing the U.S. over a million new jobs and preventing the reduction of up to 28 gigatons of CO2.

One more example of how Stacking the Odds in Favor of the Good Guys pays off.

Dave Roberts: $300 Million Fund to Stomp Anti-Green Dems

RethinkEcon — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 09:55:16 +0000

Going after players like the Chamber of Commerce is a good idea for greens. But, says Grist’s Dave Roberts, how about also rattling some Dem’s cages?

It would be a terrible mistake for climate hawks to abandon the top-down/money field of battle and decamp entirely to People Politics…. The problem is that greens have been playing the top-down game badly. And it’s not from lack of money — depending on how you tally it up, they spent between $200 million and $300 million just in the last year or so on the climate-bill battle. That’s more than enough money to do some damage, if it’s spent well.

Spending well means inspiring fear. So here’s my proposal:

First, green groups abandon the pretense that they are nonpartisan education groups. It’s a legacy model that makes no sense in current circumstances. The Republican Party has officially and irredeemably aligned itself against public health and a clean energy economy. That’s not greens’ fault — it’s part of a process of the parties ideologically clarifying that’s been going on for decades — but it is what it is. No sense pretending otherwise. That means shifting lots and lots of resources out of 501(c)3’s and into 501(c)4’s and PACs.

Then, green groups all contribute to a common electoral fund. Build up, say, $300 million or so. Be public and explicit about what the money is for: not ads, not canvassing, not clever websites, nothing except primarying the next Dem who f*cks with them on a big priority issue like EPA climate regs. It’s just a big, loaded primary gun.

And then … use it. Take somebody out. My personal suggestion would be the loathsome Joe Manchin. Or if that’s too big a target to begin with, start smaller, with a few state attorneys general, mayors, even school board members. Collect some wins and work up the food chain….

The crucial thing is, the challenges can’t be a half-ass. They have to work — they have to cost someone a seat. They have to be well-planned and well-executed.

Amen!

Greens Go after Chamber of Commerce

RethinkEcon — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 07:45:10 +0000

A little more than a year ago, I wrote a snarky post about Bill McKibben’s plans for 350.org; it didn’t seem like he had a real analysis of power or a real game plan. A year and a quarter later, it’s a different story. 350.org has merged with 1Sky and Naomi Klein has joined their board. And as far as I can tell, one major reason why Klein has signed up is because 350.org has a new strategy:

But it’s not enough to dreamily imagine the world we want. We also have to confront, head on, the forces that are determined to use their power and wealth to stop us. Which is why 350.org just launched a campaign targeting the deeply anti-democratic influence that major polluters have over the political process in Washington, starting with the biggest fish of them all, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce ( chamber.350.org).

I see this campaign as a breakthrough moment in the history of the climate movement, recognition that the struggles for economic justice, real democracy and a livable climate are all profoundly interconnected. As 350.org founder Bill McKibben puts it: unless we go after the “money pollution,” no campaign against real pollution stands a chance. The same can be said for any progressive goal, from labor rights to net neutrality. As we recognize these (and many other) connections among our various “issues,” I am convinced that a new kind of climate movement will emerge, one that is larger, deeper and more powerful than anything we have seen yet.

Going after the Chamber of Commerce is a really smart idea. In part it’s doing to the Chamber what other folks have been doing to the Koch Brothers: starting to undermine their power by turning them into a lightning rod. But unlike the Koch Brothers, it’s a lot easier to do lots of self-organized actions aimed at the Chamber of Commerce — it has a visible presence in every state and virtually every city in the US.

And unlike the Kocks, 350.org can put economic pressure on the Chamber by pushing Chamber members to quit. Here’s the call to action on chamber.350.org:

Join us in standing with small business owners, local chambers of commerce and people all over the country to declare, “The U.S. Chamber Doesn’t Speak for Me.”

__ I own or represent a business
__ I can help recruit businesses in my area

This is a long way away from Senate vigils.

And at the same time that 350.org is directly messing with the Chamber’s economic base, signing up businesses is a great way to confront the Chamber’s message:

For too long now, much of the media and political establishment have assumed that the US Chamber is the voice of business. That is simply not true. As more companies – large and small – adopt socially responsible and triple bottom line (people, planet, profit) practices, organizations like the American Sustainable Business Council are stepping up to influence public policies at the state and federal level on a wide range of issues.

Now is the time to take on the Chamber not only the around the climate change challenge, but also to build the business case for a broader sustainable economy. Addressing climate change needs to be pursued in a manner that the ‘financial bottom line’ is honored as well as the ‘environment bottom line’ and the ‘social justice bottom line’. Responding to the climate change challenge offers not only a unique business opportunity but also a moment to remake our economy so that people and communities matter as much as profit.

Changing strategy like this is pretty rare. Bill McKibben deserves real props — and your support.

The Banana Peel Institute?

RethinkEcon — Fri, 01 Apr 2011 07:34:18 +0000

An interesting idea from Alexis Madrigal, via an interview with Grist’s David Roberts:

DR: Your book is about a series of failures, but it shows that there are better and worse failures. Some increase our knowledge, but in some cases, a bunch of work and thought and science just goes poof. How do we fail well in greentech?

AM: The key thing is, we know that most startups are going to fail. The No. 1 policy we could put into place would be to make sure that companies taking government money — on the assumption that it’s a public good they’re doing — have to give up some of their data on how well things worked, how well things didn’t work. Create a library of failure and success. That would be incredibly useful.

Go back and look at all of those ’80s wind companies. Maybe some of them were doing great, and they just collapsed because the leader of the company was a cokehead. We don’t know why a lot of places fail.

This should be a conservative argument: If the American taxpayer going to pay to support the development of these technologies, we want to get the most return on our investment. The key is recording and sharing information. Even though they don’t exist now, there could be structures and policies in place to make that happen.

Less Greenhouse Gas, More Cash

RethinkEcon — Wed, 23 Mar 2011 07:50:09 +0000

So far, most economic models have shown that cutting greenhouse gas emissions will reduce growth, but only by a little. But a study commissioned by the German government argues that it could actually increase GDP — and not just by a little.

Increasing the EU’s 2020 greenhouse gas reduction target from 20% to 30% could help boosting European investments from 18% to 22% of GDP, leading to a GDP increase of up to €620bn ($840bn) and the creation of up to 6 millions additional jobs.

The reason for the big difference? A different set of assumptions:

Traditional models assume a ‘single stable equilibrium’, where investments are determined by an assumption of business-as-usual economic trends. The financial crisis however has exposed the fact that different expectations can lead to different investment behaviors, turning those expectations into self-fulfilling prophecies. The new model highlights the importance of policy in shaping investors’ expectations, leading to a virtuous circle of increased investments, faster ‘learning by doing’ in technology and manufacturing and enhanced expectations by investors in the market.

Or as the lead author of the report, Professor Carlo C. Jaeger from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, says:

“In traditional economic models, reducing greenhouse gas emissions incurs an extra cost in the short term which is justified by avoiding long term damages. However what we are showing here is that by credibly engaging on the transition to a low-carbon economy through the adoption of an ambitious target and adequate policies, Europe will find itself in a win-win situation of increasing economic growth while reducing greenhouse gases”.