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A4 THE DAILY ASTORIAN " FRIDAY, FEbRuARY 15, 2019 OPINION editor@dailyastorian.com KARI BORGEN Publisher JIM VAN NOSTRAND Editor Founded in 1873 JEREMY FELDMAN Circulation Manager JOHN D. BRUIJN Production Manager CARL EARL Systems Manager PRO-CON Is the Green New Deal worth its price tag? AP Photo/Eric Gay Flames erupt in 2014 from a natural gas flare near oil pump jacks in the Bakken fields near Watford City, N.D. PRO: Ignoring climate change far exceeds price of dealing with it CON: Green New Deal will be all pain and no gain G W REEN BAY, Wis. 4 The idea of a change. Green New Deal has risen fast on According to a recent Brookings Insti- tution study, much of that damage will the nation9s political agenda. likely occur in states that voted for Donald Many congressional Democrats ond value in its impact on climate change as Trump. Perhaps residents eventually will well as social and economic justice goals see the economic logic of acting on cli- mate change. they hope to put center stage in the 2020 In 2017, record storms, noods and elections. The media have seized on the idea, wildores in the U.S. cost an estimated favorably and not, in part because Rep. $306 billion in damages. In 2018, NOAA Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez backs it. reported that 14 weather disasters cost the Along with Sen. Ed Markey of Mas- nation at least $1 billion each and killed sachusetts, she is co-sponsoring a non- more than 247 people. The total price tag binding congressional resolution for a for the nation9s economy was nearly $100 Green New Deal that calls for a <10-year billion. national mobilization= to shift away from How much is it worth to reduce such fossil fuels in response to climate change. damage in the future? Surely the question Their Green New Deal also calls for merits careful study. Moreover, it is likely major economic reforms and infrastruc- that many policy actions will pay for ture investments to stimulate job themselves through averted costs creation and economic growth and of this kind. to promote greater social and eco- As is the case with most policy nomic equity. proposals, advocates for change These are ideas that are con- must defend the specioc recom- mendations against skeptics. This sistent with emerging views of will take place in congressional the Democratic Party9s progres- sive wing. To judge from recent Michael E. hearings and around the country. Kraft polls, they also have strong sup- Many states and localities have port among voters in both politi- taken signiocant actions on cli- mate change, renewable energy, cal parties. Of course, the combination of diverse energy conservation and efociency as well and unrelated proposals, many still being as sustainable economic development. neshed out, makes serious evaluation of Some advocates favor advancing nuclear a Green New Deal difocult. Think vision power in this mix and others do not. statement or framework more than pol- National policies could build on what ished plan. Many details can be found in these states and localities already have a 40-page report by Data for Progress and accomplished. others will be forthcoming. For example, carbon taxes, including The short answer to the core question rebate systems where fees imposed on car- bon sources are fully returned to citizens, is that a Green New Deal in some form may well be feasible as well as affordable. have decreased reliance on oil, coal and natural gas. Much depends on which formulation is More broadly, we need to ogure out being assessed, over what time, and with how best to calculate the economic ben- what assumptions about overall costs and eots of acting on climate change and beneots for the American people, and for addressing major threats to public health that matter, the world. As expected, conservatives have been and well-being. This is a national conver- sation very much worth having right now. quick to denounce the proposal as irre- sponsible and costly. They tend to dis- Doing so is vastly better than merely count burdens already imposed by a rap- rejecting climate change as science oction idly changing climate, and the enormous or dismissing the idea of governmental risks and costs posed by climate change intervention as too bold or costly even to for the future. consider. Let9s get started on that debate. A major scientioc report from 13 fed- Michael E. Kraft is professor emeri- eral agencies last November estimated that tus of political science and environmental affairs at the university of Wisconsin at the U.S. economy could shrink as much Green bay. as 10 percent by 2100 because of climate ASHINGTON 4 The Green ous goals is that moving to 100 percent New Deal sounds really good. renewable energy within 10 (or many But as the details start to come more) years is impossible. About 80 percent of America9s energy out, it looks worse and worse. comes from coal, oil and natural gas. In fact, the costs would be stupen- dous, and the damage done by its poli- After decades of multi-billion dollar cies would be catastrophic. subsidies, wind and solar accounted for 9 percent of electricity produced in 2017. First, how much will it cost? One of From 9 percent to 100 percent is a the main promoters of the Green New long way to go, and replacing all the gas- Deal, freshman Rep. Alexandria Oca- sio-Cortez, said recently that paying for oline and diesel cars, trucks and tractors it may require raising the top tax rate with electric vehicles will require much on incomes above $10 million to 70 more renewable power. percent. This not only won9t happen; it can9t The experts developing the Green happen. That9s because the electric grid New Deal openly admit that it will cost becomes unstable and unmanageable not billions, but rather trillions of dol- as the percentage of power produced lars. Although how many trillions by intermittent and variable sources is open to debate, the fact is that the increases. money will have to come from Twenty percent wind and somewhere. solar poses problems; 50 percent threatens blackouts and collapse. Progressive economists have But what about battery storage? argued that the federal govern- ment can print as much money Alas, the technology avail- able for the foreseeable future as it needs and that spend- ing so much will fully mobilize can provide minutes of expensive Myron backup power, not hours or days. the economy and thereby create Ebell The Green New Dealers reply growth. How has that worked out that the climate crisis is so dire in Venezuela? that we must do whatever it takes Second, what are these pol- icies that will cost so much? Accord- to stop it. But even a green leap back- ing to Ocasio-Cortez, the plan within 10 wards will not stop global greenhouse years must transition <the U.S. economy gas levels from increasing. to become greenhouse gas emissions Chinese emissions are now higher neutral.= than the U.S. and Europe combined and This would likely require replacing still growing. And Indian emissions are all coal, oil and natural gas used for elec- increasing rapidly as hundreds of mil- tricity generation and transportation with lions of people start to climb out of renewable energy, upgrading all build- energy poverty. ings to state-of-the-art energy efociency The good news is that although global warming may present long-term chal- and a whole lot more. lenges, it9s not an immediate crisis, However, turning our energy econ- omy upside down in a decade is only despite the dire warnings of politicized part of the Green New Deal. scientists. Income redistribution and social jus- The rate of warming over the past 40 tice must be accomplished at the same years has been modest, and the demon- strable impacts have been mild. The time. Thus the federal government must experts predicting doom ignore the create a <job guarantee program to data and rely on discredited computer assure a living wage job to every person models. who wants one.= What would cause a real, immediate It must also mitigate <deeply crisis is for Congress to enact the back- entrenched racial, regional and gen- der-based inequalities in income and to-the-Dark-Ages policies of the Green wealth= and <ensure a 8just transition9 New Deal. for all workers, low-income communi- Myron Ebell is director of the Center ties, indigenous communities,= etc. for Energy and Environment at the Com- petitive Enterprise Institute. The obstacle to achieving these dubi-
