Sat 10 Dec 2005
Matthew Simonson has a column in the Nov. 30 Record pointing out that the environment is something all of us should be concerned about.
Just because a majority of Williams students don’t go to Greensense meetings or e-mail College Council about paper towels doesn’t mean they think protecting their environment is unimportant. Likewise, in the country at large, environmentalists are not the only ones who care about the environment. From backyard astronomers who abhor smog and excessive lighting, to recreational hunters and fishermen who enjoy the outdoors, environmentalism is a concern of millions of Americans, even if they don’t call it that. In the end, environmentalism can’t be rightfully classified as a special interest. It affects all of us.
This is obviously true. Those of us who find some of the campus environmentalist groups a little too zealous for our tastes, however, do not argue that the environment does not matter. Instead, we recognize that environmental concerns have to be weighed against other concerns.
For example, environmental regulations limit economic freedom, which in turn stifles economic growth. So we should ask ourselves whether it is fair for first world countries to ask third world countries to act as oxygen sweatshops for the West by encouraging growth stifling regulations on their economies. Further, As Sen. Kennedy and Walter Cronkite have recently demonstrated by refusing to have windmills built in the Nantucket Sound visible from their Cape Cod homes, there is a tradeoff between “environmentally-friendly” sources of energy and the natural beauty we each enjoy.
Matt points out at one point that recently two dozen House Republicans got cold feet during reconciliation about opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for drilling. Yet it’s worth also looking at why the Labor-HHS approps bill got sent back to committee. Namely, over the extent to which the federal government should be providing low-income heating assistance. It is probably not worthwhile to have a debate over ANWR on this message board, but there is a certain irony in simultaneously voting to limit supply while complaining that prices are too high.
So I agree with Matthew that the environment matters, but the more interesting questions are what tradeoffs are required when we become too religious in our desire to protect the environment and whether government regulation is really the best way to evaluate these tradeoffs.
December 10th, 2005 at 9:52 pm
Hmm….
Its interesting that you oppose environmental regulation because it puts economic restrictions on developing countries. When last I checked, developing countries werent the ones consuming the largest amounts of energy per capita.
December 10th, 2005 at 10:08 pm
A democratic society involves the balancing of the three legged stool of freedom/order/equity.
December 10th, 2005 at 10:21 pm
Ananda,
First: how long do you expect that situation to last?
Second: are you accusing Mike of a “backdoor” argument that uses the image of developing countries to justify looser regulatory environments in developing countries?
Jeff:
The question of ANWR is not “if” but “when.” Oil prices are not going to fall; I’m not privy to US planning, but I can tell you that Mexico’s national planning assumes total world depletion by 2080-2085. That is discounting recent rather serious considerations that the Saudi supply may be far short of projections. If we have already reached “peak oil”– or will certainly reach it by 2015 (Mexico assumes 2008), what is the best strategic choice for ANWR?
December 10th, 2005 at 10:22 pm
That should have been “Mike” in place of “Jeff” above. Apologies.
December 10th, 2005 at 11:41 pm
Mike,
On the issue of wind power, I have always been amazed at the strong opposition to windmills in developed countries. As the example you use pointedly remarks, it certainly seems a case of the haves dictating to the have-nots.
Rural Kentucky has one of the world’s most incomparable landscapes– more than a rival to the Berkshires or northern Scotland or the Bohemian lands, to name some of my other favorites. In the next half-century, Kentucky’s environment faces challenges far graver than those facing the Berkshires– and you will see me begging Williams’ community for help in that preservation in coming months and years.
As the folks in Kellogg house have recently pointed out, the physical landscape of the Berkshires is the result of a specific (agrarian) economy. Any solutions to the challenges facing the Berkshires and Kentucky will certainly be economic– and, equally obviously, no return to the previous agrarian economies is possible.
If Sen. Kennedy opposes windmills visible from Cape Cod, I will be glad to bring up the opportunity with Sen. McConnell’s staff. The windmill is a wonderful symbol of self-sufficiency, and I can imagine few future alterations to the Landschaftsmalerei of rural Kentucky, and to our rolling hills and hollow, our moors and fens, more beautiful and welcome, than their being dotted with a series of rising smooth and sweeping green towers, the kind of five-hundred foot momuments to the future that Germany is now building in the North Sea.
If the People of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts are willing to pay more for their electricity to preserve the Hon. Sen. Kennedy’s weekend view– then so be it. The People of Massachusetts can afford it– the People of the Commonwealth of Kentucky cannot. And I am only too glad to imagine the Commonwealth of Kentucky selling wind-generated power to Massachusetts, to subsidize our price of electricity and our heating assistance.
Where Matt’s article speaks of a “Deep South–” please pause to consider that the United States contain a desparately poor and developing nation within themselves. We build belching power plants because the Tennessee Valley Authority’s electricity must be the cheapest in the nation– and many of our people still cannot afford that rate. More people freeze to death each winter in our state of three and a half million, than in New York City. We desparately lack and need new technologies and development, and your attention, skills, knowledge, drive, talents.
Our youth– like so much of the rest of the worlds’– has long fled to the developed areas of the United States. Unlike many parts of the rest of the world, it has yet to be given substantive reasons to come back.
Everything that Massachusetts has, we desperately need. Those wind towers may ruin Sen. Kennedy’s view, but they are our future.
Many of Williams’ students– and the students of many other Massachusetts colleges and universities– have long given their time to insulate and improve the dwellings of residents of North Adams and so many other towns. Such valuable work is appreciated and important– instead of heating assistance, it lowers heating costs, reduces a significant recurring expense for many families, and lifts individuals from poverty. But please consider that no similar effort has yet occurred in states such as Kentucky, that our poor live in houses with little or no insulation, and that each winter month such individuals often face heating costs far greater than those of Western Massachusetts.
In another thread, we have been pausing to discuss Williams’ role in national responsibility– pause then to consider the enormous historical role that Williams and its students have played in Massachusetts and elsewhere. And please pause to consider that Kentucky– and so many other places across the world– desparately need similar institutions.
If you wish to see the current state of these lands which once moved Bobby Kennedy to tears– and for Bobby to ask how Americans could live like this?– any of you are welcome to visit. If Ted Kennedy has forgotten some of the real conditions that inspired his brothers’ visions– and, pointedly, their hatred of traditional liberalism– I hope that some of you may choose to revive those Massachusetts traditions.
And I’m told I give a hell of a tour.
December 11th, 2005 at 11:08 am
Kenneth: My personal view is that we should start exploration and drilling in the ANWR as soon as possible. In addition, we should tap into the oil and natural gas offshore of Alaska, in the Pacific, the eastern Gulf, and the Atlantic. We need to build more refineries and loosen regulations that prevent nuclear plants from being built. Like many problems, the solution is not government control, but economic progress providing new, innovative solutions.
Ironically, an ad for BP just showed up on Meet the Press bragging about their investments in new technology to prepare for the future.
With regards to wind power, my understanding is you would need to put windmills on about two-thirds of this country’s landmass to meet our energy needs. I have no doubt that their are some locations where it makes sense, all things considered, to build windmills, but I think nuclear power is the more significant solution.
Ananda: Poor nations use energy to the degree they do because they have unsophisticated economies. The solution is not to place restrictions on them, forcing them to remain unsophisticated economies (ie oxygen sweatshops), but to allow them to prosper and become more modern and sophisticated.
December 12th, 2005 at 3:30 pm
I agree with Mike that we need better refining capacity as a country — but rest assured, the decision of where and when refineries are built has long been in the hands of industry (US gov offers of military land this past year not withstanding). Refineries were privately closed in the 90’s to increase profit margins. You can’t blame oil companies now for deciding they can still make more money with fewer refineries. Or, maybe you can — but you’re talking about the government stepping in at that point.
Fuels are not scarce, not even if we’re talking in a scale of centuries of consumption. The cheapest fuels are scarce. Demand and technology are both ready to adapt to restricted supply or switches to natural gas (check out what Kuwait invests in these days).
And while I think there is still oil out there to be tapped into, and always will be internationally and domestically (Canadian tar sands, ANWR, etc.) I have to question the ultimate worth of pouring subsidy money into industry (or allowing new well sites) over simply allowing the market price to rise with long-term stability. We’re talking about a long-term problem, and our solutions should aim for the long term given that we have enough crutches to get us along in the short term as it is. Our gas is cheap and that greatly fuels our wealth, but surely we could increase productivity based on what we presently consume! There, David, is an obvious overlap between the envi people and any hard-nosed capitalist one might scrounge up. There are good economic reasons why MPG averages should go up, and subsidies to US auto makers and the petroleum industry are not among them.