THROW THE DICE

In case you missed my last posting – something easily rectified by hitting the archival option – I wrote about how the climate warming issue is bound to affect all of us before long. This state of affairs would seem to present sufficient motivation for a whole universe of interests to push the government to issue policy that would address the harm that the scientific community claims fossil fuels are causing our environment. Yet the policy has not, to date, been forthcoming. Why? Because there is not enough public demand, even from the monied interests that are already beginning to take on the costs associated with global warming. I mentioned the farming industry, homeowners, businesses in towns wracked by tornadoes, and those areas on our eastern seaboard, like South Florida, that have or are in danger of facing damages from rising ocean levels that are estimated to cost in the trillions of dollars. But the lack of political pressure is what it is. Therefore, Congress doesn't feel it necessary to act.

The Obama Administration has been trying to initiate legislative action to no avail. But it seems to have hit on a possible way to bypass Congress. Using a 1970's law, the Clean Air Act, the Administration promises to start a regulatory response to the rising levels of carbon dioxide – seen as the main culprit in causing climate warming. This will be announced in June; at least, that's what the media is reporting. In looking at this proposed course of action, we can put some numbers to the collective costs that inaction will accrue. This is because of the law's provisions.

The first thing to note is that when the law was passed, carbon dioxide was not recognized as particularly hazardous. The law's Section 111(d) has the ingenious language that protects us from unknown pollutants in the future. Well, today we are in the “future” and carbon dioxide has been found to be a pollutant when pumped into our environment in excess. As it is, our global economy is emitting 36 billion tons of carbon into the environment per year. This is a sufficient enough amount to motivate thirty countries to put into effect carbon-pricing laws. The use of the Clean Air Act has led to development of a cost estimating model so that we can put a price tag on the damage. This model is called the Dynamic Integrated Climate-Economy model or DICE.

The use of the DICE model has placed the cost of carbon dioxide pollutants at $20 to $30 in economic damage per ton of carbon. Using the $20 figure, the yearly cost amounts to $720 billion a year. At the $30 figure, the total goes well over $1 trillion a year. Either way – and keeping our focus on economic damage which overlooks the other human costs associated with extreme weather – we can ill afford this kind of self- imposed cost.

Will the implementation of this old law solve the problem? That is an open question. One, the provisions of the new policy are not yet announced. There will probably be a carbon tax scheme of some sort to encourage lower levels of fossil fuel consumption. Two, the law was not written with the current conditions in mind. The law doesn't even mention carbon dioxide as a pollutant; conditions have changed since the '70s. Three, to date, the law has not been used in this way – the approach has been called the forty-year old virgin. And it will impose new costs. But are these costs greater or less than what inaction promises? “[O]ne way the E. P. A. will justify the new regulation [entailed with the Administration's plans] is with an analysis showing that the economic benefits of the climate change rule would outweigh the costs.”¹ And the basis of this effort will be the analysis experts will conduct using DICE.

If a civics teacher were to incorporate this information into his/her lessons so that students could look at the extreme weather issue, students could be asked such questions as: is the implementation of a law that is over forty years old – before we had knowledge of the factors affecting the problem – the prudent and legitimate way to address this issue? Is it a way for the executive branch to overstep its authority? Is the problem area so pressing that immediate action is justified and gives the President the legitimacy to act in this way? These are questions that get at the basic constitutional division of power and deserve serious consideration. Considering them in the context of a contemporary issue area that promises to affect all of us gives the resulting lessons an immediacy that could solicit the student's active participation in the national debate over what the government's response should be. If this is the result, then the clamor for new policy will be enhanced.

1Davenport, C. (2014). Brothers work different angles in taking on climate change. The New York Times, May 11, front page section, pp. 1 and 18. The quotation is on p. 18. Facts concerning the Clean Air Act and its implementation are derived from this article.