A changing environment will affect Alaska more than any other state, because of our location. I’m not one though who would attribute it to being man-made.  Sarah Palin

Palin’s opinion that that humans are not responsible for any increase in global average temperatures is inaccurate and a poor basis for public policy.

This issue recently surfaced as a result of a report by the US Joint Forces Command that claims that “the impact of global warming and its potential to cause natural disasters and other harmful phenomena such as rising sea levels has become a prominent - and controversial - national and international concern.”
A suggestion of uncertainty is, of course, a less definitive statement than the claim made by Governor Palin, but even it drew substantial fire. According to a story in the Boston Globe:

Sharon Burke, a former Pentagon and State Department official who is now a specialist at the Center for a New American Security, said the report was factually “wrong” and “out of line,” saying that there is a wide consensus that human activity, namely the production of greenhouse gases, is responsible for global warming. Other specialists had similar reactions when they read the report. “It’s very wrong,” said Kerry Emanuel, a professor of atmospheric science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology whose work was cited in the military report. “The jury is not out” on what is causing global warming, he added. “I don’t know where that statement came from, but it’s pretty bizarre.”

A substantial amount of scientific support for the claim that global warming is real and a result of human activity has been gathered by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

More than 2,000 scientists from this group have signed-off on the claim that humans are responsible for global warming, and it has recently been corroborated by recent evidence of Arctic and Antarctic ice melting: The Associated Press reported on December 10, 2008:

Scientists studying the changing nature of the Earth’s climate say they have completed one crucial task — proving beyond a doubt that global warming is real.  Now they have to figure out just what to do about it.  “It is critical for us to get a much better understanding of the impact of climate change in some parts of the world,” Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, told The Associated Press in an interview Tuesday. ….  Last year, Pachauri’s IPCC, which collected the work of more than 2,000 scientists, said climate change is “unequivocal, is already happening, and is caused by human activity.”  It listed likely effects of global warming: arid regions will grow dryer, rising seas will flood coastal areas, melting glaciers will flood communities downstream and then dry up the source of future water supplies, and up to 30 percent of all plant and animal species may become extinct.  Since then, new evidence has emerged showing that ice caps in the Arctic and Antarctic are melting, which threatens to dramatically raise the level of the oceans and flood coastal cities and low lying islands.  “…..  “The skeptics are doing a good job because they are making us present ironclad proof,” said Lawrence E. Buja, a climate change researcher for the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado.

Scientists have been able to directly attribute this Antarctic and Arctic warming to human activity:

Changes to the climate because of human activity can now be detected on every continent after a study showing that temperature rises in the Antarctic as well as the Arctic are the result of man-made emissions of greenhouse gases. It is the first time scientists have been able to prove the link between the temperature changes in both polar regions and human activity and it also undermines climate sceptics who believe the warming trend seen in the Arctic in recent decades is part of the climate’s natural variability.  The findings contradict the 2007 report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which said that Antarctica was the only continent where the human impact on the climate had not been observed.  The new study shows that Antarctica has been caught up in global climate changes over the past 60 years and that this warming cannot be attributed to natural variations. Using four computer models and data from dozens of weather stations sited around both the north and south poles, the study conclusively shows that humans are responsible for the significant increases in temperatures observed in the Arctic and the Antarctic over the past half-century. “We’re able for the first time to directly attribute warming in both the Arctic and the Antarctic to human influences on the climate,” said Nathan Gillett of the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, who led the study, published in the journal Nature Geoscience.

Even the Bush Administration, an admitted skeptic in the global warming debate, has conceded in a new report that there is a link between human activity and rapid warming.  The New Scientist reported on August 8th:

AS THE Bush administration enters its final months, the US Climate Change Science Program has issued a report concluding that computer models do effectively simulate climate. It also accepts that the models show human activity was responsible for the rapid warming of the 20th century. The report is the 10th of 21 due to be issued by the body, which the skeptical Bush administration set up late in 2002 to review the validity of climate-change science before making policy decisions. At the time, environmentalists accused the administration of using the programme as a way to drag its feet on the issue. “Greens accused Bush of using the programme as a way to drag his feet on climate” “The evidence is pretty convincing that the models give a good simulation of climate,” lead author David Bader of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California told reporters last week.

In fact, not only is the evidence strong, it is overwhelming:

The challenge to scientists at this point is that it is clear that there are still many areas of debate within climate science. There are uncertainties in climate modelling and in the consequences of global warming and what should be done about it. There is however broad consensus on the link between carbon dioxide levels and global warming. The debate now needs to move on to consider some of the uncertainties. But the fact remains that with the growing link between carbon dioxide and global warming the scientific community according to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change must take up the challenge of developing more successful low carbon energy technologies. And the policy community must engage the public so that they understand the consequences of their energy use. The overwhelming evidences of climate change exist and it is very paramount and advisable at this point that giant strides are taken on our part as a nation and government to safe guard the environment from the imminent crisis that is looming. The environment is ours and we have no other place, let us treat it with care and put at the back of our minds the ideals of sustainable development, this I mean development without creating any form of environmental imbalance that could cause a misfortune in the near future.

It is not clear what evidence Palin has for her claims that humans are not responsible for significant increases in the earth’s average temperature.  Palin herself is not a scientist and she does not provide any
scientific support for her claim.

There are, of course, those who do not believe that climate change is a certainty and that it is certain that anthropogenic (human) causes are responsible for observed increases in global temperatures.  The IPCC, however, says that the chance is 90%.  According to new study authored by Robert Correll, et al, of the Heinz Center:

Second, “Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global mean sea level.” Note the use by the Panel of words like “unequivocal” which means 90 percent certain or better. Third, “Most of the observed increase in globally averaged temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations.” This also means that there is a 90 percent likelihood.

So, the overwhelming consensus of scientists is that there is a 90 percent  likelihood that global surface temperatures are rising significantly and that those increases could result in rapid sea level rises, an increase in the frequency and intensity of storms, dieback of the Amazon rainforest, the loss of a substantial amount of global agriculture production, the spread of pests and disease, the loss of thousands of species, and war due to conflicts over declining and shifting resources.  These combined impacts of an increase in global average temperatures threatens the survival of planetary life itself.

Given the likelihood of human-induced global climate change and the impacts of said change, it seems wise for policy-makers such as Palin to support policy action that would arrest such change instead of acting in the face of science & reason to support what is, at best, a 10% chance that she is correct.

Related Posts: Palin Denies Climate Change Realities| Palin: Climate Change Not Cause by Human Behavior| Odd Lies of Sarah Palin VII: Climate Change

UPDATE 12/8: Obama may already have taken my advice… see this article.

As president, I will implement a memorandum of understanding that provides $30 billion in assistance to Israel over the next decade, investments to Israel’s security that will not be tied to any other nation. – Barack Obama, 6/4/08, Washington, D.C.

When President-elect Obama claims to support expanding military assistance to Israel, what he is really doing is supporting a deal negotiated by the Bush administration between the U.S. and Israel back in August 2007. For a candidate who ran on the platform of change, Obama’s support of a deal that is highly reminiscent of Bush’s foreign policy tactics is troubling, for several important reasons.

In the fall of 2006, John J. Mearshimer, a professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Chicago, and Stephen M. Walt, a professor at the JFK School of Government at Harvard University, wrote a piece in Middle East Policy that was highly critical of military aid to Israel. They begin by indicting the notion that aid is justified to fight a terrorist threat that is common to both the U.S. and Israel:

Beginning in the 1990s, and especially after 9/11, U.S. support for Israel has been justified by the claim that both states are threatened by terrorist groups originating in the Arab or Muslim world, and by a set of “rogue states” that back these groups and seek WMD. For many, this rationale implies that Washington should give Israel a free hand in dealing with the Palestinians and with groups like Hezbollah, and not press Israel to make concessions until all Palestinian terrorists are imprisoned or dead… Israel is thus seen as a crucial ally in the war on terror because its enemies are said to be America’s enemies. This new rationale seems persuasive, but Israel is, in fact, a liability in the war on terror and the broader effort to deal with rogue states… The terrorist organizations that threaten Israel (e.g., Hamas or Hezbollah) do not threaten the United States, except when it intervenes against them (as in Lebanon in 1982).

Moreover, they continue by arguing that America’s support of Israel may incite retaliation and backlash in the form of more terrorist attacks:

More important, saying that Israel and the United States are united by a shared terrorist threat has the causal relationship backwards. Rather, the United States has a terrorism problem in good part because it is so closely allied with Israel, not the other way around. U.S. support for Israel is hardly the only source of anti-American terrorism, but it is an important one, and it makes winning the war on terror more difficult.

Helena Cobban over at Just World News wrote a piece in November criticizing Israel’s actions in the Middle East – in particular, its occupation of the Gaza Strip, which many claim violated international human rights doctrine.

Here in the United States, apologists for the Israeli government have argued since 2005 that Israel “ended the occupation of the Gaza Strip” that year, and that therefore since then it has borne no continuing responsibility for the welfare of the Strip’s residents such as is required of any “foreign military occupying power” under the Fourth Geneva Convention.
But since 2005, Israel has continued to maintain tight control over all avenues and channels through which the Gazans might have contact with the outside world, and it has maintained it still has a “right” to intervene militarily in Gaza whenever it chooses.
Those two aspects of Israel’s policy put the lie to its claim that it has “ended” the military occupation of the Gaza Strip that it has, actually, maintained continuously since June of 1967.

Israel’s irresponsible actions in the Middle East and the geopolitical impact of American military aid should certainly draw more scrutiny from Obama, who seems to be taking on the issue from right where Bush left off. For Obama to stay consistent to his message of change, and for him to make good on his promise to overhaul America’s image on the world stage, a careful review and reform of the Israeli aid process is much needed.

“Not only do I want the stimulus package to deal with the immediate crisis, I want it also to lay the groundwork for long-term sustained economic growth,” Obama said in a quote from The Wall Street Journal. “With our economy in distress, we cannot hesitate and we cannot delay.” – Blogging Stocks

President-elect Barack Obama has begun actively pushing a large economic stimulus package to pull the U.S. out of what now is officially a recession.

Although few details of the package have been solidified, it is likely to include aid to the states, extension of unemployment benefits, investments in construction and alternative energy, and maybe middle class tax cuts.

The speculation is that stimulus will total between $500 and $700 billion dollars, perhaps for each of the next two years.  Bloomberg recently reported that the price could top $1 trillion.

Donald Douglas, a political science professor in Southern California, notes that “the one thing that isn’t shrinking in the U.S. economy these days is the size of the stimulus package that financial experts say is needed to turn it around.”

Obama has asked Congress to prepare it for his signature on inauguration day .  Pelosi is expected to push the House to pass it,

Reuters speculates that Obama and Pelosi will have the support they need to pass the legislation.

While most economists argue that the stimulus will play a role in any economic recovery, it is not a panacea for our economic woes.    There are many limitations to any role the stimulus will play in an economic recovery.

First, a trillion dollars in spending by the government will require borrowing the money in order to spend it.  This will take money out of the economy and simply recycle it through the economy.

Second, the most significant drivers of the economy include saving, investment, entrepreneurship, starting or expanding businesses, job creation, and work.  A stimulus will not positively alter these variables.   Peter Ferrera, the director of budget and entitlement policy at the Institute for Policy Innovation and general counsel for the American Civil Rights Union, explains:

This “stimulus” package is not going to produce economic recovery. Economic prosperity is not based on government spending. It is produced by incentives for economically productive activity, such as saving, investment, entrepreneurship, starting or expanding businesses, job creation, and work, along with other pro-growth policies (the rule of law, property rights, freedom of contract, sound money, free trade). Those incentives are strengthened by tax rate cuts, reduced regulatory costs, and other measures that increase the reward, and hence the incentive, for productive activity.  Taking hundreds of billions out of the economy through government borrowing and then spending it does nothing to improve the economy on net. It does nothing to improve incentives for economically productive activity. That is why Obama’s trillion dollar deficit is not going to get America booming again.

Third, government spending can crowd out private investment and raise interest rates, undermining economy gains produce by the stimulus.  US News & World Report, reported:

As to the first question, former Bush economist Greg Mankiw points to a couple of studies that raise serious doubts about the efficacy of stimulus packages. A 2005 study, “What Are the Effects of Fiscal Policy Shocks?,” which looks at U.S. economy policy since 1955, concludes that a “deficit-financed tax cut is the best fiscal policy to stimulate the economy” and that “a deficit-spending shock weakly stimulates the economy. Government spending shocks crowd out both residential and nonresidential investment without causing interest rates to rise.” The results, the authors say, do not support “the textbook Keynesian model which predicts that consumption should rise following a government spending shock.” And then there is a study coauthored by Olivier Blanchard, the current chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, that finds “both increases in taxes and increases in government spending have a strong negative effect on private investment spending.”

Fourth, government infrastructure spending provide a boost to the economy.  If they provide a boost when the economy has already started to recover, they can be inflationary. CNN has reported that

Ever since the Great Depression, economists have debated what makes a better stimulus during recession - government spending or tax cuts and rebates. It’s not that the country doesn’t need more roads and schools. It’s just that these projects take too long to get up and running to create jobs in the short term. Moreover, they tend to last several years, so if the economy does bounce back in short order they can become inflationary - tying up money and labor. “It’s a sledgehammer, not a scalpel,” said Martin Regalia, chief economist at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, a business lobby group. “There’s just one thing that works for the economy, and that’s cash in the hands of consumers.”

Since the economy is likely to rebound without the stimulus, this inflation could result.  The Australian noted on November 13:

The U.S. economy is in the midst of the worst part of the recession, but growth may return by the second half of next year, according to economists in the latest Wall Street Journal forecasting survey.  “The intensity of decline will wane,” said Stephen Stanley of RBS Greenwich Capital. “We’ve cut out a lot of the low-hanging fruit, and it gets progressively tougher to see such rapid rates of decline.”  On average, the 54 economists surveyed expect gross domestic product - the broadest measure of economic activity - to decline 3 per cent at an annualized rate in this year’s fourth quarter. That comes after the U.S. Commerce Department reported a 0.3-per-cent drop for the third quarter. Another negative reading is forecast for the first three months of next year, with an essentially flat reading for the second quarter. Slow growth is seen for the second half of 2009, reaching 2.1 per cent by the fourth quarter.   “By the third quarter of next year a recovery will be under way,” said John Lonski of Moody’s Investors Service, but he said expansion won’t return to precrisis levels until 2010.

Fifth,  large stimulus packages will require the government to take on a massive additional volume of debt.  The economic pressure of this debt could easily undermine the value of the stimulus. Michael Montagne, the original founder/author of the mathematically perfect economy notes:

Barack Obama’s only considered course follows the model of Bill Clinton; and he is only hiring advocates and principal players of the very system which is the cause of the impending monetary failure. All the pieces falling into place therefore, are to preserve the ever more destructive system which has been imposed upon us.The Clintons of course claim to have presided over what they tell us is the greatest industrial expansion of modern history.But this claim is a lie. Starving for ways to replenish the circulatory deflation imposed by the debt which had been accumulated to Clinton’s terms in office, and with the public already rendered unable to afford sustaining a circulation itself, the false boom of Mr. Clinton’s claimed industrial expansion merely served as a temporary stop-gap to replenish the circulation.How quickly we have forgotten that purported boom was a bust before it got out the gate. Company after company after company spent 90 percent of its revenue on celebrations and expensive cars for “key” executives. Not only are almost all of those companies gone, even by the time Mr. Clinton left office, few of them had made a penny of profit.During the subsequent Bush regime, the circulation has been replenished by monumental borrowing, not just for war, but even for the oil you so much depend on.All this while then indeed, debt has been multiplying at escalating rates toward inevitable failure, with no “representative” of the people advocating solution; and so, it will be against the further multiplication of the resultant, far greater sum of debt (already collapsing us), that Mr. Obama hopes to succeed.The president-elect hopes to create millions of jobs. How are we going to sustain those jobs which we already cannot afford to sustain, saddled with all the further debt which will be incurred?Even if we could sustain them for some while, further, perpetual, escalating multiplication of debt would soon swallow up any ostensible benefit.He hopes to create those jobs by expediting technology we already have, to become energy independent. But the only real reason we cannot implement that technology is we are saddled with so much debt already.

Historically, such stimulus programs have been ineffective

Brian M. Riedl  the Grover M. Hermann Fellow in Federal Budgetary Affairs in the Thomas A. Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies at The Heritage Foundation, explains:

In a throwback to the 1930s and 1970s, Democratic lawmakers are betting that America’s economic ills can be cured by an extraordinary expansion of government. This tired approach has already failed repeatedly in the past year, in which Congress and the President:
·    Increased total federal spending by 11 percent to nearly $3 trillion;
·    Enacted $333 billion in “emergency” spending;
·    Enacted $105 billion in tax rebates; and
·    Pushed the budget deficit to $455 billion in the name of “stimulus.”

Every one of these policies failed to increase economic growth. Now, in addition to passing a $700 bil­lion financial sector rescue package, lawmakers have decided to double down on these failed spending pol­icies by proposing a $300 billion economic stimulus bill. Even though the last $455 billion in Keynesian deficit spending failed to help the economy, lawmak­ers seem to have convinced themselves that the next $300 billion will succeed.  This is not the first time government expansions have failed to produce economic growth. Massive spending hikes in the 1930s, 1960s, and 1970s all failed to increase economic growth rates. Yet in the 1980s and 1990s—when the federal government shrank by one-fifth as a percentage of gross domestic product (GDP)—the U.S. economy enjoyed its great­est expansion to date. Cross-national comparisons yield the same result. The U.S. government spends significantly less than the 15 pre-2004 European Union nations, and yet enjoys 40 percent larger per capita GDP, 50 percent faster economic growth rates, and a sub­stantially lower unemployment rate.[ When conventional economic wisdom repeat­edly fails, it becomes necessary to revisit that con­ventional wisdom. Government spending fails to stimulate economic growth because every dollar Congress "injects" into the economy must first be taxed or borrowed out of the economy. Thus, gov­ernment spending "stimulus" merely redistributes existing income, doing nothing to increase produc­tivity or employment, and therefore nothing to cre­ate additional income. Even worse, many federal expenditures weaken the private sector by directing resources toward less productive uses and thus impede income growth.

Riedel even goes so far as to argue that government spending has reduced productivity for four reasons

Most government spending has historically reduced productivity and long-term economic growth due to:

1.    Taxes. Most government spending is financed by taxes, and high tax rates reduce incentives to work, save, and invest—resulting in a less motivated workforce as well as less business investment in new capital and technology. Few government expenditures raise productivity enough to offset the productivity lost due to taxes;
2.    Incentives. Social spending often reduces in­centives for productivity by subsidizing leisure and unemployment. Combined with taxes, it is clear that taxing Peter to subsidize Paul reduces both of their incentives to be productive, since productivity no longer determines one's income;
3.    Displacement. Every dollar spent by politicians means one dollar less to be allocated based on market forces within the more productive pri­vate sector. For example, rather than allowing the market to allocate investments, politicians seize that money and earmark it for favored organizations with little regard for improve­ments to economic efficiency; and
4.    Inefficiencies. Government provision of housing, education, and postal operations are often much less efficient than the private sector. Government also distorts existing health care and education markets by promoting third-party payers, resulting in over-consumption and insensitivity to prices and outcomes. Another example of inefficiency is when politicians earmark highway money for wasteful pork projects rather than expanding highway capacity where it is most needed.

General criticisms are easily applied to the specifics of Obama’s package.

Riedel notes that the claimed benefits of highway infrastructure spending are exaggerated:

Highway Spending: The Myth of the 47,576 New Jobs
Nowhere is the government spending stimu­lus myth more widespread than in highway spending. Congress is already rumbling to push billions in highway spending in the next stimulus package. Over the years, lawmakers have repeat­edly supported their errant claim that highway spending is an immediate economic tonic by cit­ing a Department of Transportation (DOT) study. This study supposedly states that every $1 bil­lion spent on highways adds 47,576 new jobs to the economy.
The problem: The DOT study made no such claim. It stated that spending $1 billion on high­ways would require 47,576 workers (or more pre­cisely, it would require 26,524 workers, who then spend their income elsewhere, supporting an addi­tional 21,052 workers). But before the government can spend $1 billion hiring road builders and pur­chasing asphalt, it must first tax or borrow $1 bil­lion from other sectors of the economy—which would then lose a similar number of jobs. In other words, highway spending merely transfers jobs and income from one part of the economy to another. As The Heritage Foundation's Ronald Utt has explained, "The only way that $1 billion of new highway spending can create 47,576 new jobs is if the $1 billion appears out of nowhere as if it were manna from heaven."[16]  The DOT report implicitly acknowledged this point by referring to the trans­portation jobs as “employment benefits” within the transportation sector, rather than as new jobs for the total economy.

According to Riedl, federal aid to the states will also fail to spur the economy.

Furthermore, sending federal aid to states would not save taxpayers a dime because state taxpayers are also federal taxpayers. Increasing federal borrowing to keep state taxes from rising is like running up a Visa card balance to keep the Mastercard balance from rising. The overall costs do not change, only the address receiving the payment.

Given the collapse in energy prices, investments in alternative energy sources are not likely to stimulate those industries because even with government support these technologies are not likely to be cost competitive with existing energy sources. MSNBC reports:

But others are skeptical; they worry that the jobs won’t be sustainable if they’re in industries that aren’t competitive with less costly alternatives. With oil prices dropping sharply to below half of their July peak, there is already concern that some investment in green technology will become uneconomical. Factoring in Falling Oil Prices “It seems to me that it’s a brilliant political move to deflect attention from the economic downside of Obama’s energy and environmental proposal,” says Max Schulz, energy policy analyst at the Manhattan Institute, a free-market-oriented think tank. “Mandates that insist on renewable energy that is more inefficient and expensive than coal and nuclear won’t help the economy.”

The threat of bioterrorism will increase exponentially because biological agents used to carry out such attacks will continue to become more accessible and more technologically advanced, just as our social networks become more interconnected as a result of globalisation… In order to best defend against them, the US and the UK must embark on a robust and comprehensive collaboration to ensure greater preparedness in the face of harm from biological resources. – Former Senator and incoming Secretary of Health and Human Services Tom Daschle

Fears about “bioterrorism” have once again been reignited with the announcement of Daschle’s appointment to Obama’s cabinet, who consistently argues in favor of greater bioterror preparedness. Once a victim of an anthrax attack, Daschle called for a joint US-UK initiative to combat the threat of bioterror.

In addition, the Commission on the Prevention of WMD Proliferation and Terrorism, a congressionally-appointed group made up of former legislators, policy analysts, and other experts, recent announced the findings of its 2008 report, which claims that a terrorist attack is likely by 2013 and that it is more likely that the attackers will employ bioweapons than nuclear weapons.

Terrorists are more likely to be able to obtain and use a biological weapon than a nuclear weapon. The commission believes that the U.S. government needs to move more aggressively to limit the proliferation of biological weapons and reduce the prospect of a bioterror attack.

Although it is certainly plausible that a large-scale attack on the U.S. might occur in the next 5 years, given significant blunders in the Bush administration’s foreign policy, there is significant reason to doubt that a bioterror attack is even feasible.

First, the technical barriers to a successful bioweapons deployment are probably insurmountable for most, if not all, terrorist groups. In the April 2000 issue of Current History, Senior Fellow at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies Jonathan B. Tucker described these hurdles:

Although some terrorist groups may be motivated by the desire to inflict mass casualties and a subset may be capable of avoiding premature arrest, the technical challenges associated with the production and efficient dissemination of chemical or biological agents make catastrophic attacks unlikely. Acquiring such a capability would require terrorists to overcome a series of major hurdles: hiring technically trained personnel with the relevant expertise, gaining access to specialized chemical weapon ingredients or virulent microbial strains, obtaining equipment suitable for the mass-production of chemical or biological agents, and developing wide area delivery systems. Toxic weapons also entail hazards and operational uncertainties much greater than those associated with firearms and explosives.

Moreover, RAND policy analyst John Parachini argued in a 2001 congressional testimony that the “threshold” for a successful bioterror attack would be state sponsorship, of which there are zero historical examples.

When it comes to the feasibility of biological terrorism perpetrated by sub- national groups and individuals, the range of capability (and level of consequence) depends on whether the groups or individuals are state-sponsored or not. High- consequence biological attacks would require the assistance of a state sponsor or considerable resources. However, even these conditions do not ensure high-consequence attacks by sub-national groups or individuals. There are no widely agreed upon historical examples in the open source literature of states providing sub-national groups with biological weapons for overt or covert use. Money, arms, logistical support, training, and even training on how to operate in a chemically contaminated environment are all forms of assistance states have provided to terrorists. But historically they have not crossed the threshold and provided biological weapons materials to insurgency groups or terrorist organizations. Even if states sought to perpetrate biological attacks for their own purposes, they would probably not trust such an operation to groups or individuals that they do not completely control.

In addition, even if terrorists had successfully developed bioweapons capacity or received the capacity from some state government, the dispersal of the bioweapon presents a host of technical challenges as well. Not only is it incredibly difficult to deploy the pathogen without destroying it, most pathogens are extremely vulnerable to fluctuations in temperature and other environmental conditions, as former UN Ambassador James F. Leonard explains:

Effective dissemination is challenging because the biological agent is a living organism that has to survive until it reaches the target. If bombs or rockets are employed to deliver the agent, explosives will be used to disperse the agent into the atmosphere. The detonation of the explosive produces heat and shock, which can kill the living micro-organisms. Dispersion by a spray system is less damaging to the agent than an explosive delivery system, although both are technically challenging if the necessary particle sizes are to be achieved. Once it has been dispersed into the atmosphere, the agent is exposed to the natural environment (e.g. ambient temperature and sunlight), which can in time, perhaps rapidly, cause the micro-organism to die.

Finally, there is significant reason to believe that even if such an attack were entirely feasible, terrorists would still stick to attacks that employ conventional weapons to avoid scrutiny and stigmatization. Morten Bremer Maerli of the Norwegian Institute for International Affairs argues that use of WMD by terrorists could make it harder to get approval from state sponsors, making weaponization impossible in the first place.

Terrorists operate in contexts of enormous uncertainty and anxiety, and may thus prefer known means. If a target is regarded as too challenging, other targets may be chosen, while the tactics of the group remain the same. Alternatively, well-known tactics may be further developed, as painfully evidenced September 11, 2001.The use of weapons of mass destruction could, moreover, stigmatize the terrorist group and could render any political aspirations hard to accomplish. Conventional off-the-shelf weaponry and well-known approaches are thus likely to remain the major tools for the bulk part of traditional terrorists.

Terrorism may be a “transcendent challenge,” as John McCain says, but in creating a set of policies for domestic preparedness, it is important to discern the real threats from those based on paranoia and fear-based speculation. Until there is more evidence that terrorists are willing and able to use bioweapons, such a concern should not be at the forefront of Daschle’s platform.

Obama will significantly increase the resources devoted to the commercialization and deployment of low-carbon coal technologies. Obama will consider whatever policy tools are necessary, including standards that ban new traditional coal facilities, to ensure that we move quickly to commercialize and deploy low carbon coal technology. Obama Energy Plan, July 2008

While much of the 2008 election’s energy rhetoric focused on solutions to America’s dependency on foreign oil, a significant subplot unfolded over each of the candidates’ positions on coal. Yet placing faith in “clean coal” technology may not be the solution to the environmental damage caused by traditional coal facilities, which currently provide roughly half of America’s energy supply.

First, much of the research is highly experimental, and it is likely to be several years until clean coal plants are technologically and economically viable. Richard McIndoe, the managing director of CLP Power’s Australian unit, recently argued that the plants wouldn’t be feasible until at least 2025:

SYDNEY: Clean coal technology, involving trapping carbon in waste gases from coal-fired power plants and disposing it underground, may not be commercially viable until 2025, CLP’s Australian unit said. Generators like the TRUenergy unit of CLP that use brown coal, or lignite, as a fuel, need to invest in other technologies to help reduce gases blamed for global warming, Richard McIndoe, the managing director of the company said Tuesday. Companies around the world are looking for ways to curb emissions of carbon dioxide to meet standards imposed by governments trying to slow climate change. Brown coal has a higher moisture content than black coal, making it a more polluting fuel. Technologies that dry brown coal and improve boiler technology are more advanced than so-called clean coal, McIndoe said.

Moreover, incentives to catalyze the development of clean coal technology may even act as a bottleneck to the development of clean coal plants. James Hansen, global warming researcher, believes that coal companies may accept incentives as a means of building new coal plants without ever implementing any sort of clean coal process, due to the vague nature of these incentives.

Though he added that in the next decade there is enough potential in energy efficiency and renewable energy to get by until the clean coal technology issue is solved. Hansen also expressed skepticism of the intention of power companies that are proposing coal-plants with plans to implement clean coal technology when it is available: In most cases where utilities are saying they will have the capability in the future to capture the CO2, they’re really just saying that in order to get approval, without really intending to do that. If they would sign a guarantee that they are going to start capturing it within 5 years that would make it a different story. But they are not offering to do that.

In addition, a 2008 Herald-Dispatch article argued that uncertainty about the costs and effectiveness of clean coal technology would deter investors from making significant progress in clean coal research. Yet even if an effective incentive were found that got corporations on board with the technology, an APEC Energy Working Group report provides multiple reasons why such an incentive may suffer significant drawbacks regardless. Among the more interesting reasons (the entire report is worth a read, however), the group argues that the failure of other environmental policy may make it difficult to accurately put a market price on the CO2 that results from carbon capture and sequestration, an integral part of proposed clean coal plants.

The present regulatory environment in APEC and other economies does not provide sufficient incentives to invest in advanced CO2-reducing technologies being developed, such as capture and storage. Current environmental legislation has been drawn up prior to the existence of proven capture and storage technology and may be creating unintentional and unwarranted barriers.

Of course, whether or not the technology even works is also up for debate. Jim Presswood, federal energy advocate of the Natural Resources Defense Council, argued in a 2007 article that emissions reductions from clean coal were a myth:

Liquid CO2 emissions are twice as much as emissions from conventional petroleum-derived fuels.” He says that even if CO2 emissions are sequestered as part of the process, at best liquid coal would be 12 percent worse than the gasoline equivalent. As some environmentalists have put it, liquid coal can turn any hybrid Prius into a Hummer. The Washington Post editorialized, “To wean the U.S. off of just one million barrels of the 21 million barrels of crude oil consumed daily, an estimated 120 million tons of coal would need to be mined each year. The process requires vast amounts of water, particularly a concern in the parched West. And the price of a plant is estimated at $4 billion.” The technology to sequester carbon is largely theoretical, and the plants to liquefy it are mostly in South Africa. But even if the process was perfected and burning coal produced zero emissions, liquid coal would still be far from clean.

There is also skepticism that clean coal would reduce pollution even if the plants were entirely environmentally-friendly. Many environmental advocacy groups, such as Greenpeace, believe that most of the pollution comes from extraction and transportation of coal, not from the traditional coal-fired facilities.

“Clean coal” methods only move pollutants from one waste stream to another which are then still released into the environment. Any time coal is burnt, contaminants are released and they have to go somewhere. They can be released via the flu ash, the gaseous air emissions, water outflow or the ash left at the bottom after burning. Ultimately they still end up polluting the environment. Despite over 10 years of research and $5.2 billion of investment in the US alone5, scientists are still unable to make coal clean. “Clean coal” technologies are expensive and do nothing to mitigate the environmental effects of coal mining or the devastating effects of global warming. Furthermore, clean coal research risks diverting investment away from renewable energy, which is available to reduce greenhouse gas emissions now.

Ultimately, if Obama’s energy policy is to meaningfully engage the coal industry to promote the development of clean coal technology, it will require the highest expertise in crafting an incentive that is workable. While coal is a significant contributor to global warming, clean coal technology may merely be a distraction from cleaner and more sustainable sources of energy that could one day replace coal entirely.

If protecting the security of the United States requires us to develop a weapon to get at weapons of mass destruction buried in the ground, that is what we should pursue — Senator John Ensign

Today the Baltimore Sun reported on the “gloom and doom” state of our nuclear affairs, a state created by the policies backed by Senator Ensign.

In 2002, the Bush administration submitted its Nuclear Posture Review, commonly referred to as the NPR. In it, the administration called for advances in our nuclear weapon capability and recommended the Department of Defense develop a new generation of mini nuclear weapons that could detonate below the earth’s surface and destroy underground targets.

This new nuclear posture, combined with aggressive “axis of evil” rhetoric and the unilateral invasion of Iraq, created a geopolitical dynamic that pushed countries like Iran and North Korea down the path towards nuclear weapons development in order to protect themselves from a U.S. nuclear invasion.

This global spread of nuclear weapons dramatically increases the risks of a nuclear exchange.  As nuclear weapons spread across the globe, the risk of nuclear war through accidents, conventional escalation, miscalculation, and preemption increases.  Since many of the world’s powers are aligned with opposing sides in these regional conflicts, any nuclear detonation risks escalation to a great power conflict and a total global nuclear exchange.

And it is not just new nuclear proliferator’s that pose a threat to global stability. With the current conflicts in Georgia and new instability in South East Asia, Russia is modernizing and expanding its nuclear arsenal, risking a dangerous nuclear arms race.

The Baltimore Sun identified the dangerous nuclear situation that we now find ourselves in:

What awaits the new commander in chief is the weighty responsibility of defending the United States - and a nasty brew of nuclear weapons problems that range from the threat of terrorist attacks to potential new regional and superpower arms races. Iran and North Korea are rushing headlong toward building nuclear arsenals. And the main arms reduction treaty with Russia expires next year.

This unfolding nuclear danger is yet another Bush-created crisis that Obama will need to tackle.  The best way to tackle it is to engage in cooperative unilateral, bilateral, and multilateral efforts to defuse the nuclear danger, not through efforts to develop a new series of nuclear weapons that make it easier for the U.S. to fight a nuclear war.

Unilaterally, Obama should renounce both the Bush administration’s efforts to modernize its nuclear arsenals and its doctrines of preventive war and regime change.  The administration can also initiate dialogue with Iran at appropriate diplomatic levels and continue nuclear negotiations with North Korea.

Bilaterally, Obama needs to start with Russia to extend the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) framework so that it does not expire at the end of 2009.  To make START meaningful, he needs make reductions outlined in both the START and Strategic Offense Reduction Treaty (SORT), both real and verifiable.  To date there has been a lack of a verification method which has allowed both countries to miss deadlines for reductions.

Improved relations with Russian can be used to apply pressure on Iran to arrest Iran’s nuclear development. The U.S. can also take advantage of Russia’s ties to North Korea to advance nuclear negotiations on the Korean Peninsula.

Multilaterally, Obama can strengthen nuclear cooperation by spending political capital to push the Senate to ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). The U.S. has signed, but not ratified this treat and U.S. accession to the treaty would go a long way to strengthening non-proliferation norms, verification regimes, and way to bind the United States to commitments to unilateral nuclear reductions.

Obama ran on a commitment to change. If we are to step away from the brink of nuclear armageddon, he will need to take aggressive steps to reverse the Bush administration’s eight years of nuclear unilateralism. Fortunately, a number of unilateral, bilateral, and multilateral tools are at his disposal.

As President, I will close Guantanamo, reject the Military Commissions Act, and adhere to the Geneva Conventions — Barack Obama, 2007

Throughout his campaign, Barack Obama repeatedly spoke of the need to close the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay Cuba (Gitmo) where the U.S. still detains more than 250 suspects in the war on terror.

The case for closing this facility is unbeatable. Gitmo has become an international symbol of human rights abuses and has undermined the war on terror.

Gitmo detainees have been subject to detention without charge for many years. Although the Bush administration has lost more and more legal challenges to the constitutionality of the detention at Gitmo, many detainees have not been able to challenge their detention, challenge witnesses, and have even struggled to gain access to the U.S. legal system.

The Bush administration claims that the detainees are not governed by the Geneva Conventions because they are not technically prisoners of war.  The administration also contends that the detainees are not able to access the legal protections of the U.S. criminal justice system because they are not U.S. citizens and because Guantanamo Bay is located outside of the United States. This literally leaves the detainees in a legal no-man’s land.

Although the government has long denied that it has or is torturing these prisoners, it readily admits that it has engaged in aggressive interrogation techniques such as waterboarding, extending sleep and light deprivation, and general humiliation.

This combination of civil, criminal, and human rights deprivation has made Gitmo a symbol of the United States blatant disregard for human rights in the war on terror, and it has consequently undermined U.S. soft power and global credibility.

This loss of international credibility has undermined the war on terror by making it easier for radical groups to recruit sympathizers and by disrupting counterterrorism cooperation with allies that feared they would be complicit with U.S. human rights abuses.

Gitmo needs to be shut-down not only because it is responsible for systemic rights abuses but also because its continued existence actively undermines the war on terror.

Obama could easily shut down Gitmo with his signature on an Executive Order. Although this action may alienate some conservative Republicans, it would not require Obama to move any legislation through Congress that would require the expenditure of precious political capital.

International human rights groups are pushing the Obama administration to act quickly to shut-down Gitmo.

Complications related to shutting down Gitmo by decree, however, could create many legal problems that will leave it in the spotlight of international affairs for years to come.

In short, there are four issues related to dealing with prisoners after Gitmo is closed:

• Should the U.S. return prisoners to countries if the U.S. suspects such prisoners will be tortured? One clear example of this is the Uighurs, a Chinese separatist group. China wants the Uighurs returned, but the U.S. strongly suspects that if they are returned China will torture them.
• Should prisoners currently held receive trials in U.S. criminal courts, in military tribunals authorized by Congress in 2006, or in some other new legal forum?
• What standards would govern the admissions of evidence in any new legal proceedings?
• How would the need to protect counterterrorist sources be protected in the proceedings?

These are all very complicated issues that must be resolved. Simply shutting down the facility by decree leaves them all unaddressed. And, if a future terrorist attack could ever be attributed to a hasty closure of Gitmo, political support for protecting civil liberties in the war on terror would collapse, leaving us where we are today.

Instead of making a hasty decision related to Gitmo, Obama should lay the groundwork to close the facility by announcing a timetable for closure, end all controversial interrogation techniques, and begin to develop procedures to protect both the rights of the detainees and the security interests of the United States.

As with the formation of his Cabinet and the development of all of his major initiatives, Obama should proceed with bipartisan efforts in order to assure that the new procedures for handling those detained in the war on terror are durable. This more complicated approach would likely require Obama to spend political capital with conservative Republicans, but it is likely that capital that will be replenished as the global reputation of the United States rebounds.

Moreover, if the U.S credibility can be restored through the development of procedures to handle those detained in the war on terror, other countries that modeled U.S. human rights abuses in the war on terror after September 11 may emulate these procedures as well.

A quick move to shut-down Gitmo will work to remove one of the most significant stains of the U.S war on terror, but a planned and deliberated closure is the best way for the U.S. to restore its international credibility.

Concerns over the economic impact of proposals that put a cap on CO2 emissions while allowing companies to trade allowances focus on the negative impact of higher energy prices on the economy.

Recently, Texas Governor Rick Perry stated that the cap on CO2 emissions at approximately 80% of 1990 levels by 2050 will run Texas’ “economy right off the tracks and into the ditch.”

Advocates of such programs cannot avoid the argument that such proposals will raise energy costs. Carbon caps raise the costs of producing energy with carbon-intensive fossil fuels because under some schemes energy producers must buy the permits, directly raising costs, and because they effectively limit the amount of energy that can be produced with traditional fossil fuels.

In fact, the high energy costs triggered by cap & trade are what provide the incentive for companies to develop alternative sources of energy that are less carbon intensive. As energy prices increase, companies will need to innovate to be able to provide energy at lower prices. Since companies know that energy prices will certainly increase over a long period of time, they know they will have a guaranteed market for these new technologies. Fred Krupp, the Director of the Environmental Defense Fund, claims that this will trigger billions of dollars of investment into these new technologies:

The new law must mandate substantial short-term and long-term reductions, so that businesses not only know they need to take action, make investments, and find new technology now, but also have the certainty that the market for low-carbon technologies will surely and steadily improve. The magnitude of the emergency places these principles above politics, beyond ideology…The bulk of potential private capital will remain uncommitted until definitive policies emerge.”… A cap-and-trade system for carbon dioxide will mean billions of dollars for the innovators who figure out how to save the planet, and provide the opportu­nity to mobilize virtually every realm of economic activity. Over the next thirty years, according to the International Energy Agency, governments and private investors will spend no less than $10 trillion to update and expand the global electricity infrastruc­ture. How that money gets spent will be largely determined by what we demand of our political leaders today. We have before us an extraordinary opportunity: to harness the power of the United States of America’s huge and dynamic markets to ensure a safe future. None of us any longer can stand by and watch; all of us must engage as citizens to demand that our country lead the world to solve the climate crisis. Enacting a cap on carbon will gather U.S. ingenuity and resourcefulness to serve a higher purpose: protecting this planet for generations to come. (Earth: The Sequel The Race to Reinvent Energy and Stop Global Warming, p. 249)

According to a new study by the U.S. Council of Mayors, millions of new jobs could be created in green energy industries:

Our projections reveal that there is great potential for Green Job growth in the U.S. economy. Under our chosen scenarios, renewable power generation would lead to the generation of more than 1.2 million jobs. The trajectory of job growth is similar to the assumed path of electricity generation. There is relatively smooth growth as the manufacturing sector expands in response to demand for generation equipment, the construction sector expands to install the new equipment, and more jobs are created to operate and maintain the new infrastructure. …. The generation of 4.2 million new Green Jobs would more than quintuple the total count and could provide as much as 10% of new job growth over the next 30 years. t is important to recognize these forecast results depend heavily on our chosen scenarios.

Texas itself provides a great example of how the high energy prices contribute to the development of new energy technologies. As energy prices rose in the summer of 2008, billionaire investor T. Boone Pickens who leased thousands of acres across the Texas panhandle to place more than 2700 windmills. When energy prices fell this fall, Pickens was forced to delay his plans. A return to higher energy prices will make Pickens’ wind farm development profitable and provide and economic boost to Texas’ economy.

Cap & trade initiatives that trigger investment will also infuse an extensive amount of capital into the banking sector, strengthening banks that are obviously struggling in the current economy. The Wall Street Journal reports that

If cap-and-trade becomes “cap-and-invest,” Mr. Stevenson says, the government can plow back some of the money it makes selling emissions permits to energy companies, who can then use the cash to jumpstart new energy projects. The cash flow would also ease lending requirements: This amount of committed capital would provide a total of over a trillion dollars in the early years of a “cap and invest” program that could be deployed to help finance innovative energy solutions for our economy. This revenue stream would effectively be used as a form of collateral, giving the banks confidence to once again finance longer-term investments at reasonable interest rates.

Moreover, since businesses are anticipating the development of cap & trade regimes, passing them into law now will introduce regulatory certainty and predictability.

And even if Rick is right that the economics of cap & trade will play out in a way that damages the economy, it is hardly a program that will drive the economy “off the tracks” and into a ditch. Advanced economic models indicate that in a worst case scenario, cap & trade will result in a .01 reduction in the economy. George Pataki, the former governor of New York who headed-up a Council on Foreign Relations task force report on climate change noted this year:

For example, in an MIT simulation of a very aggressive case, in which U.S. emissions are cut to one-fifth of 1990 levels in 2050, U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) is between 0.01 percent and 1 percent lower in 2020 than it would have been without the emissions cuts; as the projected cuts deepen, the costs rise to between about 0.25 percent and slightly more than 2 percent in 2050. These projections assume policy that is relatively economically efficient. For the worst case, this represents a decrease in annual GDP growth of 0.2 percent, while in the best case, GDP growth would be affected by an undetectable 0.0001 percent. Put another way, in the worst case studied here the United States would take until 2053 to reach the GDP it would otherwise have had in 2050. Note that these estimates do not reflect expected economic benefits of reduced emissions, such as lower mortality or lower costs from natural disasters. Sergey Paltsev et al., ‘‘Assessment of U.S. Cap-and-Trade Proposals,’’ April 2007

In all likelihood, cap & trade initiatives will operate as economic stimulus, triggering the development of new energy technologies that will provide 21st century jobs, boosting capital investment in banking and technology sectors, and introducing a degree of regulatory certainty. Put simply, a cap & trade program could dig us out of the extended recession that we face. The economic downside risks are minimal, certainly nothing that will drive the economy off the tracks and into a ditch.

In a campaign stump speech, Republican Presidential candidate John McCain claimed that nuclear power is a reliable ally in the fight against global warming:

And here we have a known, proven energy source that requires exactly zero emissions. We have 104 nuclear reactors in our country, generating about twenty percent of our electricity. These reactors alone spare the atmosphere from about 700 million metric tons of carbon dioxide that would otherwise be released every year. That’s the annual equivalent of nearly all emissions from all the cars we drive in America. Europe, for its part, has 197 reactors in operation, and nations including France and Belgium derive more than half their electricity from nuclear power. Those good practices contribute to the more than two billion metric tons of carbon dioxide avoided every year, worldwide, because of nuclear energy. It doesn’t take a leap in logic to conclude that if we want to arrest global warming, then nuclear energy is a powerful ally in that cause.

When I think of a reliable ally, I think of someone or something that can provide extraordinary assistance, that can lead the charge, can be relied upon to make a significant contribution, and would not introduce its own significant problems.  Nuclear power, far from a zero CO2 emissions power source, cannot fulfill any of these needs in the fight against global warming.

First, while nuclear power does not directly emit CO2 in the production of energy, the entire nuclear process from the construction of the plants to the mining of the uranium, emits a substantial amount of CO2. Robert Alvarez, a senior advisor at the Department of Energy from 1993-1999, explains:

While atomic reactions do not emit CO2 or other GHGs, the full fuel cycle of nuclear power generation is fossil fuel intensive and emits large amounts of these gases. The mining, milling, processing and transportation of uranium fuel for reactors are all carbon-intensive industries and must be included in fuel-cycle accounting.

Amory Lovins of the Rockey Mountain Institute explains that this opportunity-cost of nuclear power makes it a net-negative solution to global warming:

But nuclear power is a still less helpful climate solution because it’s about the slowest option to deploy (in capacity or annual output added per year)—as observed market behavior confirms—and the most costly. Its higher cost than competitors, per unit of net CO2 displaced, means that every dollar invested in nuclear expansion will worsen climate change by buying less solution per dollar.

Second, given the high cost of of the development of nuclear power plants, increased construction of nuclear power plants will trade-off with investment in other more cost-effective energy alternatives.  Amory Lovins explains:

What nuclear would do is displace coal, our most abundant domestic fuel. And this sounds good for climate, but actually, expanding nuclear makes climate change worse, for a very simple reason. Nuclear is incredibly expensive. The costs have just stood up on end lately. Wall Street Journal recently reported that they’re about two to four times the cost that the industry was talking about just a year ago. And the result of that is that if you buy more nuclear plants, you’re going to get about two to ten times less climate solution per dollar, and you’ll get it about twenty to forty times slower, than if you buy instead the cheaper, faster stuff that is walloping nuclear and coal and gas, all kinds of central plans, in the marketplace. And those competitors are efficient use of electricity and what’s called micropower, which is both renewables, except big hydro, and making electricity and heat together.

Third, in order to solve global warming, thousands of new reactors would need to be built:

Putting all other arguments aside, critics say that nuclear power is going to provide too little, too late. Jeremy Rifkin, president of the Foundation on Economic Trends and author of the Hydrogen Economy, told CNN: “To get any appreciable impact on climate change you have to get 20 percent from renewable energies. For nuclear power to achieve this figure would mean building 3000 nuclear plants — that’s three power plants every 30 days for the next 60 years.”

Michael Mariott explains that this is not even feasible:

Actually, if we did need nuclear power, we’d be in big trouble. The major studies—from MIT, from IAEA, from the Commission on Energy Policy—all agree on the big numbers: if nuclear power is to play a meaningful role in addressing climate and reducing carbon emissions, we need a big nuclear program. In fact, we need to triple the number of reactors in the United States (currently 104) and probably quadruple or more the number across the world (currently about 440), all by the year 2050. Doing that would take care of one of the infamous carbon “wedges,” meaning that doing so would reduce carbon emissions by about 20 percent. Nuclear industry can’t even build that fast Add up the numbers, and one understands this type of nuclear construction program means a new reactor coming online somewhere in the world every two weeks from now until 2050. Since there are no new reactors coming on line in the next two weeks (or virtually any two weeks that you may read these words), we are falling further and further behind even saving that 20 percent. And, if the nuclear industry were honest, it would admit it can’t possibly build that many new reactors. In fact, as of July 2007, as will be the case every July for the foreseeable future, the nuclear industry is capable of building only 12 reactors per year worldwide, because there is only one factory, in Japan, capable of building reactor pressure vessels. That’s a physical limit, unless and until a new factory—at considerable cost and time to construct—can be built. So the reality is that the nuclear industry cannot possibly do better than fall far short of even a modest carbon emissions reduction goal, meaning that its contribution, under under best-case circumstances, becomes negligible at best.

And Dr. Charles Ferguson, a physicist, explains that trying to expand nuclear power fast enough to solve climate change would compromise safety:

This conventional wisdom possesses some truth, but it oversells the contribution nuclear energy can make to reduce global warming and strengthen energy security while downplaying the dangers associated with this energy source. To realistically address global warming, the nuclear industry would have to expand at such a rapid rate as to pose serious concerns for how the industry would ensure an adequate supply of reasonably inexpensive reactor-grade construction materials, well-trained technicians, and rigorous safety and security measures.

A significant expansion of nuclear power would substantially increase the dangers associated with nuclear power:

Nuclear power has significant and inherent risks that we must take into account when addressing global warming. These risks include a large release of radiation from a power plant accident or terrorist attack, and the death of tens of thousands or more from the detonation of a nuclear weapon made with material obtained from a civilian nuclear power system. (This report will not consider the risks of dirty bombs, in which a conventional explosive is used to spread radiological material.) Unless fundamental changes are made in the way nuclear power is operated and controlled, a largescale expansion of nuclear power in the United States—or worldwide—would almost certainly increase these risks.

Given the emission of CO2 at many points in the nuclear cycle, the limited feasibility of a substantial expansion, and the potential investment trade-offs with other forms of alternative energy, it is not realistic to conceive of nuclear power as a something that can lead the charge and make a significant contribution to the fight against global warming.  And the risks associated with a significant expansion threaten its ability to function as an ally at all.

In his Democratic National Convention acceptance speech, Barak Obama established a goal of eliminating U.S. oil dependence in 10 years.

And for the sake of our economy, our security, and the future of our planet, I will set a clear goal as president: In 10 years, we will finally end our dependence on oil from the Middle East.

While it is desirable to set high goals, forwarding unrealistic goals is both misleading and irresponsible, especially when it is implied that the goal can be obtained.

There are three fundamental reasons that this goal is unrealistic.

First, neither of Obama’s proposed energy policies are likely to accomplish the goal.

Obama’s first foray into energy policy will likely be to provide significant federal financial support for renewable energy technologies, such as wind and solar.  If these technologies are successful, however, they are more likely to reduce our reliance on coal, not oil, since it is coal that is primarily consumed in the production of electricity. Walid Khudarri explains:

Obama has suggested allocating $150 billion to support renewable energy programs over ten years. He expects to raise most of these funds from taxes on oil production and consumption. The objective of his program - as he stated back then - was not only to find alternative renewable sources of energy to oil then alleviate environment pollution  - by reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 80% by the year 2050 - and curb the dependence on imported oil for “security” reasons, especially cutting oil imports by 35% by 2030 - even though US imports of oil has been continuously rising compared to the 1970s and 1980s. The program was also intended to adopt a “green” energy policy that would create five million job opportunities in ten years. Through this policy, Obama is trying to address two significant issues at the same time: cutting dependence on oil and creating new jobs by supporting solar, wind and nuclear energy industries. During his presidential campaign, he suggested very high taxes on coal, the main source of energy used for generating electricity in the US, in the hope of reducing environmental pollution. He also suggested replacing coal with natural gas and transforming 10% - up to 25% by 2025 - of American electricity plants so that they become dependent on renewable energy. This is the pillar of the new energy policy which does not have much of an impact on oil consumption because it replaces coal by other energies, especially since the US has long stopped using fuel oil to generate electricity

Of course, Obama has also promoted efforts to increase auto efficiency, claiming that these efficiency improvements will reduce gas, and subsequently, oil consumption. Many suspect that any financial bailout of Detroit will included strings that require the automakers to move in this very direction.

This effort, however, will not make any (signficant) cuts in U.S. oil dependence as cars will continue to be driven by gasoline engines for the foreseable future.  Also, there is strong evidence that efficiency improvements result in lower prices, increasing demand both in the transportation sector and in other sectors of the economy. Runa Braanland, Department of Economics, Umea° University, Energy Economics 29 (2007): 17

Due to the lower cost of petrol per mile, the demand for car transport will increase by 0.9% in breal unitsQ (see Table 3). At the same time, there is a reduction in the real demand for public and other transport by 0.4 and 1.8% respectively. The increased energy efficiency in the transport sector leads to higher consumption of heating and other goods, while the consumption of foodstuffs decreases.

Obama is likely to advance an aggressive cap & trade program that will likely cap CO2 emissions near 50% below 1990 levels by 2050.  Congressional consideration, however, is not likely until at least 2010, and even if Congress approves the legislation it is not likely to significantly reduce domestic oil consumption because coal has the highest carbon intensity and is therefore likely to bear the brunt of the reductions.

Second, it is essentially impossible for the U.S. to isolate itself from the international oil market.  The price of oil is set internationally, so even if the U.S. purchases even a small amount of oil from abroad it will have to pay the global price and is, consequently, vulnerable to any global “price shock” (a sudden escalation of price) that occurs. Pushker A. Kharecha and James E. Hansen, from NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Columbia University Earth Institute,  explain:

In the context of the world oil market, it is also clear just how vacuous calls for “energy independence” really are. The U.S. consumes far more oil than it produces, and that will remain the case so long as petroleum products are the basic transportation fuel in the country. But even if demand were reduced dramatically or abundant new supplies were found so that domestic supply and demand were more closely balanced, the U.S. oil market would never be “independent” of the rest of the world

Third, even if the U.S. could eliminate its own dependence, our allies would still be dependent on oil.  Since world economies are interdependent and the U.S. still have strong security ties with, and commitments to, many of these countries, the U.S. would still be required to deploy substantial military power in the areas of oil-producing states, esentially eliminating the value of the reduction. John Deutch from the Council on Foreign Relations explains:

Yet even if the United States were self-sufficient in oil (a condition the Task Force considers wholly infeasible in the foreseeable future), U.S. foreign policy would remain constrained as long as U.S. allies and partners remained dependent on imports because of their mutual interdependence.

Even if one assumes that Obama can get Congress to support his energy policies in a timely manner and assumes that those programs are effective at promoting renewable energy, it is unlikely that either will (significantly) reduce U.S. dependence on oil. And even significant reductions in oil consumption still leave the U.S. and its allies vulnerable to price and supply disruptions.

Obama is welcome to establish any goal he wants, but the elimination of oil dependence is not one that his policies have a realistic shot of achieving, especially in ten years.