Nee asked me to take a look at an op-ed from the addled old lady of the press... I mean, the NYT, not Maureen Dowd, and I have to say, the column by Thomas Friedman, entitled "Making America Stupid" is a mess. There are so many bizarre claims and fun house mirror misrepresentations that I can barely recognize the political actors he describes, much less the nation he is attempting to "rescue" from an Obama-less future. (Thank you kindly, Mr. Friedman. Mission Accomplished, to steal a phrase from the man who kept the nation safe for 7 years. You have saddled us with the "Office of the President Elect", whose occupant's many mistakes will surely come to rival those of the Carter years. Though the press will  be so busy taking glamor shots and telling us about his kids, I doubt they will notice. Thank you so very, very much!)

However, I lack the time right now to tear into this essay properly, and, in any case, it is old news and probably of only historical interest. The claims it makes were what passed for Obama campaign boilerplate, and things we have all heard before. However, there is one claim which did pique my interest, as it is a topic which frequently arises in writing from the delirious left, and one which seems to often be quietly ignored by those who should know better, passing without much needed criticism.

The claim in question is that "fossil fuels" are somehow "of the nineteenth century" while the 21st Century (just on the other side of Bill Clinton's bridge, if I remember correctly), will be fueled by the magical, green-ilicious, earth hugging, tree-friendly, snuggly, cuddly, warm and fuzzy "renewable energy". Now, ignoring for a moment the fact that our current technology makes wind, geothermal, solar, composting, "biomass", pig power, hippie-stench-to-electricity conversion and all other such schemes even less efficient than trying to power your house by rubbing balloons against your sweater and waiting for a big spark, even with better technology, "alternative energy" is all characterized by one word: "diffuse". Even with 100% efficiency, maintaining our current energy consumption using solar power would require something like the state of Washington be covered with solar panels. And that is assuming perfect efficiency. In reality, all of California will need to become one giant generator if we hope to maintain our current energy consumption.

Then again, that doesn't seem to be the goal of most eco-movement types. Oh, they will no doubt maintain a nice standard of living for themselves, but for the rest of mankind, the peons who toil beneath them? Well, caves are nice enough, aren't they? Certainly easy to cool, anyway.

If you doubt me, then explain one thing. Why is it that the single cheapest energy source in the US, coal, is always the villain in every environmental disaster story? First it was acid rain that prevented us from generating cheap electricity. Then it was global warming. Then, when nuclear started to appear to be a clean, viable source of electricity, it was the "China Syndrome" and Jane Fonda somehow melting down and ending life as we know it. It seem that, rather than the destruction of nature, the greatest fear of environmentalists is a clean, cheap source of power.

Of course, the counter argument, when they don't invoke destruction by the great and mysterious deity Global Warming, is the argument that we are on the verge of running out of oil, coal, gas, tar, shale, and every other possible source of power except wind and hemp oil. The problem is, that shows a remarkable lack of economic knowledge. You see, throughout time, whenever a product has been on the verge of running out, prices have risen.  However, despite a temporary rise caused by governmental roadblocks to new production,  once government got out of the way, prices of oil have fallen dramatically. Why is that? Because there is NO PEAK OIL. At least not in the near future. And it may not ever be meaningful. (I ranted about this in a slightly more serious vein a few days ago in my post "Economic Illiteracy". If you want a bit more staid post, that may be the one for you.)

Why do I say this? First, because clearly we are not near peak oil production. How can I prove this? Simple. If we were extracting allt he oil we could, there would not be so many oil fields for environmentalists to say we can't explore. If there are enough unexplored and untouched fields for it to be a political issue, then there is a lot of unknown oil out there, oil which is not figured into "peak oil" predictions (which are pretty shaky "science" at best), so it is quite unlikely we have just happened to hit peak oil because all the places eco-freaks won't let us dig also happen to have no oil. Far more likely, there is a lot of oil out there that is currently off limits, and even more no one has even thought of finding. So it seems premature to be declaring peak oil. (Also, since peak oil has been "around the corner" since the 1960's, and in some journal since the early 1900's, I am always a bit skeptical of such claims. Eventually they may be right, but the eight hundred thousandth cry of "wolf" just lacks the punch of the first hundred or so.)

The other reason I am skeptical of any claim that we will "run out" of a natural resource is because of two factors these people always fail to consider. You see, they describe the earth as a great big garage, cluttered and filled with all manner of junk. You go in, find what you want, take it out. Sometimes you find it quickly, sometimes it takes a while to find. As you use more, it gets harder to find what you want. And eventually, you use up that last can of oil or the final box of saltines and you are done.

But the earth is not a giant garage. And nothing is truly finite. For the moment we can ignore the fact that the earth is not a closed system, but is actually interacting with the sun, gasses and dust in space, meteors, etc. Admittedly, those are relatively small interactions, but over time they do add up. Still, let us forget that and look at some other factors that make the garage model absurd.

The only cost of getting something out of your garage is time, so you will likely not be tempted to economize in your use of goods. Even when they do admit it takes longer to get the final few drops of oil, most who predict peak oil do not make the logical leap to thoughts of economization. However, we saw just that when gasoline neared $5 a gallon. People started to drive less. Plastic goods became more expensive and people used fewer plastic items. And so on and so on. As items become more expensive, people sue less, or get more efficient use out of what they do have. And the same will be true of oil should we ever begin to run low. We will find ways to economize and we will find greater efficiencies, both of which will cause us to need less, and allow the remaining quantity to be used longer. However, most doom and gloom scenarios involving peak oil never one mention either possibility.

There is another way the garage analogy fails. When you want oil, you can't go into your garage and find a way to turn Windex into oil. However, in economics I can think of nothing which does not have a substitute. Even labor, the most universal input, can be replaced to some extent with machinery. As oil becomes more expensive, more money will be put into the search for substitutes, and as more and more money attracts more minds, doubtless ever better substitutes will be found. Even now, with cheap oil, we know that we can manufacture pretty miserable substitutes out of corn, sugar and other plants. Granted, the price of oil makes such alternatives unattractive but for the massive government subsidies, but if prices rise, I am sure better replacements will be found quite quickly (barring environmentalist interference, or too much more government "assistance".)

There is one final thing which we need to realize about the garage analogy. Your garage is pretty small. Yes, you might miss a case of oil on the bottom shelf, but odds are good you have a general idea how much of any substance is in your garage. Despite claims to the contrary, the earth is REALLY BIG and we have explored very little of it. So anyone claiming we know, with any degree of certainty, how much oil is present, is just lying. What we have done in terms of oil exploration is akin to looking for a friend in Giant Stadium by checking five seats then confidently declaring "he's not here". We have found some oil, we have searched for oil in other places, but we have not explored anything approaching 10% of the earth. So any claims that we "know" how much oil there is are exaggerations, to say the least. (If you doubt me, explain how new cities are discovered by archeologists. If we have so thoroughly explored the secrets that lie beneath the earth, should we have not found every buried city at the very least?)

And that, in a biodegradable nutshell, is the whole of the support provided for the claim that this century will be characterized by compost heaps and eagle filleting wind towers rather than nuclear plants and, well, real technology. Basically, the argument is "I know somehow we are going to run out of oil next Thursday, and even if we don't, burning stuff makes Earth get real toasty and we'll all drown and burn and stuff..." Yet somehow this absurd thesis has become the basis for academic studies, government policy and, sadly, NYT editorials.

POSTSCRIPT

You may notice this post has a bit of a different tone than usual. That was intentional. As I usually try to write rather staid, reasonable pieces, I decided to let myself go a little bit. After all, I did promise Nee a reasonable, unemotional piece, what better way to purge those emotions than in a rather silly piece such as this?

Don't worry, it isn't the start of a trend. I just have to allow myself to be a little less structured and thoughtful every now and then. I will return to my somewhat more stuffy style shortly.

POSTSCRIPT II

What makes "global warming" even more absurd is that at one time, before the "hockey stick" graph "proved" that there was never any warmer temperature in the past 1000 years, there was a time that ended about 600 years ago called the "medieval warm period", during which temperatures were about 1 degree Celsius warmer than today. Since the estimates are that temperatures may rise 1 degree in a  century, even if global warming continues unabated, we will only reach the temperatures of this warm period by the 22nd century.

Since this warm period is described as rather idyllic, that means that if we do nothing, and continue as we have been, then at worst, in 100 years we will have made the earth more suitable for human habitation. In other words, if we sacrifice nothing, continue as we have been, maybe convert to cheap coal for electricity rather than expensive natural gas and petroleum, at worst, in 1000 years, earth will be  a nicer place.

Since the alternative is to sacrifice economic progress, make ourselves less wealthy, generally lower our standard of living, all in an attempt to keep the climate the same as it is, rather than let it warm to a better temperature, I have to say I don't really understand why anyone listens to these environmentalists.