For those wondering what we as Americans should -- and should not -- do in response to so-called global warming, have a look over at John Doggett CMC '69.
Here are some selections:
Mr. Doggett has had a fascinating life as founder of the Black Student Union (BSU), conservative talk show host, entrepreneur, and now professor of business at the University of Texas. For me on him, please see the two part interview I conducted with him for The Claremont Independent.America is no longer the largest polluter in the world
“The good news is: we’re no longer No. 1 in something that we don’t want to be No. 1 in. We’re no longer the largest polluter in the world, which really irritates the Europeans. They like to say, ‘you Americans, you know: you screw everything up.’ I said, ‘Talk to the Chinese.’ In 2008 the Chinese passed us as the largest polluters…. According to the International Energy Agency (IEA) by 2010 -- next year -- the Chinese will be the largest consumer of energy in the world. But … IEA says that around the next 25 to 30 years they will build more new generating capacity, distribution and transmission capacity -- new -- than we have in the United States today. New! And they say it’s going to cost them about $3.8 trillion to do that. If you know any people who are in the business of making products for the electrical grid, guess what, there’s one place they should be selling.”
“But for us as entrepreneurs, for people who say we believe in capitalism, when you have countries that have to spend trillions of dollars to be able to continue to grow their economy, if we can’t figure out a way to sell them products and services that they need, then we should be ashamed of ourselves.
“Another way to look at what’s going on, … In 2005 China was using a third less energy than us. By 2010, they will be using more than we are. Think about how hard it is to build power plants here. This is the Chinese experience in building power plants. …. "In 2006 they added more than 100,000 megawatts. Now … what does that mean? It meant they were bringing on line two new coal-fired plants a week, two a week. They slowed down some, now it’s only one new coal-fired plant a week. How long has it taken you, Ron (Harper), to bring your plant on line and you got people saying we shouldn’t do that. … Well, guess what? Their new plants are more efficient than their old plants, and they are cleaner than their old plants, but they are not as clean as anything that I saw here at Basin and they do not have a Sierra Club. They have people that hate air pollution, but they do not have people who say we’re going to shut down coal. As we say in Texas, 'that dog ain’t hunting. '
Be aggressive in protecting your power source: coal
“And so, my second message for you is this: you have to be aggressive in protecting your power source, coal, right now and investing in ways to make coal cleaner for a very simple reason, the Chinese are going to continue to grow their economy with coal as the number one energy source and they’re not going to agree to do any of the things that people are trying to make us do. And so if we want to see how it is to compete with both our hands tied behind our back and our legs strapped together, we can try to do that.
“But Goldman {Sachs} was right, and I’m sharing it with you: we’re dealing with competitors who have bought into the American way of life and capitalism and the free market and they’re not going to have those constraints. And if we want to compete, we’re going to have to compete in the way the game is played: by innovating, because China is a coal capitol. We’re at 50 percent, they are at 80 percent. … They use more coal than the United States, Europe and Japan combined and it’s going to continue. But the Chinese have a real air pollution problem and they are starting to deal with it by investing a lot of different technologies including ultra-critical and super critical coal plants, which are the most efficient coal plants in the world and they are, by the next year, going to be the leading manufacturer or constructor of these new coal plant technologies in the world….”
“But there’s a price and with that price comes opportunity. We have a conversation about climate change and that conversation in this country is all about us and maybe the Europeans. I showed you slides with data from the CIA that says 40 percent of all the people on the planet live in Brazil, Russia, India and China. Forget Russia and Brazil, 40 percent of all the people in the world live in two countries, India and China.
"And so what they do is really important and if we’re going to have a conversation about the climate or about cap-and-trade or carbon tax, about doing something about greenhouse gases or global warming, that conversation has to include them because people in China hate dirty air -- it's the second largest source of protest in that country. The first one is {the Chinese} government taking land and not paying people properly for it.…
China's dirty air doesn't stay in China
“My wife went back for Chinese New Year a couple of years ago which is late January-early February. Talked to her friends from high school and college, and she said every one of her friends who had children said every one of their kids had respiratory problems because of the dirty air, 100 percent. …
"The Chinese Government is learning that if they are going to continue to grow their economy -- as they grow their economy -- and as more and more people become members of the middle class, like the United States, middle class people don’t like this stuff and they are speaking out. … But here’s what’s really important for us to understand in this conversation about climate change. This air, this dirty air, does not stay in China. This is a picture of the western part of the United States with a quote from the Wall Street Journal a couple of years ago. On some days almost a third of the air over LA and San Francisco can be traced to directly to Asia. With it comes up to three quarters of the black carbon particulate pollution that reaches the West Coast. That was two years ago.
“What does this picture look like, if Goldman (Sachs) is right and the Chinese economy is four times this large and the Indian is 10 times this large and we have not engaged them in the conversation about what to do about the climate? We can bankrupt Basin (Electric) and it won’t make a beans bit of difference -- and that’s not part of the conversation. It has to be part of the conversation. ...
“Now, what do we know? There’s going to be this meeting in December in Copenhagen. We’ve told the Chinese and the Indians that they need to sign on (climate proposals), and they said, ‘No, nix, not going to do it; we’ll consider signing in a decade, but we have growth to deal with and, anyway, you guys are responsible for screwing everything up. It’s not us, so we’re going to do what we want to do because although we are now the largest polluters in the world, we’re responsible for 25 percent of all greenhouse gases, just those two countries and on a per capita basis, on a person basis, we’re still much cleaner than you are.’ ...
