Talk the talk? Then dare to walk the walk.

Think of yourself a true conservative? Prove it. Conserve something. Like the planet you and your children (and your children's children) live on.

"What is a conservative after all but one who conserves, one who is committed to protecting and holding close the things by which we live… This is what we leave to our children. And our great moral responsibility is to leave it to them either as we found it or better than we found it." 

Ronald Reagan

Hope from the right?

We may disagree about the solution, but we should be able to at least agree on the problem.

Evidence of this comes from the right, in the form of an effort by North Carolina entrepreneur Jay Faison to get the GOP to address climate change (advocating for a market-based approach).

See http://www.politico.com/story/2015/06/republican-climate-change-jay-faison-118755.html and http://www.clearpath.org/

An Open Letter to Libertarian Candidates ... (Part 7)

Part 7. Advice to the candidate.

So here (in short) is my unsolicited advice to the candidate.

Don’t:

1.       Be a denier (don’t duck the issue; climate change is at least a risk)

2.       Waffle (this is worse; people won’t trust you or believe you)

3.       Sell out to big money, big business interests (libertarians should always be for the individual in clashes between big and small)

Do:

1.       Remain consistent (it is OK to say the science isn’t certain, it never is)

2.       Play the insurance angle (in the face of uncertainty, we buy insurance)

3.       Play the Reagan angle (the George Shultz position)

4.       Embrace market-based approaches (such as CCL’s Carbon Fee and Dividend) as an alternative to big government solutions, regulation by the EPA

5.       Emphasize the way the Dividend works (100% rebated to the public) and how this offsets any price increase (most households come out ahead)

6.       Play up the ability of the free market to innovate, to respond flexibly and efficiently, and to respond quickly (important on an issue where time is [according to scientists] of the essence]

7.       Take notice of all the windmills you see on your visits to Iowa (wind farms atop real farms, home-grown energy)

8.       Argue for free speech, and fair speech, and for small vs. big

Big Money: A poem for our times

Big money. Small money. Mere change.

Big change. Small change. No change.

And all around us, climate change.

What leads, one to the other?

Think about it--just not too long.

There isn't time for that.
Gary Daugherty, 6-7-15-AM

An Open Letter to Libertarian Candidates ... (Part 6)

Part 6. Big money, small change. 

Big money. Big business. Big government.

      What is the difference between them if they are all telling us what to do?

      And what use is liberty when others have power over you?

      Big money talks. Big money shouts. Big money sets the political agenda.

      Big money steals your voice, shouts you down, repeatedly in those one-sided commercials we all hate (no matter which side you’re on). And, in the form of robocalls that invade your privacy, intrude upon your time, demand to be answered.

      Big money steals the candidate’s voice too. It tells the candidate (like all the rest of us) what to think, and do, and say. Or, if you dare disagree, to shut up.

      Big business supplies the big money, looks out first for itself. Invest a billion, get back a trillion (by controlling the levers of big government). A great rate of return. A smart move. A good investment.

      Big government, for sale to the highest bidder. Bills written by lobbyists and big money interests. Gerrymandering, to discount the value of the vote. To replace democracy with the rule of oligarchs.

      It’s the Russian way. It shouldn’t be the American way too.
      By contrast, small is beautiful. Small government (of course). Small business (a job creator, an innovator). Small money. The voice of the people. The small guy.
      It is time to recognize that free speech is not always fair speech (just as free markets are not always fair markets). It is time to recognize that people can be smart without being rich. And that the rich can be rich for the wrong reasons. That they are not God’s chosen. Just rich. That we should not be afraid, that we can outvote them, that collectively we are even richer than they are.

      Hold a real debate. Address the public’s agenda. And let ideas hold sway, not advertizing dollars.

      So what’s a candidate to do? How do you counter big (big money, big business, big government) if, theoretically, you wanted to?

1.       Emphasize retail politics (the kind practiced in Iowa and New Hampshire, where the candidates have face-to-face time with voters, and first hand impressions count for more than campaign ads)

2.       Emphasize the internet and social media. TV is expensive and, to some degree necessary, but the Internet is free (nearly), and by relying on personal contact (at the level of friends talking to friends), potentially more effective.

3.       Make ‘Big’ itself the issue—in a limited TV campaign that contrasts itself with that of the better funded opponent, in interviews (where you have more time to talk), in debates (where the most people are watching), and everywhere else.

4.       Unite with other also-rans (money-wise) to gang up on the anointed one (the billionaire’s choice—call him that). Like small birds (more numerous and more determined) chase away a hawk.

5.       Be mocking, use humor, and be sharp and satirical, in contrast to the typically stodgy, heavy-handed, big-money approach. The way you get the news from the Daily Show. The way the Coen brothers lampoon Clean Coal in their series of mock ads (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uFJVbdiMgfM). Make it cool to be an outsider. Make your supporters feel smart and superior to the opposition. Make the opposition want to be you.

6.       Push for simple, market-based approaches (the CCL Carbon Fee and Dividend immediately comes to mind) as an alternative to thousand-page bills that nobody reads, and EPA regulation (the big government approach)

7.       Convert the enemy. Bribe the oil and coal interests if necessary. Treat them like victims (as surely as are island nations, and people with oceanfront property, all their eggs in the wrong basket). It is not their fault that they invested so heavily in carbon fuels. It is our fault that they did, a response to demand. We help them (become energy companies in the broadest sense of the word), they help us (by accepting a carbon fee, etc.)

8.       Get your own billionaire. Someone who already agrees with you on the key issues, including (most importantly) the need for long terms measures to limit the influence of big money in politics and restore the democratic process (amending the constitution, leveraging the donations of small donors, offering free TV time to candidates while, at the same time, moving to campaign media [the internet] that are not bandwidth limited). More about this in a future post.

9.       Turn out the vote (in the end, this is all that counts—not the money spent, but the number of votes you get)

So take the money, run the commercials—if you have to, and if you can. Do it, but run a different kind of campaign, a campaign that emphasizes small. Do it, but demand a long term end to it. And mean it too. (Like Mayday, the PAC to end all PACS, embrace the irony).

An Open Letter to Libertarian Candidates … (Part 5)

Part 5. Playing fair. Or, “ … with liberty and justice for all.”  So suppose we are a small island nation that has contributed almost nothing to the world’s carbon emissions, but stands to lose everything to rising sea levels. If the science is right, and if climate change is to blame. Say with a 65 to 95% certainty (hypothetically, where the real range would be based on an assessment by the insurance industry).

      But suppose this is the case. A case in case law. The proposal, so far, would do almost nothing to offer compensation. If the country itself were to impose a carbon fee, almost nothing would be collected, so almost nothing would be paid out, and residents (the ones most likely to lose everything) would get nothing.

      What do we do about that?

      One thing we might do, as an incentive for such countries to join the settlement, is apply the proposed solution across national borders. There would be just one pool of money collected from carbon fees. And the citizens of every country that agreed to the carbon-fee-and-dividend approach (joined the settlement) would be paid dividends from the fees collected world-wide.

      So I can just imagine the horror with which you might be taking this in. A world-wide fund? Everyone shares equally? Sounds pretty socialist (should I say communist?) to me.

      But, the truth is, in this case, the proposal precisely matches the problem. If we were not dealing with a world-wide resource (the air), we would not have a world-wide pool of money, that’s all. And would not have the need to compensate someone in America for emissions put into the air by some factory in China. But we do. And this neatly handles the problem going forward.

      As for compensation (if any) for past emissions (old carbon is just as dangerous as new carbon when it comes to climate risk, until it is pulled from the atmosphere), this is something that could be negotiated as each nation joined the settlement. In the case of our island nation, the cost of resettlement (at a minimum) would be at stake.

      All such special cases (cases where a people is disproportionately at risk through no fault of their own), however, would be dealt with once, and up front.

      Going forward, it would be every man and woman for him/herself.

      May the smartest (and wisest) adapt, survive, and thrive.

      Given, of course, a fair shake and an equal opportunity.

An Open Letter to Libertarian Candidates … (Part 4)

Part 4. Scaling Up. So, no matter what we do, will it matter, on a world-wide level? Or will our efforts simply be drowned out by all the noise (the actions and lack of action by other countries)?

      China comes to mind. But Russia too, a primary oil exporter, and no friend (under Putin) of the United States. For that matter, are our friends even our friends when it comes to climate change? Sure, the Europeans are on board (though not with respect to fee-and-dividend). But Saudia Arabia? Australia (which just repealed a carbon tax)? Who can you rely on? Who can you trust?

      Some countries may come along. Some will not. Some will come along but adopt their own (perhaps less market driven) approaches. (How can we complain, from a libertarian perspective? It is only individualism at a national level.)

      However, as the Citizens’ Climate Lobby notes, the World Trade Organization does allow a tax on goods at the border that levels the playing field (http://citizensclimatelobby.org/laser-talks/border-tax-adjustment/). So if country X does not impose an equivalent fee on oil at the point it is pumped from the ground, the fee can be imposed at the point where it is imported into the United States. And if the manufacture of some product (a pair of athletic shoes, a ton of wheat, a car) results in carbon emissions on which the fee was not paid, then the fee (on these emissions) again could be collected at the border.

      This solution is not perfect.

      It can be complicated to compute the emissions spent to manufacture a particular product. But it can be done (and precision to the Nth digit is not really necessary).

      Countries can refuse to trade with us to avoid the border tax. But few would.

      The United States is simply too big a market. And the combined US/European market (assuming the Europeans support us, a likely possibility) would be bigger still. Bring a few more like-minded countries on board and you bring the rest of world would have to follow. Make one of those countries China or India, and all resistance would crumble.

      Indeed, it would be to advantage of most of the developing world to join the settlement. What is the alternative? Suing a company in the United States to recover damages due to sea level rise in the Maldives is a lengthy and complicated business. It is much quicker and better to negotiate at a national level and join an international settlement, at least if the settlement is reasonable (more later, on countries that produce little in the way of emissions, but bear the brunt of the consequences).

      And it would be to the advantage of most companies to see things settled out of court. Companies like certainty. And having an enormous potential liability hanging over their heads world-wide (more even than their insurance companies would likely be able to pay) would do little good for the world’s business environment. Or for the world’s military security situation, if the courts (weak at an international level) proved incapable of dealing with things. Incapable of keeping up with ‘events on the ground.’

      No, if we want to avoid the risk of such consequences, it makes sense to settle now. And to do something (sooner rather than later) that reduces the risk of large-scale consequences (and damages, and worse—that, at least small chance, that the science is right).