US Diary: California leads the US in environment care, and we have much to learn from our greatest state

1. Colorless Green Ideas -- by PAUL KRUGMAN/NY Times

The factual debate about whether global warming is real is, or at least should be, over. The question now is what to do about it.

Aside from a few dead-enders on the political right, climate change skeptics seem to be making a seamless transition from denial to fatalism. In the past, they rejected the science. Now, with the scientific evidence pretty much irrefutable, they insist that it doesn’t matter because any serious attempt to curb greenhouse gas emissions is politically and economically impossible.

Behind this claim lies the assumption, explicit or implicit, that any substantial cut in energy use would require a drastic change in the way we live. To be fair, some people in the conservation movement seem to share that assumption.

But the assumption is false. Let me tell you about a real-world counterexample: an advanced economy that has managed to combine rising living standards with a substantial decline in per capita energy consumption, and managed to keep total carbon dioxide emissions more or less flat for two decades, even as both its economy and its population grew rapidly. And it achieved all this without fundamentally changing a lifestyle centered on automobiles and single-family houses.

The name of the economy? California.

There’s nothing heroic about California’s energy policy — but that’s precisely the point. Over the years the state has adopted a series of conservation measures that are anything but splashy. They’re the kind of drab, colorless stuff that excites only real policy wonks. Yet the cumulative effect has been impressive, if still well short of what we really need to do.

The energy divergence between California and the rest of the United States dates from the 1970s. Both the nation and the state initially engaged in significant energy conservation after that decade’s energy crisis. But conservation in most of America soon stalled: after a decade of rapid progress, improvements in auto mileage came to an end, while electricity consumption continued to rise rapidly, driven by the growing size of houses, the increasing use of air-conditioning and the proliferation of appliances.

In California, by contrast, the state continued to push policies designed to encourage conservation, especially of electricity. And these policies worked.

People in California have always used a bit less energy than other Americans because of the mild climate. But the difference has grown much larger since the 1970s. Today, the average Californian uses about a third less total energy than the average American, uses less than 60 percent as much electricity, and is responsible for emitting only about 55 percent as much carbon dioxide.

How did the state do it? In some cases conservation was mandated directly, through energy efficiency standards for appliances and rules governing new construction. Also, regulated power companies were given new incentives to promote conservation, via rule changes that “decoupled” their profits from the amount of electricity they sold.

And yes, a variety of state actions had the effect of raising energy prices. In the early 1970s, the price of electricity in California was close to the national average. Today, it’s about 50 percent higher.

Incidentally, since someone is bound to mention it: the California energy crisis of 2000-2001 has nothing to do with this story. That crisis was caused by market manipulation — we’ve got it on tape — made possible by ill-conceived deregulation, not conservation.

Back to California’s success. As the higher price of power indicates, conservation didn’t come free. Still, it’s striking how invisible California’s energy policy remains. It’s easy to see why New York has much lower per capita energy consumption than, say, Georgia: it’s a matter of high-rises versus sprawl, mass transit versus driving alone. It’s less obvious that Los Angeles is a much greener city than Atlanta. But it is.

So is California a role model for climate policy? No and yes. Even if America as a whole had matched California’s conservation efforts, we’d still be emitting about as much carbon dioxide now as we were in 1990. That’s too much.

But California’s experience shows that serious conservation is a lot less disruptive, imposes much less of a burden, than the skeptics would have it. And the fact that a state government, with far more limited powers than those at Washington’s disposal, has been able to achieve so much is a good omen for our ability to do a lot to limit climate change, if and when we find the political will.


2. Green Theft Auto – by CHRIS MARCIL/NY Times

IN California, hybrid vehicles can use the carpool lane even if there’s only one person in the car. All you have to do is send in a form and $8 to the Department of Motor Vehicles, and it sends you the proper stickers for your car. It’s the same way I got my Cap’n Crunch decals as a kid, except you can’t send box tops to Sacramento. Problem is, the program is cut off at 85,000 cars — a limit that must have been reached, if what happened to my Prius is any indication.

Recently, somebody stole our stickers. And, since the stickers are useful only to hybrid owners, it could mean only one thing: we were the victims of liberal-on-liberal crime. That the act most likely occurred in the parking lot at Whole Foods just strengthens this thesis. Our sticker-pincher thinks globally, steals locally.

Well, now that the phrase “liberal guilt” has a whole new meaning, what can be done? Not much, I’m afraid. We needed new stickers, so I sent a fresh $8 to the state government — something, given my views, I was happy to do. But beyond that the options were limited. It’s not as if my car can be “Protected by Smith & Wesson,” not with gun use as out of control as it is.

Being a good liberal, I blamed myself. I never wanted to festoon our bumper with strident political messages, opting instead for a more dignified air of Prius-esque self-satisfaction. But maybe my car’s silence was needlessly provocative — maybe our crook was making a political statement because our car failed to make one itself. Would another sticker on our car — one that depicted a little Darwin fish-with-feet, say, or one that said “More Trees Less Bush” — have saved the one that’s actually useful?

In the end, I’ve decided to use this incident as a way to raise awareness of liberal-on-liberal crime. Sure, the news media pays attention only to our interactions with “normal” Americans, but the hard fact is, our community is hurt the most by the injuries we do to ourselves. Whether it’s the cutthroat preschool admissions scene, supporting Dave Matthews or nominating Massachusetts politicians, it’s a pathology, and it’s got to stop. The brewing Clinton-Obama beef shows that we liberals need pacification measures that are, to use a slang term of ours, broad-based and comprehensive.

Meanwhile, I’m still hoping for our thief’s comeuppance. I daydream that he (or she!) is one of those smug types who lives closer to the ocean than we do, so that when the sea level rises it’s his stickers (or hers!) — formerly our stickers — that get washed away first. For me, revenge is a dish best served warm, globally warm.

(Chris Marcil writes for television.)