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Roger

I'm not sure any pollster would base a forecast for the next presidential elections on this rather obscure and impenetrable set of data. That's one of the reasons why I doubt that your prediction is likely to come true.

Of course, many Democrats would love to select Al Gore as their candidate - but only if the party were sure that he is a likely victor and not a potential liability. Perhaps Matthew Nisbet is closer to the truth when he reminds his audience about a real dilemma Democrats face: "As great a catalyst and leader as Al Gore has been on global warming, and as much as I admire Inconvenient Truth, he remains a major "negative brand" for the nearly half of Americans who hold an unfavorable view of the former VP."
http://scienceblogs.com/framing-science/2007/02/bigger_than_live_8_global_musi.php

I am also less certain that global warming will be a key issue during the 2008 elections. I would think a better guess is the status of the Iranian nuclear progeamme.

Lastly, don't forget that opposition leaders in both Canada and Australia have already decided to embrace and implement an Al Gore-style campaign. They have made global warming and Kyoto the key plank of their political attempt to ouster their right-wing opponents in government. But it is far from certain that they will be victorious by putting climate change - or indeed Kyoto - top of their political agenda.

As a farsighted commentator in The Sydney Morning Herald yesterday underlines, the outcome of the race is far from certain: "The question is whether a scare campaign on jobs will be enough to beat a scare campaign on climate change."
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/voters-choice-save-the-earth-or-save-the-coal-industry/2007/02/13/1171128973772.html

The same is true for Canada where the Kyoto-campaign might potentially backfire on climate change campaigners if it is regarded as a serious risk to job security and economic stability:

"Now that the scientific and public consensus on climate change has shifted, it seems unlikely Canadians will tolerate that level of avoidance by any level of government. But we doubt that when shown the consequences in detail, voters will choose to back a party that proposes to wreak havoc on our economy by belatedly rushing to meet Kyoto's arbitrary targets."
http://www.canada.com/vancouversun/news/editorial/story.html?id=f9064ae2-d68e-4a74-bb98-7cd522a6f24a

So let's wait and see how things pan out. It will certainly be highly entertaining to monitor how the various contestants play their cards.

Thanks Benny for our comments. There is a lot of room for different views here. Time will tell!

Oooh, a scenario worthy of Steven King.

Benny- Let me add that we have seen pollsters do far more with far less (e.g., can you say "soccer moms").

If Mr. Gore runs, you can be sure that his campaigners have decided that climate change is a politically winning issue. They (and I) may be wrong in making such a judgment, but it won't be made arbitrarily, and may have already been a consideration in the calculated reemergence of Mr. Gore.

Thanks!

Benny, of course it's too soon to predict who's going to win. But it's still fun. I'll make shorter term but more detailed predictions.

Right now, Chicago is under buried under snow. It's 0F in Ames, Iowa. Gore has not declared.

During the June, a large twister will touchdown in a small town in Iowa. Gore will tour the region; he will announce his candidacy soon after.

During the summer, he'll hope for the sort of extreme weather we frequently get in the midwest. Either extreme will do: a repeat of the 1993 floods would let him announce while wading in floodwaters covering I-80, a 1977 drought would permit him to stand in a withered corn field (with luck, that corn field will be somewhere in Iowa.)

A horrific mid-August heat wave during the Iowa Straw Poll would be icing on the cake, focusing attention on Gore's preferred issue and permitting him to bleed coverage from Republican contenders.

After that, Gore needs is a lively hurricane season, with a whopper making landfall during late August or early September, helping him take the lead as other candidates drop out of the race.

The weather will cool in October, giving well heeled candidates like Hillary and Barack a chance to move up.

Could bad weather carry Gore through the primaries? They can if Dec. and Jan 2008 are like December and Jan 2007. But repeat of the Jan 2, 1999 mid-west winter blizzard could kill his chances in Iowa!

No doubt about it. Freak weather events will almost certainly be exploited to the full. But don't underestimate the growing concerns of many players who stand to lose out in the climate wars. As a reminder of how these vested interests tend to fight back, consider the threat by Germany's top carrier, Lufthansa, to move out of Germany altogether:

"The EU Commission's plan to reduce carbon dioxide discharge through trading emission rights for flights could lead to serious competitive disadvantages for European airlines, and Deutsche Lufthansa AG could shift flights to Zurich in reaction, chief executive Wolfgang Mayrhuber told Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung.

'Should the EU go ahead with its plan we would have to think about relocating,' he said, adding that for Lufthansa it could then be attractive to shift flights to Zurich...."
http://www.forbes.com/business/feeds/afx/2007/02/16/afx3433236.html

Just imagine the threat of 20,000 job cuts (or indeed actual mass redundancies) in the US car or manufacturing industry in the run-up to elections and blamed on prospective mandatory CO2 targets - and you can easily foresee the potentially explosive nature of extreme climate policies. If I were a political advisor, I'd be rather careful not to provoke serious hornets nests.

Benny-

Thanks.

Indeed - the uneven nature of the impacts of "extreme climate policies" (i.e., those with costs) is exactly the basis for my argument.

In this respect high per capita carbon dioxide emissions are a salient political characteristic like state proportions of old folks, families, fundamentalists, farmers, etc.

All policies have differentiated impacts. In electoral politics the game is to come out a net winner by benefiting/offending voters/lobbies with proposals in such a way as to win under the rules of the game (e.g., this is why everyone loves corn-based ethanol in the US). My sense is that climate change generally provides a distinct advantage to the Democrats and Al Gore in particular.

Lots to happen between now and then of course ...

I've tried to understand your scenario, Roger, but it just doesn't make sense to me. You argue that the kinds of policies that Al Gore is pushing will hurt the red states more than the blue states -- and somehow that is going to make more of them vote for him? Maybe you think they won't realize that the policies will hurt them? I suppose that's possible. Never overestimate the intelligence of the voters? As to freak weather, there's no telling how that might affect things...

Roger,

Interesting analysis. Note, however, that these are ordinal data, so you should be using an ordinal correlation measure such as Spearman's rho. The second graph suggests that the relationship is still a strong one. Still, it would be interested to see how ordinal correlation changes these results (or one could apply the least-squares regression that you used to the original ratio (unranked) data, as long as their distributions aren't too crazy).

Thanks Scott.

The 0.67 correlation reported is indeed the Spearman (rank) correlation of the ordinal data (sorry, should have made this explicit).

Although I have not performed the statistical test, it seems clear that the emissions per capita is not normally distributed (one long tail). And I haven't thought about transforming the data, which might be overkill for this sort of analysis.

However, if I drop from the data all states with per capita emissions > 31.0 (which incidentally are all strong Red states, at about 60% Bush in 2004), and perform a linear regression on the remaining data, I get an R^2 of 0.49, which is a correlation (Pearson) of 0.70.

So the analysis seems quite robust to the choice of simple approach.

Thanks!

Very interesting "science" which fits perfectly with the "science" Al Gore is out promoting in his "documentary." Just a few questions worth considering (I wonder if any of Mr. Gore's opponents would ever think of them, hmmm) How many red states have metropolitan center's greater than 1-2 million residents? How many blue states do? Why do red state populations (per capita) produce so much more carbon emissions despite their generally lower total populations? Maybe the Nebraska farmers are driving 3 SUV's simultaneously, eh? Where is the majority of nuclear generated power created and utilized? Why is that? Why hasn't there been a new nuclear plant built in the US in over 25 years? Which states(per unit area or perhaps per capita) are greener, thereby presumably lowering the net carbon dioxide totals?
I guess when you're preaching to the choir every utterance seems like an epiphany. The greatest gift the Democrats could give this country is Al Gore as their nominee. It would guarantee another four years without a Democratic 'Moonbat' administration.

Thank you Roger for a most entertaining post. It would be an interesting denoument to the 2000 Election if these events did come to pass.

However, I do feel that Gore is a tainted political brand for the Democrats. You state in your conclusion that:

>>If Al Gore can win his party’s nomination, which is certainly not guaranteed, the general election would be his to lose.<<

Al does have a track record in losing from a winning position. Still, if being president stops Al's campaign to become the largest carbon emitter and stops him inflicting films and lecture tours on us for a few years, I say run Al run... ;)

RE: California electricity usage. We have the highest rates in the country. Also, on average, we have smaller homes (due to cost, due to the lack of buildable land and enviro regs). Smaller homes means less electricity use. Also, we have lost much of our electrically intensive types of heavy industry - smelters, mass production platers, etc. Also, ag wise, due to our superior climate, there is less heating and air moving needed for pastoral activities such as dairy farms and feedlots. Compared with many states in the interior, we have much less of this activity per capita. Interestingly we had a spike in consumption during the dot com era which has since subsided. In terms of our CO2 emissions, we benefit handsomely from cheap and widely available hydro power. Oregon and Washington even moreso. That's how PG&E can claim such low CO2 emissions.

Some things to mention.

Al Gore was not nominated for an Oscar. Davis Guggenheim, producer of "An Inconvenient Truth," was. Mr. Gore is more than welcome to attend, but I would not expect him to take the mike should the film win.

Did you mean to suggest a trend from the 2006 elections? If there was some connection between the changes in the Senate/House races and the emissions races in those states, you may have something. I couldn't divine that from the posted data. At the moment, I'm hard pressed to find anything more than an inverse correlation between emissions and 'blue-ness'.

I think you'll owe Lisa dinner because Gore will not declare. The acceleration of the calendar and the crowded slate (on both sides) make the likelihood of a late entry small, and the likelihood of that entry being viable even smaller. Personally, I'd guess Richardson ended up declaring sooner than he wanted to because of these pressures.

Besides, it really seems that Gore has moved into the stage of his career where he can do more as a private citizen than as an elected official. He may not have the cachet of his former boss, but I expect Gore's more likely to borrow from Clinton's post-Presidential playbook than his Presidential playbook.

I feel like Tom Hanks in "Big": I don't get it.

OK, global warming and carbon will be an issue. Swing states are in the middle on carbon use.

OK, but, huh?

Pete- Thanks ... have a look at this description of the dynamics of "wedge politics" and see if that helps to explain the dynamics of the swing states.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wedge_issue

"Former US vice president Al Gore has ruled out a bid for the White House in the 2008 elections and will carry on his fight against global climate change.

"I have no intention to run for president,""

http://www.france24.com/france24Public/en/administration/afp-news.html?id=070216193307.67kfaghf&cat=null

Technically, if Mr. Gore does not run, I believe that I am free to claim that I would have been right had he run, under the standard counter factual blog prediction practices ;-)

funniest post I've read in a long time: no western democratic election has ever been decided on environmental issues. That aside, I'm bemused that anyone still takes Al Gore seriously, let alone as a politician. And, on a blog that despairs about the ongoing politicization of science, how can you remotely support one of the worst culprits in Al Gore?

It seems to me that the statistics can be most easily understood from the fact that blue states have a much larger fraction of their population in big cities which use energy more efficiently per capita (e.g., shared transportation, housing, work space, etc.) A few exceptions may be from states with "clean" sources like Oregon (mentioned above).

I don't discount the financial angle but I wonder if it may also be that city dwellers are motivated by the more immediate impact of fossil fuel burning, poor air quality.

Fascinating analysis, but I would challenge the assumption that the "elite" will successfully make this a central issue when the release of the IPCC (FAR SPM) report couldn't sustain headlines over the death of a celebrity (Anna Nichole Smith) and a non-binding resolution by congress on the war. (Or perhaps it’s the record cold and snow in the East that diminished the furor?) Either way, the story had no legs and Mr. Gore will have to hope for more than transparently left leaning awards to propel him towards national viability.

Either way, I have to think that regardless of what weather anomalies pop up in the next two years, the war will be the wedge issue. Granted he has can still define himself to some degree on this issue, but hiss lack of position suggests he was more concerned with polar bears than our troops and national security. Even if the perceived importance of climate change doubles in the public’s mind, it would not outweigh the human tragedy that surrounds all war, this one being no exception. He has focused on one issue to the exclusion of all others, which is fine, but not a launching pad for the White House in my estimation.

I also agree with Mike in that voters will not choose someone to make their lives more difficult. They cannot convert their rural or suburban communities into New Urbanist communities and their single family homes into green buildings, so they will vote in their best interests and may even swing some fiscal conservative democrats to the right.

All that being said, I completely agree that he is positioning himself for a possible jump into the campaign and look forward to seeing how reality tests your hypothesis.

Thanks Roger for the creative, yet (somewhat) scientific look at 2008!

While I think it a good thing to remove myself from the conventional wisdom of presidential politics, I still think that if the election were held tomorrow, it would be as follows:

Clinton/Obama

vs.

Guiliani/(Brownback, Tancredo, Hunter, Huckabee, Romney, or anyone else)

The red states will stay red, blue would stay blue, but Guiliani would take New York with ease. Thus, even if Clinton/Obama picked up Ohio, they would still need a few other swing states. This also ignores the possibility of Romney as VP, in which case would ensure that Mass would go to Republican.

I thought all politics are local?

MO, it's more likely that tax policy will be popular again in '08 ... now that's where Blue vs. Red State differences shine!* But if you want to tie AGW intervention with regressive tax policy, one must then offer big odds that former VP Gore will even get the nomination, and even higher odds that he might actually be elected.
http://www.cfo.com/article.cfm/8465478/5/c_8483311?f=insidecfo

* Except in crossover Delaware, where they market their tax friendliness.

Nate- Thanks.

All- On the dynamics, consider this:

"In electoral politics, however, what often matters most in measuring an issue's potential impact is not whether a great many people care about it, but whether even a relatively small number care about it enough to base their vote on it. Indeed, the classic "wedge issue" is one that draws more of one kind of partisan than another to the polls."

http://pewresearch.org/pubs/40/wedge-issues-on-the-ballot

Note on MA voting for Republican if Romney is on it -- will never happen. I live in this one party state. MA votes select Republican govenrors to keep the state Dem party in line. Otherwise they would give everything away to the state worke unions.

Romney's female Dem opponent's relatives ALL worked in state government.

I haven't had time to crunch all the numbers, but from your writing it seems as if you simply took the total CO2 emissions for a state and divided it by population to determine the per capita for that state and then work from that for everything else. The problem is, obvious point #2: "Additional costs on carbon dioxide emissions will disproportionately hit those voters (and businesses that employ voters) in states with high carbon emissions per capita" is not obvious to me, unless you just assign a tax per capita based on overall CO2 emissions. I can't imagine any politician doing that; it would be like going out to a restaurant and being expected to split a check evenly even though everyone else had a 5 course lobster dinner and you had a cup of coffee.

For private individuals, CO2 costs will be incurred on the basis of their personal behavior (adding a tax to gasoline will affect a driver more so than a walker or biker). A CO2 charge will modify individual behavior, but I don't see how it affects the collective behavior of any state. As for collective entities such as businesses, they'll simply transmit the additional costs to their customers, and those customers need not be in the same state. If someone in California purchases a product made by a company in Texas, it's the Californian who pays the CO2 cost, not a Texan who doesn't buy the product.

While there may be a good correlation between CO2 emissions per capita and geography, I see nothing here suggesting a similar correlation between paying for those CO2 emissions per capita and geography.

You do realize that there's also the possibility that higher CO2 costs in red states would merely inspire migration of red staters into lower cost blue states, don't you? That, of course, would make everything far more purple and impossible to predict.

Scott- Thanks. This is a very good point, but I don't think it changes the calculus. As I wrote:

"Now individual voters may not be so sensitized to this issue. But industry, professional associations, state elected officials and agency officials, national politicians, and others whose careers are based on the provision and use of energy will surely be aware of this issue and its consequences."

Consider the following, you write: "If someone in California purchases a product made by a company in Texas, it's the Californian who pays the CO2 cost, not a Texan who doesn't buy the product."

Yes but if the cost of the product goes up, what happens to sales? They go down. If sales go down then so do revenues, and similarly so do jobs and/or salaries. Where? In Texas.

Thanks!

Thanks for responding. A couple of things:

One, it's individuals who decide which way a state will vote, and you yourself admit that individual voters may not be sensitized on the issue, so I don't see how Gore wins under your reasoning. Moreover, my point was that there's no obvious correlation between the CO2 cost any individual will bear and the per capita CO2 emission in any given state. Consequently, I don't think looking at a statewide per capita measure tells you anything about which way the state will go.

And as for businesses, you wrote:

"Yes but if the cost of the product goes up, what happens to sales? They go down. If sales go down then so do revenues, and similarly so do jobs and/or salaries. Where? In Texas."

I understand your point, but how much do you anticipate CO2 costs are going to be? For a number of goods, there's a certain degree of inelasticity of demand, so unless costs are really jacked up, those costs are still going to be distributed around.

Food is a good example, because demand for food is pretty inelastic and there's going to be a double whammy there because a) food production is heavily mechanized so the CO2 charges will bite and b) increased ethanol demand (which you mentioned) is going to raise the price of food. But food consumption can only be affected so much by increased price, and unless those setting the CO2 costs are very careful in setting them, you're going to have a lot of people in both red and blue states ticked off because it's going to pinch their pocketbooks to have their morning cornflakes. In that scenario, not only does Gore, or any other advocate of policies causing prices to go up, not pick up any red states, they might very well lose blue states.

I confess I'm baffled by your logic. You admit that the measures that would reduce carbon emissions would cause disproportionate pain to the more GOP states: the more a state leans GOP, the more painful will be the measures being proposed by Mr. Gore and his fellow Democrats. And from this, you conclude that states in the middle are going to tilt to the Democrats? On the contrary, from being already on the fence, they will now have a new reason to vote Republican, to avoid these painful carbon taxes.

The housing costs in blue states are much higher than those in red states. That factor was ignored in this analysis. Five or ten dollars per month added to power bills in red states for emissions control doesn't make 1/100th of the cost differential between half-million dollar bungalows in California/Massachuseetts and the equivalent home in Oklahoma that costs $150K.

Also, prospects for new nuclear energy construction are lousy in blue states, owing to lawsuits and widespread opposition. I wish it weren't the case, but that's the way it is until more liberals view nuclear energy rationally. There are slight changes happening among thinking people, but the blue state "crowd" hasn't changed its social antipathy against nuclear energy.

By contrast, red states have a decent potential to lower their CO2 footprint with nuclear energy.

Regarding Al Gore - I think there's a decent chance that he will run. The next two hurricane seasons (and where the hurricanes hit) may well influence the election.

I think that Al Gore and John McCain are the only two potential candidates with thought-out positions on climate change. Hillary is anti-nuclear (doesn't like the CO2-free plants in her state), which is one of the reasons I can't support her.

And, yes, the war will trump everything, especially if weather in summer '07 and '08 is reasonable without too many hurricanes or extreme droughts.

While I assume that the premise for this thread is meant to be provocative rather than literal, it is still the most original thing I’ve seen on the general AGW topic in weeks.

I grabbed the base CO2, election results, population and other income / demographic data by state from various public sources.

First a couple of technical points:

1. As per a prior post, I built a regression using the raw (not ranked) data and find a very similar R when using a LN form function.

2. I agree with a prior post that 2003 CO2 Emissions / MM Pop is far from a perfect measure of political saliency of AGW. Consider an obvious, and important example: Michigan is way below average by this measure ( 18.1 CO2 index vs. a 50-state average of 25.1), and is a swing state that Kerry won 51 / 48. Since the US car manufacturing industry is so focused in the state, the economic cost of higher carbon prices would fall hugely disproportionately on Michigan voters while the emissions that are a by-product of this economic value capture are created and measured in all the states where people drive. So rather than seeing this as realistic wedge issue for Gore in Michigan in 2008, it’s much more likely to be a place where a smart Republican strategy will be to emphasize the costs of carbon taxes / limits, etc. In fact, it’s almost a perfect case study in special-interest pleading.

I think if you generalize this, a key question becomes: which side can identify more potential voters that have a hugely disproportionate balance of (perceived) harm from increased carbon prices vs. (perceived) benefit from avoiding climate change? It’s seems pretty easy to find the names and address for lots of people with a huge perceived loss and no more than average benefits (e.g., every member of the UAW, Teamsters, UMW, everyone in a census block group with more than X% of the population in these labor groups, everyone within 5 miles of anyone in one of those labor groups with the same last name, etc.) without even thinking very hard. But try to find people on the other end. I guess you could look for owners of homes within X miles of the beach. Now think of the large swing states from 2004 (simply defined here as a state with at least 10 electoral votes and a 2004 margin of less than 5 points). In declining order of size they are Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin. Which list would you want to be working with direct mail, phone banks, etc. to create an edge?

The problem, without any serious analysis, is that the benefits of a better climate are almost the paradigmatic example of a public good. I think that making this a winning political issue requires that it be almost the opposite of a wedge issue, and instead has to be a public crusade.

I've got another way to look at it. The Blue States produce less agricultural products and emit more sulphur dioxide,other smog products and sanctimony.

Bill Baggett
Jefferson City, MO

I have not read all of the comments but the scenario fascinates me. I live in NC, a strong Red State, and grew up a devout Republican. I am thirty years old and I hope reasonably educated. I changed my party affiliation this year because I was fed up with the Republican rhetoric.
As much as I am a fan of Al Gore's stance on global warming, I am not sure I see it as the polarizing issue of the 2008 elections. With the mess in Iraq possibly dictating a future action in Iran I still think Iran will be the central issue of the elections. Perhaps if the UN reasserts its findings on global warming and keeps it in the media than it will probably rate a much closer inspection. Then again, who listens to the UN anymore?
I like the idea of Gore running for President- I like anything that makes Hillary sweat. I'm in agreement with the other writer that John E. and Barak are going narrowly dodge the environment issue and focus on Iraq and domestic issues.
Whether we like it or not, nuclear power is a great way to dodge the CO2 dilemma, but Hillary doesn't like them. What is Hillary's solution?
It's hard for me to try and forecast who is going to win the 2008 election. My smallish brain finds it hard to picture the results. I am so put off by Republican jib-jab now that I want them to lose miserably. John McCain just needs to run as an independent and call it at that. I'm tired of the 'old guard' and think we need new and younger visionary leadership. Preferably one who can speak well at public appearances without a teleprompter. I have heard Al Gore speak in public and he's bright and engaging if just still slightly stiff. If he can shake that image, keep the environment on the front burner and most importantly announce his candidacy than he might make it happen. Until then it is fun to speculate

Al Gore doesnt need any of that stuff to win. He just needs to say to the American people " Imagine if I had been President in 2000..."

Al Gore will not be the next President. I am so thinkful that he is not our President now.

I think today's report about Al Gore's energy usage proves him the hypocrite that I have always thought him to be. He is just another rich person that has never had to worry about financial matters who is using his priviledged postion to tell the rest of us how to live.