How to Lose a Debate
April 20th, 2009Posted by: Roger Pielke, Jr.
Today’s ClimateWire has a story about the debate over the costs of cap and trade:
From the halls of Congress to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, experts and politicians are hoisting conflicting numbers describing the cost of a cap on greenhouse gases, with amounts from $3,100 to $324 to zero being touted as the annual hit on households. As Congress returns this week, it will find a cloud of numerical discrepancies hovering over climate change legislation.
This is a great example of the consequences of how issues are framed in political debate. If the framing is “costs” of cap and trade legislation, the Republicans will win the political debate, regardless of whose numbers turn out to be right. Of course, the reality is that cap and trade can be designed in any way you’d like with high or low (or zero) costs. But remember that the theoretical basis of cap and trade is that energy prices will increase, so low or zero cost increases will have low or zero effect on emisisons.
The political point is that if the debate hinges on costs, Republicans have the upper hand because if Democrats respond with claims of low or zero costs, and if this turns out to be untrue, then such claims will become a political liability. But if the claims of low costs turn out to be true, they will gut the policy from the standpoint of emissions reductions, and thus become a political liability.
Bottom line: Democrats cannot win the cap and trade debate if the issue is framed as costs to American households.
April 20th, 2009 at 12:27 pm
You’re right, but that just raises the question: why can’t the Democrats win? Or rather, why would the cost issue stick? The cost of the Iraq war didn’t move the American public, as far as I could see. So why is cost a sticking point if the payoff is saving the planet? Obviously, the American people don’t buy the premise. You’re asking people to suffer real consequences so that after they – and perhaps their children – are dead, Massachusetts won’t have the climate of South Carolina. Having lived in Massachusetts and north Georgia, I’d take the apocalyptic South Carolina scenario any day. If I were a Republican, I’d be salivating at the thought of taking on the Dems on this issue, and I’d give them all the rope they need right now to hang themselves with later. Cost is a consideration in all legislation, but in many cases, the cost is deemed to be worth paying. It’s only when the outcome of the bill is rejected by the public that the cost becomes an issue.
April 20th, 2009 at 12:31 pm
[...] Cross-posted from Prometheus: The Science Policy Blog [...]
April 20th, 2009 at 12:34 pm
If the point of cap and trade is to raise energy costs, it will be difficult to avoid talking about raising energy costs.
E.g. — We need to pass cap and trade. Why? To save the planet. How will it save the planet? It will reduce CO2. How? By reducing energy usage. How does it do that? It makes energy more expensive.
Energy prices are highly inelastic. To reduce demand meaningfully, the prices are going to have to get really, really expensive. Sounds like a political grand slam.
April 20th, 2009 at 1:33 pm
Of course the Democrats can win a debate about costs. All they need is little demagogy to assign the costs those evil polluters and promise to take the money from big oil and give it “back” to the low income people who really need it.
Republicans who oppose the tax and trade can be labeled as protecting rich people just like they always do.
Never mind that the people who are enriched are the carbon traders. Never mind that the country will be made less competitive in international trade.
Or more simply as Obama has made clear, “words matter”.
April 20th, 2009 at 2:09 pm
[...] How to Lose a Debate Cross-posted from Prometheus: The Science Policy Blog [...]
April 20th, 2009 at 2:59 pm
The energy cost issue is not make-or-break for the American public on this. The issue is going to be how well the R’s can play this as “energy cost increase for no benefit to climate.” If the D’s via the national enviro NGOs can figure out a way to intelligently head that off, we will have a meaningful cap-and-trade. If they can’t, we’ll have nothing meaningful in the guise of something. But there’s little doubt we will have some sort of carbon policy. The more interesting question is how the business-against-business battle lines get drawn and then played out. Watching the USCAP players vs. the big obvious losers of cap-and-trade is very good sport.
April 20th, 2009 at 3:18 pm
#1:
The Iraqi war is an excellent example of Roger’s point. The issue was never successfully framed as a question of whether or not it was worth the dollars and cents cost.
Instead, Americans focused on questions like these:
Is it the right thing to do?
Is it worth the cost in terms of American blood?
The dollars and cents cost of the war was entirely financed with debt, and Americas never really asked the question.
Had they been asked: Is the Iraqi war worth $10K* for each member of your household, the answer would surely have been no.
The issue was certainly raised by some, the public debate was never framed in this manner.
*Based on the $3T estimate from http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/07/AR2008030702846.html which, in addition to over $1.5T in hard costs includes soft costs such as the lost economic impact of soldiers who never came home.
April 21st, 2009 at 4:32 am
Solman
I think you’re wrong about that. Wolfowitz on March 27 2003 testified before the US congress that the occupation of Iraq wouldn’t cost the American taxpayer a penny. He said “The oil revenues of that country could bring between $50 and $100 billion over the next two or three years.” Full story here, including how he managed to evade perjury charges.
http://www.gregpalast.com/naked-neo-cons-perjury-and-the-big-bad-wolfowitz/
The public were actually sold on a no-cost war.
I’ve long been of the opinion that everyone knew it was about grabbing the oil but preferred to pretend otherwise and that if oil had not gone skyhigh in price then Bush’s approval rating would have remained high. Cynical perhaps but, when you compare gasoline price with presidential approval ratings there is an eery correlation and it’s incredible the number of past electoral campaigns that seem to have focused on gasoline prices. Perhaps a lot of people think that blood for oil is a good deal – as long as it’s somebody else’s blood.
This is the sticking point with the CO2 legislation, everyone wants it to be done without an increase in fuel costs. If they actually believed in their message then that wouldn’t be an issue. Scary that they approve of a permanent military presence in oil-states but a tax on oil to reduce consumption is an absolute no-no, despite the latter being ultimately far cheaper. But then again if the money didn’t really exist, was it actually lost? I wonder.
April 21st, 2009 at 5:09 am
[...] will actually cost
April 21st, 2009 at 5:23 am
[...] will actually cost—all kinds of numbers are flying about, both in Climate Wire. Which is actually bad news for Democrats, argues Roger Pielke, Jr—if the climate change debate boils down to the cost for [...]
April 21st, 2009 at 5:34 am
Curious what dollar number is attached to the economic benefit from removing nuclear weapons from Libya, removing the nuclear proliferation activities of Pakistan, exposing the massive corruption of the UN, France, Germany and Russia, and reducing the hostility toward the US in Muslim populations which produce terrorists. Not to mention removing the terror support of Saddam, discovering a treasure trove of information on terrorist organizations and their state sponsors, stopping terror attacks on US soil, establishing a foothold next to Iran (the largest supporter of terror in the world), and proving that the US is a benevolent supporter of Muslims who seek democracy for their countries.
I’d guess that number is rather large and could, in time, end up being too enormous to calculate.
April 21st, 2009 at 7:07 pm
I agree that to argue on the basis of cost is a losing battle, and I think the Iraq war is a perfect example. We did not fight the Iraq war because it was economical. We fought (ideally) the war because it was wrong to allow Iraq to continue to be a haven for terrorists. I do not want to argue the reasons for war ir if it was justified. I am only arguing that we fought on the basis of an ethical standard. Any time we can show that the ethical standard has been violated, than we should be willing to correct our mistake no matter what the cost. I do agree that we will lose any debate about climate change if it is centered around cost. If we can precisely identify the ethical compromises being made, than problems of cost will go out the window. The cap-and-trade will result in higher energy prices, but cannot be the only answer. This may be part of the answer, but there is more. Yes, as cost rises, demand goes down. However, as it was stated earlier in this blog, energy is inelastic. It is inelastic because it is a necessity. Maybe not to the degree to which we are consuming it, but energy is a necessity. It is like a gallon of milk. We cannot just keep raising the prices to decrease demand because if we do, than we will unjustly cause the people to suffer. I am agree that Americans generally consume far more than needed, but cap-and-trade cannot be the answer because people need some energy. I will never attempt to argue the climate debate on economics. I will always debate on ethical principle because this is the best argument. I do not want to waste the time playing games about cost when I cannot win the debate. Go right for the principle and cost debates will cease. We should address climate change because it is wrong to avoid it.
April 21st, 2009 at 10:27 pm
jasg:
“I think you’re wrong about that. Wolfowitz on March 27 2003 testified before the US congress that the occupation of Iraq wouldn’t cost the American taxpayer a penny.”
On the contrary, you have made my point. Advocates of mitigation also argue that we can stop global warming for little or not cost.
Both of these obviously ridiculous arguments have the same point:
If mitigation or war is inexpensive, then cost won’t play a significant role in the debate.
Wolfowitz won because democrats made no serious effort to challenge him; certainly not before public opinions on the war were fixed; arguable not ever.
Green advocates have already lost. The cost of mitigation is front and center in the debate. A large majority of both parties have already disavowed any action on mitigation which costs the average American serious money (which it must).
Greens will be stuck arguing that the benefits of mitigation outweigh the cost. Its not any easy argument to make, even in the best of economic times.
BTW, I’ve never understood statements like this: “I’ve long been of the opinion that everyone knew it was about grabbing the oil but preferred to pretend otherwise” Exactly how much oil did we grab? How much did we need to grab to make the was cost beneficial? What concrete steps did we take to grab oil?
This grabbing oil thing has always seemed like a wild conspiracy theory to me. Is there a factual basis for it?