Letter to Dan Lungren

Dear Congressman Lungren:

Thank you so much for your response to my recent inquiry regarding how to deal with climate change. However, I did not outline my proposal as I would have preferred to speak to you directly. I understand you are very busy campaigning and perhaps do not have a time slot in your schedule to meet with me. Therefore, I will outline my proposal to you here in this email and hopefully you will have a chance to consider this and offer your response.I left off my previous correspondence by pointing out that the science regarding global warming is very settled. I provided you with the phone number of the most respected scientist in this field, Dr. James Hansen over at Nasa. Dr. Hansen has recommended a carbon tax as the most effective and quickest means to begin moving our economy to a post fossil fuel era. To clarify the definition of this tax, it is not a cap and trade system. Dr. Hansen and many others in the environmental movement do NOT support cap and trade and neither do I. A cap and trade system would create a huge and difficult to bureaucracy and the resources needed to monitor such a system would exceed the desired benefits. So, coming from another angle, I agree with you completely that cap and trade is not the way to go.

A carbon tax, however is elegant in its simplicity. The amount of Co2 produced by the burning of oil, coal and natural gas is known precisely by scientists. A tax would be assessed at the point of extraction or port of entry based on the resource being extracted or imported. Such a system would be simple to implement - there are only a few oil, coal and gas companies in the U.S. so monitoring would be far more simpler than a cap and trade system.The most intriguing aspect of such a tax is that the entire amount would be refunded back to the American people in the form of dividend checks. People who purchase products that are not directly tied to fossil fuels will actually earn money. Such a system will shift resources towards cleaner energy alternatives through shifting public demand. This will stimulate the collective talent and resources of private industry to a new post industrial clean energy revolution.Such a tax would be implemented gradually so that industry has time to adjust but I am very confident that American ingenuity will be up to the task. In short, we can and must begin this transition for our childrens’ sake. Please consider what I have said and not dismiss this flat out before speaking to others about it. Once again, I urge you to speak to Dr. Hansen to understand this solution before you pass judgment.

Best Regards,
David Brotman

Letter to SacBee

I beg to differ with a recent claim made by one of your readers that the oil industry is not subsidized. Aside from the fact that California is one of the only states in the country that does not have an oil severance tax in place, a much larger subsidy has been taking place since fossil fuel became the energy choice of this country over a hundred years ago. All of the byproducts created from combustion of fossil fuels including but not limited to toxic air and water pollution, mercury poisoning of fish, ocean acidification, climate change, extinction of marine and mammal species, increased lung cancer, heart disease and asthma rates to name a few all represent external costs not included in the production of fossil fuel. Transferring these costs from producer to the public represents a massive subsidy of the fossil fuel industry. This convenient and profitable arrangement has allowed the oil companies to profit immensely at our expense. The only way to slow down this gravy train is to attach a cost to carbon in the form of a revenue neutral carbon tax.

Why Dems and Repubs can rarely find common ground

The main reason as I see it is because Repubs look at the world differently. Whereas Dems tend to see the world as it is in all its complexity, messiness and shades of gray, Repubs see the world as they would like it to be, a nostalgic dream of an era gone by. Many of them long for the world of yesteryear when European whites held all the reins of power and everybody fit in their rightful place. People of color weren’t so uppity and fortunately not many of them voted. Gays stayed in the closet and you could go out for the evening and forget to leave your door unlocked. Yes, those were the days. Now the world has become scary and the people you see in public are many different shades of yellow and brown. A intelligent person of color has made it to the White House, an impossible thought not more than 10 years ago. This rapidly changing demographic profile that makes up the U.S. is a frightening world to many older, white Americans. This fear morphed into anger and expressed itself through the tea party. "Taxed enough already" became their rallying cry in 2009 as the health care bill was being debated but a more accurate slogan would be "Too much change already."  But the demographic changes are here to stay and will likely accelerate as the Baby Boomers begin to die off in 20-30 years. Yet many whites cling to the hope they can somehow reverse this trend and eagerly embrace the messages of fear being promoted from within their ranks. Whether it is Mexicans, gays, Blacks, liberals or socialism, fear is the uniting theme. Though the pages of the playbook are worn and frayed, the strategy is consistently effective. Unable to reinvent itself as a big tent party and sell its bankrupt supply side economic theory, Repubs are forced to use the tactic of divide and conquer. Using social hot button issues such as gay marriage, abortion rights or illegal immigration, Repubs effectively force voters to take sides. If you vote along the party line, you are being patriotic. If you vote the other way, you are a traitor to your country. For many people busy with their daily lives, it is just plain easier to see the world in black and white and let others define right and wrong for them. Adhering to a rigid ideology eliminates the need to think and ponder the world in all its complexity and shades of gray. Some issues can be molded to fit into the guidelines of the ideology such as gay marriage or abortion. Other issues that do not fit the mold or expose the shortcomings of free market economic theory such as climate change need to be vigorously challenged or denied. This irrational approach to everyday problems conflicts with the more complex, scientific problem solving approach favored by Dems. In this environment, little can get accomplished since the mechanism by which problems get solved is different. There can be no common ground between the two parties unless the problem solving mechanism is the same. This would mean either Dems give up science as the reliable way of understanding the world or Repubs must discard their non-linear way thinking.

Letter to Eddie and Monica Ortiz

Eddie and Monica Ortiz own the Grocery Outlet in Rancho Cordova, CA located at 2801 Zinfandel Drive, Rancho Cordova, CA 95670.

Dear Eddie and Monica:

I am a regular customer of the Rancho Cordova Grocery Outlet and admire all the good things you do for the local community. I read a while back that your store has an advanced electrical monitoring system arranged with SMUD to help lower your power consumption and reduce your carbon footprint. Considering your commitment to the environment, I find it puzzling that you do not provide a bicycle rack near the entrance to the store to customers like myself who get around town by bike.Your attention to this matter would be greatly appreciated and would further demonstrate your commitment to protecting the environment.

Sincerely,
David Brotman

We Love Oil!

President Obama, don’t you understand? We Americans don’t want clean energy. We want dirty energy! We demand our right to breathe unburned hydrocarbons on a cool winter day. We proudly proclaim our support for the freedom to inhale diesel particulate matter deep into our lungs.

Yes, we stand here and salute the red, the white, the blue and the brown  haze that hangs over our cities like a warm, soothing bowl of pea soup.  Our children deserve all the best we have to give them, like asthma, cardiac disease and lung cancer. Oil is our lifeblood even if it eventually becomes our deathblood. Let us show the world that we are proud Americans, proud to go in reverse and experience the joys of living in an oil based economy for generations and generations thereafter. Let freedom ring and oil gush. Amen!

Letter to Dan Lungren

Dear Congressman Lungren:
I hope you can keep an open mind as I discuss with you the importance and benefits of a carbon tax. I know you may be ideologically opposed to this concept, but please hear me out on this. Fossil fuels, especially oil were instrumental in building the United States into a superpower. We have a lot to thank for the discovery of petroleum and the enormous positive changes brought to our civilization by the industrial revolution. During the middle of the twentieth century as our infrastructure was being built around oil, only a small group of scientists were aware of the toxicity of oil. As our collective knowledge of the effects of burning fossil fuels has grown over the past 60 years, the costs have grown as well. The BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and ongoing oil accidents occurring around the world, most recently in Dalian, China illustrate the risks involved in the extraction, refining, delivery and combustion of oil. There is no credible argument that can refute the reality that damage to the environment during the production, delivery and burning of oil represents a cost. Whether we are talking about smog alerts in Los Angeles, increased asthma cases in large cities, ocean dead zones, acid rain, fallout from global climate change, or increased lung cancer rates, we have been paying a price for our decision over a hundred years ago to exploit this resource. Because these costs are so difficult to quantify, we have allowed ourselves to wait until incidents occur before we commit to paying for these costs. In most cases, the general public has footed the tab for these large, spread out environmental damage consequences. If you can see the environment as a cost of production like any other cost such as labor, capital and material, what entity besides the company involved in the production of its product should be responsible for these costs? The obvious answer of course, is that a company operating in a free market economy, should not depend on anyone else for its costs of production. Yet, that is what has been happening on a very large scale for the last 100 years. The fossil fuel industry has, without any fanfare, transferred most of these costs onto the general public, violating some of the most important principles of free enterprise systems - depending on the public to subsidize your business and not maintaining a level playing field for all the market players. Picking up the tab for all of these costs represents a massive subsidy of the fossil fuel industry and has kept the price of oil artificially low relative to its true cost. Is that fair? Yes, I agree these costs are extremely difficult to quantify. But to leave them out is an affront to our free market economy. The purpose of implementing a carbon tax is to finally begin to quantify the cost of environmental damage as a legitimate cost of production, fully integrating these costs into the Profit and Loss statements of fossil fuel companies and leveling the playing field for other energy producers. The other related issue to a carbon tax is jobs. There is a common perception that any type of clean energy legislation would adversely affect our economy and prevent job growth. I beg to differ and I will explain to you why. Our dependence on foreign sources for oil is an issue of national security.
Unfortunately, due to our consumption patterns, there is not enough oil reserves in the U.S., even fully exploited to quench our appetite. In an atmosphere of rapidly rising world demand, oil producing countries cannot keep up with this demand. If you read the Wall Street Journal the other day, a milestone was reached when it was announced that China has now surpassed the United States as the largest consumer of energy. The cost of securing oil from countries that are sometimes openly hostile to our way of life and the risk that some of our money going overseas for oil is finding its ways into the waiting pockets of terrorists is unsettling at the very least. I propose to you that our dependence on oil is the root cause of our precarious economy. Unless we begin to transform our infrastructure and wean ourselves away from oil, the risks will only increase. The United States oil production peaked in 1970 and there are scientists predicting peak oil within the next 10 years. The economic consequences of terminal decline are potentially disastrous. Should we sit this out and wait to see what happens or purchase an insurance policy in the form of clean energy technology to inoculate ourselves from this inevitable result?

Sincerely,
David Brotman

Passing Meaningful Climate Change Legislation

In a recent editorial, Thomas Friedman asked the question: Are there 7 Republicans who can put  their country first and vote for meaningful climate change legislation?

The answer is a qualified no. The only sliver of hope Democrats have in  implementing a carbon tax is to frame the issue as a model of free enterprise. In a market economy, players operate on a level playing field. No one player has an unfair advantage coming into the market. The damage to the environment and our health resulting from the production or use of a fossil fuel represents a cost. Unlike hard costs such as rent, office supplies and labor,  environmental costs are difficult to quantify. Nevertheless, from the beginning of the industrial revolution up through today, the general public has been picking up the tab for these costs. This shifting of cost to the public represents a massive subsidy to the oil, coal and gas industry which explains why fossil fuels remain relatively cheap in comparison to renewable energy. A carbon tax represents the first attempt in a hundred  years to quantify the environmental costs of fossil fuel production. It  finally integrates a cost that has been conspicuously missing from the P and L statements of companies that have profited enormously from its absence. A carbon tax will finally level the playing field in the market, inoculate our economy from volatile price swings as we approach peak oil and affirm our commitment to our children.

Meeting with Elizabeth Kim at Alyson Huber's Office

Today I rode my bike to Rancho Cordova City Hall to meet with Elizabeth Kim, a member of Alyson Huber’s staff. Alysson Huber is the assemblywoman representing the 10th assembly district of California. The purpose of our meeting was to discuss the benefits of a carbon tax. The meeting went really well and I strongly believe that Elizabeth got the concept which is fairly straightforward. When a company produces a product, it is concerned about revenues and expenses. Only measurable costs are included in a P and L statement. Up until now, energy companies such as oil, coal and gas have been able to make enormous profits off of their energy products because they have been able to shift a significant portion of those costs onto the general public. What does this mean? Let’s take a look at coal for example. In strip mining, entire mountains are blown up and removed and heavy machinery is moved in to extract the coal. Once the coal is processed it is used to power utilities and other industries. When the coal is burned, Co2 is released into the air. When the Co2 reacts with H2o, carbonic acid is produced which is more commonly referred to as acid rain. When lakes and rivers become acidic, the fish and other life in the lake die off as oxygen becomes depleted. In addition, Co2 traps heat from the sun which in turn warms the atmosphere, aka global warming. Other chemicals are also released into the air during the burning of coal and find their way into our lungs.Each of these damaging effects either on the environment or our health represent a significant cost. The problem is that quantifying these costs is very difficult. In the absence of easily measurable costs, the fossil fuel industry can profit handsomely by avoiding responsibility and effectively shifting all of these costs onto the general public. This shifting of costs represents a massive subsidy of the fossil fuel industry. In effect, we are paying for part of the production costs of these energy sources. The central premise of my argument for a carbon tax is this: The environment represents a cost of doing business just like any other cost. If you rent a storage space, you have to pay for it. If you rent labor, you have to pay for it. And if you damage the environment during the production of your product, you alone should be responsible for it, not the public. That is what free enterprise is about. A carbon tax is the most effective way of quantifying the cost of "damaging" the environment. It is easy to implement, easy to monitor and encourages a shift away from fossil fuels without compromising jobs. In any case, Elizabeth was so impressed with my ideas, she invited me to meet with Assemblywoman Huber at the state capitol sometime in the future. We agreed that I would call her next week to find out Huber’s reaction to my ideas.

Meeting with Elizabeth Kim at Alyson Huber's Office

Today I rode my bike to Rancho Cordova City Hall to meet with Elizabeth Kim, a member of Alyson Huber’s staff. Alysson Huber is the assemblywoman representing the 10th assembly district of California. The purpose of our meeting was to discuss the benefits of a carbon tax. The meeting went really well and I strongly believe that Elizabeth got the concept which is fairly straightforward. When a company produces a product, it is concerned about revenues and expenses. Only measurable costs are included in a P and L statement. Up until now, energy companies such as oil, coal and gas have been able to make enormous profits off of their energy products because they have been able to shift a significant portion of those costs onto the general public. What does this mean? Let’s take a look at coal for example. In strip mining, entire mountains are blown up and removed and heavy machinery is moved in to extract the coal. Once the coal is processed it is used to power utilities and other industries. When the coal is burned, Co2 is released into the air. When the Co2 reacts with H2o, carbonic acid is produced which is more commonly referred to as acid rain. When lakes and rivers become acidic, the fish and other life in the lake die off as oxygen becomes depleted. In addition, Co2 traps heat from the sun which in turn warms the atmosphere, aka global warming. Other chemicals are also released into the air during the burning of coal and find their way into our lungs.Each of these damaging effects either on the environment or our health represent a significant cost. The problem is that quantifying these costs is very difficult. In the absence of easily measurable costs, the fossil fuel industry can profit handsomely by avoiding responsibility and effectively shifting all of these costs onto the general public. This shifting of costs represents a massive subsidy of the fossil fuel industry. In effect, we are paying for part of the production costs of these energy sources. The central premise of my argument for a carbon tax is this: The environment represents a cost of doing business just like any other cost. If you rent a storage space, you have to pay for it. If you rent labor, you have to pay for it. And if you damage the environment during the production of your product, you alone should be responsible for it, not the public. That is what free enterprise is about. A carbon tax is the most effective way of quantifying the cost of "damaging" the environment. It is easy to implement, easy to monitor and encourages a shift away from fossil fuels without compromising jobs. In any case, Elizabeth was so impressed with my ideas, she invited me to meet with Assemblywoman Huber at the state capitol sometime in the future. We agreed that I would call her next week to find out Huber’s reaction to my ideas.

Technology and Living Beyond our Means

As much as it is tempting to want to lash out at Obama, BP, the MMS or Bush or whoever is a convenient enough target, we are all collectively responsible for this mess. Our failure to demand a transition away from fossil fuels over the last 50+ years is rooted in a culture that encourages a self-indulgent lifestyle. Encouraged by the media, we consume resources far more than any other country in the world. In our society, bigger is always better. More horsepower, more towing capacity,  bigger engines, faster acceleration always take precedent over any annoying reminders that there is somehow a connection between our consumer behavior and the predicament we find ourselves in.  The thought of living within our means instead of beyond our means is anathema to the American spirit of individual liberty and freedom of choice. Feeling  helpless to change this dynamic, we angrily attempt to fix the blame anywhere we can to avoid the awful reality that the spill in the Gulf is  nothing more than a symptom of this lifestyle we have chosen.