Interview With Pat Michaels
EDITOR’S NOTE: Quick to Listen is back from its holiday break and we are beginning the new year with a focus on the environment. We have previously published two interviews on this topic, one with Spencer Weart and one with Arthur Dahl. This third interview is with Pat Michaels, a decidely more conservative thinker than Weart or Dahl. But in keeping with our commitment to listen to all perspectives, it is important to also hear from Dr. Michaels. His bio can be found at the conclusion of this interview. We will also publish later in the week two original articles written by leading thinkers in the environmental debate. The first article is by Sir John Houghton, an evangelical Christian and outspoken advocate for environmental awareness. The second article is by Ross Gelbspan, a veteran journalist and author of two books on the environment, Boiling Point (2004) and The Heat is On (1997).
Interview with Pat Michaels
QTL: You have said that climate change has been happening for many years and so there is no reason to get any more concerned about climate changes now. Have you changed your mind on this perspective after the recent hurricane seasons, which saw an enormously high count in the number and severity of storms?
PM: The global number of tropical cyclones was actually below the long-term average. Reports linking Katrina and global warming simply ignored scientific truth. Severe (category 3-5) hurricanes require a water temperature of 28 degrees Celsius. The historical record shows that, above that threshold, there is no significant relationship between increasing temperature and stronger hurricanes. The Gulf of Mexico reaches 28 degrees every year and maintains that threshold for several months. Consequently the Gulf is ALWAYS primed to produce a storm of Katrina’s magnitude.
Since last summer, Katrina has been downgraded by the National Hurricane Center to a Category 3 at landfall in southeastern Louisiana. While a category 3 storm is obviously still quite strong, the damage inflicted on New Orleans was far out of proportion to the magnitude of the storm. It is therefore obvious that the major problems in New Orleans, as we are learning, had to do with the structure and quality of the levee and bank system more than with the severity of the hurricane.
QTL: Your position has been well publicized that we can’t stop climate change, so rather than waste tax payer money trying to stop what we can’t, let people keep their money and buy products that are more environmentally friendly, etc. Why do you believe that climate change cannot be stopped?
PM: Because it cannot. If every nation of the world fulfilled their “obligations” under the Kyoto Protocol on global warming, the amount of warming that would be “prevented” is seven-hundredths of a degree C per fifty years. This amount is simply too small to measure, as temperatures fluctuation .15 degrees from year-to-year.
But any attempt to meet Kyoto is enormously expensive. Right now, Americans would have to reduce their consumption of gasoline by 25% to meet Kyoto. When gasoline hit $3.00 a gallon, consumption only dropped 4%! That means that energy must become ENORMOUSLY expensive in order to meet a treaty that won’t do anything measurable about warming anyway.
This has a perverse effect upon environmental protection and energy efficiency. Such huge costs will take away individual capital that would normally be invested in publicly held corporations. The companies that, in general, produce things more efficiently (or produce efficient technologies) are those that will prosper in the future. So taking away this investment capital delays the production of new, efficient technologies.
Consider a personal example. In my family stock accounts, the largest single sectoral holding is in automobile manufacturing. Before you label me as a complete imbecile, let me expand: the holdings are in two stocks, Toyota and Honda, that are leaders in the production of efficient transportation. Their stock prices have appreciated approximately 40% in the last two years. Ford and GM, which produce a lot of SUV’s and inefficient cars, have both seen a 40% drop in their price.
Now, consider if gasoline was around $10 a gallon or so, or whatever is required to meet Kyoto. First, I wouldn’t have as much money to invest. Second, the overall economy would be so damaged that real wages would be much lower. Consequently my (and other people’s) investments would not occur and people couldn’t afford to buy new technologies. This is precisely what many people view as the wrong course, and it would be brought upon by meaningless instruments like Kyoto.
Then there’s the multiplier effect. Because companies that produce efficient technologies have appreciated in value, stockholders then have even more money to invest.
QTL: What proof do you have that your theory actually helps to reduce the problem of climate change?
PM: Per-capita carbon dioxide emissions began to decline globally in the late 1980s. Disregarding nations that derive much of their electricity from nuclear power, the decline started in the United States, when we could afford more efficient technologies. Then, as other nations have become more affluent, their per-capita emissions also declined. Affluence is therefore the key to environmental protection, which should be obvious to anyone who has traveled the world. Interestingly, the number of births per capita also declines along with emissions, as wealthy, educated couples tend to have fewer children than are found in poorer families.
QTL: It seems the solution to environmental degradation is, for you, the growth of affluence. Is the United States doing enough to help poor countries and people become more affluent?
PM: I wish I knew how to reduce international poverty. I really believe that the people (and therefore, the government) of the U.S. is largely well-intentioned, and would certainly have found a way to do this. After all, it would be in everyone’s best interest, worldwide. But we have not found a mechanism. I think that’s something we can all agree on.
QTL: Some reports say that you have received several hundred thousand dollars from coal and oil interests in recent years for supporting their policies. Is this true? If so, how do you respond to those who say that your perspective on global warming is nothing more than a paid advertisement for/defense of the coal and oil industry?
PM: I have to publish in the refereed literature, and I probably get a stiffer review as a result of this, all of which is well and good. But you should also realize that there are conflicting “policies” that energy interests have. For example, some large coal companies very much want mandated CO2 reductions, because that will require sequestration from all stationary sources, which means coal, natural gas, oil, etc…But because coal is most abundant this means that they get to sell more, as sequestration reduces power production efficiency by about two-thirds. So you see it is not at all very clear, is it? And you can bet those people probably don’t like me, either!
Pat Michaels is Senior fellow at the Cato Institute and a research professor of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia. According to Nature magazine, Michaels is one of the most popular lecturers in the nation on the subject of global warming. He is a past president of the American Association of State Climatologists and was program chair for the Committee on Applied Climatology of the American Meteorological Society. Michaels is a contributing author and reviewer of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. His writing has been published in the major scientific journals, including Climate Research, Climatic Change, Geophysical Research Letters, Journal of Climate, Nature, and Science; and his articles have appeared also in the Washington Post, the Washington Times, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Wall Street Journal, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, Houston Chronicle, and the Journal of Commerce. He has appeared on ABC, NPR’s All Things Considered, PBS, Fox News Channel, CNN, MSNBC, CNBC, BBC and Voice of America. He holds A.B. and S.M. degrees in biological sciences and plant ecology from the University of Chicago, and he received his Ph.D. in ecological climatology from the University of Wisconsin at Madison in 1979.