Dan Gardner, Times Colonist, July 15, 2010
Any informed observer knows there is a long list of reasons developed nations should act swiftly and urgently to reduce their reliance on oil.
We must do it to avoid catastrophes like the Gulf of Mexico oil spill. To soften the impact of price shocks. To improve air quality. To fight climate change. To lessen the risk of peak oil. To enhance our security and deny some of the world's most odious regimes their principal source of money and power.
It's equally obvious this has been true at least since the 1973 Arab oil embargo.
And yet, the developed world today is essentially as reliant on oil as it was in 1973. How is that possible?
It's tempting to resort to conspiracy theories. But the reality is much more mundane. And depressing.
It is this: Most people are vaguely well-intentioned, but don't understand even basic facts. What they know intimately is the number on the big board at the gas station, and when it comes to deciding what governments should do and which politicians they will vote for, that number is what people care about more than anything else.
That's a little harsh, I know. But consider the evidence.
Last month in the New York Times, Jon Krosnick, a communication professor at Stanford University, revealed polling data that showed Americans were -- contrary to widespread belief -- deeply supportive of action on climate change.
That point is contested. Krosnick's poll seems to be an outlier.
But the key point is the contrast between the energy policies that people did and did not support.
"Fully 86 per cent of our respondents said they wanted the federal government to limit the amount of air pollution that businesses emit and 76 per cent favoured the government limiting business's emissions of greenhouse gases in particular," Krosnick wrote. "Huge majorities" favoured government requiring, or offering, tax breaks to encourage manufacturing cars that use less gasoline, appliances that use less electricity and building homes and office buildings that require less energy to heat and cool.
And 84 per cent of Americans favoured tax breaks to encourage utilities to make more electricity from water, wind and solar power.
So what do Americans not support? "Large majorities opposed taxes on electricity (78 per cent) and gasoline (72 per cent) to reduce consumption."
"Thus," Krosnick concluded, "there is plenty of agreement about what people do and do not want government to do."
Indeed, there is. People agree that the government should deliver major change. And they agree that they should not pay for it.
Yes, people want a free lunch.
Apparently, the three-quarters of Americans opposed to energy taxes are unaware regulatory restrictions and mandates cost businesses money and costs incurred by businesses are passed along to consumers. They also seem not to realize increased government expenditures -- subsidies or tax breaks -- have to be paid with increased taxes or increased deficits (which are increased taxes on the instalment plan).
Or to put that a little more simply: There are no free lunches.
Time and again, polls show large majorities support change, but they won't pay a dime for it. Corporations can pay. Or governments. Whatever. Just make sure they get their cheap gas, dammit.
In 1985, after a decade of rising oil prices and improving energy efficiency, the price of oil plummeted and American politicians refused to set a tax floor to ensure that the transition away from an oil-based economy would continue. It was obviously the right thing to do and if it had been done the world would be a much better place today. But it wasn't done because people wouldn't support it. Cheap gas is a human right, after all.
This is not an American thing. In 2008, Canadians told pollsters climate change was their No. 1 concern, but they hammered Stéphane Dion for proposing a carbon tax that would have visibly raised gas and other prices.
Instead, they elected Stephen Harper, who promised a cap-and-trade scheme that will invisibly raise gas and other prices.
President Barack Obama and Democrats know what the polls say. Energized by the disaster in the Gulf, the Democrats are planning to push a major energy bill through Congress.
What they won't do is impose any direct tax because 76 per cent of Americans said they would be less likely to vote for any politician who "supported an energy bill that would make families pay more for gas and energy." That simple fact explains why we have made so little progress since 1973. Ain't democracy grand?
© Times Colonist (Victoria) 2010
