we want views of solar panels and microwind on our neighbors' roofs, period.  you wanna have a mcmansion crammed full of plasma TVs in a "planned community?"  fine.  figure out how to power it yourself because you can't ruin my life in order to keep grossly over-consuming.  

the idea that endless, unsustainable, overconsumption is a "public good" worthy of dynamiting millions more acres of intact ecosystem is just not appealing as long as we are envisioning the right and wrong way to do this.  let's really go there, and set a goal of all structures being as close to Net Zero as humanly possible.  we can deal with the "excess" needed at that point.

here's a deal, in the meantime, i'll oversize my PV system and sell you power...

the greenest energy is that which you needn't ever produce.

And now most of the US population is stuck with car-centered lives, dependent on truck and internal-combustion-engine dependent mining and agricultural industries.  There are obvious long-term solutions, which Gar has pointed out, but the short term solutions aren't there -- even drilling is long-term, as conservatives will point out if pushed.

Pointing out how cutting costs in other areas, such as health care, is an excellent -- or maybe just about the only way -- to tackle the short-term implications of the oil price rise, and it should be a way to pull the different parts of the progressive community together.  I mean, if Europe spends about 8% of gdp on health care, and we are close to 15%, then by going to a single payer system we should be able to free up 7%, which in a $12 trillion economy (or is it $15 billion?) is 840 billion dollars right there.

Maybe the idea of public investment is another "next step" for Al Gore, and hopefully for the environmental, and hopefully for the entire progressive community as well.  

The idea that government can be constructively engaged in the economy has not just been pilloried by the Republicans, no, what's worse is that it hasn't really been adequately developed by progressives.  Thom Hartmann, the progressive radio talk show host, tries to use the idea of "the commons", that a large part of society is in the commons and that government is the instrument that a people use to decide how to use that commons.  He relies quite a bit in his thought on the "founding fathers", although they thought through the political ramifications of government, not the economic.

Stopgreenpath, efficiency and conservation have been obvious parts of an environmental agenda for a gazillion years, so it's not like people are advocating having the exact  same lifestyles in a sustainable future.  And I think most would prefer a localized energy system -- the interesting/challenging part is to model one.  And as Gar points out, we should be thinking about local cooperatives and municipalities as part of the solution.

But my advice is to not succumb to the temptation to be too prescriptive, to "pick winners". It is fun to play at being the omnipotent Chancellor of the Exchequer (i.e., spending czar), but any real debate over public spending is going to be messy.

I sympathize with stopgreenpath in this respect. The last thing policy makers should do is force large-scale anything on the public if ultimately all they are trying to do is sustain the iconic "McMansions crammed full of plasma TVs." Spending priorities should always think of helping the least well-off first.

An important starting point is to avoid treating current expenditure on any industry as an entitlement. Budgets are limited, and priorities change over time. There is no economic sense, only political tradition, for example, to think of a fixed-sized envelope for spending on agriculture. Perhaps even more needs to be spent on agriculture than at present; but it could very well be that less needs to be spent. There is no doubt a public good in funding R&D related to horticultural crops, for instance, but simply supporting the price of horticultural crops (for example) will do nothing in the end but provide a windfall to current owners of arable land.

I look forward to much more discussion on this proposal.

These are only my personal opinions.

1. Alan Drake's proposal. Switching freight from trucks to trains, really the only way to move freight post oil. You can't electrify long haul trucks the way you can electrify cars that move mostly less the 50 miles per day. The hydrogen path is not ready, and I don't think it will be for a long time. Long haul trucks can be doubled in efficiency but not in existing trucks. And trucks can easily last a million miles. So freight switching is as certain a place to get oil and emissions savings as it gets, with damn near zero chance of anything better coming along. (Well maybe someone will come up with a way to get huge amounts of sustainable biomass for fuel in the U.S. but would you want to bet your future on it?) OK but there are reasons we use trucks; our current freight system is slow and unreliable. Drake suggest investing 450 billion dollars to electrify part of it, and upgrade a bigger part. That would let rail compete with trucking in speed and reliability, moving fast enough to make up for having to travel longer routes. And it would cut fuel consumption per ton mile (even allowing for longer routes) by 14 to 20 times. Movement to and from stations would be by truck (which is what containerization is for).

2. Decarbonization of electricity: something we have to do in any case.  I can't imagine a case where we can go on  making electricity with coal and significant amounts of natural gas without horrible consequences.  We could go nuclear; but if you don't like that then sun and wind are what we can do now that we have a lot of. (Geothermal has huge potential with breakthroughs, not so huge with what we know how to do today. Ditto wave and ocean current.) What kind of wind? Small wind? 4X the price of big wind. Localized? But connecting it long distance increases reliability, decreases need for expensive storage. What kind of sun? PV? More expensive per kWh than solar thermal electricty and requires more expensive storage. As I said, we can go on burning coal, or switch to nukes. Or we can live with lower quality electricity, like they have in Iraq where you turn on the switch and it works a few hours a day. Or we can use big solar and big wind and get current when we turn on the switch without depending on coal, uranium, or fueling generators with food.  On this again, I would say we know what our choices are.  I don't think there is another hidden choice the magic of the market is going to reveal.

3. A program of free energy audits, and subsidized ungrades. I  think very few experts would question that  a program like that would easily pay for itself in energy saved.

4. Agriculture: my choice of amount has weak backing, but that agriculture needs subsidy does not. Food is pretty fundamental. Having food security is more important than the optimization that comes with absolute free trade. We have food riots where the lead  cause is biofuels. But the longer term cause is free trade that left them vulnerable to these types of fluctuation. It really makes sense for countries to grow their own staples where they have suitable land for doing so. It was a crime that Haiti was forced to stop protecting its rice production. (As we look at Haitian children eating mud, I would say that in just world, calling it a crime would not be metaphorical.)  I think Japanese rice protectionism has proven the right thing to do. But our subsidies are aimed at horrible and stupid things.  So redirect them to sustainable farming, to some extent towards fruits and vegetables. OK how much. This is where I use a fairly weak criteria, but still good enough for a start. Right when Americans are suffering from higher food prices is not the time to cut subsidies. But given that if we starting switching to subsidizing sustainability and will be in on a learning curb, it does not make sense to raise them either. So switch existing subsidies in as non-stupid a direction as we can figure out without raising or lowering them, then refine both amounts and where they go.  The difference between agriculture and other sectors is that in most sectors we have trapped ourselves to the point where we have very few choices left, wheras with agriculture we know we need to lower inputs and preserve soils, but that still leaves a range of organic and low input means.

5. Spending Czar in general. Obviously we are not going adapt anything on these lines tommorow. But the hope is that we can make such an opportunity or that it will occur. If it happens the window will be small, no time for incrementalism. We better have a comprehensive plan. Optimum would be nice, but "will work and pay back its costs" is good enough.  What if incrementalism turns out to be the best politics? Having a comprehensive plan to pick increments from is still essential.

Oil volatility could raise its head in the next few years. The price fell substantially last week, which most related to a shaky U.S. economy. Krugmann thinks housing prices will continue to fall at least through the next 18 months or so, so a U.S. recession and credit crunch could free up enough oil on world markets to bring prices down. Perhaps even to $100. Who knows?

But after 2010, according to Chris Skrebowki's analysis of upcoming oil projects, we could start falling off the 85 mbd plateau. (And perhaps that date could be pushed out a few years depending on the state of the world economy.) Then we need to be prepared for depletion rates of 4-10%. That will take serious planning to keep economies stable. (Anyone who has been keeping up the Oil Drum that has a more accurate assessment?)

But that gives us a sort of best-guesstimate for future conditions that we ought to be incorporating into our thinking. So I do think we do need that two-prong energy strategy, that allows for mutual interaction.

I did not mean to imply that you had not backed up many of your suggestions with good reasons. And I agree that looking for what "will work and pay back its costs" is sound. I was simply warning of the dangers of devising a plan that sounds too much like a personal wish list,  rather than starting with broad goals (like decarbonization).

As for farm subsidies, have you worked much in that field? I have, and the devil is in the details. Your assertion that "Japanese rice protectionism has proven the right thing to do" suggests that we are so far apart in our understanding of how agricultural markets work (and the distortions caused by well-intentioned but misguided policies) that it is probably fruitless to get into an argument.

But I will make this point. You say that "Right when Americans are suffering from higher food prices is not the time to cut subsidies." Sorry, but many if not most agricultural economists (those not in the pockets of the agricultural lobby) would strongly disagree, particularly if you are talking about the predominant subsidies being currently provided in the richer countries of the world. (I'm not talking here about government expenditure on agriculture in the developing world; I thought your post was about U.S. policy and spending.) When commodity prices are high is EXACTLY the right time to cut production subsidies.

Most of U.S. agriculture would do just fine without subsidies. Some industries, like sugar, would feel the heat of foreign competition. Would it be so bad if more of America's sugar came from poorer countries exploiting their comparative advantage in cane? Or do you prefer continuing to pollute the Everglades in the name of national self-sufficiency?

Perhaps what you really meant was now is precisely not the time to cut Food Stamps? If so, then I would agree.

These are only my personal opinions.

In terms of Japan's rice protectionism:

1. they are paying less right now than if they  had eliminated most domestic production and were buying suddenly double price rice from the U.S.

2. To the extent they grow their own rice, they are not competing with poor in nations in the global south buying rice on the global market. In fact since they have bought rice on the global market only under international pressure and not actually consumed it, they are now releasing part of their stockpile to ease the food crisis - and would have released much more if the U.S. had not denied permission. (Japan needs permission because a lot of is U.S. rice and the U.S. would consider releasing it without our permission a free trade violation - which tells you something about the meaning of the term "free trade")

everyone imagines the perfect sausage not made in a factory

not happening

we need laws.  think about making some

in general, the tone of Govt and cooperatives hints at animosity toward business and profits.  get over it.  if you get anything done, it will be partly because you find allies who will profit.  embrace them

specifically, start somewhere.  pick one thing, and follow through

concentrated solar needs grid.  you have a champion on the energy comm, Sen. Sanders, who is interested in this issue

get a bill drafted.  address specific questions about funding, and NIMBY, and AC/DC whatever stuff, selling back from locals to utilities. whatever.  find allies.  And then haunt the Congress relentlessly, and flog every action at committee level and beyond at Kos, here, and everywhere you can think of

one last aside:  any significant public investment means nasty ol' capntrade the horsetrading way.  only way you'll raise the funds

that is, if you think action is needed by 2020

Demand reduction.  But reducing it is not the problem.  Stabilizing the price increase to match normal inflation rates, that is a goal that  democrats ought to embrace.

As renewable electricity replaces oil, in plugin hybrids.  Demand will drop.  Oil may still rise faster than inflation, but higher mileage will cancel the economically depressive effect.

Lowering the precentage of income spent on transportation cost should be our goal.  Convincing voters that we have a coherent plan to do that would beat the drill, drill, drillers.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

It's a plan.  Stabilize gas price increases to around the rate of inflation.  By reducing demand, rather than a vain effort to increase supply.

And higher mileage vehicles, going up in mileage standards year after year, finally arriving at signifigant percentages of 100+ mpg plugin hybrids in 5 or 10 years.

The higher mileage reduces the percentage of family income spent on gas to the same level that existed before this price bubble in oil.

And it also reduces demand for oil.  Stabilizing the price to stop oil shock recession.

This would go well with Gore's carbon tax/payroll tax cut revenue neutral plan to price carbon.  It would be a stimulus that would allow people to buy higher mileage cars.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog John Schneider, Northern Wisconsin

Perhaps it is because you chose the poster child of agricultural policy reformers, Japan's protected rice industry, as your illustrative example, but what you are advocating in many cases are old-style policies that have proved to be failures, and highly prone to unintended consequences.

Please provide a source for your claim that Japanese consumers "are paying less right now than if they had eliminated most domestic production and were buying suddenly double price rice from the U.S." At the beginning of implementation of the WTO Agreement on Agriculture, Japanese consumers were paying not double the world pice, but eight times the world price for rice. That gap has since narrowed, but not by so much that they have now become more efficient than the U.S., much less Thailand.

Don't forget, especially in a country like Japan, available arable land is very limited. Because the Parliament (like the USA's, disproportionally represented by farm-growing regions) has pushed rice culture so strongly, less of other foods, like fresh fruits vegetables get produced, and have to be imported.

This article is a few years old, but it provides a good overview of the huge cost to the Japanese economy of its policies, and the manifold distortions created in the international markets more generally.

Your other policy suggestions beg a lot of questions.

Where I think we could put the money with net benefit is giving a subsidy to any farmer who switched to low-input agriculture - low pesticide, low energy, low water.

Do you mean cost-sharing payments for conservation improvements? If so, those payments already exist. If you mean income-support payments, how big and for how long? Are such farmers more deserving than, for example, normal citizens who try to live their lives more sustainably? Or do you have in mind product-specific support?

That would include organic farming, but not be limited to it, though non-organic methods would have to really close to organic to qualify.

Again, for how long. Just for the transition, or all organic farmers? If the result was simply to flood the market with organic produce, and drive down prices, would organic farmers be better off?

Secondly we would want to subsidize farmers who built top soil rather than eroding it. So we should offer a subsidy on staples (grains, pulses and fresh fruits and vegetables) that could be qualified for only by growing them via low-input, soil-building means.

OK, so we compensate people for sequestering carbon. But why restrict the payments to farmers, and especially only farmers of particular crops?

Lastly I would offer people who grew fresh fruits and veggies more than their share, since these have risen in price even more than grains and pulses.

What is "their share"? Wouldn't it be better to treat the root causes of those rising prices (which includes competition for land from more highly subsidized crops) first? In any case, most economists would argue that it is more equitable and efficient to provide the poor with income support (or Food Stamps) than to tax everybody to subsidize food for everybody, which is what a policy to subsidize the production of fruits and vegetables amounts to.

You conclude that once these were in place, then we could some time later refine the policies to come up with better ones. Lots of luck. People have been trying to reform the agricultural policies for decades. Once subsidies for particular products (as opposed for services performed by farmers) become entrenched (mainly through raising the price of farmland), the farm sector (and many gullible people) treats the subsidies as entitlements.

These are only my personal opinions.

More seriously, my bet is that Obama's Secretary of Agriculture will have strong ties to Archer Daniels Midland .

More seriously, my bet is that Obama's Secretary of Agriculture will have strong ties to Archer Daniels Midland.

In that case, please DO accept the job. Anybody but somebody from Big Ag!

These are only my personal opinions.