DEFLATING A HOT AIR BALLOON:

Attorney Generals' Hot Air (Robert J. Samuelson, August 11, 2004, Washington Post)

The main thing this suit might produce is publicity for the people who filed it. Even an amateur lawyer must suspect the suit's legal grounds are weak. The news release says that the case was filed in federal district court "under the federal common law of public nuisance, which provides a right of action to curb air and water pollution emanating from sources in other states. Public nuisance is a well-established legal doctrine that is commonly invoked in environmental cases." In other words: The utilities haven't broken any existing law; the attorneys general hope to create "new law" through a judge's decision.

But let's skip the legal niceties. If the suit succeeds, could it have a meaningful effect on global warming? The answer is "no." Again, skip legal niceties. Suppose, just for fun, the court simply shuts down the 174 fossil-fuel-burning power plants owned by these utilities (the American Electric Power Co., the Southern Co., the Tennessee Valley Authority, Xcel Energy Inc. and Cinergy Corp.). That's about 650 million tons of annual carbon dioxide (CO 2 ) emissions, say the attorneys general. We'll ignore the economic consequences.

Now do the arithmetic. The attorneys general say these companies produce 10 percent of total U.S. CO 2 emissions. Well, the United States generates about 25 percent of global greenhouse gases. So the net result is, at best, a 2.5 percent cut in annual worldwide greenhouse emissions. The entire cut would be offset in a few years by normal world economic growth, which -- requiring more power -- results in more emissions. Global emissions are now rising about 2 percent annually.

The only way to reduce them sharply is to have a worldwide cooperative plan to do so. The Kyoto protocol, negotiated in 1997, was one plan. But it would not have actually reduced greenhouse emissions. They would have continued rising even if the United States had adopted Kyoto. Undermining Kyoto's effectiveness was the unwillingness of most developing countries -- prominently China and India -- to join. With mass poverty, they're more interested in faster economic growth than in slower global warming.

He's invaluable.

Posted by Orrin Judd at August 15, 2004 9:25 AM