Tell it like it is

[JimD]

This BBC news item made my day. I will be spending some time over the next few days looking/waiting for a US news bureau to find this worth printing. It's almost enough to make me want to buy a Dodge Charger today.

BBC NEWS

Chrysler questions climate change

By Steve Schifferes

Economics reporter, BBC News, Detroit Motor Show

* Chrysler's chief economist Van Jolissaint has launched a fierce attack

on "quasi-hysterical Europeans" and their "Chicken Little" attitudes to

global warming. *

His attack is in sharp contrast to the green image that the US car

companies have been trying to promote at this year's Detroit motor show.

Mr Jolissaint was speaking at a private breakfast where the chief

economists of the "Big Three" US car firms presented their forecasts for

auto industry sales this year.

Most of the audience - which was mainly made up of parts suppliers -

seemed to nod in agreement with Mr Jolissaint.

Neither Ford's chief economist Ellen Hughes-Cromwick, nor General

Motors' chief economist Mustafa Mohatarem, who were on the panel with Mr

Jolissaint, questioned his assertion.

* Uncertain magnitude *

Mr Jolissant, who was recently appointed the chief economist for the

German-US DaimlerChrysler Group, said that since he started spending

more time at the company's corporate headquarters in Stuttgart he had

been shocked by the absurdity of European attitudes towards global warming.

In response to a question from the floor, he said that global warming

was a far-off risk whose magnitude was uncertain.

He said that from an economic point of view, it would be more rational

to spend lots of money on today's other big problems, and only make

small and limited changes in policies relating to global warming, such

as a slight increase in gasoline or carbon taxes.

Mr Jolissaint was particularly scathing about the Stern Report, which

was recently published by the UK government.

The report urged governments to take urgent action now to tackle climate

change, arguing that it would be much cheaper to act, rather than face

the $10 trillion cost of not doing anything until later.

Mr Jolissaint said the report was based on dubious economics, did not

include a discount rate, and was written by an informal adviser to

Gordon Brown - in fact, at the time of the report, Mr Stern was the

Second Permanent Secretary at the UK Treasury.

He said that he had been surprised by how much support there had been in

the Daimler office in Stuttgart for these "quasi-hysterical" policies

that smacked of "Chicken Little" politics - referring to the US

children's story in which Chicken Little runs around in circles saying

"the sky is falling".

If nothing else, Mr Jolissant's remarks illustrate the yawning gap

between mainstream opinion on climate change among the educated elites

of Europe and America.

But they are also consistent with the cynical view held by some in the

US environmental lobby that announcements by car companies about the

future development of green vehicles are nothing more than window dressing.

* Bigger cars? *

On Sunday, GM boss Rick Wagoner told the world's press that there was

"now an irrefutable business case for producing green cars" and that the

company recognised that fossil fuels would eventually run out, or be in

such short supply as to force prices much higher.

At the same time, GM's chief economist - who last year forecast that oil

prices would average $40 a barrel when in fact they topped $60 - was

predicting that oil prices would fall this year as new oil supply came

on stream.

As a result, he argued, demand for big, gas-guzzling cars would recover.

Despite the fact that the chief economists have not forecast growth in

US vehicle sales in 2007, after 16.5 million units were sold in 2006,

they were more optimistic about their outlook than many Wall Street

analysts.

One reason for their relative optimism was a remarkably sanguine view of

the other economic risks facing the auto industry.

There is widespread agreement that the US economy will slow next year,

partly because of a sharp drop in house prices.

But Ford's chief economist Ms Hughes-Cromwick said there was little to

link house prices and auto sales.

She also argued that the US central bank, the Federal Reserve, was

likely to cut US interest rates by half a percentage point in coming

months to prevent the US economic slowdown turning into a full-blown

recession.

This has not been the consensus view in financial markets, and in fact

many analysts have stated that Ford would suffer most if the US economic

slowdown was more severe than expected.

And some, such as Sean McAlinden of the Center for Automotive Research,

have warned that it could even push Ford close to bankruptcy.

Story from BBC NEWS:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/business/6247371.stm

Published: 2007/01/10 09:59:57 GMT

© BBC MMVII

[Cadillac Jim]

What they didn't say about global warming is that the total amount of it is about one degree Fahrenheit in the entire 20th Century. That fact that we have a warming trend is pretty much certain now that we have enough data to analyze it to get conclusions with a high confidence limit. The rate of global warming seems to be increasing, and that rate seems to be correlated with rate of consumption of fossil fuels. What we don't know is what is causing this trend, and what, if anything, we can do about it, or whether it will continue; correlation is not proof of cause-and-effect, or anything else, just a hint. The presumption that we are the cause of it and can reverse or at least stop it is not at all understood, and may or may not be true. The best argument for action is that it may be true that it can be arrested or reversed by curtailing use of fossil fuels, and that is better than waiting -- the argument debunked above.

Other fuzzing thinking involves actions taken. When you consider a vehicle, an analysis of its emissions from ore to rust includes the energy used to refine the raw materials and to manufacture the vehicle, the fuels and lubricants that it will consume in its useful life and their combustion or disposal, and the mechanics and nature of its disposal and the impact of that on energy and the environment. This is called the "carbon footprint" of the vehicle. An example of how the carbon footprint can be misleading is rechargeable electric cars -- the fossil fuels used at the power plants will likely exceed those used in an internal combustion engine, if comparable vehicles are examined. The difference there is that smokestack scrubbing can be much more effective than a catalytic converter, which can reduce NO and unburnt hydrocarbons emissions but cannot affect the total overall chemical composition of what is emitted at all -- but then there is the issue of where to dispose of all that C02 that is collected by the smokestack scrubbers. This is one of the reasons that the industry has turned to hybrids -- the carbon footprint is likely much better than that of a rechargeable electric car and you can get more miles per dollar.

There is a lot of work and data on the environment available lately that goes un-analyzed, or at least un-verified. The famous "hockey stick" curve that was used 10 years ago as an early warning for global warning is an example; it was challenged and became a political lightening rod. Even requests for the data to verify the curve and its conclusions were met with strident objections, a sure sign that the issue was out of control of the scientific community, and which prevented the verification that any decisions based on this data needed.

If you will excuse logic that smacks of Robert Ringer, I will also point out that, whether we like it or not, changes will to be made by megatrends -- which can be driven in part, sometimes, by legislation and taxation -- and that your personal choice of your next vehicle will not affect anything at all significantly except your personal situation. I would have an STS-V, CTS-V, XLR-V, Corvette Z06, or some such in a heartbeat with nary a pang if I won the lottery. Heck, I would have them all.