Opinion
Cass brings refreshing climate change view
By Levi Lorenzo ’19
January 28, 2016
Tags opinion
“Using renewable water bottles and carpooling is not going to affect climate change...Investment in solar and wind energy is counterproductive to the global efforts to mitigate climate change.” These are not statements that are frequently heard on an elite liberal arts campus. They were, however, the exact types of statements that Oren Cass made in his presentation, “Play-Acting on Climate Change: The Futility and Farce of Global Negotiations,” on Monday, Jan. 27. The message did not sit particularly well with many of the students who had packed into the Red Pit to hear Cass speak. However, Cass’ perspective is important, and, quite frankly, refreshing on a campus where the talk on the issue of climate change is so narrowly focused and single-minded.
A little research on Cass clearly demonstrates his conservative ideology. He is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute and was formerly the domestic policy advisor to Mitt Romney's presidential campaign in 2012. He was recognized by Politico as one of the top 50 “thinkers, doers and visionaries transforming American politics in 2015” for his efforts advocating conservative policy approaches to issues such as energy, the environment and poverty. Many saw that Cass is a conservative and jumped to the conclusion that he must be a climate-change denier, but those who were able to look past their stereotypes and attended the presentation found out that this preconception is far from the truth.
Cass touched on various narratives that try to frame the climate change debate. “The popular narrative,” Cass noted, was that the climate change debate revolves around whether climate change is anthropogenic, but Cass dismissed this debate, asserting that there is an overwhelming consensus that CO2 emissions and rising global temperatures are undeniably caused by human activity. Cass referenced the “scientific narrative,” that the debate revolves around whether or not climate change is catastrophic, and asserted that it had been concluded that it was not. The third debate he referred to was the “fake policy debate” that the US can mitigate climate change, and claimed that it cannot. Finally, Cass maintained that the real debate is about whether US action can produce global results, and asserted that the reality is that it will not. Cass believes that climate change is not a collective action issue, but rather an interests and institutions issue, as the central obstacles to tackling climate change are economic interests and institutions, not global coordination.
Cass went on to discuss various projections for future emissions and pointed out an important trend. The best projections show that, if correct, the developed world’s emissions will equal the carbon budget, which is the amount of carbon that can be emitted before the effects of climate change can be detrimental. The projections also show, however, that the developing world is projected to emit four times as much over the next century. Thus, Cass believes, the focus of the world’s climate change actions should be on the developing world.The projected rise in emissions across the developing world is largely due to an increase in GDP. Cass cited three main obstacles to allowing the developing world to raise its GDP without a corresponding jump in emissions. The first of these issues is baseload; the developing world does not currently have the baseload power of fossil fuel backup and thus it would be very costly and problematic to build an entire grid on solar or wind power. The second issue is scale, and the electricity demanded by the developing world is 30 times the current level, and the storage capacity for solar power is extremely limited. The third prohibitive factor is cost. Thus, Cass believes, to effectively mitigate climate change the emphasis needs to be placed on the development of clean energy sources that can become cheaper than coal and other resources, so the developing world will, as it industrializes, not emit nearly so much.
Cass then went on to dismiss previous efforts as counterproductive, such as the development and subsidization of solar and wind power, saying they are not cheaper or more effective than fossil fuels. Thus they could not be implemented in the developing world and therefore would not have a significant impact on curbing climate change. Cass bashed the Paris Climate Talks as they abandoned a framework that mandated action, applauded non-action as significant and awarded that non-action with cash.
Cass stressed that the current dialogue on climate change is far removed from what actually can be done to mitigate the issue. He spoke of subsidies to the wind and solar power energies with disappointment and lamented the impossibility for individual actions, or even group actions within the United States, to impact climate change. For many in the audience, this may have been tough to swallow, but it is an important perspective. I do not know enough climate science to say whether or not Cass is right, but I believe that what he said was important and must be considered.
Cass speaks from a perspective that I, and likely many other audiences members, had not heard, and it broadened the scope of knowledge on the issue of climate change for everyone in the audience. A conservative speaker on climate change is likely to be met with much disagreement from Hamilton students, but a new perspective can only benefit one’s knowledge of an issue. I know that I personally will never look at climate change the same again, and I believe that everyone in attendance took away something valuable from the Cass presentation. I applaud Professor Cannavo for bringing him to campus, and the over 100 students who gave Cass a chance and listened to what he had to say, because what he was saying was important for us all.