When Joe Nocera was given his own New York Times op-ed page column, we noted (FAIR Blog, 3/2/11) that his Times business column had been responsible for some embarrassing corrections. For example, he had written a piece (6/26/10) about how offshore oil drilling had an “astonishing” safety record, having lost only 1,800 barrels of oil to accidents between 1964 and 2009. The actual number, a subsequent correction (7/1/10) admitted: 532,000 barrels.
We expressed hope at the time that Nocera was the kind of writer who learned from his mistakes, but—not so much.
Nocera is a big fan of the Keystone pipeline, despite the fact that climate scientists say the exploitation of the Alberta tar sands it’s intended to facilitate will have a devastating impact on efforts to curb global warming. Not to worry, says Nocera (2/18/13)—assuring us that “the climate change effects of tar sands oil are, all in all, pretty small“—that link going to a Congressional Research Service report that compares the greenhouse impact of burning tar sands vs. burning the same amount of other sorts of petroleum, not the impact of burning the 2 trillion barrels of tar sands oil (roughly 170 billion of which are currently extractable) vs. leaving it in the ground.
NASA climatologist James Hansen has tried to explain to Nocera why he’s so wrong about the tar sands, but Nocera’s account of their argument makes it seem like explaining anything to him would be an uphill battle. Here’s the key passage:
Hansen…told me he would like to see oil companies pay a fee, which would rise annually, based on carbon emissions. He said that such a tax could reduce emissions by 30 percent within 10 years. Well, maybe. But it would also likely make the expensive tar sands oil more viable. If you really want to eliminate expensive new fossil fuel sources, the best way is to lower the price of oil, which would render them uneconomical. But, of course, that wouldn’t exactly lower demand either.
The idea that a tax on carbon emissions would make expensive, high-carbon petroleum more viable is a surprising argument to hear from a former business columnist—it’s like saying that a tax on alcohol content would make expensive Scotch more affordable. Actually, that would make more sense, because if Scotch becomes less expensive relative to beer—if it costs only three times as much, say, rather than 10 times as much—some people might decide to splurge on it. If you significantly raise the cost of burning carbon, though, people will switch to other forms of energy—that’s the whole point of a carbon tax!—and no one’s going to be using the most expensive forms of petroleum for its status value.
As Hansen wrote in a response:
Joe Nocera was polite, but he does not understand basic economics. If a rising price is placed on carbon, the tar sands will be left in the ground where they belong.
Or as Climate Progress‘s Joe Romm (2/19/13) put it:
You might think an A-list business reporter for the NY Times would know basic economics. But not in the case of Joe Nocera.
I have to disagree with Joe Romm here: there is absolutely no reason to expect a New York Times writer to know anything about the things he writes of.
Joe may be forgiven that error. It is a common misperception that the pompous and pretentious style of the old media somehow accurately signifies those who are supposed to know.
The head banging thing about this and similar (usually conservative) misconceptions, is not that their wrong, or even badly wrong; it is incredible that these misconceptions, which take only a few minutes of contemplation to be refuted, are presented like not one of the thousands of people who in many cases have devoted large parts of their adult lives thinking about the problem, wouldn’t have been clever enough to think of these ideas if they were true.
Problem with oil is that we need it. We need it for energy and more than just energy. We need it for plastics, medicine, fertilizer, etc.
Whether we destroy the surface of the earth in search of fossil fuels or not, we will eventually run out of them unless we modify the way we live. It’s hard to say when that will be, but here’s a clue. It took 10,000 years for world population to reach 2 billion; during our generation it has grown to 6.5 billion, and by 2050 it will reach at least 9 billion.
I don’t think ,Nocera’s mistakes are born of naivite (sic?) He’s a shill for corporate America so he’ll write what they want him to write regardless of how accurate it may be. I wrote response ot his 2/18 column. I wonder if the Good gray lady will print it.
Speaking of common misconceptions, Mirza has just parroted another – that we “need” oil. No, we most certainly don’t. For energy, there are renewables that can (despite more common misconceptions) power the entire planet. And for other products, there are less harmful and more sustainable alternatives. Politics is the ONLY thing standing in the way of making the transition.