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Signal Fading from Wall Street Journal's Alternate Climate Universe
by David Sassoon - Jan 9th, 2008
Holman Junior over at the Wall Street Journal has finally piped up about global warming in the aftermath of the energy bill, which raises fuel economy standards in the US to 35 mpg by 2020. The latest signal from his alternate universe is awfully late and weak.
No mileage rules designed by Congress would ever have the slightest impact on global warming or bring any nearer to thee the false god of "energy independence"......We'll save for another day the political deconstruction of how anything as useless and perverse as CAFE became a bipartisan triumph of the "common good."
How unlike this columnist to save for another day an opportunity to fulminate about global warming!
Have his wings been clipped by new ownership? It sure looks like it.
How else do you explain his column, in which he's been reduced to waxing effusively in favor of "transformative" investment in new auto safety features? Let's not save for another day a fuller deconstruction of Mr. Jenkins Junior's latest sideswipe at climate action, more feeble than ever.
This time he doesn't begin by denying the science behind global warming. He denies another reality. The fuel economy legislation President Bush signed into law last month, whose
....only redeeming feature is that it's unlikely ever to take effect, at least in current form.
Wishful thinking and denial in 16 crisp words.
Circumstances actually point to another reality. The fuel standard will probably get even tougher in short order. We'll see EPA granting a waiver that will allow states to impose more stringent tailpipe standards as soon as the next administration takes office. The Democratic front-runners have also promised to get fuel economy to 55 mpg before 2030. And Toyota is shaping the market anyway with plans to sell 1 million hybrids a year by 2010.
Fuel economy is what is making Toyota the world's #1 car maker. Jenkins Junior sees a better option.
The billions that would be spent forcing unwanted fuel-economy improvements down consumers' throats is money not available to spend on safety, where the technological moment right now is actually riper for transformative gains.
Fuel economy improvements unwanted? With the price of gas above $3 a gallon and poll after poll showing a strong majority of Americans consistently in favor of higher mileage requirements? I can't help thinking Mr. Jenkins lives on that alternate planet earth from Superman comics called Bizzaro world --
a cubical planet called Htrae [in keeping with Bizarro logic, Earth spelled backwards] which operated under "Bizarro logic" (it was a crime to do anything good or right).
The reach for science fiction is warranted, because Mr. Junior spends the rest of his column talking about driverless cars, cars that can predict future collisions, cars that park themselves, cars that know if you're tipsy or demented.
That's the alternate future of the auto industry on today's editorial page of the Wall Street Journal, a future where drivers don't have to take responsibility for driving -- or presumably, for global warming.
Holman Jenkins, Jr. then leans on this back-of-the-envelope opinion of a Stanford roboticist who
predicts that such systems could quickly cut vehicle fatalities in half, saving 20,000 lives a year. Try getting comparable bang for the buck from any of the forthcoming fuel-saving technologies to meet the congressional mandate.
Can someone over at Toyota please give him a ring, and give a short lesson on industry leadership? Or maybe a staffer at IPCC could call him and tell him about projected impacts of climate change?
I'll pay the inter-planetary phone charges.
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