« Liberal Media? Where? | Main | The Interesting Congruence »

February 02, 2007

Unintended Consequences

And speaking of global warming, one of our nominal solutions appears to be causing its fair share of problems. If the U.S. is doing anything to prevent global warming, it is pushing for the use of non-fossil fuels, and the king among these is ethanol. I'm no scientist, so I won't pretend to claim that I know if ethanol is a real solution to the use of gasoline or not. Suffice it to say there's some question as to how much energy we're really saving by using ethanol.

But there's one effect we know is caused by the various ethanol subsidies: rising corn prices. By subsidizing the production of ethanol, corn farmers get more money selling their product to ethanol manufacturers than to food producers. Which means that people who want to buy corn to make, for example, tortillas, have to pay more for their raw materials and therefore have to raise their prices. Which, as we see in our neighbor to the south, has caused some problems.

I'm not much for blaming America first, but I think that in this case, we don't have any way to avoid it. We are pushing ethanol hard in this country, partly because people want to see thye U.S. become energy independent (a tempting but chimerical goal), partly because people see ethanol as a means to reduce global warming, and largely because Iowa holds the first Presidential caucus in the nation and is packed to the gills with corn farmers who want more money for their product. And they're getting it, but as in all such cases, that money has to come from somewhere, in this case, from people who like to eat corn and corn-based products, many of whom are quite poor.

Granting that I don't agree with the global warming set on many issues regarding what we can and should do about the problem, I think there are some areas where we can agree. First among these should be that the actions we take to mitigate global warming don't exacerbate other problems unless there is compelling evidence that the benefits will outweigh the costs. Let me be clear in saying that I'm not arguing that we shouldn't do anything unless we're 100% certain that it will work. But for a situation like ethanol, where the gains are questionable and the costs are clear, it seems clear to me that we should eliminate the ethanol subsidies in favor of policies that, even if they're no more certain to help, at least won't have such negative impacts on the people least well-equipped to deal with it.

This is why government is so ill-equipped to deal with problems like global warming (while, conversely, also being possibly the only entity capable of doing so). Republican (small-r) government responds to its constituents, and it responds better to constituents who have the ability to effect their current or future job prospects. Because Iowa is seen as a necessary gate to the Presidency, any American politician who is thinking about a run for President is reluctant (at best) to take on the ethanol subsidy (or other farm subsidies) for fear of torpedoing any chance they have at higher office. Add to that companies like the infamous Archer Daniels Midland that stand to make a great deal of money from subsidies and it is hardly surprising that ineffective remedies are often the result of government reaction to problems. Add to that the unfortunate tendency of republican government to never eliminate old programs and the problem becomes clearer. Global warming is an extremely complex phenomenon. Changes made to try and mitigate will doubtless follow multiple paths: some will succeed, some will fail, and some will make things worse. So we're going to need metrics that allow us to determine which programs work and which do not, so we don't waste time and money on blind alleys (or worse, on making the problem worse). But government doesn't do a good job measuring its own results.

This is not wholly inevitable. If enough people notice the problem, it can be mitigated. But that's going to require people willing to take a critical look at programs they've agitated for. I'm not hopeful that we'll see much of that.