Greenhouse gasbags

IF WE COULD HARNESS the renewable wind power from all the politicians making empty promises about fighting global warming, we could go a long way toward solving the problem. The hot air generated by big-city mayors alone seems enough to power quite a few wind turbines.

Former President Clinton, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg are slated to be among the luminaries at a major climate-change conference today in New York, where mayors and governors from all over the world will outline their plans for reducing greenhouse gas emissions. Villaraigosa’s blueprint, unveiled at a splashy news conference Tuesday at a park near Dodger Stadium, is typical of the genre, if more ambitious than most. He proposes to cut the city’s carbon dioxide emissions 35% below 1990 levels by 2030.

The trouble with such promises is that they come dirt cheap. By the time 2030 rolls around, Villaraigosa will be running for bingo secretary of Leisure World and won’t be blamed if the city fails to meet the goal. His plan, mostly a rehash of proposals he’s made since taking office, contains no specifics on how to pay the costs of making it a reality. (The mayor’s office estimates that power customers will each need to pay about $4 extra a month starting in 2020, an awfully sunny projection on the cost of solar power.)

At least Villaraigosa, unlike some more recent tuba players on the global-warming bandwagon, has a history of taking concrete action to benefit the environment. The Department of Water and Power under his watch has already increased its share of renewable energy sources to 8% from 3%, and his appointees are making groundbreaking moves to clean up the Port of Los Angeles.

That’s in contrast with the suddenly green Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has lately made a habit of signing meaningless agreements on nonexistent carbon-trading schemes with other states and even foreign governments, as far-flung as Australia’s Victoria state. Or there’s the more painful spectacle of President Bush holding a Rose Garden news conference Monday to announce that his administration would do nothing in particular to ensure that his toothless mandate on reducing gasoline use is met by 2017.

If there’s one thing that all these politicians, from the genuinely green to the greenwashed, have in common, it’s that none are telling the painful truth. There is no magic technology to reduce greenhouse gases on the cheap. Solving the problem will require strong conservation measures, expensive adoption of clean technologies such as wind and solar power, and almost certainly a sharp increase in the price of energy.

With this in mind, we’d like to declare a moratorium on politicians making long-term promises they can’t keep. There are abundant steps they could take right now, like requiring more energy-efficient buildings, passing genuine fuel economy mandates and taxing fossil fuels. Save the speeches and get busy saving the world.