Pittsburgh at the Three Rivers: Allegheny, Monongahela & Ohio

EDITORIAL: Pittsburgh myth, Paris reality

Guest Editorial by Patrick Gallagher, Chancellor of the University of Pittsburgh

From: Science: June 16, 2017: Vol. 356, Issue 6343, pp. 1103

When announcing his decision to withdraw the United States from the Paris Agreement, President Trump reminded the world that, “I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris.” In doing so, he repeated a tired trope: that Pittsburgh is a rusty urban relic—a manufacturing city of steel that has fallen on hard times, held back by unfair global competition and onerous environmental regulation. But such a nostalgic version of Pittsburgh, and of many other communities across the country, is a myth. If the president truly wants to represent the interests of Americans, he would learn from the real histories of these regions and promote economic and environmental progress through research, education, and innovation.

“Such history…reminds us that economic and environmental narratives are intertwined.”

Biographer James Parton, visiting Pittsburgh in its manufacturing heyday, described the smoky, sooty landscape as “hell with the lid taken off.” By the early 1940s, after decades of leading the nation in steel production, the city was paying a heavy price for its economic success. Industry leaders, realizing that environmental catastrophe would be bad for business, partnered with local government in one of the country’s first clean air initiatives.

Environmental regulations did not drive the region’s coal industry—long the engine of manufacturing—to collapse. That industry’s fate is more intricately tied to the availability of low-cost natural gas, whose rise—including the shale gas boom—was buoyed by U.S. research efforts during the oil embargo of the 1970s. A lack of innovation and investment were the true linchpins of Pittsburgh’s economic distress. Its aging and inefficient factories were unable to compete with foreign firms. The city lost nearly half of its population, unemployment peaked at 17% in 1983, and Pittsburgh became an economic shadow of its former self.

The region clawed back from its economic breakdown by refocusing on technology innovation fueled by federally funded research at its major universities, especially Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh. Today, Pittsburgh is home to one of the most vibrant technology and health care markets in the country. It is teeming with startup companies and is an internationally recognized research leader in medicine, robotics, advanced manufacturing, big data, and autonomous systems. It is no accident that the top of the city’s tallest building now advertises the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center—not U.S. Steel.

Such history, seen in Pittsburgh and elsewhere across the country, reminds us that economic and environmental narratives are intertwined. Climate change creates economic costs, a simple reality of doing business on a finite planet. There can be costs associated with countries working together to slow and adapt to global warming, or costs can result from natural disasters and climate-caused disruption. The economic upside, under these circumstances, is to be the first to develop and market innovative solutions to global climate change and its effects.

Instead of shielding domestic businesses from this opportunity, the United States should be increasing its investments in climate- and energy-related research and supporting the most innovative companies. Training and education should be bolstered so that all Americans can thrive in this rapidly changing economy. The draconian cuts proposed in these areas by the Trump administration augur a less-competitive economic future—even if environmental restrictions are lifted.

The real story of Pittsburgh, and the real story of the United States, points to an economic approach to the challenge of climate change that is drastically different from that voiced by the president. It’s a story that says, from a place of hard-earned experience: Be the innovation leader.

World View of Elon Musk

Elon Musk: Put a Price on Carbon to Expedite Transition to Renewables

From an Article by Cole Mellino, EcoWatch.com, December 4, 2015

Speaking to students at the Sorbonne University in Paris, Elon Musk said we need a price on carbon similar to the one abolished in Australia to halve the time it will take to transition to renewable energy—a crucial step in addressing climate change.

We have to “remove the effective subsidy of not pricing the damage done by carbon pollution,” Musk said. “By putting a price on carbon, we are fixing a pricing error in the market,” he said. “Any price will be better than the close to zero we have right now.”

Musk has advocated for a price on carbon to drive investments in renewables for years. He told students that governments need to “set the rules of the game” to help start-ups grow into mid-size companies and eliminating the $3.5 trillion “hidden carbon subsidy” is a good place to start.

“To make it neither a left nor right issue we should make it a revenue-neutral carbon tax—increasing carbon tax and reducing tax in other areas like consumption taxes or VAT [value-added tax] and in order to give companies time to react it should be a phased-in approach,” said Musk.

“If countries agree to a carbon tax and it’s real and it’s not super watered-down and weak, we could see a transition [to clean energy] that has a 15- to 20-year time frame as opposed to a 40- or 50-year time frame,” the Tesla CEO said. “We could probably cut it in half and that would have a huge impact on the … welfare of the world … It really matters whether we do this transition sooner or later.”

“For developing economies they could leapfrog the fossil fuel situation with power lines, you could have remote villages with solar panels and a battery pack, just like mobile phones, a lot of countries just didn’t do the landlines, they skipped right over landlines,” said Musk.

The billionaire businessman also expressed his concern over fracking. “Fracking has elevated my concern about the carbon problem dramatically … I always thought the scarcity of oil would drive up the price … Unfortunately some smart inventors, I wish they could have invented something else … the net result is the accessible oil and gas reserves are dramatically higher, maybe by a factor of 10, and that is crazy for the climate,” he said.

Though Musk struck a note of optimism when he said, “we are going to exit the fossil fuel era. It is inevitable.” He added that it’s not a matter of if, but when, and world leaders meeting at the COP21 climate talks in Paris right now could expedite the process.

See also:

Bill McKibben: ‘Paris Summit is Missing One of the Great World Leaders on Climate’ Because He’s in Prison