At a small lab in West Virgina, it turns out. In 2012, a group of researchers at West Virginia University won a $50,000 grant from the International Council on Clean Transportation to do performance testing on clean diesel cars. Arvind Thiruvengadam, a research assistant professor in mechanical and aerospace engineering, told NPR this week that the team was merely excited do the research—which involved driving the clean diesel cars outside the lab—and write a journal paper based on the data. They never expected that they would discover one of the biggest frauds in automotive history.
.. David Carder, another researcher on the West Virginia University team, told Reuters that the fallout at hand is surprising because this data was made public over a year and a half ago.
.. Volkswagen insisted to EPA officials that the discrepancies were due to a technical issue rather than deliberate cheating. Only when the EPA threatened not to approve Volkswagen’s 2016 clean diesel cars for sale in the U.S. did the company finally fess up.
Walls, Borders, a Dome and Refugees
The world is being redivided into regions of “order” and “disorder,” and for the first time in a long time, we don’t have an answer for all the people flocking to get out of the world of disorder and into the world of order.
.. The net migration flow from Mexico to the U.S. is now zero.
.. When it comes to our neighbors, Trump and Walker are making Americans both afraid and dumb, purely for political gain.
.. That is because the three largest forces on the planet — Mother Nature (climate change, biodiversity loss and population growth in developing countries), Moore’s law (the steady doubling in the power of microchips and, more broadly, of technology) and the market (globalization tying the world ever more tightly together) — are all in simultaneous, rapid acceleration.
.. “There is nothing in our experience that has prepared us for what is going on now: the meltdown of an increasing number of states all at the same time in a globalized world. And what if China starts failing in a globalized world?”
A New Solution: The Climate Club
Why has progress in climate change policy been so slow? If you read five books, you will find six theories. Perhaps this is because the public is poorly informed. Or because the science is so hard. Or because industry is putting up such a vicious fight, and policies are being blocked by the oil and coal lobbies. Or because climate deniers have captured the Republican Party. Perhaps because a solution is so expensive. Or because costs must be incurred in the present while benefits accrue far in the future.
Doubtless, each of these plays a part. But the fundamental reason for the lack of progress is the strong incentives for “free-riding” in current international climate agreements... A crucial aspect of the club is that countries who are outside the club—and do not share in the burden of emissions reductions—are penalized. Penalties for those outside the club are central to the club mechanism, and penalties are the major difference from all other proposals from Kyoto to the upcoming meeting in Paris. Economic modeling indicates that the most promising penalty is uniform percentage tariffs on the imports of nonparticipants into the club region. A country considering whether to undertake costly abatement would have to weigh those costs against the potentially larger costs of reduced trade with countries in the club.
Carly Fiorina Shows How to Address the Left on Climate Change
The Left doesn’t seriously dispute the notion that American regulations aren’t going to save the planet, but they justify the demand for American sacrifice by essentially ascribing a mystical power to our national policies — as if our decision to fall on our own sword will so move India and China and the rest of the developing world (which has a lot of fossil fuels left to burn to lift its people out of poverty) that they’ll essentially have their own “come to Jesus” movement in defiance of national interest and centuries of national political culture. “America leads,” they proclaim. “The world laughs,” is the proper response.
.. Our geopolitical competitors will not sacrifice their strategic interests for the sake of combating global warming. Nor will developing nations sacrifice their economies, or their people’s lives, by restraining their own economic growth.