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Posted on 01/10/2007 3:49:45 AM PST by bd476
Chrysler questions climate change
By Steve Schifferes
Economics reporter, BBC News
10 January 2007
Many US firms are predicting that demand for bigger cars will pick up
Chrysler's chief economist Van Jolissaint has launched a fierce attack on "quasi-hysterical Europeans" and their "Chicken Little" attitudes to global warming.
His attack is in sharp contrast to the green image that the US car companies have been trying to promote at this year's Detroit Motor Show.
Mr Jolissaint was speaking at a private breakfast where the chief economists of the "Big Three" US car firms presented their forecasts for auto industry sales this year.
Most of the audience - which was mainly made up of parts suppliers - seemed to nod in agreement with Mr Jolissaint.
Neither Ford's chief economist Ellen Hughes-Cromwick, nor General Motors' chief economist Mustafa Mohatarem, who were on the panel with Mr Jolissaint, questioned his assertion.
Uncertain magnitude
Mr Jolissant, who was recently appointed the chief economist for the German-US DaimlerChrysler Group, said that since he started spending more time at the company's corporate headquarters in Stuttgart he had been shocked by the absurdity of European attitudes towards global warming.
In response to a question from the floor, he said that global warming was a far-off risk whose magnitude was uncertain.
He said that from an economic point of view, it would be more rational to spend lots of money on today's other big problems, and only make small and limited changes in policies relating to global warming, such as a slight increase in gasoline or carbon taxes.
Mr Jolissaint was particularly scathing about the Stern Report, which was recently published by the UK government.
The report urged governments to take urgent action now to tackle climate change, arguing that it would be much cheaper to act, rather than face the $10 trillion cost of not doing anything until later.
Mr Jolissaint said the report was based on dubious economics, did not include a discount rate, and was written by an informal adviser to Gordon Brown - in fact, at the time of the report, Mr Stern was the Second Permanent Secretary at the UK Treasury.
He said that he had been surprised by how much support there had been in the Daimler office in Stuttgart for these "quasi-hysterical" policies that smacked of "Chicken Little" politics - referring to the US children's story where Chicken Little runs around in circles saying "the sky is falling".
If nothing else, Mr Jolissant's remarks illustrate the yawning gap between mainstream opinion on climate change among the educated elites of Europe and America.
But they are also consistent with the cynical view held by some in the US environmental lobby that announcements by car companies about the future development of green vehicles are nothing more than window dressing.
Bigger cars?
On Sunday, GM boss Rick Wagoner told the world's press that there is "now an irrefutable business case for producing green cars" and that the company recognised that fossil fuels would eventually run out, or be in such short supply as to force prices much higher.
At the same time, GM's chief economist - who last year forecast that oil prices would average $40 a barrel when in fact they topped $60 - predicting that oil prices would fall this year as new oil supply came on stream.
As a result, he argued, demand for big, gas-guzzling cars would recover.
Despite the fact that the chief economists have not forecast growth in US vehicle sales in 2007, after 16.5m units were sold in 2006, they were more optimistic about their outlook than many Wall Street analysts.
One reason for their relative optimism was a remarkably sanguine view of the other economic risks facing the auto industry.
There is widespread agreement that the US economy will slow next year, partly because of a sharp drop in house prices.
But Ford's chief economist Ms Hughes-Cromwick said there was little to link house prices and auto sales.
She also argued that the US central bank, the Federal Reserve, was likely to cut US interest rates by half a percentage point in coming months to prevent the US economic slowdown turning into a full-blown recession.
This has not been the consensus view in financial markets, and in fact many analysts have stated that Ford would suffer most if the US economic slowdown was more severe than expected.
And some, such as Sean McAlinden of the Center for Automotive Research, have warned that it could even push Ford close to bankruptcy.
They have invoked the wrath of the Rockefeller-Snowe Inquisition! All prepare for Chrysler to be outlawed! (And only outlaws will have Chrysler's?)
"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." [H. L. Mencken]
"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." [H. L. Mencken]
This is the claim of both the "radical" right and the "radical" left. They are either both correct or both wrong. Moderates would hold with the latter.
Mencken was more than occasionally correct.
"The report urged governments to take urgent action now to tackle climate change, arguing that it would be much cheaper to act, rather than face the $10 trillion cost of not doing anything until later."
I am in a "let's change it" mood this morning.
"The report urged the government to take urgent action now to tackle Social Security, arguing that it would be much cheaper to act, rather than face the $10 trillion cost of not doing anything until later."
There we ho.
Well, there you have it...if you don't believe that global warming is caused by man, not nature, you are an uneducated dumb-ass. Kind of like one educated elite stated how dumb our military people are.
The writer seemed to take offense upon hearing the truth. And certainly they are a bunch of overwrought Chicken Littles.
ROFLOL!
So the question comes to mind: How much science do our educated elites take in our elite universities, and how much science do European educated elites take in their elite universities?
Whether global warming actually exists is irrelevant. It is, in the hands of government and environmental activists, a convenient front for the introduction of programs and economic policies that Canadians - and most citizens of the world - would not otherwise accept.
Ms. Stewart, Canadian Environment Minister, perhaps unintentionally, has identified the two key foundations of the global warming movement. One is based in environmentalism, which essentially claims that human beings are a problem in nature. The other foundation is the old business of economic redistribution. - Global Warming The Real Agenda, Terrence Corcoran
Global warming is a natural phenomena that has nothing whatsoever to do with man.
The Earth has done this countless times in the past.
I applaud for Chrysler to having the stooch to put reason ahead of acceptance and PC-ness.
I have no problem with reducing US consumption of oil. It will take money out of the pockets of Middle-Eastern despots and their islamo-fascist lackeys.
Clean coal and coal liquefaction will permit us to continue driving as much as we want. Of course, any technological innovations that permit better mileage would be welcome, but no one really desires tiny, cramped vehicles that are death-boxes in an accident.
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The Big Three have NEVER made $$ off of small cars and probably never will. Japan made money off them when it was poor relative to the US. Now, they match American companies for every model down the line.
Baloney. That's utter and complete nonsense and a very tiresome conspiracy theory.
Okay, make that bologna with mustard on rye bread. Current hybrids are very expensive up front. Then you have to charge them, requiring the money to pay a higher electric bill or for those who are environmental cheerleaders, enough money to afford a very large solar panel system.
The cost of owning a hybrid car right now is more expensive over years than the cost of owning a gasoline powered car at today's gas prices.
Wrong again, and I'm not going to add cheese to the bologna on rye with mustard, but I'll consider tomato and lettuce.
Currently, alternative fuel cars over the long run add more pollution to the air which makes them less healthy than gasoline powered cars because of the increased supply of electricity required to run the hybrids.
There are always early adopters who buy into technology before it is mature and/or economically the right decision. I hope people are buying hybrids more to further the technology than anything. After all, the extra money/manufacturing for a hybrid represents just as much or more petroleum use as a regular car when you amortize it across the life of the vehicle.
The people I've talked to who bought hybrids tend to compare them to higher end gas vehicles like camrys, even though a more accurate comparison would be corollas, or maybe accords.
I think they are going to accomplish nothing to reduce our foreign oil dependence, which we desperately need to do. The only solutions I see to the problem are alchohol fuels, fusion, or a pigovian tax on oil.
Mencken, a frequent visitor at Baltimore's Belvedere Hotel pub, is right on the point.
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