Misinterpreting the Solution to the Manure Crisis and the Global Warming Problem...

...and how Levitt and Dubner fail to see that the Manure problem was not 'solved', only turned into a new problem that will also require wrenching change. First, the Great Manure Crisis of the late nineteenth century:

The standard horsecar, which seated twenty, was drawn by a pair of roans and ran sixteen hours a day. Each horse could work only a four-hour shift, so operating a single car required at least eight animals. Additional horses were needed if the route ran up a grade, or if the weather was hot. Horses were also employed to transport goods; as the amount of freight arriving at the city's railroad terminals increased, so, too, did the number of horses needed to distribute it along local streets. By 1880, there were at least a hundred and fifty thousand horses living in New York, and probably a great many more. Each one relieved itself of, on average, twenty-two pounds of manure a day, meaning that the city's production of horse droppings ran to at least forty-five thousand tons a month. George Waring, Jr., who served as the city's Street Cleaning Commissioner, described Manhattan as stinking "with the emanations of putrefying organic matter."

....In the early part of the century, farmers in the surrounding counties had been happy to pay for the city's manure, which could be converted into rich fertilizer, but by the later part the market was so glutted that stable owners had to pay to have the stuff removed, with the result that it often accumulated in vacant lots, providing breeding grounds for flies.

The problem just kept piling up until, in the eighteen-nineties, it seemed virtually insurmountable. One commentator predicted that by 1930 horse manure would reach the level of Manhattan's third-story windows. New York's troubles were not New York's alone; in 1894, the Times of London forecast that by the middle of the following century every street in the city would be buried under nine feet of manure. It was understood that flies were a transmission vector for disease, and a public-health crisis seemed imminent....

Then, almost overnight, the crisis passed. This was not brought about by regulation or by government policy. Instead, it was technological innovation that made the difference. With electrification and the development of the internal-combustion engine, there were new ways to move people and goods around. By 1912, autos in New York outnumbered horses, and in 1917 the city's last horse-drawn streetcar made its final run. All the anxieties about a metropolis inundated by ordure had been misplaced.

In Superfreakonomics, Dubner and Levitt argue that a quick technological fix, as was the case with the advent of the internal-combustion engine, can solve the climate crisis. But Dubner and Levitt seriously underestimate the costs of the switch, particularly to certain subsectors of the economy. Horse breeding became a 'boutique' activity, as the total number of horses dropped. Farmers who grew horse feed lost business (and this was in an era with no price supports whatsoever). Farriers and carriage makers essentially became extinct. A new infrastructure had to be built: paved roads, underground storage for gasoline, and so on. Meanwhile, carriage houses had to be torn down.

Now, I'm not arguing that we should go back to the horse-and-buggy days (Sweet Baby Intelligent Designer, I'm not that curmudgeonly). Of course, the advent of the ICE was a good thing. But imagine if this transition occurred today. Lobbyists would be retarding the transition to the ICE. Well-funded think tanks would develop ridiculous arguments that being buried neck-deep in horseshit is good for us. I'm sure Betsy McCaughey would be leading the charge on that one. We didn't see massive political involvement, in part, because the government, for better and for worse, in the early 1900s didn't do that sort of thing.

What I am arguing is that the list of current solutions, which focus on better energy use (and building an 18-mile long tube to pump sulfur dioxide into the upper atmosphere is less realistic than improving energy use policies--just saying), will hit some sectors hard, even though, overall, we'll be better off, just as was the case with the Great Manure Crisis. Exurban and suburban houses will be worth less hurting many households (or their lenders), the car industry will take a beating (at least in the U.S.), federal subsidies will flow back from the suburbs and exurbs to cities (and inner suburbs), energy providers to homes will lose revenue, and so on.

The solution won't be a 'win-win' for everyone this time around either.