Monthly Archives: September 2006

As many have argued in this blog, the gas tax has its flaws as a vehicle for raising money to fund ongoing roadway maintenance and construction. The flaws will become increasingly evident as Americans shift to vehicles with better gas mileage — or to electric automobiles that don’t consume any gasoline at all. Some, including myself, have argued that Virginia should move to a system that charges automobiles on the basis of Vehicle Miles Driven: The more you drive, the more you pay.

The issue has been this: Does the technology exist to track Vehicle Miles Driven cheaply and unobtrusively? We have an answer: Almost. A Canadian company is developing technology, which it expects to roll out in a year, that will transform the way people think about transportation.

Toronto-based Applied Location Corporation was profiled by Business 2.0 magazine in a list of 11 disruptive new technologies. Founder Bern Grush has created a satellite-based system, Skymeter, for toll collection, traffic congestion management, and pay-as-you-drive insurance. Writes Business 2.0:

He says he’s created an algorithm that corrects for the noise and missed signals to which GPS is prone, especially in urban canyons, so Skymeter can reliably pinpoint a car’s location to within 1.5 meters. Once that becomes possible, cities can start to manage traffic better by charging more for driving during peak times. (London already does this, but with an expensive system of cameras.) “The problem is congestion,” Grush says. “We need to send pricing signals to motorists to drive at alternate times.”

Skymeter is disruptive more for the new economic models it might spur than for what it might displace. For instance, in addition to congestion tolls, it could be used to charge for parking anywhere in a city, even where there are no meters. Or the technology could enable insurance companies to offer better rates to safer drivers, since it records speed, time of day, and driving route. …

Grush thinks his product could ultimately help to supplement or even replace the fuel tax now used to pay for the upkeep of our roads. “The need to fix road financing and congestion is so acute,” he argues, “that a dramatic shift will necessarily occur.”

Virginia is running out of money to maintain its road network. We need to envision a future that abolishes the gasoline tax and replaces it with a tax based on Vehicle Miles Driven, adjusted perhaps for the weight of the vehicle. This tax would cover the maintenance of the road network. As maintenance costs increase (or conceivably decrease, if we outsource maintenance), the tax would adjust automatically each year.

Funds for new construction would come from tolls — ideally, tolls that varied the price according to congestion levels. With such a two-track system, Virginia could ensure that (a) all maintenance costs were covered, (b) that tolls encouraged people to drive during off-peak periods or to shift to carpooling, buses, rail or telecommuting, and (c) that the money for new construction came directly from the people who used the new facilities. We could then turn the conversation from how much money we need, and where to get it, to a more productive dialogue: how best to align our transportation systems with our human settlement patterns.

As lawmakers discuss Virginia’s transportation funding in the soon-to-convene special session, they need to be thinking about the larger context: emerging technologies and new, user-pays transportation-funding models that are sweeping the world.

The stories are flying fast and furious as the General Assembly prepares to convene again to discuss transportation. Among the more significant:

• Congestion pricing pilot project. Garren Shipley with the Northern Virginia Daily writes about a legislative package filed by Del. Chris Saxman, R-Staunton, to authorize a congestion-pricing pilot program. On an interstate yet to be selected, the state would set up variable, time-of-day tolls to encourage motorists to drive less during periods of peak demand. Saxman would make the scheme “revenue neutral” by eliminating the gas tax in the transportation corridor for the duration of the pilot project, and he would allow voters to determine in a referendum whether to make the tolls permanent.
• Tolls for Hampton Roads. Christina Nuckols with the Virginian-Pilot quotes House Speaker William J. Howell as saying that he supports the idea of a regional tolling authority to pay for Hampton Roads road projects. Howell predicts that the idea will pass the House.
• Pilot Pundits Wrong Again. The editorial writers at the Virginian-Pilot are back to form, distorting the transportation debate beyond recognition. “The House’s leadership,” says the Pilot, “prefers a solution that includes almost no new revenue, which makes it no solution at all.” Guys, let me explain something. Tolls = new revenue! Read your own writer’s story!

As veterans of the 2004 tax debate recall, Warner administration officials forecast that Virginia would face chronic budget deficits within a few years. Thanks to the 2004 tax increase — and economic growth — Virginia now may be facing chronic budget surpluses. The magnitude of these surpluses are obscured by the wise General Assembly practice of spending hundreds of millions of dollars in one-time investments — roads, Chesapeake Bay clean-up, mental health restructuring — instead of ramping up spending for ongoing programs. But the surplus of revenue over spending on ongoing programs continues to be large.

Now we’ve entered a new budget cycle, and once again Virginia is running ahead of forecasts. In her August report on state finances, Secretary of Finance Jody Wagner reported that General Fund revenues for July and August 2006 had increased 8.6 percent over the same period in 2005 — double the 4.2 percent increase estimated in the budget.

By way of caution, July and August are not major revenue-generating months. September, Wagner notes, will provide a more reliable indicator of where the budget is heading. However, when legislators meet in a few days for the special transportation session, July/August budget numbers are all they have to go on. Given the chronic, recurring budget surpluses that Virginia has been running since 2004, it is increasingly difficult to make the case that the state needs to raise any more taxes.

As readers of the Rebellion know, we avoid commenting upon electoral mud-slinging and the politics of personal destruction in favor of focusing on the issues. The particular issue that I want to address arises from the much-blogged flap over Sen. George Allen’s ethnic heritage. But I don’t give a hoot whether or not Allen’s grandfather was Jewish, and I’m not interested in dissecting the Senator’s reaction to what he perceived to be a hostile question from television reporter Peggy Fox. I am interested in an insinuation made by Washington Post columnist Dana Milbank:

Fox’s question, while a matter of some intrigue, seemed out of place in the debate, which focused on more urgent matters such as Iraq. But Allen turned on the questioner with ferocity. He may have been irked that the question was a follow-up to one noting that “macaca” was a racial slur that his mother may have learned in Tunisia. He may have been concerned that Jewish roots wouldn’t play well in parts of Virginia. (My italics.)

Now, that’s an interesting statement. What “parts of Virginia” could Milbank be talking about? Could he be referring to Allen’s culturally conservative, red-state constituency of blue-collar bubbas? Is he insinuating here that anti-semitism is a feature of the Virginia cultural landscape? Is not the undertext of that statement that “parts of Virginia” are prejudiced against Jews? Milbanks, it seems to me, may be engaging in some stereotyping of his own.

I wonder if Mr. Milbank would like to clarify his remarks.

There are two bills from Republican Hampton Roads Delegates for the special Transportation session of the GA. (http:/leg1.state.va.us – click on ‘2006 Special 1’)

Delegates Jones, Oder, Iaquinto and Suit (HB5072) have dressed up the failed ’02 Transportation Tax Scam with new funding, Private-Public Transportation Act authority and people-less tolling with congestion tolling.

Delegate Waldrup (HB5091) pulls all the bridges and tunnels across the James and Elizabeth Rivers and The Bay into a Bridge and Tunnel Authority.

Both become unelected Regional Governments – using the exact same wording, but the scope is different.

HB5072, or ‘Back to the Future’ Bill, creates a Hampton Roads Transportation Authority which pulls in 11 Hampton Roads communities (then adds Accomack and Northampton on the Eastern Shore) to build the same projects that were offered in the ’02 referendum that voters rejected.

HB5091, or the ‘Bay Bridge Authority on Steroids’ Bill, creates a Bridge and Tunnel Authority that includes only 9 Hampton Roads communities (- Williamsburg, James City and York Co, + Northampton).

Both omit Poquoson on The Peninsula and Surry, Sussex and Southampton along 460. Good for us.

HB 5072 gets the money with the following:
• Electronic tolling and congestion tolling
• Additional tax each year at registration ($30 for a car)
• One time tax for registering a new car (.0075 = $150 for a $20k car)
• Hotel/motel room tax (5%)
• Rental car tax (2%)
• Dedicates 20 cents on $100 value on state records tax
• The language of the bill says ‘includes’ these taxes. I’m not a lawyer so I don’t know if that prevents other taxes, because it says cities and counties may levy additional fees.
• $25 m of Hampton Roads’ sales and income tax in the General Fund goes back to this authority every year. This bill does not inflict a new sales tax like the’06 Quayle bill did.
• When the Chesapeake-Bay Bridge bonds are paid (09), it becomes a cash cow for this government.

HB 5072 has the same projects as the failed ’02 plan. Interesting because that plan’s own analysis said there would be MORE congested miles of roads in 20 years after the plan is built out than in ’02. (Message again – you will have more miles of congested road in 2026 than in 2006 after you build the plan).

HB5072 doesn’t add tubes to the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel. It takes trucks from the Port of Virginia and dumps them on I-64 about 12 miles up from the HRBT. (I believe the rail connection is from the Peninsula too, not Southside to the Port – not sure and the bill doesn’t say.)

Both plans pay the politicians and bureaucrats for serving plus per diem for going to work where they live.

Both plans have this terrifying paragraph, “To the extent funds are made available to the Authority to do so, to employ employees, agents, and advisors, and consultants, including without limitation, attorneys, financial advisers, engineers, and other technical advisors and, the provisions of any other law to the contrary notwithstanding, to determine their duties and compensations.”

Both plans lack an accountable authority for review of policy, plans and the jobs for friends of ‘pols’ paragraph above.

HB5091 puts all the crossings under one administrative and political authority. Reminds me of NYC’s inter-state Port Authority. That will provide a lot of revenue. The bill doesn’t go beyond that – on what to build and maintain with that money – but it includes the authority to do so and “construct or acquire, by purchase, lease, contract or otherwise,highways, bridges, tunnels, railroads, railroad facilities, and other transportation-related facilities.” It’s not clear if this would include building up the 460 corridor or widening I-64 up in The Peninsula.

Two very different plans.

Putting all the crossings under one authority for revenue – like the Bay-Bridge is now – is fine with me. Giving that authority the planning power to build projects worries me.

I don’t get why another layer of government is needed for either. The Governor and the GA have all the authority they need to set a priority of projects, fund and manage them.

Speaking in the coalfield burg of Norton, Gov. Timothy M. Kaine unveiled yesterday a “Return to Roots” campaign that aims to reach an estimated 15,000 Southwest Virginians who graduated from high school during the past 20 years but left the region. The program, according to the Bluefield Daily Telegraph, will try to reach the alumni through a website, direct mail and the news media to inform them about new employment opportunities that exist today in Southwest Virginia.

“I think it’s a pretty smart strategy,” Kaine told the Daily Telegraph. “The idea of course is we want to recruit good people for these jobs.”

Kaine said the 15,000 plus alumni now scattered out across the nation already know Southwest Virginia is a great place to live and work. The campaign simply aims to reach them, and encourages them to return home.

Kaine said Southwest Virginia is seeing an increase in job vacancies with improving employment rates. For example, Kaine said just last year more than 700 information technology jobs were created in Russell County.

“They (the alumni) are a little bit everywhere,” Kaine said. “It can be hard to find them. But most high schools have reunions. Many of them can be reached through alumni associations and high school associations.”

This initiative is another positive sign that SW Virginia is thinking very differently about economic development. (See “Broadband and Nature Trails.”) The region is investing in higher education through new schools of law and pharmacy in Grundy. It’s investing in nature trails and heritage trails to attract visitors. It’s building a broadband infrastructure. And now its reaching out to alumni.

If there’s one group of people that know, love and have reason to move to SW Virginia, it’s the sons and daughters who left. With their family roots in the region, they have greater reason to settle there than anyone else. I don’t know how well this campaign will work — success will depend in part upon the execution — but it’s clearly a move in the right direction. In the Knowledge Economy, economic development is all about the development, recruitment and retention of human capital.

The House Appropriations Committee had its chance yesterday to question John Bennett, Mark Warner’s Secretary of Finance, about miscalculations that led to a $137.2 million error in school funding formulas. According to Christina Nuckols with the Virginian-Pilot:

Bennett, the top budget adviser to former Gov. Mark R. Warner, said he did not know the full extent of the mistake when he left the administration to take a job at Virginia Commonwealth University in January.

Bennett said he incorrectly assumed that state tax analysts would fix the problem during regular revenue adjustments. …

Bennett said he did not tell Warner about the mistake because it represented a tiny percentage of total state spending on schools and he thought it would be easily fixed. Total state aid to public schools exceeds $6 billion annually.

It sounds like a breakdown in communications. What’s not clear from Nuckols’ story is what can be done to prevent a recurrence of such breakdowns. Was the incident entirely the result of human error? Or were the systems inadequate to handle the transition from one gubernatorial administration to the next?

Will anything change, or will it be budgetary Business As usual?

Tourism should play an important role in a balanced approach to economic development in Southwest Virginia. So argues James C. Thompson, chairman of the Thompson & Litton engineering firm, in a column published in the Galax Gazette in response to an earlier column by Jerry Fuhrman (See “Selling Bottles of Water and Granola Bars“).

The average visitor to Southwest Virginia spends $157 per day and stays nearly three days, Thompson contends. He cites the town of Damascus as the “poster child” for the benefits of a tourism-driven strategy. “The Virginia Creeper Trail, with an annual usage in excess of 200,000 and proximity to the Appalachian Trail, has literally transformed the town, lining the main street with locally owned, tourism-related businesses.”

Visitors are financially secure and highly mobile, Thompson argues. “They come from across the country, and many have the ability to conduct their business from any location.” If they visit Southwest Virginia, they may fall in love with Southwest Virginia. By developing tourism amenities and broadband infrastructure, Thompson writes, “we have the potential to create brain gain instead of brain drain by attracting such people to the region to stay and establish businesses locally.”

Thompson is taking a big step in the right direction. In effect, he’s arguing for an economic development strategy based on developing, recruiting and retaining human capital. That’s a radical departure from the traditional emphasis in SW Virginia on recruiting manufacturing (although Thompson makes it clear that he supports that, too — he does, after all, run an engineering firm).

I made the very same argument to the Shenandoah Valley Partnership back when it was a newsletter client of mine. If Thompson’s idea makes sense for SW Virginia, it makes even more sense for the Shenandoah Valley, which enjoys a plethora of charming small towns, old houses and homesteads to restore, beautiful landscapes and, most importantly, proximity to metropolitan Washington. I saw a step-by-step process that would unfold organically over years: (a) use the draw of tourism to get outsiders to visit the region, (b) promote the region as a place to buy weekend-getaway or retirement homes, (c) encourage visitors to settle permanently and start new businesses, and (d) build a new entrepreneurially based economy.

The SVP didn’t bite on my idea, preferring to maintain its focus on industrial recruitment. But it looks like the scenario I described is unfolding all on its own. Whether the idea can work in SW Virginia, far from a thriving metropolis like Washington, is an open question. But the region’s leadership is wise to explore that option.

Patricia Nicoson, president of the Dulles Corridor Rail Association, puts an optimistic spin on the recent decision by Gov. Timothy M. Kaine to pursue the “aerial” option rather than the “tunnel” option for the METRO rail extension through Tysons Corner. Many advocates of the project were dismayed by the decision because running the rail above ground would disrupt connectivity between destinations, making it all the more difficult to redevelop Tysons along the lines of a pedestrian-friendly business district.

In a column in the Reston Observer, Nicoson writes, running the rail line above ground provides a “challenge and an opportunity” to produce “memorable building designs serving as landmarks within Tysons Corner…. Thoughtful design and use of air rights could create a unique urban form at the four stations in Tysons, creating a sense of place missing today.”

A rail line hoisted on pylons need not necessarily interfere with the creation of a walkable street grid or “a public realm of plazas, parks, paths and open spaces.” As Tysons redevelops, she suggests, connectivity can be provided by means of pedestrian bridges.

As a bonus, Nicoson suggests, an elevated METRO line will create a better experience for passengers looking out the window. “An elevated line provides the opportunity to view Tysons as one travels through it, which ought to be an enjoyable experience for riders. … Many are likely to prefer an above-ground experience of rail to descending 80 or more feet below ground in a high-speed elevator to a train station in a tunnel.”

I can’t blame Nicoson for putting the best face on an unfortunate decision, which Gov. Kaine was forced to make or run the risk of losing federal funding for the project. But I’m not sure I’m buying it. As the saying goes, “Puttin’ lipstick on a hog don’t make it purdy.”

Note: See Ed Risse’s response by clicking on “comments.”

The price of gasoline, which hovered above $3 per gallon not long ago, has dipped beneath $2 a gallon at an Exxon gas station in Gainesville, the Washington Post has reported. The relief from high prices is certainly welcome. But no one should be deceived that the era of cheap gasoline is returning for any length of time.

One of the reasons that gas prices soared so high is that uncertainty over petroleum supplies prompted businesses up and down the global supply chain to hold higher inventories. As fears of supply disruptions subsided, businesses have lowered their inventories, creating a temporary glut on the market. By all means, let’s enjoy the respite while it lasts. And let us hope that it takes a year or two before prices return to $3 per barrel.

But the fundamentals remain intact: Global petroleum consumption, led by China, India and the United States, continues to climb. Global petroleum supplies have peaked. Old, cheap oil is being depleted, and it’s being replaced by new, expensive oil. The recent discovery of a new oil basin in the Gulf of Mexico won’t change anything. The oil find will take years to exploit and, because the oil resides in very deep water, it also will be very expensive to extract.

Virginia still needs to prepare for an expensive-energy future. That means embracing new forms of energy, and it means conservation. To be meaningful, conservation must entail more than installing energy-efficient light bulbs. We need to evolve towards a more energy-efficient transportation system and human settlement patterns.

Today’s Daily Press editorial (‘Going Somewhere? Transportation progresss requires action, not more roadblocks’, Sep 18, 2006) cites Bacon’s Rebellion as an ‘asphalt adverse Internet blogger’.
Their story about Republican delegates Glenn Oder, Terrie Suit and Sal Iaquinto supporting Republican delegate Chris Jones’ unelected, unaccountable, tax-and-spend Regional Government solution for Hampton Roads leaves out the part about the unelected, unaccountble, tax-and-spend Regional Government and the new, additional sales tax they will impose for perpetuity.

This is the same government the Hampton Roads voters rejected soundly in ’98 and crushingly in ’02. Suit, Oder, and Jones supported the ’02 Sales Tax Transportation Scam. Apparently, their Republican committees and voters are docile or uninformed.

They will stay uninformed, because the DP doesn’t tell the whole story on Jones’ plan. The Regional Government with taxing authority isn’t needed to just collect tolls. Many Republicans will support user fees – tolls – but not the unaccountable. No elected officials will review their policies or spending or be able to fire their board.

The newspaper doesn’t ask, because it isn’t interested, how much the politicians on the new Regional Government will be paid. How big will the staff be? What will they be paid? What will they do besides collect the additional sales tax? And on and on. It is a jobs program for politicians and friends of politicians. It is the biggest invitation to corruption – the Regional Government will have billions in revenue – that I’ve seen in Virginia.

The bid, if I got it right, is $375m a year for Hampton Roads to get a Third Crossing and pour the concrete for other projects that will result in more congested miles 20 years from now (the ’02 study said) than today. That money can be assured annually in user fees and from tax revenue (up to a $72b budget now) pouring into Virginia’s coffers now.

A Regional Government isn’t needed to make this happen.

Maybe a 10% tax on newspapers would help.

The American Dream Coalition, a think tank funded by Dulles-area developer Chris Walker, has published a paper, “The Planning Penalty: How Smart Growth Makes Housing Unaffordable.”

The starting premise of this report is that the price of the house pictured above can vary region by region by as much as a factor of eight. The four-bedroom home, which sold for $150,000 in Houston recently, would cost as much as $300,000 in Portland, Ore., $600,000 in Boulder, Colo., and $1.2 million in San Jose. Some of that difference can be accounted for by demand — some localities are simply more desirable places to live. But most of the difference, argues the report, can be explained by restrictions on housing supply associated with “growth management.”

What author Randal O’Toole calls the “planning penalty” can amount to hundreds of thousands of dollars per dwelling. Writes O’Toole: “Between 1999 and 2005, regions with growth-management planning saw prices grow by 4 to 11 percent per year, while regions without such planning saw prices grow at only 1 to 3 percent per year.”

Northern Virginia and increasingly Hampton Roads, it seems, have devised the worst of both worlds. Segregation of land uses, low densities and beggar-thy-neighbor planning by local governments has created both high-cost housing and traffic congestion. Congratulations, guys!

The solution is not giving more power to local governments. It is not social engineering. What we need is a market-based solution that honors consumer sovereignty — homeowners would be free to live where they want and in the kinds of community they want — with the proviso that people pay the locational costs associated with their choices.

The challenge for Virginia is to revamp funding mechanisms for roads, utilities and public services in order to create a locationally level playing field, and to give developers more freedom to innovate new types of communities that address housing affordability and traffic congestion in creative ways. Rather than micro-manage growth, planners should define the “Balanced Communities” and “Clear Edges” (see Ed Risse’s writings for details), which provide the broad parameters within which free markets would function.

The Victoria Transport Policy Institute has published a report, “Smart Transportation Investments: Reevaluating the Role of Highway Expansion for Improving Transportation.” This study argues that investment in urban highway capacity suffers from the law of diminishing returns. Early investments generated a high return on investment. But comparable investments today will generate a much lower rate of return.

The paper summarizes the issues thusly:

• “The first highway projects are generally the most cost effective because planners are smart enough to prioritize investments. For example, if there are several possible highway alignments on a corridor, those with the greatest benefits and lowest costs are generally built first, leaving less cost effective options for subsequent implementation.
• “Interregional highways (those connecting cities) are generally constructed first. They tend to provide greater economic benefits and have lower unit costs than local highway expansion, due to numerous conflicts and high land costs in urban areas.
• “Adding capacity tends to provide declining user benefits, since consumers are smart enough to prioritize trips. For example, if highways are congested, consumers organize their lives to avoid peak automobile period trips. As highway capacity increases, they travel more during peak periods, perhaps driving across town during rush hour for an errand that would be deferred, or moving further away from their worksite. Each additional vehicle mile provides smaller user benefits, since the most valued vehicle-miles are already taken.”

The chart at the top of the post shows the declining rate of return on dollars invested in highways. As recently as the 1970s, public investment in highways generated higher returns than did private capital. By the 1990s, however, the return on highway investment trailed the return on private investment, representing a loss of economic efficiency.

That’s not to say that carefully selected individual highway improvements won’t be economically efficient. But any large-scale plan by a state, city or region to build its way out of traffic congestion is likely to be very inefficient.

A quick note about Bacon’s Rebellion‘s endorsement policies: We don’t endorse political candidates and we don’t endorse political parties. Contributing bloggers are, of course, free to vote for and endorse anyone they like on their own websites — and they do. But this blog eschews partisan politics. We focus on state and local issues, most of which transcend party lines.

If you want the latest tit-for-tat in the Allen-Web race for U.S. Senate, there are many excellent websites to consult on both sides. Virginia is blessed with an incredibly vibrant blogosphere.

Patrick Michaels, Virginia’s state climatologist, is not alone in questioning global warming hysteria. He has allies among other state climatologists in departing from the putative “consensus” among climatologists regarding the severity and urgency of the global warming crisis. Now, according to the Washington Post, the “irregular system” of state-supported offices of climatologists is coming under criticism. Writes the Post:

A root of the conflict is that, although state climatologists and atmospheric scientists study “climate,” they can attack the same problems very differently. State climatologists often are trained to rely on past weather data — records that show how much the Earth has already warmed.

State climatologists’ critics in the scientific community study much broader periods and use computer models to determine how much warmer the Earth will become if pollution isn’t curtailed. The view of critics often is simple: State climatologists are behind the times.

Ah, that’s it. The state climatologists are rustic simpletons who can’t keep up with the times. Rubes that they are, they deal with real-world data rather than computer models that often fail to replicate that data when projected backwards in time. Although the Post article was generally fair toward Michaels, the authors left out what is perhaps his most controversial argument of all: how the political economy of global warming distorts the science of global warming.

Critics have sought to delegitimize Michaels’ scientific arguments by pointing to the fact that he has obtained some of his funding from the fossil fuel industry, presumably biasing his findings. But that argument cuts two ways.

As Michaels argues in his book, “Meltdown: The Predictable Distortion of Global Warming by Scientists, Politicians and the Media,” most climatologists in the United States get their research funding from the federal government. In an environment in which the mass media fan the flames of hysteria — systematically hyping evidence that supports the global warming paradigm and ignoring the evidence that doesn’t (a phenomenon that Michaels documents copiously) — and in which politicians respond to public opinion informed by that bias, the only scientists who will get federal funding are those who tout the party line. Professional advancement follows funding. To win big federal grants, win tenure and rise in the academic establishment, aspiring professors must support the tenets of the prevailing paradigm. To go against the tide of global warming is to court professional suicide.

State climatology departments are independent — their funding comes from states, not the federal government. State climatologists don’t court professional suicide by speaking truth to power. Little wonder that state climatologists have been among the more outspoken critics of global warming hysteria. How ironic: Those who point to a supposed scientific “consensus” in regard to global warming enforce that consensus by stigmatizing and driving out through political means those who do not conform to that consensus!

(For the record, I believe that global warming is a real phenomenon, but it is far from clear how much is due to human causes and how much the consequences are to be feared. There are many other environmental threats — deforestatation, erosion, loss of habitat, and pollution as traditionally understood — where we should be focusing our attention.)