The clean-fuels program would favor lower-carbon fuels like ethanol. Above, corn is delivered in January to the Green Plains ethanol plant in Shenandoah, Iowa.
What is the climate impact of the clean-fuels bill that sits on Gov. Kate Brown's desk?
Not much. And that reveals the vast scale and difficulty of the climate change problem.
For transportation, Oregonians emitted 22.6 million metric tons of carbon dioxide (and its equivalent) in 2010, the year of record for S.B. 324. That was down slightly from 2007, and it averages out to 36 pounds of carbon dioxide daily for each resident.
The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality estimates that the clean fuels program will reduce carbon dioxide emissions by about 7.3 million metric tons over 10 years - just over a pound daily per person.
In recent years, scientists have realized that the amount of global warming from carbon emissions is proportional to the total amount of carbon we emit, regardless of when, where, or how it's emitted. The best estimate for this "carbon-climate response" is 1.5 degrees Celsius per trillion metric tons of emitted carbon.
Since 1750, humans have emitted almost 600 billion tons of carbon -- one-third from changes in how we use land (mostly deforestation), and two-thirds from burning fossil fuels and producing cement.
A reduction of 7.3 million tons in 10 years means, then, the clean fuels program will reduce the ultimate amount of global warming by five millionths of a degree Fahrenheit.
Not noticeable by any means. It matters little to the world's fate whether or not the clean fuels bill becomes law.
But does this number answer a fair question? Oregon is not, of course, going to halt global warming on its own. Should, then, no one bother to reduce their carbon emissions?
What if everyone in the world made the same reduction effort as does this bill, even though for most it would be a much larger sacrifice than for our (globally) wealthy state?
Then the prevented warming comes to 0.01 degrees Fahrenheit - about 0.6 percent of the warming seen so far. Not completely shabby.
If no one reduces their emissions, the globe will, without doubt, keep warming, one one-hundredth of a degree at a time.
This problem requires everyone do their fair share. But what about coal-fired power plants in China and India?
It's the U.S. that has created a disproportionate share of global warming. Combining historical emissions from 1900 to 2004 from the World Resources Institute with data since up to 2012 from the U.S. Energy Information Agency shows the U.S. is responsible for about 28 percent of the extra carbon in today's atmosphere and oceans. China, 11 percent; India 3 percent.
And the average American emits almost three times more carbon dioxide than the average Chinese, and 12 times more than the average Indian. We don't have a special right to pollute the atmosphere and they don't. Naturally they think we should lead in reductions. We'd surely think the same if the situation was reversed.
At 19 cents per gallon, the cost of the clean fuels program works out to $21 per ton of carbon dioxide. That's slightly below British Columbia's carbon tax C$30 per ton of carbon dioxide. But their carbon tax is revenue neutral and has reduced their income and corporate taxes. And it's working.
Climatologist David Archer of the University of Chicago calculates that burning just one gallon of gasoline will ultimately trap 400 billion BTUs of greenhouse heat. That's equivalent to the blast yield of seven Hiroshima bombs. That trapped heat will ultimately be 3 million times more than the energy that gallon produced when burned. An equivalent of about 10 percent of that gallon's carbon emissions will reside in the atmosphere 100,000 years from now. Climate change is effectively forever.
The philosopher Dale Jamieson wrote, in 1992, "Today we face the possibility that the global environment may be destroyed, yet no one will be responsible. This is a new problem."
And solving this problem is going to require new ways of thinking, and adjusted visions of our values and responsibilities.
David Appell (www.davidappell.com) is a freelance science writer living in Salem.