Column: Bill would put climate change, health warning on gas pumps

This past legislative session, Senate Bill 2991 attempted to place a public health and climate change warning label on all gas pumps in Hawaii. Cambridge, Mass., was the first to legislate such a point-of-sale “warming label” in 2020.

Gasoline (and diesel) is our energy miracle, gifting us a virtually unlimited capacity to cover vast distances that catalyzes global, modern economies. It’s an elixir that sealed the deal of an oft referred-to love affair with private automobiles. Gasoline is infinitely storable, transportable and at 131.76 megajoules of energy density per gallon, an incomparable energy value by both weight and volume. The stored energy in 1 liter of gasoline equals around 100 times the energy of the lithium-ion battery of a Chevy Volt.

This energy density is, of course, partially offset by the very high efficiency of an electric car motor. In meeting the state’s 2050 emissions goals from passenger and freight vehicles in Hawaii, Katherine McKenzie at the University of Hawaii estimated, Hawaii’s people will need to accelerate their adoption of electric vehicles. Problem is, it isn’t clear we would buy an electric vehicle (EV), running on increasingly homegrown renewable energy, because it is a better climate and public health choice. In this light, let’s consider the scale and the political complexity of this broad transition to EVs.

One obstacle is an EV affordability problem. But another, our research found, is that public health and climate harms produced from combustion of gasoline are not well understood by the public. One gallon of regular, nondiesel fuel, when combusted, currently produces $6.50 (2022 estimate by the author) in latent, external costs to our economy. Majorities of Americans, for instance, do not appreciate that burning gasoline (particularly diesel) kills more people globally from upper-respiratory diseases than does smoking. Additionally, most Americans do not understand how CO2 as the primary greenhouse gas from combustion produces largely irreversible alterations to our climate system.

As a result, most people undervalue the urgency in which they need to decarbonize, and so it is no surprise climate policy ranks near the bottom of their everyday priorities. On the politics of carbon taxes in developed countries, says scholar Timothy Mitchell, policymakers confront a citizenry whose lifestyle and livelihood heavily depend on fossil fuel energy.

Since gas continues to serve our needs so well, and governments largely do not regulate it as a public health/climate menace, it seems unlikely market forces alone will ensure electric vehicles achieve the required market penetration. Sure, advances in EV technology are already making them more popular, but the obstacles I’ve outlined point to how Hawaii drivers need better information to match the scale of this transition.

A climate and health warning label on all gas pumps in Hawaii, and possibly on all gas-powered vehicles (Sweden is doing this), would help level the playing field.

So how could a climate change and public health warning label on gas pumps in Hawaii work? The good news is most people hold climate change as a serious issue of concern. Our research found this program could shift public opinion by eliciting an already-held concern about public health and climate change. Warning labels would remind drivers that other drivers are concerned about these issues, too, and building this feeling can help create a greater sense of a collective kuleana. Our research shows these types of public health campaigns have a very good track record in altering people’s preferences over the long term.

Senate Bill 2991, if discussed and approved in the 2023 legislative session, would make Hawaii the first state in the nation to require such a regulation.

James Brooks is founder of the Hawaii nonprofit, Think Beyond the Pump.