Comments on: Manipulating choices

By: jet

jet — Thu, 10 Feb 2005 19:03:59 +0000

Given that the IPCC admits it doesn’t use cosmic radiation theory in its warming models, how can anyone take it seriously? Good for Lomborg for calling the IPCC guide irrelevant.

By: Eddie Thomas

Eddie Thomas — Wed, 09 Feb 2005 15:52:21 +0000

Lomborg favors the development of alternative energy sources as well, but thinks that an approach like Kyoto is the wrong way to do that because diminished economies would be less capable of serious investment in alternative energy research. Perhaps he is mistaken, but his position does not strike me as absurd. I suspect, however, that ed is right. Alternative energy sources (other than nuclear) being discussed now don’t seem capable of scaling up to the demands of first-world economies.

By: frankis

frankis — Wed, 09 Feb 2005 02:53:56 +0000

“The panel recognised that global warming must be addressed, but agreed that approaches based on too abrupt a shift toward lower emissions of carbon are needlessly expensive. The experts expressed an interest in an alternative, proposed in one of the opponent papers, that envisaged a carbon tax much lower in the first years of implementation than the figures called for in the challenge paper, rising gradually in later years. Such a proposal however was not examined in detail in the presentations put to the panel, and so was not ranked. The panel urged increased funding for research into more affordable carbon-abatement technologies.” http://www.eldis.org/static/DOC14898.htm

By: Luc

Luc — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 22:47:16 +0000

If all SUV’s were substituted with Civics, then … But, no, I’m not very knowledgeable on the specifics of hydrogen technology. These days nano is the tech fashion word, so hydrogen storage has nano catalysts. Oil companies and car manufacturers are investing in these companies, thus I think there’s a real chance that hydrogen cars can succeed. As an aside, even the US is implementing Kyoto in part. It may not feel itself bound by any limit on CO2 emissions, but for example California has regulations to reduce CO2 output as an answer to climate change, with about the same argument as Kyoto, that is, to lead instead of to wait. And if the media are to believed several other US states are set to follow.

By: Andrew McManama-Smith

Andrew McManama-Smith — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 21:35:27 +0000

Hey me too! I do read everything on MR, but I still think that Tabarrok is a reactionary: http://www.marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2004/12/mirror_mirror_o.html

By: Henry

Henry — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 21:15:47 +0000

Anyway, I think that Tabbarok is a reactionary. In general, I find him to be a very interesting and stimulating blogger – Marginal Revolution is one of my daily reads. This, however, read to me as a very bad post.

By: Henry

Henry — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 19:26:50 +0000

Anyway, I think that Tabbarok is a reactionary. In general, I find him to be a very interesting and stimulating blogger – Marginal Revolution is one of my daily reads. This, however, read to me as a very bad post.

By: Andrew McManama-Smith

Andrew McManama-Smith — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 18:48:23 +0000

Petroleum is amazingly safe. Have you ever seen a fire at a pump? However Hydrogen is dangerous even to trained professionals who handle it. I think that hydrogen powered cars have a lot of hurdles to tackle before they become feasible. Current car engines are horribly inefficient. Have you seen a Honda Civic EX? That gets 38mph, which is remarkably good efficiency. On the same note, Hybrid cars do not get nearly the efficiency that the EPA purports them to, and they have nasty batteries in them that are dangerous and pollutant when ruptured. Anyway, I think that Tabbarok is a reactionary.

By: jet

jet — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 18:23:54 +0000

luc, You seem knowledgable, have you read about any updates on solving the hydrogen storage problem for autos?

By: Luc

Luc — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 17:44:47 +0000

To point out one obvious difficulty, hydrogen must be produced through a process which at the present time largely involves the burning of fossil fuels. Current car engines are horribly inefficient. Hydrogen can be produced in a highly efficient way. Thus the large energy savings. And besides the CO2 issue, it is far more efficient to remove other pollutants from a power plant than from all those cars. (But then hybrid cars are a good compromise and are here now, so the hydrogen car isn’t a certainty yet.)

By: ed_finnerty

ed_finnerty — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 17:14:17 +0000

marc I didn’t mean that there wasn’t evidence that the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has been increasing at a rapid rate. It has. And the almost certain cause has been the burning of fossil fuels. The presumption I was referring to was that this increase in CO2 was warming the atmosphere. The is still debate on the existence and extent of this relationship. Respectfully, I don’t think there are any other families of solutions. The power demands to maintain our modern industrial lifestyle are just to great. To point out one obvious difficulty, hydrogen must be produced through a process which at the present time largely involves the burning of fossil fuels. We could of course substitute nuclear power for this.

By: Marc

Marc — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 16:48:18 +0000

The reality of the impact of people on the composition of the atmosphere of the Earth is not a “presumption” of the IPCC, it is the result of a large body of scientific research. Ditto for the likely consequences for the climate of the Earth. There are quite a few other families of solutions besides nuclear power and returning to hunter-gatherer mode. As you look at progressively longer time frames for adopting you get more and more choices. Wind, solar, geothermal, hydrogen-powered cars etc may not be able to carry a lot of the load within a decade…but with resources and the collective will to make an effort, they might well be enough 2-3 decades down the road, and certainly within 50 years.

By: ed_finnerty

ed_finnerty — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 16:35:54 +0000

Oh I should have added The CC was a cost benefit exercise. The rating reflected the massive cost of intervention (many trillions of dollars) versus the benefits to be realized far in the future. Even with the spiked discount rate used by Cline it didn’t look good in comparision to the other policy initiatives.

By: ed_finnerty

ed_finnerty — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 16:27:21 +0000

If you accept the premise that the major factor in global warming is the emission of greenhouse gases from fossil fuel combustion by humans, which is the presumption of the IPCC, then there are only two possible approaches. 1. deindustrialization on a massive scale, or 2. conversion to a nuclear based electrical system. anything else is a pipedream.

By: kasei

kasei — Tue, 08 Feb 2005 15:48:02 +0000

“He says he and the other gurus did not like Kyoto or the aggressive proposals made by Dr Cline” There seems to be a strong thread in a lot of the posts on this subject so far that Kyoto somehow represents an excessive approach to Carbon emissions, but from what I understand, it is actually very modest, and probably wouldn’t help very much – by its nature it is a compromise that is far from the ideal action that needs to be taken (I think Henry gets at this above, suggesting a “different group of economists” may have ranked priorities another way). The real point to be made is not about the methodology of this exercise, but its very existence. The distribution and availability of natural resources is connected to climate change – the latter could have effects both positive and negative (and the balance here would be a real topic for debate…) on the former, so ranking them makes a massive category error (in this case treating climate change and resources as discrete problems). The real bottom line is that all of the topics dealt with by the Copenhagen Consensus (and what great Newspeak there!) deserve attention and financing, and that Lomborg’s project is a nakedly political exercise aimed at dismissing one such topic he has taken an unjustified dislike to.