The news that 2005 was the warmest year ever recorded in Australia comes at the end of a year in which, to the extent that facts can settle anything, the debate over human-caused global warming has been settled. Worldwide, 2005 was equal (to within the margin of error of the stats) with 1998 as the warmest year in at least the past millennium.
More significantly, perhaps, 2005 saw the final nail hammered into the arguments climate change contrarians have been pushing for years. The few remaining legitimate sceptics (such as John Christy), along with some of the smarter ideological contrarians (like Ron Bailey), have looked at the evidence and conceded the reality of human-caused global warming.
Ten years or so ago, the divergence between satellite and ground-based measurements of temperature was a big problem – the ground based measurements showed warming in line with climate models but the satellites showed a cooling trend. The combination of new data and improved calibration has gradually resolved the discrepancy, in favour of the ground-based measurements and the climate models.
Another set of arguments concerned short-term climate cycles like El Nino. The late John Daly attributed the high temperatures of the late 1990s to the combination of El Nino and solar cycles, and predicted a big drop, bottoming out in 2005 and 2006. Obviously the reverse has happened. Despite the absence of the El Nino or solar effects that contributed to the 1998 record, the long-term warming trend has dominated.
Finally, there’s water vapour. The most credible of the contrarians, Richard Lindzen, has relied primarily on arguments that the feedback from water vapour, which plays a central role in climate models, might actually be zero or even negative. Recent evidence has run strongly against this claim. Lindzen’s related idea of an adaptive iris affecting cloud feedbacks has been similarly unsuccessful.
Finally, the evidence has mounted up that, with a handful of exceptions, “sceptics” are not, as they claim, fearless seekers after scientific truth, but ideological partisans and paid advocates, presenting dishonest arguments for a predetermined party-line conclusion. Even three years ago, sites like Tech Central Station, and writers like Ross McKitrick were taken seriously by many. Now, anyone with access to Google can discover that they have no credibility. Chris Mooney’s Republican War on Science which I plan to review soon, gives chapter and verse and the whole network of thinktanks, politicians and tame scientists who have popularised GW contrarianism, Intelligent Design and so on.
A couple of thoughts on all this.
First, in the course of the debate, a lot of nasty things were said about the IPCC, including some by people who should have known better. Now that it’s clear that the IPCC has been pretty much spot-on in its assessment (and conservative in terms of its caution about reaching definite conclusions), it would be nice to see some apologies.
Second, now that the scientific phase of the debate is over, attention will move to the question of the costs and benefits of mitigation options. There are legitimate issues to be debated here. But having seen the disregard for truth exhibited by anti-environmental think tanks in the first phase of the debate, we shouldn’t give them a free pass in the second. Any analysis on this issue coming out of a think tank that has engaged in global warming contrarianism must be regarded as valueless unless its results have been reproduced independently, after taking account of possible data mining and cherry picking. That disqualifies virtually all the major right-wing think tanks, both in Australia and in the US. Their performance on this and other scientific issues has been a disgrace.
{ 225 comments }
yonray 01.04.06 at 8:05 am
But can you still say that global warming would have happened anyway, ie without humankind’s carbon emissions and so on, and that any measures we take to mitigate it can only have a near-negligible effect?
Tim Worstall 01.04.06 at 8:19 am
“Even three years ago, sites like Tech Central Station, and writers like Ross McKitrick were taken seriously by many. Now, anyone with access to Google can discover that they have no credibility.”
Why, John, that three years covers the period since I started writing for TCS. I must be destroying the credibility of the place with lines like:
“Please note, I take the Lomborg line on this. What we do about it is the important question,”
“Some years ago Bjorn Lomborg was generally derided for stating, in his book The Skeptical Environmentalist, that while global warming was indeed happening, was indeed being caused by humans…”
“Before I get swamped by screams of outrage, by those calling me a greenhouse denialist, please, get a grip. It is quite obvious that there is a thing called the greenhouse effect, the differences between Venus, Mars and Earth are the only evidence one needs for that contention. I’ve said before and will no doubt have to say it again, I’m broadly of the Lomborg persuasion, that there is a general change in the climate going on, that humans are at least partially responsible for it and the important thing is to find out exactly what is going on and then work out how to deal with it.”
Phil B 01.04.06 at 9:09 am
Could somebody explain how a market fundamentalist boasting that he “takes the Lomborg line” could increase the credibility of anything?
I mean, apart from the credibility of the theory that laughter is good for you?
Peter 01.04.06 at 9:09 am
The book Trust Us, We’re Experts also documents the paid shills being promoted as “scientists” or “non-partisan public interest groups.” It took almost 100 years from the time Big Tobacco™ started paying for doctors to shill for them, before the public finally accepted that tobacco was bad for you. I have no confidence that the powers-that-be will cave in on this one, as their money interests squarely collide with any acknowledgement that global warming even exists, or is a problem.
otto 01.04.06 at 9:16 am
This post suffers from technocratic illusion, particularly that mitigation options are going to be chosen on the basis of ‘cost and benefits’ after scientific debate. Any mitigation policy is going to be decided by political mobilisation, which will in turn decide who the relevant and influential ‘experts’ are in the issue area.
James Wimberley 01.04.06 at 9:26 am
One small thing many readers of this blog can do: donate spare CPU time on your computer to climate modelling.
Barry 01.04.06 at 9:33 am
otto, step 1 of that political mobilization is to trash the frauds.
aaron 01.04.06 at 9:35 am
Umm, yeah. The world does get warmer and cooler periodically. Nice observation.
otto 01.04.06 at 9:43 am
“Trashing the frauds” gets you nowhere.
The technocratic basis for further tax cuts in the United States right now is zero (esp. absent expenditure cuts, given trade and budget deficits etc). But this ‘fraud’ has been trashed with zero effect on policy.
The technocratic basis for unilateral free trade is unimpeachable. All protectionist policies are thus intellectually untenable frauds. This intellectual consensus has had no effect on government policies unless powerful groups demand it (and then only partially).
aaron 01.04.06 at 9:43 am
The question hasn’t been whether there is global warming right now, it’s whether the proposed methods to adress the issue will help society or make things worse in the long run.
zdenek 01.04.06 at 9:47 am
John Qiggin writes : ” having seen the disregard for truth exhibited by anti-environmental thinktanks… we shouldnt give them free pass…any analysis on this issue comming out of think tank that has engaged in global warming contrarianism must be regarded as valueless unless its results have been reproduced independently…”
Please.. this either involves lack of understanding of how science works or comes close. Disagreement about truth especially when it comes to climate, is normal and in fact is what is to be expected ( how else do you suppose hypotheses get tested/confirmed ? obviously some guys hypothesis gets the chop ; the point is thats what you want ! ) See the similar dissagreemnt in evolutionary biology . So to label people you dissagree with ‘contrarians’ with sinister meaning attaching to the term brings to mind Stalin and makes it pretty clear that you dont have much use for the distinction between science and ideology anyway .
Secondly you concede that many of the leaders of the sceptical position have changed their minds when the evidence has improved and thats exactly what you would expect a scientist who is not a hostage to some ideology to do. So no I would say that what smacks of ideological commitment/bias is precisely your demand that people tow one line even when the evidence is either not there or is ambiguous.
Tim Worstall 01.04.06 at 9:48 am
“I mean, apart from the credibility of the theory that laughter is good for you?”
Glad I’m doing something useful.
g 01.04.06 at 10:01 am
zdenek, do you get a discount for buying straw men wholesale?
Slocum 01.04.06 at 10:30 am
Any analysis on this issue coming out of a think tank that has engaged in global warming contrarianism must be regarded as valueless unless its results have been reproduced independently, after taking account of possible data mining and cherry picking. That disqualifies virtually all the major right-wing think tanks, both in Australia and in the US. Their performance on this and other scientific issues has been a disgrace.
But that’s preposterous. In your article, you acknowledge that there were quite recently several legitimate reasons to be skeptical, and the skeptics provided a invaluable service in pressing these issues (as is generally the case in science). My understanding is that, at one time, most mainstream geologists were deeply skeptical of the theory of plate tectonics. Once they’d finally been proved wrong, should anything these skeptics later said have been regarded as “valueless”?
And, of course, as other commentators point out, the main skepticism in recent years has not been of warming itself but of Kyoto.
Javier 01.04.06 at 10:54 am
Could somebody explain how a market fundamentalist boasting that he “takes the Lomborg line” could increase the credibility of anything?
I mean, apart from the credibility of the theory that laughter is good for you?
Because Lomborg never denied that global warming was happening, only that the Kyoto Protocal was a grossly inefficient way of combating it. In this, I think Lomborg was correct. This doesn’t mean that nothing should be done: Lomborg and Ron Bailey have advocated increasing public funds for researching environmentally friendly sources of energy. In their view, only when clean energy sources become cheaper than fossil fuels will we have a viable way of slowing global warming.
jet 01.04.06 at 10:57 am
HAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAA, like any meaningful debate can happen here. Tim Worstall puts out something perfectly reasonable and is instantly attacked. Truly indicative of the problem of Global Warming debate. Both sides are mostly represented by screaming know-it-alls (who really don’t know jack) with the calm rational voices either made fun of or drowned out.
Javier 01.04.06 at 11:07 am
Now that the scientific phase of the debate is over, attention will move to the question of the costs and benefits of mitigation options.
Perhaps the scientific debate is over about whether global warming is happening, but not over how rapidly it will occur. For instance, the IPCC predicts an increase in global temperatures of between 2 and 6.3 degrees Fahrenheit by the year 2100. Plenty of room for disagreement and uncertainty.
abb1 01.04.06 at 11:07 am
Jet,
Fallacy: Middle Ground, Also Known as: Golden Mean Fallacy, Fallacy of Moderation. Sometimes one screaming know-it-all is 100% right and the other one is 100% wrong.
jet 01.04.06 at 11:12 am
Javier,
Ah, let Quiggin gloat. It was a long hard fight just to get most of the public to agree global warming was real. Everyone who took the time to keep pushing facts deserves to say I told you so.
roger 01.04.06 at 11:17 am
The resistance to doing anything about global warming is—per George Bush—wholly based on economic factors (he claimed that the Kyoto accords would hurt the American economy). And so far, global warming has mostly hurt countries in the Southern Hemisphere, about which Americans, at least, know little and care less. But surely in an economy in which the main economic growth factor has been in real estate values, economic side effects from global warming are bound to start kicking in. If, for instance, warmer water really does increase the intensity and length of the hurricane season, the Atlantic coast could witness some more devastating storms like Katrina, and be under a longer threat each year. Not to speak of the upcoming water shortages in the West. And that will begin to pose the question: what specific American economic sector would be hurt by regulations designed to mitigate global warming. Hint: it used to employ both the President and the Vice President, and it now costs 60 plus dollars a barrel.
Right now, the construction industry and the insurance industry should be thinking of lobbying for stronger global warming legislation.
Javier 01.04.06 at 11:20 am
Woops, that’s celsius, not fahrenheit. The exact quote is: ” the IPCC projects a global temperature increase of anywhere from 1.4 – 5.8C from 1990-2100”
jlw 01.04.06 at 11:27 am
In your article, you acknowledge that there were quite recently several legitimate reasons to be skeptical, and the skeptics provided a invaluable service in pressing these issues (as is generally the case in science).
In 1985 or perhaps as late as 1995, climate change skepticism was an entirely honorable position. Theories have been wrong before, the atmosphere is a complex and dynamic system, what we knew for certain was outweighed by what we still didn’t understand.
But thanks mostly to the concerns of climate change “alarmists” (since buying into the status quo would have led to less funding for research in this area) the topic has been under extensive study for some time and the data has been getting better and better. As the reasons for skepticism have been knocked away one after another, honest skeptics have left that camp. Dishonest skeptics have retreated to defending the remaining gaps in our knowledge or to novel just-so theories.
The parallel of the evolution debate is astonishing.
But John is right—the question can be said to be settled beyond all contradiction. The new battle is over what to be done. Most former skeptics, I fear, may slip into the embrace of their erstwhile allies, who now advocate doing nothing until the market provides a cheap alternative to fossil fuels. That would be a shame, and mean that we will be refighting this debate for another decade on slightly different ground.
I say the correct market solution is to use mechanisms that make fossil fuels less attractive—carbon taxes and/or tradeable carbon credits—that can help tilt the market toward a virtuous solution. But we need to make a start on this right away. Another decade of delaying tactics will alter this planet past the point of recognizability.
I took my four-year-old ice skating on Monday. Will that be possible in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park 80 years time? In 40 Years?
rollo 01.04.06 at 11:36 am
The sky isn’t falling because it hasn’t yet fallen. When and if it does fall, then afterward those of us still standing can say with absolute certainty that it was falling – at that prior time, after it’s been made essentially meaningless as information.
There’s a smirking tone to the irrational idiocies that get thrown at the idea of human-caused climate change and at the proofs of its validity, almost as though there’s no real concern for whether or not the climate’s being seriously disrupted. This is enabled by most people living now in environments whose connections to the weather are oblique, and primarily visual and distant – until it gets extreme.
A lot of the resistance is self-delusion and cowardice. Some of it’s definitely base greed and an attempt to milk the rewarding status quo ante for as long as possible. Very little of it is honest scepticism, and virtually none of it is altruistic.
Suggesting that “apologies” might be in order seems almost obsequious in its genteel reserve.
Barry 01.04.06 at 11:36 am
otto:
Otto: ““Trashing the frauds” gets you nowhere.”
Yes, it does, by reducing their ability to influence policy.
“The technocratic basis for further tax cuts in the United States right now is zero (esp. absent expenditure cuts, given trade and budget deficits etc). But this ‘fraud’ has been trashed with zero effect on policy.”
Incorrect – read the WSJ editorial page, for example, they’re still pushing that line. The frauds are trashed when people are ashamed to cite them; in the case of tax cuts, we’re still quite some way off.
“The technocratic basis for unilateral free trade is unimpeachable. All protectionist policies are thus intellectually untenable frauds.”
Incorrect. The technocratic basis for unilateral free trade assumes a political world which doesn’t exist, and assumes that there will be political measures available to cushion the impact on the losers. Even Krugman, a fanatic about free trade, has given up on that last idea, claiming that he doesn’t know how it would be politically possible.
Neoliberal economics has been reduced to explaining away their failures in the developing world, last I heard. Even Brad DeLong, a fanatical neoliberal, is demoralized on that topic.
Slocum 01.04.06 at 11:42 am
The resistance to doing anything about global warming is—per George Bush—wholly based on economic factors (he claimed that the Kyoto accords would hurt the American economy).
Well, we have an experiment in progress, don’t we? If Kyoto signatories meet their targets and thrive economically at the same time, then that concern will be put to rest. But so far, it doesn’t seem to be working out that way. Kyoto signatories experiencing strong economic growth are also experiencing strong growth in greenhouse gas emissions (rather than the reductions agreed to). In fact, I understand that Canada (that renowned global good citizen) has increased its greenhouse gas emissions substantially faster than the U.S. has since 1990 (and now exceeds the output of the U.S. on a per-capita basis).
And, of course, that leaves aside China and India who are signatories to the treaty but have no obligations for limiting emissions.
jet 01.04.06 at 11:44 am
jlw,
Did you use the term alarmists in scary quotes and then utter this bit of foolishness “Another decade of delaying tactics will alter this planet past the point of recognizability.”?
If that isn’t alarmism, I’m not sure what is. Perhaps you need to read the IPCC and see that the ~2-6 number is over ONE HUNDRED YEARS.
otto 01.04.06 at 11:46 am
“The technocratic basis for unilateral free trade assumes a political world which doesn’t exist”
Agreed.
Assuming a political world that doesn’t exist is the problem with all technocratic illusions, such as the one that climtate change mitigation options are going to be chosen on the basis of ‘cost and benefits’ after scientific debate, rather than, like trade policy, on the basis of mobilised organised groups.
BigMacAttack 01.04.06 at 11:56 am
jlw,
In 40 – 80 years Brooklyn’s Prospect Park should be a good deal colder.
According to global climate models that predict global warming.
(That will be a very interesting and important test for the models.)
That anyone bold to enough to declare that, ‘But John is right—the question can be said to be settled beyond all contradiction.’, would be ignorant of this basic bit of knowledge is troubling.
Perhaps your assertions regarding the global warming debate aren’t quite as authoritative as you believe.
jlw 01.04.06 at 12:08 pm
jet:
No contradiction. Another decade of business as usual will inevitably lead to a rise in global average temperatures by an amount toward the top end of the range—11 degrees Fahrenheit (6 Celsius) by the end of the century. And, as we know, averages mean that it will be more in some places (such as the Arctic and Near-Arctic) and less in others (say central Europe, if the Gulf Stream slows or shuts down).
Just because it happens in 80 years doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen. Or doesn’t matter.
At least that’s my take on things. But I love my son and want to bequeath to him (and his grandchildren) a world that is as good or better than the one I have known. And that world includes polar bears thriving in the wild, maple forests to hike in, and an Austria or Poland that’s habitable.
But maybe those things don’t matter to you. Perhaps you are of the mind that the world can go to hell after you die. It would be astonishing to run across someone so small-minded, but not impossible, I suppose.
roger 01.04.06 at 12:12 pm
Actually, JLW, the correlation has to be a lot narrower than that. There has to be a specific link between slowing down economic activity and the regulations set up under the Kyoto accords. I think you would agree.
Your further point—that greenhouse gas emissions are increasing among signatories—could mean that the regulations aren’t comprehensive enough. However, I don’t think the Bush administration rejected the Kyoto accords because they didn’t go far enough.
jlw 01.04.06 at 12:13 pm
bigmacattack:
The last model I saw (no link) indicated that the Gulf stream may not shut off entirely, but head due east at about 40 N. That would cool Europe, but leave the northeast North America little changed.
So bite me.
BigMacAttack 01.04.06 at 12:16 pm
Ever time I look I become more and more convinced of man made global warming and I have pretty much been convinced for a while.
But it just seems to me stuff like global climate models contain a good deal of inherent uncertainty.
What turns me off and annoys me is crap like John’s everyone who disagrees with me shut the f up and admit they are evil servants of corporate devils.
So keeping that in mind –
It still seems the margin of error is quite large. The upper atmosphere should be heating up faster and it still doesn’t seem to be. Even if you use the RSS data.
Is that correct? Does anyone have the decade numbers for the ground based increase that this article might be referencing? The article just airily declares that ‘Since the satellites now clearly show that the atmosphere is warming at around the rate predicted by the models,’ around? How around?
I also loved the references to basic algebra and physics. Silly rabbits, modeling the earth’s climate is just a straight forward application of basic physics.
roger 01.04.06 at 12:17 pm
ps—my point was that economic sectors aren’t so homogenous that one can say that environmental legislation has a unilaterally depressing economic effect. In fact, this is economically illiterate—since pollution is a third party cost, as everybody agrees, somebody is obviously paying for it (through property degradation, decreased health care, etc.)
In the case of climate warming, the costs will probably show up in the degredation of assets of a scattered ownership group—households—and since that group isn’t organized and has disparate interests, it will probably be harder to put into effect truly effective legislation. But the bearers of the cost should be identified and organized if the Bush administration argument isn’t to carry the day.
golambek 01.04.06 at 12:18 pm
The resistance to doing anything about global warming is—per George Bush—wholly based on economic factors (he claimed that the Kyoto accords would hurt the American economy).
This is technically true but misleading. I certainly believe economic factors are important to the President’s decision, but the other half of the equation is, what do he and the electorate believe will be the costs of doing nothing or allowing greenhouse gases to continue to increase.
There is little evidence that this President believes the costs of doing nothing to be at all serious (or at a minimum, that they outweigh the political and/or economic costs of trying to get a handle on emissions). Fine, he doesn’t like the particular details of Kyoto. What, then, has he done to create a better framework? How much time or political capital has he spent on the issue? These answers are quite clear.
Beyond the President and the business community, there are several impediments to any serious attempt to tackle the problem: (1) a hard core of about 30-40 percent of Americans who do not believe global warming is occurring at all; (2) among those who do believe it is happening, a relatively benign conception of what it could cause; and (3) no genuine interest on the part of key policymakers in educating the public on these points—particularly the President but also, very sadly, many Democratic leaders. (Have a look at pollingreport.com for polling numbers, btw.)
jet 01.04.06 at 12:24 pm
JLW,
There are men of good will who care about humanities future, believe global warming is a real problem, yet rejetc solutions like Kyoto. And our decisions might be better for your children than yours. For example, even if Kyoto was implimented, the effects on global warming would be minimal and wouldn’t be seen for maybe 100 years. Hardly worth the effort. Yet the effects on the economy would be instant.
Lomborg’s main thesis on Global Warming is best to continue doing damage, divert more resources to finding a long term solution, and leave the economies in full swing. This way a much richer set of grandchildren, with far more resources at hand, can deal with the problem. The Kyoto resolution is to leave poorer granchildren, with less resources, a slightly slightly mitigated problem to deal with.
Now surely you can see how rational people, with everyone’s best interests, can disagree over this?
golambek 01.04.06 at 12:27 pm
Can anyone suggest a good link to the most recent projections of climate change?
sorry about the italics!
New to this notation system.
Uncle Kvetch 01.04.06 at 12:40 pm
In fact, I understand that Canada (that renowned global good citizen) has increased its greenhouse gas emissions substantially faster than the U.S. has since 1990 (and now exceeds the output of the U.S. on a per-capita basis).
Slocum, could you please provide a cite for this?
Perhaps you are of the mind that the world can go to hell after you die. It would be astonishing to run across someone so small-minded, but not impossible, I suppose.
JLW, do you live in the US, by any chance? If so, I’m astonished that you find such a viewpoint astonishing. I don’t necessarily believe it’s where Jet is coming from, but it’s a perspective that you can hear spelled out, in essentially those words, on talk radio in this country on any given day.
jlw 01.04.06 at 12:44 pm
jet:
Not advocating Kyoto, but I am advocating something. Other than empty platitudes, how does your position differ from that of, say, the biggest climate change deniers?
BigMacAttack 01.04.06 at 12:49 pm
jlw,
Or perhaps not.
I liked you better before, when I thought you were just ignorant. Now that I know you are knowledgeable enough to know just how uncertain global climate modeling is, your statement,
‘But John is right—the question can be said to be settled beyond all contradiction. The new battle is over what to be done. Most former skeptics, I fear, may slip into the embrace of their erstwhile allies, who now advocate doing nothing until the market provides a cheap alternative to fossil fuels. That would be a shame, and mean that we will be refighting this debate for another decade on slightly different ground.’
seems completely dishonest, poisoning the well is too polite a term.
I prefer an ignoramus to a charlatan.
So bite me.
abb1 01.04.06 at 12:52 pm
Not advocating Kyoto, but I am advocating something.
Why not Kyoto? After all Kyoto is a widely accepted global agreement that took years to negotiate. It is exactly the spot where technocratic reality meets political reality, as discussed above. I think ‘rejecting Kyoto’ = ‘rejecting any action’, precisely.
Sundog 01.04.06 at 12:53 pm
Whilst Kyoto is not perfect and it’s current targets are insufficient to solve the problems presented by global warming, it is a massively important step to building the institutions necessary to do so. Whilst developing countries do not have fixed emission reduction targets under Kyoto, Kyoto does create the frame work to allow these developing countries to develop using the most efficient technology which they would not otherwise be able to afford without being able to internalise the cost of carbon.
Importantly what emissions trading (one of the Kyoto Flexible Mechanism) does is:
•Identify the least cost of emission abatement.
•Incentivise innovators to invent new emission reduction technology
•Allows business to continue production without limitation.
How does this work? Well, if one policy alternative of simply limiting GHG emissions with out a trading regime were implemented then this would be inequitable since everyone’s cost of emission abatement is not equal. Indeed it is often highest for those who have been efficient and virtuous already. This means that the least cost of abatement is not discovered.
The second policy of taxing people who emit means that the cost of emitting is fixed at the tax rate – say £10 per ton. Therefore any innovator is only incentivised to innovate up to the value of £10 per ton. However, by introducing a trading regime (policy option 3 & that introduced by Kyoto) and allowing the price of an emission to fluctuate, innovators are incentivised to innovate as the cheap abatement opportunities are exhausted and the price of emissions increase.
Emissions trading does not allow people / businesses to buy their way out of environmental obligations, as some think. At the end of the day it does not matter by who or where green house gases are emitted. The important thing is that the global emissions are reduced.
Therefore whilst I applaud the funds committed to technology and research in these areas, doing so under a fiscal spending programme is inefficient since it does not leverage the creative forces of the market, and expensive since it does not reduce emissions at the least cost opportunity.
Per 01.04.06 at 1:01 pm
The most significant policy to reduce CO2 emissions is the EU Emissions Trading Scheme. This creates incentives for innovation by establishing an opportunity cost for all CO2 emissions from covered sources. It seems very unlikely that “public funds” (presumably raised through taxes and then centrally dispersed) would be a more effective way to stimulate innovation than providing incentives for the private sector?
otto 01.04.06 at 1:14 pm
Why not Kyoto? After all Kyoto is a widely accepted global agreement that took years to negotiate. It is exactly the spot where technocratic reality meets political reality, as discussed above. I think ‘rejecting Kyoto’ = ‘rejecting any action’, precisely.
If only this was true. I fear however that there’s no hope of intersection between US political reality in the guise of a majority (does Kyoto need a 2/3rds majority? or is it like GATT/NAFTA?) of the US Senate and technocratic reality as this thread would understand it.
If the US is permanently unable to ratify even the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which would have zero effects on US policy, it will never ratify a costly political commitment such as Kyoto.
On US ratification of treaties:
http://www.princeton.edu/~amoravcs/library/unilateralism.pdf
roger 01.04.06 at 1:20 pm
Per, that is a false dichotomy. Providing incentives is also centrally planned and dispersed. Where else do these incentives come from, and who provides them, otherwise? I would think that the question of what the public sector and the private sector can do would depend more on the particular composition of national economies and geographies. In the U.S., there is gross underfunding of mass transit, something that the public side should be involved in. And of course the research on alternative fuels—say hydrogen—is going forward in all countries doing it with a lot of public cash.
Reforming a regulatory regime to benefit private sector companies that are greener and to punish those that aren’t, while providing the kind of market in pollution futures that have been mentioned in some of the comments, makes a lot of sense too.
Tim Worstall 01.04.06 at 1:27 pm
“Another decade of business as usual will inevitably lead to a rise in global average temperatures by an amount toward the top end of the range—11 degrees Fahrenheit (6 Celsius) by the end of the century.”
Why’s that? All of the IPCC scenarios assume no mitigation effect, most especially no Kyoto or the like. They are all, “this is what might happen if we don’t do something”.
The scenarios that provide the lowest temperatures do not, as you seem to think, assume that we adopt Kyoto at all. They’re based on population, technology level, etc etc, as the others are based on different assumptions about those things.
So not doing anything doesn’t move us towards either end of the estimates at all. Doesn’t make any of the scenarios any more likely, or, indeed, less so.
BTW, one thing that does worry me about the process is that I’ve heard (nothing more than a rumour, true) that the upcoming revision to the IPCC report (the fourth I think) will not be revisting the SRES economic assumptions. It’s not that I’m particularly taken by the Henderson Castles criticisms of them but no revision at all after what, a decade?
As John notes, the science of what CO2 actually does has firmed up in the past 10 years so I’d think it even more important to go over the economic models underlying how much of it might be produced.
abb1 01.04.06 at 1:29 pm
Otto,
what I meant is that Kyoto is an international compromise; international political reality minus the US of A political reality.
So, I’m saying: the US rejecting Kyoto amounts to US rejecting any action whatsoever. So, any criticism of Kyoto is hardly anything but bullshit cover for the US administration. Simple as that.
otto 01.04.06 at 1:40 pm
Abb1
Okay, thanks. I think we agree that US is rejecting Kyoto for the same reasons that it will reject any real action against climate change, not because of detailed flaws in Kyoto. US political reality means no costly action by the US to mitigate climate change, ever.
McDuff 01.04.06 at 1:46 pm
zdenek
“obviously some guys hypothesis gets the chop”
You need an apostrope in “guy’s” there. Although, to be more accurate you should have written “some guys’ hypotheses get the chop,” because you’re really looking to narrow down more than one.
“your demand that people tow one line even when”
Please. Toe the line. This one should be evident if you think about the roots of the metaphor for even a moment.
As to your overall assertion, while it is true that science is at its most virile while there are genuine disagreements, there is such a thing as genuine scientific consensus, and too many people have found it in their best interests to muddy the waters. For too long, the answer to the question “is anthrogenic global warming real?” has been “yes” to within any reasonable margin of error, and nobody outside the USA has had cause or inclination to deny it. While people have been obfuscating over tiny nuances in the consensus, it has prevented the more relevant argument of “what should we DO about it?” from being at the top of the agenda.
That’s a big problem, and it hasn’t served anyone’s best interests. There’s cynicism and there’s being deliberately obtuse.
abb1 01.04.06 at 1:51 pm
Don’t know about ‘ever’. Things change, politics change. Environmentalism is popular (http://www.pollingreport.com/enviro.htm) and Kyoto would mean a big loss for some industries, but probably a windfall for some other industries. Eventually some politician may decide to make it an issue and may succeed, who knows.
jet 01.04.06 at 2:15 pm
Jlw,
As Tim just pointed out, you obviously have about zero understanding of the IPCC’s conclusions and aren’t even basically familiar with the science.
But to answer you question, my position differes from global warming denialists in that I support massive increases in alternative energy R&D and nuclear energy. Switching to modern energy designs and replacing more coal plants with pebble bed reactors would do more to stop globalm warming than 10 Kyoto treaties, and that’s just what current technology can do. To continue my answer turned rant, I’d have taken 9/11 as an excuse to push down the throat of Congress my energy revamp plan which would have used the 500+ billion spent on the war to modernize the energy infrastructure while adding several hundred billion to energy R&D (current only a few billion).
otto 01.04.06 at 2:31 pm
Well, I place little faith in public opinion as a driver of politics. There’d be higher taxes and no gay marriage if public opinion was the determining factor. Rather, politics is the outcome of mobilisation by wealthy and organised groups, which in the US are permanently conservative. The coalition of organised groups needed to pass a treaty in the US Senate is enormously large (see article above). You would need someone like Feingold or Dean to be the supermajority swing vote Senator. I estimate that likelihood as never.
jet 01.04.06 at 2:35 pm
otto,
You got any citations on polls showing that if a majority of the US decided upon taxes or gay marriage that taxes would be raised and gay marriage legalised? Because I think you got it exactly backwards.
McDuff 01.04.06 at 2:36 pm
Jet: I agree with you, but am not sure where that is mutually exclusive of also signing the Kyoto treaty, and of pushing for a better global framework.
It might be harsh, and almost colonial, but pushing for constraints on other countries while developing technologies to help them achieve those constraints in your own country seems to be pretty economically sensible to me. You make money by constantly staying on the cutting edge of technology development, not hanging onto the old stuff and letting other people beat you.
jlw 01.04.06 at 2:43 pm
Jet:
Thanks for the reply. Now, short of some sort of imposed mechanism—such as a cap-and-trade carbon market and/or carbon taxes—how do you plan to change the current market conditions that make burning coal ineffiently to make steam the cheapest way to generate electricity? And that make burning petroleum the most convenient way to power transportation?
Personally, I don’t think we’re that far apart. But you and Tim Worstall strike me as believing that uncertainty = happy surprises. I think business as usual will lead to some surprises on the bad side, especially in the arctic. That’s been the trend so far, and I don’t see why it won’t continue. (Oddly, part of the reason I think the trend will be worse is that aerosols and particles—which have been implicated in cooling—have been declining as environmental regulations clear things up.)
It’s funny. The debate has moved from “Global Warming: The Big Lie” to “You aren’t acknowledging the full range of uncertainty.” I suppose that’s progress. It just isn’t happening fast enough.
John Quiggin 01.04.06 at 2:44 pm
Tim W, first up I agree that not everything that appears at TCS is driven by the financial interests/ideological line of the sponsors and in my experience you’ve always argued fairly and honestly. The same is true for Cato, AEI and so on – there are honest people working at all these places, but the people running them tolerate and encourage frauds like Milloy and Lott.
On the economics, I agree that this hasn’t been the most impressive feature of IPCC Reports, though I’m also unimpressed by the Castles-Henderson critique. One thing to remember is that the economic scenarios aren’t presented as being of interest in their own right, they are just inputs to the projections. This is why, for example, it doesn’t matter much whether they are in exchange-rate or PPP terms, even though the latter are what you want for welfare analysis.
On the whole, it’s probably best at this stage to do the economic analysis separately from the kind of modelling undertaken by the IPCC, though the two have to be brought together at some point.
otto 01.04.06 at 2:46 pm
Jet
Your post is a little garbled, so I am not quite sure what you looking for. I think there’s lots of evidence that US public opinion tends to be permanently economically liberal (more redistribution than present – I’m not saying they want Sweden) and socially conservative (e.g. less gay marriage).
Michael Lind has talked about this a lot, if you want references.
anon 01.04.06 at 2:54 pm
It is simply a straw man argument that the only ways to fight global warming is through means that lead to economic decline. I urge everyone to investigate the work of Amory Lovins and the Rocky Mountain Institute. There are many ways to reduce fossil fuel use that enhance efficiency for businesses that undertake them. I believe part of the problem here is the unwarranted quasi-religious belief that business (aka the market) is certain to produce the most efficient solutions to problems. There are many countervailing forces that act against that outcome: balances between industry sectors in which moving to a different technology disfavors one while favoring another; tendencies of decision makers to do things the way everyone else does them; short-term vs. long-term economic incentives.
As for the flaws in the Kyoto Treaty, the U.S. obstructionism hasn’t been directed at improving provisions of the treaty, rather it has tried to eliminate any concerted action to mitigate the causes of global warming.
jet 01.04.06 at 3:00 pm
Otto,
Only with the meme of “tax cuts for the rich” did Dems get any traction on Bush’s tax cuts. Otherwise, tax cuts are always popular with the majority, and this graph shows why.
But back to the task at hand, the optimal solution for the US would be business as usual but with massive increases in R&D with the knowledge that viable alternatives are right around the corner (no internal combustion engines aren’t going away soon, but the coal and natural gas plants might be). Anything else is just pooring teaspoons of water on an inferno while sapping the total resources for R&D. And nevermind the political killing propoganda available after a candidate gets Kyoto through. The next cycle in the economy will be entirely the fault of Kyoto and whoever signed it in will be gone.
Slocum 01.04.06 at 3:11 pm
Slocum, could you please provide a cite for this?
I can’t find the per-capita info in Google at the moment, but tables of emissions changes since 1990 by country are easy to come by:
http://www.davidsuzuki.org/files/climate/cop/Meeting_Kyoto_Targets.pdf
If you do the math (with 295 million in the U.S. and 32 million in Canada), you can see that the Canadian per-capita emissions are now higher. And there’s this:
“Canada is up there with Spain, Ireland, Greece and five other nations as having the highest gas emissions. According to the United Nations, Spain is the worst, with a nearly 42 percent increase in emissions between 1990 and 2003; Canada stands at 24 percent and the United States experienced an increase of 13 percent.”
http://newsfromrussia.com/science/2005/11/29/68707.html
So Canada, despite being bound by Kyoto targets has increased its greenhouse gas emissions since 1990 at roughly twice the rate of the U.S.
Slocum 01.04.06 at 3:21 pm
Most former skeptics, I fear, may slip into the embrace of their erstwhile allies, who now advocate doing nothing until the market provides a cheap alternative to fossil fuels. That would be a shame, and mean that we will be refighting this debate for another decade on slightly different ground.
Well, the advantage of R&D to provide cheap alternatives to fossil fuels is that no global political framework is required. If such alternatives are developed, they will naturally and inevitably replace fossil fuels without requiring any global treaties.
From my perspective, the problem with Kyoto is that, leaving the U.S. aside for the moment, I don’t see any prospect that China is going agree to hard limits on emissions (or actually meet any such committments if it made them). And China is where all the increases in emissions are coming from. And the same is true of India to a lesser degree.
otto 01.04.06 at 3:24 pm
Er, yes, public opinion in favour of “more redistribution” is about more taxes, not less, for the rich.
jet 01.04.06 at 3:28 pm
Otto, I don’t think you’re seeing my point. Only because of the Democrats heavy push of “tax breaks for the rich” did they get the 50-50% split on Bush’s tax cuts. Let me rephrase. If it weren’t for the tax cuts being skewed to the highest tax payers, the cuts woudl have been even more popular.
jlw 01.04.06 at 3:32 pm
Here’s the thing I don’t get. How is “But back to the task at hand, the optimal solution for the US would be business as usual but with massive increases in R&D with the knowledge that viable alternatives are right around the corner” a coherent plan?
It doesn’t create disencentives for carbon use, so it remains as cheap as ever. And until coal and oil are uneconomical, they are going to be used at ever-increasing rates. (Because population and per capita GDP are going up, and energy consumption will follow [though not at as brisk a rate].) Business as usual means blocking wind farms for aesthetic reasons, because coal is just as cheap. Business as usual means nuclear power will not be massively exploited, because it is more expensive than coal power.
Business as usual means oil and coal companies quashing alternatives until they extract the last BTU of fossil energy.
Also, if it’s business as usual plus massive research, where do you get the money? When you add drags to carbon use, not only will people clammor for carbon free alternatives (because they are cheaper) but you can, if you include carbon taxes, create a pot of money that can support research to making alternatives cheaper still.
Again, as I said at comment #22, I wrote, “The new battle is over what to be done. Most former skeptics, I fear, may slip into the embrace of their erstwhile allies, who now advocate doing nothing until the market provides a cheap alternative to fossil fuels.” How is what you propose different from what I predicted?
jlw 01.04.06 at 3:35 pm
Oh, and jet, take your time. I’ve got to be away for a while.
[cheers all around]
Uncle Kvetch 01.04.06 at 3:46 pm
Thanks for the links, Slocum. It looks like Canada’s overall record over the last decade is indeed worse than that of the US.
Two questions, though:
If such alternatives are developed, they will naturally and inevitably replace fossil fuels without requiring any global treaties.
And if they aren’t? Not being snarky here: How does this approach deal with the risk that the alternatives aren’t developed, or aren’t developed quickly enough?
And China is where all the increases in emissions are coming from.
How so? The first of the two links you provide shows that gas emissions from the US are still climbing—up 13% since 1990, in fact. Emissions from China and India may be increasing faster, but that’s not the same.
Doug G. 01.04.06 at 4:06 pm
Everyone worried about global warming should read this:
http://www.coyoteblog.com/coyote_blog/2006/01/cooler_but_poor.html
Tracy W 01.04.06 at 4:16 pm
I don’t think Europe should get many bouquets for signing the Kyoto Treaty.
The baseline of 1990 was carefully picked.
It meant that Germany could reduce its measured emissions simply by shutting down all the polluting plants in the former East Germany which were going to be shut down anyway, since as well as being environmentally terrible they were economically terrible.
And Britain was switching from coal to gas anyway for its own economic/political purposes.
Now apparently only Britain and Sweden are on line to meet their obligations. (See http://www.ippr.org.uk/pressreleases/?id=1863) So only Sweden deserves a bouquet – unless Sweden had a particular reason for the 1990 baseline too.
jet 01.04.06 at 4:26 pm
JLW (and for the first part of this, Uncle Kvetch too),
The problem with taking the herculean task of reverting to 1990 global outputs means that we haven’t done much to stop global warming. Even after cutting CO2 back to 1990’s levels we’re still out of luck and that ~2-6 number is going only be minutely reduced.
And JLW, no one is glad you are away, I really appreaciate what you are adding to the dialogue. But the problem I have with carbon taxes is they are only reasonable with carbon trading. And once you are carbon trading, then the money is going from rich countries to poor developing countries. And while this is great for helping the poor, it doesn’t help fund new R&D unless you count incentive from the added energy costs. And as for having a “coherent plan”, I can’t think of a more successful plank for either party to incorporate than to say they are going to blow the roof off of energy R&D funding. But you have a point, I don’t know how to build a framework that would force whoever is in power to keep investing heavily in R&D. And while affordable alternatives are going to happen, we need them now, not in 15-20 years (probable timeframe of coal-priced solar power given the price history of the last 25 years).
BigMacAttack 01.04.06 at 4:35 pm
A revenue nuetral gas/oil tax.
But I guess if my fellow conservatives see tax, and it isn’t immediately followed by cut, their heads explode.
And Jet and JLW need the revenue to find their favorite research schemes. Wind farms, solar, nuclear, fusion, whatever.
Oh well.
Villaveces 01.04.06 at 4:44 pm
Can anyone tell me what the disadvantages of global warming could be for Siberia? And then could anybody tell me how a China-Russia-India alliance against Kyoto could be overcome to provide a tenable solution to global warming (assuming that Kyoto in fact provides a solution, which I’m not convinced it does)? Let’s not forget total hurricane chaos in the Caribbean might even be quite a lot of fun for certain opponents of the US!
Also in Siberia, the thawing of a peat bog larger than France and Germany combined, “The area, which covers the entire sub-Arctic region of western Siberia, is the world’s largest frozen peat bog and scientists fear that as it thaws, it will release billions of tonnes of methane, a greenhouse gas 20 times more potent than carbon dioxide, into the atmosphere.” What I love about this is the fact that methane cow farts are more problematic than CO2 emissions, maybe the one way to get this thing done is make cattle illegal, India would be somewhat more happy anyway.
aaron 01.04.06 at 4:46 pm
You may have noticed everything has become more efficient with time and economic progress. The reason there are increases in emissions is increases in population and increases in personal consumption. Consumption is the problem, not industry/agriculture.
Additional industial regulations, for the most part, are silly. General incentives to improve technology might be good.
aaron 01.04.06 at 5:11 pm
Here is what the Copenhagen Consensus had to say about Kyoto and Carbon taxes. They are the few project that are considered bad.
a different chris 01.04.06 at 5:12 pm
> and this graph shows why.
Jesus, and I tried to pay attention to the guy. Anybody want to divide those numbers by yearly GDP for jet???
Oh, nevermind. Back to the subject:
As per the guy who mentioned Amory Lovins, who can be sure there will be economic pain? It amazes me that we have to listen to “Well, ok, maybe the climate models are getting more defensible, but hey we’ll get economically hammered, see these economics models here
”
If economists could model things 1/10 as well as the climatologists they would be dancing in the streets and handing out Nobel Prizes to battalions of them at a time.
roger 01.04.06 at 5:13 pm
While aggregate greenhouse emissions per country tell us something, I think breaking down the source of emissions tells us more about recommending policies than anything else. Nuclear power is not going to eliminate CO2 from private transportation, for instance, and since transportation as a whole contributes about a third of the CO2 emitted in the U.S. and about two thirds of that come from private autos and trucks (according to John DeCicco), we come back again to the regulatory role of the government—for instance, in raising the CAFE standards. That is an easy thing to do.
And it would be much cheaper than nuclear power, which has never been anything but a huge burden to the power consumer. The only way to build and maintain safe nuclear power plants is basically to get state utility commissions to jimmy with allowable rates just to allow power companies to bear the costs of them. This is much more onerous price, destributed much more regressively, than requiring higher emission standards from car manufacturers.
jet 01.04.06 at 5:16 pm
Aaron,
Mentioning Lomborg around liberals is like bringing up Reagan. They’re just going to get emotionally flustered, red in the face, and start yelling invectives about your mother. You’re safer picking TechCentral or CATO as your citations.
Slocum 01.04.06 at 5:18 pm
“If such alternatives are developed, they will naturally and inevitably replace fossil fuels without requiring any global treaties.”
And if they aren’t? Not being snarky here: How does this approach deal with the risk that the alternatives aren’t developed, or aren’t developed quickly enough?
Well, the alternatives are not being developed quickly enough now—but nor is Kyoto having any effect yet—the countries that have show decreases since 1990 are effectively either those that have shuttered obsolete belching factories (Russia, eastern Europe) or switched away from coal (the U.K.)
What’s the best way to provide the proper funds & incentives for the R&D? I don’t know the answer, but I think that’s the right question.
“And China is where all the increases in emissions are coming from.”
How so? The first of the two links you provide shows that gas emissions from the US are still climbing—up 13% since 1990, in fact. Emissions from China and India may be increasing faster, but that’s not the same.
Well, let’s put it this way—China is not only increasing emissions faster than the U.S., but also its increases are greater in absolute terms than those of the U.S. and China presumeably already has surpassed the E.U. as the second largest emitter (not that the graph in the following link is 2002 figures for the E.U. and U.S. but 2001 for China):
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3143798.stm
BigMacAttack 01.04.06 at 5:19 pm
a different chris,
Really? I had no idea. Can you point me to a number of precise substanative predictions based on climatology models that have proven to be accurate?
jet 01.04.06 at 5:21 pm
Different Chris,
Looks like I was right to ignore you. “Anybody want to divide those numbers by yearly GDP for jet???” Would tell us what exactly? That the economy grew faster than tax revenues? Well hold the presses, different Chris just reinvented economics or something. Cutting taxes actually means that tax revenues will be a smaller perventage of total GDP? You must be a rocket scientist in your spare time or something to have figured that out all on your own.
Let me spell it out for you since you must be simple. The inference is that the tax cuts helped cause the growth in GDP, thus the link between tax cuts and tax revenue growth. If you need it spelled out further, contact your local adult remedial education center.
Urinated State of America 01.04.06 at 5:42 pm
“Here is what the Copenhagen Consensus had to say about Kyoto and Carbon taxes. They are the few project that are considered bad.”
Really?
This option would commit the industrialised emissions by 5% below 1990 levels and constraints on developing economies. Such emissions far less than the option 1.
Although the effect on temperature rise by 2300 – damage to the world economy the same period, the benefits rise steadily than costs around 2100, and reaching more present value of the benefits is $166 trillion, yields a benefit/cost ratio of 1.77.
Even more aggressive reductions have a benefit/cost ratio of 4.
Hint: Non-optimal is not the same as “bad”.
Do you guys even fricking read the stuff you try to use to back up your arguments?
(Of course, the benefit/cost ratio depends on technical issues of the discount rate appropriate to use.)
ponte 01.04.06 at 5:43 pm
jet,
Mentioning Lomborg around liberals is like bringing up Reagan.
Maybe it has something to do with the fact that Lomberg attacks the environmental movement by citing its successes as proof that the environmental movement wasn’t necessary. Pretty silly thesis.
aaron 01.04.06 at 5:53 pm
A faster way to reduce private transportation emissions is for more efficient driving over more efficient cars, but good luck getting people to change the way they drive.
I suppose new CAFE might actually be a good idea. While in the short run the increased fuel consumption going into development and production might excede the fuel savings, eventually production should become more efficient.
Then there is the problem that companies might just decide to sell their cars to other faster developing countries.
jet 01.04.06 at 5:55 pm
I can’t believe I’m taking the bait.
Ponte,
Where in the sam hell do you see that Lomborg states the environmental movement wasn’t necessary?
And that link you show sounds like some asshat who hasn’t even read the SE and who certainly doesn’t offer a shred of evidence to back up his claims.
Philip 01.04.06 at 6:01 pm
Hi All, The end of the ‘global warming’ debate, John? The debate has hardly started. The sceptics are rightly sceptical in multifaceted ways, not just about this or that aspect of the science, but, as many above have already noted (and more importantly), about the range of alternative economic, social, and political responses to inexorable change. Indeed, many feel that the subtleties of the debate have been swamped by an uncritical, apocalyptic media, often unwittingly fed by misinterpreted ‘science’.
Interestingly, I see signs that alternative voices are, at last, starting to be heeded. For example, in the UK, they have significantly influenced Tony Blair as well as the recent excoriating report on the economics of climate change from the House of Lords.
As someone whom the philosopher David Hume might have called a ‘mitigated’, or moderate, sceptic, I am myself concerned about the idea of tinkering with climate in the hope of achieving a predictable outcome.
For many, ‘global warming’ is a faith. The ‘science’ is legitimised by the myth. Too many of us believe we are making an independent scientific assessment, when, in reality, we have subsumed Hume-scepticism to the demands of faith.
The sceptic has to distinguish ‘global warming’ from climate change. Climate change itself has to be broken down into three questions: “Is climate changing and in what direction?” “Are humans influencing climate change, and to what degree?” And: “Are humans able to manage climate change predictably by adjusting one or two factors out of the thousands involved?”
The most fundamental question remains unanswered: “Can humans manipulate climate predictably?” Or, more scientifically: “Will cutting carbon dioxide emissions at the margin produce a linear, predictable change in climate?” The answer is likely to be a resounding: “No”.
In so complex a coupled, non-linear, chaotic system as climate, not doing something at the margins is as unpredictable as doing something. This is the cautious science; the rest is dogma.
And what “better” climate will we produce? Doing something might lead to worse.
At present, this basic question has been lost in the clamour “to do something at all costs” and to damn those who doubt we can.”
We must surely further remember that humans have always feared climate change and developed myths that our sinfulness is its cause. Accordingly, we always want to be able “to do something” about climate, to sacrifice to the Earth to bring about a golden age of climate stability. Unfortunately, both geology and history show us that the idea of a stable climate is untenable – it is an oxymoron; there has never been, and never will be, a stable climate under human control. All we can do is adapt to constant change.
Our current obsession with the single factor of carbon dioxide emissions is, to me, little better than a resort to witchcraft. We are in the crucible yet again. In a system as complex and chaotic as climate, actions with just one factor out of the thousands involved may indeed trigger unexpected consequences. And, even if we closed down every factory, crushed every car and aeroplane, turned off all energy production, and threw 4 billion people worldwide out of work, climate would still change, and often dramatically. Unfortunately, we would be too poor to do anything about it. Moreover, any climate we might produce will then itself change.
Basing policies on fears about ‘global warming’ is potentially a serious threat to us all, but especially to the 1.6 billion people in the less-developed world who have no access to any modern form of energy. The twin curses of unclean water and energy poverty remain the true scandals. By contrast, the political imposition on the rest of the world of our Northern, self-indulgent ecochondria about ‘global warming’ could prove to be a neo-colonialism too far.
Hence why, though a liberal and midly left wing myself, I remain sceptical.
And the real debate hasn’t even begun….. And its locus? This will be in China, India, Indonesia, Brazil, and Mexico – not with us.
Cheers, Philip
aaron 01.04.06 at 6:09 pm
Bad is relative to alternative to developement options.
But you should really read the Copenhagen methodology. For the Climate section, basically they made absurd assumptions to inflate the costs in the future because using objective methods would make it obvious that it is not beneficial. Look instead at the temperature change. Think about it, do you really think that a 1.9C decrease in the average temperature over 400 years starting in 2100 is worth the upfront cost?!?
John Quiggin 01.04.06 at 6:21 pm
Participants in the Copenhagen Consensus exercise, including Schelling and Mendelsohn (both Kyoto opponents/sceptics) expressed grave disquiet about the treatment of climate change, concluding that it was “set up to fail”. Search this site for Copenhagen or Lomborg and you’ll find the details.
ankh 01.04.06 at 8:49 pm
> 36. Can anyone suggest a good link to
> the most recent projections of climate change?
Good start: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/2005/
߬◊ 01.04.06 at 9:32 pm
Reading through these comments I find it amazing that people aren’t aware that we already are one full “hockey-stick” into an abrupt change of unknown consequence,—except for the certain species-population extinctions in many of the remaining fragmented wildlife areas, alteration of the water-cycle nearly everywhere, and continuous coastal flooding. At this point, it would appear that “linear” results may have very little to do with it.
It has all happened before, and Earth won’t spin out of orbit, so we hear fools say “so what.” Usually this astounding egotism proceeds masked as a concern for the welfare of others.
Typically, some of the commenters here professing skepticism, are wont to repeat the received opinion that the economic consequences of climate mitigation are liable to be severe, particularly to the poor. It should be pointed-out that this is as likely to be nonsense—except for a clear dent in the bank-accounts of the petro industry, whose bankroll of alarmist whining is why any significant public dispute continues.
Let us put aside the fact that the skeptics are not bothering to follow all the climate science. Let us put aside the fact that the economists’ cost-benefit analyses do not take into account the larger and more complex chains of determination, beyond monetized transactions, that will return later to affect the human economy.
The skeptics are even more short-sighted than that. They are willing to confer a validity upon economic models, which they do not care to award to climate models. This is most curious, since the way things are going, climate models are likely to become the first complex systems predicted with some degree of accuracy, in the whole history of science. Economic models have far less claim to predictive validity. I think what saves the economists’ bacon time and again is largely the fact that the interacting nodes of the economic model are creative humans. With freedom, in any system short of full-scale state ownership, economic growth will do just fine.
Jim S 01.05.06 at 12:34 am
It should be remembered that Lomborg is not a climatologist, biologist, chemist or has extensively studied in these fields which relate directly to the environment. His book has many citations but is therefore only as good as its citations, which are pretty much all secondary sources and general media articles. If one cites an article written in one year but does not mention articles written subsequently that either supercede or debunk the first article how good are your conclusions? This is one of the things that Lomborg is accused of and it is definitely one of the things that pseudo-skeptics are constantly guilty of doing. I will not swear to its veracity but this web site should be checked out when discussing Lomborg: http://www.lomborg-errors.dk/ The blog posting that doug g posted is guilty of this in referring to satellite data that has since been superceded by further research. Many items that were written in the early ‘90s and before are still used by the pseudo-skeptics when in fact there are more accurate models and studies that have been done more recently. A real favorite is to point out that some scientists 30 years ago thought we might cool off. Think about the tools available then versus those available now when studying any field of science not just climatology.
The critics constantly harp on doing cost benefit analysis. Then they proceed to do what Lomborg did and assume that the lower range of the models is the only thing they should base their analyses on. In fact Lomborg specifically states that the temperature increases will be at OR BELOW the lowest ranges of the IPCC predictions. This is just as invalid as assuming that only the highest range of the prediction is what will happen. OTOH, the discovery in Siberia that one poster (He isn’t worth scrolling back to refer to his name.) made fun of shows that it’s just as likely that we’ll discover things to make the worst case scenario a bit more likely as any discoveries to make us more optimistic.
And costs must be considered. Lomborg minimizes the potential threat of rising sea levels far too much. Some simplistic guesses as to the potential rise simply say “We have this much ice. If it melts it adds this much water. This is how high the seas will go.”. This of course completely ignores the simple fact of chemistry that a liquid or gas that is heated expands. A very, very tiny increase of the volume of our seas from this cause combined with melting Arctic and Antarctic ice can be catastrophic to quite a few coastlines that can produce a large economic cost. And I fail to see a reasonable rejoinder to the idea that if you heat ocean water there will be an effect on hurricane formation (More tropical storms crossing that line.), strength and lifespan since warm water is fuel to a hurricane.
ponte 01.05.06 at 1:01 am
jet,
And that link you show sounds like some asshat who hasn’t even read the SE and who certainly doesn’t offer a shred of evidence to back up his claims.
That’s just the abstract. He cites plenty of evidence in the actual article (pdf). And that “asshat” is a climate change policy scholar, which is more than Lomborg can say for himself.
abb1 01.05.06 at 3:18 am
Jet: Switching to modern energy designs and replacing more coal plants with pebble bed reactors would do more to stop globalm warming than 10 Kyoto treaties, and that’s just what current technology can do.
This is a non sequitur.
Kyoto establishes goals, milestones, etc. on the global scale. ‘Replacing more coal plants’ in the US is some technological proposal for the local US economy. Apples and oranges.
This is like saying: “I’ll be coding my part of this project using C++ and this will do more than 10 RFPs, specs and project plans.” No, I’m afraid it won’t. You need the specs, you need project management with goals and milestones – and for the whole project, not just your part.
zdenek 01.05.06 at 6:06 am
mcduff writes : ” there is such a thing as genuine scientific concensus & too many people have found it in their best interests to muddy waters”.
The point of course is as I indicate in my comment, when such concensus crystalizes and who desides that this has happened is an internal scientific matter and not a political issue. Most certainly not up to activists to call the shots here.
And this is the distinction you do not seem to fully grasp. ( see the all too common use of ad hominem when dealing with US think tanks and other people who dissagree with your position . The typical move is to try to show that some result must be false because people who are reporting it are right wingers , pelleeeese….)
Observe that if this is true then it is you who is muddying waters by confusing politics with science.
joel Hammer 01.05.06 at 6:37 am
Doing “something” is not the same as doing something useful.
Kyoto will do NO good. So, why even go there?
Back in the 1970’s (roughly), when pollution first started being a problem in California, they imported pollution experts from the East. No problem they said. This is from coal burning power plants. After they fixed the power plants, and the problem wasn’t solved, then they realized it was the automobile.
They were sure, too. They were the experts too.
But, they were just dead wrong.
Since even the experts say Kyoto will not do any good, why beat this dead horse?
That’s what extremists do. They are in the debate for the ideology, not to actually solve a problem.
Paul Ashton 01.05.06 at 6:43 am
“warmest year in at least the past millenium”. As a geologist that makes me laugh, as a scientist it makes me worried about how we do science these days. It colors everything that follows in the original post and most of the discussion.
Tim Worstall 01.05.06 at 7:32 am
“Lomborg minimizes the potential threat of rising sea levels far too much. Some simplistic guesses as to the potential rise simply say “We have this much ice. If it melts it adds this much water. This is how high the seas will go.”. This of course completely ignores the simple fact of chemistry that a liquid or gas that is heated expands. A very, very tiny increase of the volume of our seas from this cause combined with melting Arctic and Antarctic ice can be catastrophic to quite a few coastlines that can produce a large economic cost.”
True that it’s the thermal expansion of the oceans that we’re worried about, not specifically the ice. Although as the Arctic ice floats that won’t change sea level in and of itself. The ice in Antarctica (outside the peninsula) is actually getting thicker as a result of increased preciptiation.
To another point, why CAFE? Why not simply higher gas taxes (I’ve long been a supporter of another $1 on a gallon in the US) as Greg Mankiw suggested in the WSJ yesterday?
Where’s the money coming for the research? Well, for fuel cells ( at least one type of them, SOFCs) , a very small amount of it came from me. Enlightened self interest as if that particular type takes off then I’ll sell a lot more product. On the grander scale much research is being done by SECA. And, yes, while that was set up in the Clinton era GW Bush has expanded the budget significantly.
Quite a lot more of it is coming from DoD (a number of different types of fuel cells) and yes, there are still intruiging technologies that are underfunded, like an Australian program into the TiO2 catalysis (?, breaking it into H and O) of water powered by sunlight. The aim is to make roof tiles to generate the hydrogen to run cars and distributed generation plants.
As someone who works on the fringes of the fuel cell world, whatever my affiliation with TCS, I’m very much of the opinion that technology will indeed save us. (Well, everyone thinks that, the argument is over which technology.) The developments in fuel cells, solar, wind (which has any number of problems, I know) wave and so on are coming a great deal faster than most seem to realise.
As Lomborg was lambasted for saying (and I’ve got another 5 years evidence since he published) I expect non fossil generation to be cheaper in coming decades than fossil.
Javier 01.05.06 at 7:37 am
It should be remembered that Lomborg is not a climatologist, biologist, chemist or has extensively studied in these fields which relate directly to the environment. His book has many citations but is therefore only as good as its citations, which are pretty much all secondary sources and general media articles.
Lomborg does rely extensively on secondary sources—but most of these are not media articles. Most of his secondary sources are the same ones used by almost all discussants of the state of the world – the reports of the UN, (FAO, UNDP, UNEP, WHO etc.), IMF, the World Bank, OECD, WRI, Worldwatch Institute, EU, US government agencies, and so on.
Then they proceed to do what Lomborg did and assume that the lower range of the models is the only thing they should base their analyses on.
Lomborg certainly did not assume this. Have you read his work? He spends the longest chapter of the Skeptical Environmentalist arguing for this “assumption.”
You can see Lomborg’s replies to his critics here.
jet 01.05.06 at 8:17 am
abb1,
I only speak English, Spanish, and a bit of Latin, and I have no idea what language you were using…C++? RFC’s? What is that? ;)
The part you cite was just part of my overall response that Kyoto is a big waste of energy (pun intended). Even if it was implemented, it would do almost nothing to stop global warming and would start using significant resources. Those resources would be much better spent developing alternative energies which could stop most CO2 output in the long run.
Javier good response to the Lomborg haters. One of these days they are going to need to learn how to read.
aaron 01.05.06 at 8:40 am
Mr. Quiggin, You mean to tell me that there might be more moderate emission regulation policies that could be as good as guest worker programs for unskilled labor?
I’m shocked.
Barry 01.05.06 at 9:10 am
I’m intrigued. Such a fascinating certainty on display – so clearly demarked camps of the devout and sceptic…
Could someone tell me please – what is the “correct” temperature of the planet? While you are about it can you tell me, where is this place, “globally averaged”? The reason I ask is that a globally averaged temperature is surely only an important metric should you happen to live, well, at “globally averaged” – otherwise local temperature and perhaps moist enthalpy is of more pressing concern.
While we are about it, how certain are we that measured trends are genuine? To be sure Phil Jones asserts that urban heat island is being accounted for during the collation of global temperature datasets but I admit a sneaking scepticism when a researcher will not divulge which meteorological station records he is using, nor by what methodology urban heat island effect is being dealt.
Granted, Christy et al at UAH have found a decadal lower-tropospheric trend of about one-eighth of one degree Centigrade per decade since the late 1970s but I wonder why I should panic about one and one-quarter degrees per century when the UK Met. Office Central England Temperature record (http://www.met-office.gov.uk/research/hadleycentre/CR_data/Daily/HadCET_act.txt) shows the world and its denizens handled almost a degree per decade in the past (7.25 °C to 10.47 °C from 1695 to 1733).
At present we believe global mean temperature has risen roughly 0.7 °C while we have been paying attention to temperatures, which, coincidentally, is the same as our estimated measurement error attempting to derive said global mean temperature (see http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/abs_temp.html for details on that). So, allowing for measurement error, the world is somewhere between 0 and 1.5 °C warmer than when history and anecdotal evidence suggests it was cold/bitter/harsh (take your pick).
I rest assured that there is a world of people out there simply busting to inform me where I have strayed from an accurate summation of human understanding of planetary norms, temperature and trend but for the life of me I can’t see the justification for the title “The end of the global warming debate”. Seems to me that this is merely the beginning.
jlw 01.05.06 at 10:59 am
It’s funny. I’m on the “other” side of the climate debate from the likes of Tim Worstall, but we agree on quite a bit.
But here’s the run. I think it’s foolish to rely on market forces alone to make this transition. Too much carbon-burning technology is already bought, paid for, and in place. Even if the marginal cost of electricity is cheaper with a green widget, corporations aren’t going to abandon multimillion dollar investments willingly. Steam plants will change fuels, as they did from oil to gas, but they won’t change from boilers to combined cycle gas turbines, even if the efficiency jumps by 50 percent.
Clean green technology could make up a fraction of the new generation capacity, but that doesn’t really do much to reduce anything but projected increases in CO2 emissions.
That’s why I think it’s critical to make the transition as soon as possible, not just when the market dictates it. And that’s why I think wielding harsh sticks to carbon emissions is just as important as offering yummy carrots for alternatives.
One other point. As someone mentioned earlier, we don’t know exactly what will happen climate-wise if we switch away from carbon fuels. Klaus Lackner once raised the issue to me that fuel cells might be a bad idea, for we don’t know the outcome of adding lots of water vapor to places like Denver and Phoenix. (He didn’t say it was definitely a bad idea, just that it’san unknown, much like CO2 and ozone was 100 years ago.)
That said, it has become clear that we are already engaged in an experiment in changing the composition of the atmosphere, and that it is not going well. Maybe some people want to ride the bucket all the way down, but I think it’s best to call off this experiment as best we can and try something else.