More conversions on global warming

“…but is very pessimistic about our ability to do anything about it. Since such pessimism is inversely correlated with faith in markets to achieve adjustments to changing prices, I find this quite surprising. ”

It’s not surprising, it’s the standard second step: “OK it’s happening – but doing something about it would be worse.” The next step, admitting that something should be done, would be to invoke the market as a magical agent of change.

Alan: “What evidence points to a significant human contribution to global warming?”

Start with RealClimate.org

Not to be harsh, but at this point in time, do you really expect to have any credibility if your starting attitude is a *proud* ‘I know Nuthink!’?

Paul,
You may be right–but I think Cowen’s pessimism is based on a very much more core economics problem–the problem of predicting complex systems.

To give an example–I can guarantee that if the price of gas remains high, less gas will be used, and that the effect will increase over time (long-run elasticities are higher than short-run). That is like predicting that CO2 emissions could be pushed down, fairly cheaply. I can’t predict, with any reasonable degree of accuracy, whether more of the food eaten in DC would be grown in Maryland and Virginia–there are too many intermediate effects, and too many possible pesponses. I also can’t predict whether most people will live closer to work–again, too many intermediate factors. That is like predicting the impact of reduced CO2 emissions on the climate in enough detail to be helpful.

I’d be interested in Quiggin’s comments on this paper, since he seems so sure that there are no skeptics, at least not any informed ones.

Cite: A. T. J. de Laat and A. N. Maurellis, Industrial CO2 emissions as a proxy for anthropogenic influence on lower tropospheric temperature trends, GEOPHYSICAL RESEARCH LETTERS, VOL. 31 (2004).

Summary of the article:

Surface temperature trends during the last two decades show a significant increase which appears to be anthropogenic in origin. We investigate global temperature changes using surface as well as satellite measurements and show that lower tropospheric temperature trends for the period 1979–2001 are spatially correlated to anthropogenic surface CO2 emissions, which we use as a measure of industrialization. Furthermore, temperature trends for the regions not spatially correlated with these CO2 emissions are considerably smaller or even negligible for some of the satellite data. We also show, using the same measure, that two important climate models do not reproduce the geographical climate response to all known forcings as found in the observed temperature trends. We speculate that the observed surface temperature changes might be a result of local surface heating processes and not related to radiative greenhouse gas forcing.

functional, see here, especially comment #9.

“It seems to me that the problem Tyler Cowen has in mind is that for the foreseeable future the costs of reducing CO2 emissions by forgoing energy produced by fossil fuels at a level that can have an affect on climate change will be huge and the benefits for people living today will be negligible.”

Cowen looks at such things from a very cost-benefit analysis. So when Quiggin writes “Given a reasonable long-run elasticity of demand for C02 emissions, there’s every reason to suppose that very large reductions in global emissions could be achieved in the long run at a welfare cost of only a few percentage points of world GDP.” the question which should be immediately raised would be “what effect would that have on the temperature?” Another question would be “what effect would that have on the climate change?” If the answer is “negligible” it doesn’t make sense to spend a few percentage points of world GDP (making it one of the biggest and most expensive projects ever of course so I’m not sure the ‘only’ is justified).

The whole thing also avoids replacement cost questions. If we were to reduce C02 emissions by covering the entire world with solar panels there would almost certainly be nasty environmental effects.

In terms of replacement, nuclear energy provides an excellent example of how things play out in the real world. It could replace a vast amount of the different burning generators (which produce huge amounts of CO2). Politically, a nuclear plant can’t get built in the US. Hell, we can’t even agree to a place to put radioactive waste even though the Yucca Mountains make as much sense as pretty much anywhere in the world. What I’ve seen suggests that the replacement costs of going to nuclear are well worth it from a CO2 perspective (and in a medium range even a cost perspective). But many of the same people who are worried about climate change in the US have a fit at the slightest hint of going to nuclear power for even small amounts–much less the amounts neccessary to put a big dent in CO2 emissions. Cowen is saying that the economic tradeoffs are between GDP sacrifice and the magnitude of the effect of making that sacrifice aren’t worth it, and that politically the people calling for sacrifice aren’t willing to go along with the replacements that actually exist.

The we-can’t-do-anything stance is indeed part of the standard progression, nicely illustrated by Ruben Bolling here.

I share Tyler’s pessimism. Putting in place a regulatory regime to reduce emissions on a global scale runs into a perfect storm of economic problems. It’s a collective action problem where there isn’t any strong existing structure to enforce agreements, even if they are made. The opportunity cost of signing on to a cap goes up as more countries sign on, providing strong incentives for cheating and dropping out and the fact that the costs will largely be passed on to people who aren’t alive yet will make coordinating international action on it. The surplus fossil-fuel based capital goods from countries that do sign on won’t help either. What it ends up coming down to is that the odds are good that as long as they can derive a greater benefit that the cost of extraction, somebody, somewhere, is going to keep using fossil fuels. It’s not to say that we shouldn’t try to establish a global regulatory regime for GHG emissions, but pursing sequestration and adaption will probably be more fertile ground, since they don’t run into as bad of obstacles.

…but is very pessimistic about our ability to do anything about it

Yes, of course; after denial and anger we reach the stage of bargaining.

one of the great successes of the environmental movement has been to force american businesses to internalize the costs of cleaning up or eliminating many pollutants that they formerly discharged onto all of us. The Clean Air Act and Clean Water Acts have been enormously (ENORMOUSLY!) successful, to the point that whole industries are developing around redesigning production cycles so that fewer pollutants are used or generated in the first place.

now, which political party has supported the idea of treating CO2 as a pollutant and instituting a carbon tax? which political party ridiculed the idea, with substantial assistance from a compliant press? [bonus question: which political party does mr. holsclaw support?]

politics can be a great technology-forcer, if we stopped electing dominionists who seem anxious to see the end of the world and corporate hacks who have never met an externality they want to continue to dump on the planet as a whole.

“The Clean Air Act and Clean Water Acts have been enormously (ENORMOUSLY!) successful, to the point that whole industries are developing around redesigning production cycles so that fewer pollutants are used or generated in the first place.

…

which political party has supported the idea of treating CO2 as a pollutant and instituting a carbon tax? which political party ridiculed the idea, with substantial assistance from a compliant press?”

I presume you are aware that countries other than the United States exist. Some of these countries even have ‘Green’ parties that have had success in becoming well leveraged in the political process. Except for with respect to nuclear power (which I note seems to be drawing quite a bit of resistance even in such an intellectual place as this and which I would be thrilled to have the US embrace) there aren’t huge technological advances pertinent to the discussion coming from these countries.

This suggests:

A) the desired technological changes aren’t as easy as you want; or

B) the technology of politics isn’t as good at getting the desired technological changes as you claim; or

C) these modern European countries really suck at research.

I tend to believe the answer is found in a combination of A and B (though a mostly irrational opposition to nuclear technology could be a good D in the US).

Sebastian: Since a significant part of the problem is the United States, unilateral steps by the United
States would materially contribute to the solution.

In the current state of technology, what can actually be done that would make a significant dent in the problem while being politically and economically feasible? (As I understand it, even US adherence to the Kyoto targets would be like a drop in the ocean.)

I don’t ask this question in a snide way at all. I genuinely hate being a pessimist, because the consequences of warming are going to be pretty dire, but I’m having trouble finding good arguments for not being one. Please help me out!

Scott,

“It’s very silly to assume new technology is right around the corner that will solve whatever problems you’re having.”

If the “problem” we’re discussing is Global Warming, then it is also very silly to assume the technology we currently have will not solve the problem we’re having. It is even more silly to assume that technology won’t continue to improve these solutions. The UK has a well documented experiement where large solar reflectors were used to control the ammount of irradation a particular tract of land received. The things I spoke of are hardly Buck Rogers type science.

The best path that I can see is actually a combination of free market economics and having entirely predictable future cost trends generate a political consensus.

World oil consumption is growing much faster than production, and this trend is likely to continue. When peak supply gets too close to peak production, the price rises – and you become more subject to steep rises in price (roughly speaking, the equivalent of traffic jams in increasingly heavy automobile flow). A combination of higher price and unpreditable severe squeezes naturally spurs development of alternatives. Some wouldn’t be helpful (e.g. Alberta tar sands and coal), but others would.

If the perceived consequences of climate change get large enough – or people get fed up with the escalating costs – it’s also possible that we could get the political will to work on an Apollo project style approach. There would be a real market for, say, the hydrogen economy. It’s also worth noting that there one absolutely consistent ingredient in economic predictions related to environmental issues: the costs of cleaning things up are drastically overstated.

Or you could think of it as ‘medical’ drug research in reverse. :)

Aaron,

“What we have accomplished when is comes to global chromic[sic] poverty does not speak for a positive result when it comes to global environmental problems.”

You are not well read. And that only talks about something relative like the term poverty. If we look at things like direct measures, we’ve done much better.

Child mortality has decreased in every developing region of the world [4]. The proportion of the world’s population living in countries where per-capita food supplies are less than 2,200 calories (9,200 kilojoules) per day decreased from 56% in the mid-1960s to below 10% by the 1990s. Between 1950 and 1999, global literacy increased from 52% to 81% of the world. Women made up much of the gap: Female literacy as a percentage of male literacy has increased from 59% in 1970 to 80% in 2000. The percentage of children not in the labor force has also risen to over 90% in 2000 from 76% in 1960. There are similar trends for electric power, cars, radios, and telephones per capita, as well as the proportion of the population with access to clean water.Wikipedia

You do not seem to understand what kind of collective action problem we are dealing with. First, the only thing we can do now to make a meaningful difference to future conditions is to cut back on energy consumption. Nuclear energy today meets only 7% of world primary energy demand so it is not plausible to say that this technology is an immediate “replacement” option. If we want to make meaningful reductions then we need a global and collective response.

Even if a few countries decide to cut their emissions drastically (lets say OECD minus the US) non-cooperating parties will still have an economic interest in increasing their pollution without limit, thus if there are non-cooperators out there that either have a large population or can consume large amounts of energy then we will not make inroads on the climate problem. And this is an accurate description of current conditions. Of course if the rest of the world cuts their emissions so drastically that at some point in the future it is in fact domestic US policy on its own that will determine if we bring climate change under control of not, the US will be much more likely to cut its own emissions. But to get to this situation the US emissions would have to be huge both in comparison to all others and in total. It is not likely that other countries would be willing to allow the US to enjoy such enormous competitive advantages from its use of fossil fuels over a long period of time undermining their relative economic strength.

“So in the near term, if you want to reduce C02 AND you don’t want to use nuclear you don’t have much to add to the discussion other than waving your hands and saying “technological advances will fix it”. But if you are going to let the magic occur in your argument you aren’t well placed to argue against those who want to say “technological advances will fix it” without sacrificing huge portions of the world GDP.”

Who says it will take huge portions of world GDP? We’re talking about instead of taking until 2100 to reach 500% of GDP in 1990, taking until 2105. 1-2% of GDP is not a heck of a lot: we just don’t spend that much money (proportionately) on energy infrastructure. I’d put your error down to being misinformed, but you’ve been corrected on this so many times on Obsidian Wings that there is a wilful aspect to your being so misinformed.

“I tend to believe that in the medium term technological advances will both come up with cleaner and cheaper energy and that it will come up with better ways to deal with climate change”

Sebastian, there are two problems with your argument:

1) We are talking about process technologies here, i.e. large amounts of concrete and steel. Nobody is going to invest in such plants, or even in piloting them, without a substantial price signal. The technology adoption cycle is decades, not years.

2) You’re misinformed about the state of the technology. We know how to capture CO2: we’ve been doing it for almost 100 years to make ammonia. This technology can relatively easily be adopted for use for CO2 emissions abatement. Tweaking the technology for optimal economics will occur only after full-scale implementation. However, it is vastly more expensive to retrofit a combined-cycle gas turbine plant to capture CO2 than to incorporate the capacity or capability when the plant is initially built.

But nuclear has to be in the portfolio of options. Biomass, even under the most optimistic scenarios using cellulosic biomass, just doesn’t yield enough quads of energy to be a complete solution by itself. Similarly, biosequestration by reforestation or no-till farming doesn’t offset nearly enough CO2 emissions to be anything more than a minor option in CO2 emissions mitigation.

“In the short term nuclear energy would be an excellent stopgap. I tend to believe that none of the current proposals to deal with global climate change make sense in a cost-benefit analysis—principally because they will have so little effect on the temperature outcome.”

Current proposals have to build on the current political realities. There’s no way to sell a deal to the Indians and Chinese, who use, in the case of the Chinese, who have per-capita emissions of CO2(and, in the case of the Indians, a CO2-emitted per-$ of GDP that is far lower than the US) without the biggest emitter of CO2, and one that is most able to afford a reduction in CO2 emissions, signing on.

Also, it is disingenuous to say that Kyoto will have little effect on the temperature outcome, as it is disingenuous to say that climate change is naturally unavoidable. (yes, over geological time the climate will change. But the rate of change is key, just the same as the rate of change of velocity matters when hitting a wall). If you use 2100 as the end point, yes Kyoto will have little impact. But there are significant lags in climate change, mostly because of the ocean acting as a heat sink. Take BAU scenarios versus Kyoto and extrapolate them out 50 years beyond 2100, and the story is very different.

Marc the problem is not burning of oil we cannot afford but the burning of economically viable oil. If we use up all the economically viable oil reserves that will be a disaster for the environment. Catch Up!

I said economically viable oil reserves not all oil. Using oil until up to the point at which the alternatives are more economically viable is a disaster. What is it that you do not understand?

Did anyone see this Al Gore interview (from Grist? I had never though about nuclear power in these terms, but it makes sense.

Q: Let’s turn briefly to some proposed solutions. Nuclear power is making a big resurgence now, rebranded as a solution to climate change. What do you think?

A: I doubt nuclear power will play a much larger role than it does now.

Q: Won’t, or shouldn’t?

A: Won’t. There are serious problems that have to be solved, and they are not limited to the long-term waste-storage issue and the vulnerability-to-terrorist-attack issue. Let’s assume for the sake of argument that both of those problems can be solved.

We still have other issues. For eight years in the White House, every weapons-proliferation problem we dealt with was connected to a civilian reactor program. And if we ever got to the point where we wanted to use nuclear reactors to back out a lot of coal — which is the real issue: coal — then we’d have to put them in so many places we’d run that proliferation risk right off the reasonability scale. And we’d run short of uranium, unless they went to a breeder cycle or something like it, which would increase the risk of weapons-grade material being available.

When energy prices go up, the difficulty of projecting demand also goes up — uncertainty goes up. So utility executives naturally want to place their bets for future generating capacity on smaller increments that are available more quickly, to give themselves flexibility. Nuclear reactors are the biggest increments, that cost the most money, and take the most time to build.

In any case, if they can design a new generation [of reactors] that’s manifestly safer, more flexible, etc., it may play some role, but I don’t think it will play a big role.

aaron,

I think you missed my point about sequestration and adaption. Right now, the global regulatory regime approach isn’t working – the US isn’t signing onto it and the incentives not to are only going to grow, plus we have to worry about economic growth in India and China. I don’t think the odds of getting all the nations with significant industrial sectors to sign on to a single cap-and-trade market and stick with it over decades are very good.

I’ve heard sequestration being quoted as being approximately twice as expensive per unit of carbon as reducing emission (don’t remember where offhand – if someone has a better number or a citation, lay it on me). However, if more than 50% of that carbon would end up being sold and released elsewhere, then pursuing sequestration would be more cost-effective. Sequestration won’t be as efficient as a comprehensive regulatory regime, but it is likely to be more efficient than a partial one. Since there are free-riders, sequestration will probably be undersupplied, so some adaptation, which won’t suffer from significant free-rider problems, may end up being necessary. The comprehensive regime would be more efficient if it managed to get implemented, but that needs to be weighed against the likelyhood of it being implemented and maintained in the long run.

“Who says it will take huge portions of world GDP? We’re talking about instead of taking until 2100 to reach 500% of GDP in 1990, taking until 2105. 1-2% of GDP is not a heck of a lot: we just don’t spend that much money (proportionately) on energy infrastructure. I’d put your error down to being misinformed, but you’ve been corrected on this so many times on Obsidian Wings that there is a wilful aspect to your being so misinformed.”

Aaron:

“First, the only thing we can do now to make a meaningful difference to future conditions is to cut back on energy consumption. Nuclear energy today meets only 7% of world primary energy demand so it is not plausible to say that this technology is an immediate “replacement” option.”

This makes no sense. Your speculative technologies represent 0% of world primary energy demand, therfore they don’t represent a replacement option? That wouldn’t make sense. Nuclear energy isn’t a big part of US electrical production only because the US has not built nuclear plants in decades not because of any deficiency in the energy potential of nuclear radiation.

“Even if a few countries decide to cut their emissions drastically (lets say OECD minus the US) non-cooperating parties will still have an economic interest in increasing their pollution without limit, thus if there are non-cooperators out there that either have a large population or can consume large amounts of energy then we will not make inroads on the climate problem.”

This only makes sense if your idea that technological advancement is being held up by governments failing to incentivice them is false. If the EU incentiviced them, the technologies would be produced and India, China and the US could use these technologies.

2% isn’t a heck of a lot? Are you crazy? For a 100+ year project even 1% of the world GDP would only be the biggest project ever. You could easily completely fund all sorts of more certain projects for that cost–provide drinking water to every human being who can’t currently get it, plus provide modern vaccinations to every person in the world, plus provide food to every person in the world and that wouldn’t even come close to 1% of the world’s GDP for 100 years.

And Kyoto only slows down global warming by about six years according to its most optimistic supporters. I’m completely unimpressed by that kind of ‘solution’ for that kind of cost.

“Current proposals have to build on the current political realities. There’s no way to sell a deal to the Indians and Chinese, who use, in the case of the Chinese, who have per-capita emissions of CO2-emitted per-$ of GDP that is far lower than the US”>CO2 without the biggest emitter of CO2, and one that is most able to afford a reduction in CO2 emissions, signing on.”

That’s fine though. Aaron and francis have assured me that technological changes spurred by can handle the issue. Europe will be developing those by unilateraly passing the rules which will invigorate research into technology which will fix it all. The US, India and China can adopt those technologies a decade or so later.

Of course if new technologies aren’t really just on the horizon we might want to convert all those coal plants to nuclear. But then they can only blame the US for not aggressively going nuclear fast enough–which isn’t as exciting I suppose.

I have no idea if new technology will get us out of this problem or not and neither do you. Political measures to reduce emissions are first and foremost about…wait for it….big surprise…. coming…..reducing emissions. And my entire argument is that we need much more significant and costly emissions targets than those in Kyoto. Of course such a policy would also create incentives for new technologies and that is a good thing for obvious reasons. But business as usual and waiting around for some new technology is not a rational policy. And if Kyoto is not nearly enough, which you seem to agree with, then why do you characterise the Europeans as creating the necessary incentives for technological change.

“And my entire argument is that we need much more significant and costly emissions targets than those in Kyoto. Of course such a policy would also create incentives for new technologies and that is a good thing for obvious reasons. But business as usual and waiting around for some new technology is not a rational policy.And if Kyoto is not nearly enough, which you seem to agree with, then why do you characterise the Europeans as creating the necessary incentives for technological change.”

I don’t understand the question. You suggest that forcing emissions lower will innovate technology. The EU is certainly a large enough market (as large as the US and you seem to think the US would do) for that innovation to be fruitful even without the rest of the world doing anything. Any technological discoveries made there could then be exported to the rest of the world. This is important because the Third World won’t be reducing C02 output without some useful technological changes and C02 output reduction in the 1st world won’t be enough to effect temperature changes.

Now I happen to think that the US could do certain things (adopt nuclear power being a major one), but this talk of everything being hopeless unless the US acts now is pretty much bunk.

Francis, yes SEP seems to be the logic of many. As this is the kicker now matter how much of a good environmentalist Sebastian becomes or how Green Californians become they will not be able to enjoy the benefits of the efforts they make today. All the climate problems this generation will face have already been imposed on us by past generations, and any efforts to do something about climate change will not benefit this generation. The same set of facts will be true for the next generation and the generation after that and so on (Stephen M. Gardiner, “The Real Tragedy of the Commons”).

So ultimately our reasons for caring about climate change, if we have any at all, have to be moral reasons about how we want to treat people that do not exist yet.

“in the case of the Chinese, who have per-capita emissions of CO2-emitted per-$ of GDP that is far lower than the US”>CO2 without the biggest emitter of CO2, and one that is most able to afford a reduction in CO2 emissions, signing on.”

Hmm, a line got cut from that comment somehow, and I checked it before posting.

What it was meant to be:
“There’s no way to sell a deal to the Indians and Chinese who have per-capita emissions of CO2 that are far lower than the US (and, in the case of the Indians, a CO2-emissions per unit of GDP that is far lower than the USA), without the biggest emitter of CO2, and one that is most able to afford a reduction in CO2 emissions, signing on.”

Onto Sebastian:

‘2% isn’t a heck of a lot? Are you crazy?’

See John’s comment above. Advertising as a share of US GDP was 2.5%, BTW.

“Aaron and francis have assured me that technological changes spurred by can handle the issue. Europe will be developing those by unilateraly passing the rules which will invigorate research into technology which will fix it all. The US, India and China can adopt those technologies a decade or so later.”

And the developers of said technologies will miss on the royalties of said markets.* You’ve previously argued at Obsidian Wings against the U.S. government negotiating or controlling prices for pharmaceuticals in the US based on the lost profits decreasing R&D. Why does this not hold true for CO2 mitigation technologies?

* Plus also retarded the introduction of said technologies by a decade in countries that account for 60-70% of CO2 emissions. Said CO2 emitted by those countries will be hanging around for 50-200 years. Decisions to delay now may have profound effects later on.

Sebastian, do you dismiss Gore’s argument that nuclear can’t possibly be a large part of the solution out of hand? I’ve never read your postings on Obsidian Wings, so forgive me if you’ve already covered this subject.

“do you dismiss Gore’s argument that nuclear can’t possibly be a large part of the solution out of hand?”

He doesn’t really make the argument that it isn’t technologically feasible. He is wrong about uranium availability–and much of it is mined in the US. He is wrong about the disposal issue, it is technologically not a problem. It is politically a huge problem–say the word ‘nuclear’ and a huge number of people irrationally freak out.

So I think he is right, nuclear isn’t likely to be a big factor in the solution, but that is because people like Gore are silly about nuclear energy not because it is a bad technology or has difficult problems. All of the problems with nuclear are in the realm of “solveable with current technology”. None of his pet projects are. He is like the people who want to settle Mars but don’t think about Antarctica. The latter would be more feasible, but the former is more ‘inspiring’.

Dr. Quiggin,

“or you need to make some specific claim as to why technological change is going to be faster wrt climate change than other things, even if we do nothing to promote it.”

I’ve already made this claim many times here before. Technological change doesn’t have to happen faster than other change, it just has to continue on pace.

No one has argued my point that wind power is already cheaper than natural gas power, which accounts for almost a quarter of US energy production (GE is backordered for years on new turbines). Solar power was $15 watt for a system in 1995. Today it is $4 watt. When the price reaches $2 watt it will be cheaper than commercial production. And there are several solar technologies being put into production saying that they can do this, or better, already. Even if this technology takes an incredible 50 years to be fully deployed, we will be a ~0 emissions world by mid century.

Oh and I laughed in astonishment when I saw on Discovery that the new flood barriers to protect Venice were going to cost a measely 20 million dollars. World growth will be more on the line of 4-5%/year for the foreseeable future, so that 2% of the economy sunk into a inflationary carbon tax will end up having a huge oppurtunity cost (4.5% on 2% of the world’s GDP compounded yearly for 50 years would pay for a hell of a lot of Venice flood walls).

Dr. Quiggin,
We are already investing in CO2 mitigation in the form of alternative energy research. My point is that at the current rate of progress, the problem won’t be noticeably worse than if the world did the 2% GDP carbon tax. We continue building power plants as we need them, we don’t kill ourselves building extra power plants that our kids will be able to build for themselves at a cheaper rate (with better technology).

For some reason I can not see the point that many intelligent people are coming to. That it makes more sense to create this huge bureaucratic nightmare, and political monstrosity of international carbon taxation than it does to simply continue the course of research. If the green’s of the world dropped the carbon tax plank and pushed only alternative energy, they would surely have magnitudes more success. But curbing CO2 is not the end game for many greens, curbing growth is.

I would like to know how I’m wrong here.

Magical thinking? I have an observable trend as evidence. Alternative energy continues to drop in price, with the tipping point for wind already being reached when compared to natural gas.

I’ll be polite and not discuss the trend for your observation.

Now what would be the benefits of taking “a few percentage points of the world’s GDP” and spending that on alternative energy research and deployment? Would that better solve the Global Warming problem while also giving peripheral benefits? Or is it “magical thinking” to believe coal power is not replaceable or at least trivialized to off-peak hours?

Sebastian –

“I laughed in astonishment when I saw on Discovery that the new flood barriers to protect Venice were going to cost a measely 20 million dollars”

This is a v interesting site : –

http://www.icivilengineer.com/Big_Project_Watch/Venice/

Project Name: Venice Tide Barrier Project (The Modulo Sperimentale Elettromeccanico project)

Location: Italy

Project Start Date: 2001

Expected Finish Date:

Expected Cost: 2.6 Billion USD

Description:

The project designed to protect Venice from flooding and erosion involves using a string of 79 inflatable gates to stem the flow of water through Venice’s three inlets into its lagoon.

Ho Ho Ho

“Aaron and francis have offered a situation where they believe that the US is holding back the world’s technological development in alternative energy sources by failing to make a ridiculously high carbon tax.”

If the marginal nominal cost of emitting CO2 in the US is $0, then the demand for CO2 mitigation in the US is going to be small. Further, I can’t see the EU’s carbon trading market as holding up over the long term if there is no cost to carbon emissions in the US, China and India. It’s just too big a target for regulatory arbitrage.

You also appear to have a view that emitting CO2 is costless. Let’s make this clear: I don’t advocate reducing CO2 emissions for some pro-green agenda. I advocate it because we have an economic infrastructure that is very fine tuned to the current climate. I view the adverse economic and non-economic impact (geopolitical instability from drought and conflicts over water resources, especially in an environment where 10+ countries have nuclear weapons) as far exceeding the costs of CO2 mitigation using current technologies.

“We pretty much agree that no useful (that is to say significantly impacting global temperature) reductions in CO2 can come without a massive shift away from burning stuff which creates CO2 for energy.”

Do we agree on this point? I don’t.

I think that we can continue to burn fossil fuels but sequester the CO2, and that this is a good transistional technology to reduce peak CO2 levels. Further, some of the magic dinguses that might save our asses (such as direct-carbon fuel cells) are attractive because (amongst other things) they produce a pure stream of CO2 that would avoid the costs of CO2 capture.

“I tend to suspect that such technology is not just around the corner, so it would be better to focus on mitigating the cost of rising temperatures.”

Sebastian, as I pointed out before in this comment thread and on ObWi, the technology *does* exist. Google “enhanced oil recovery” or “Carbon sequestration” and StatOil. This is current technology, Sebastian, and there are a lot of low-hanging fruit yet to be exploited before we would have to implement CO2 sequestration. We just have to send the right price signals.

Wouldn’t replacing an appropriate fraction of the world’s income taxes, everywhere, with a carbon tax everywhere be a “good thing” whether or not it had any beneficial effect on the environment? Is there really something marvellous about burning fuel as wastefully as the US does today that some of us simply couldn’t even conceive of it costing us more to do (Sebastian), despite having higher incomes with which to afford to do it if we wished? Fuel oil and coal are more like commodities than nectar of the Gods or something, aren’t they?

The argumentation about Europe’s potential for developing sweet new energy technologies, while pricing itself out of its markets with a unilateral carbon tax of market-moving magnitude is pretty fantastical in itself. It has to be founded on an assumption that alternative energies can continue to fall in price right on past the cost of digging up coal and pumping oil to burn, a vision which until somewhere after “peak oil” is a pipedream in itself.

Burning fossil fuels has unpaid bad environmental effects on us today. True, much more nuclear and alternatives will turn out tomorrow to have poor externalities as well … and tomorrow when that becomes a significant factor will be the right time to take economic action on that front, with taxes or some other price effects helping to usher in the next, post-nuclear/solar/wind/etc level of engineering magic for planet USA. Today we don’t need that much ingenuity, just a modest willingness to smarten ourselves up a bit.

This old (2001) US government faq will explain things.
Global Warming-NOAA
Poke around in the site for more answers.

Scientific discussion is only ever possible between people of requisite understanding of the science being discussed. Elsewhere there’s always the possibility of learning and research for those willing to put in the hard work; all your beginner-level questions at 85. above are long answered and the answers readily available (at least, available to those with the humility and the discipline to look and learn something).

“You’re talking about a great deal of reading that will take much longer than the lifespan of this comments thread.”

Toughies. The TAR is a good place to start.

If you’re asking questions like this:

‘– What is the methodology used for measuring (ancient and current) atmospheric CO2, and what is its accuracy?’

– then frankly you’re in no position to lecture anyone on the science, or to participate on a serious debate on global warming.

Sorry folks, science is elitist and undemocratic. Not everyone gets their opinion heard, but the minimum you can do is to get to the level of an informed layperson before sticking your oar in.