Are you a global warming skeptic, or are you skeptical of the global warming skeptics? Your answer depends on how you answer these five questions: 1. Is the earth getting warmer? 2. Is the cause of global warming human activity? 3. How much warmer is it going to get? 4. What are the consequences of a warmer climate? 5. How much should we invest in altering the climate? Here are my answers.
Global warming is real and primarily human caused. With questions 3 and 4, however, estimates include error bars that grow wider the further out we run the models because complex systems like climate are notoriously difficult to predict. I provisionally accept the estimate of the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) that the mean global temperature by 2100 will increase by 4.7 degrees Fahrenheit, and that sea levels will rise by about one foot (about the same as they have risen since 1860). Moderate warming with moderate changes.
Question 4 deserves even more skepticism. In his carefully-reasoned and politically-bipartisan book Cool It (Alfred Knopf, 2008), the "skeptical environmentalist" Bjorn Lomborg notes that if global warming continues unchecked through the end of the century there will be 400,000 more heat-related deaths annually; there will also be 1.8 million fewer cold-related deaths, for a net gain of 1.4 million lives. This is not to say that global warming is good, only that its consequences must be weighed in the balance. For example, Lomborg sites data from the World Wildlife Fund that at most we will lose 15 polar bears a year due to global warming, but what doesn't get reported is that 49 bears are shot each year. What would be more cost-effective to save polar bear lives -- spend hundreds of billions of dollars to lower CO2 emissions and (maybe) the mean global temperature, or limit hunting permits?
This leads to question 5 -- the economics of global climate change -- which I think needs a sound dose of skepticism, particularly since the collapse of our economy. Even if all countries had ratified the Kyoto Protocol and lived up to its standards (which most did not), according to the IPCC, at best it would have postponed the 4.7 degrees Fahrenheit average increase just five years from 2100 to 2105, at a cost of $180 billion a year! By comparison, although global warming may cause an increase of two million deaths due to hunger annually by 2100, the U.N. estimates that for $10 billion a year we could save 229 million people from hunger annually today. It's time for economic triage.
Economics is about the efficient allocation of limited resources that have alternative uses. And after the U.S. government allocated a trillion dollars of our limited resources to shore up our flagging financial foundations, those alternative uses have never seemed so pressing. Should we (can we?) really allocate the equivalent of a Manhattan Project to lower CO2 emissions 50 percent by 2050 and 80 percent by 2100, as the IPCC recommends in order to divert disaster? My answer is no. Why? Because the potential benefits for the costs incurred are simply not warranted.
If you had, say, $50 billion a year to make the world a better place for more people, how would you spend it? In 2004, Lomborg asked this question to a group of scientists and world leaders, including four Nobel laureates. This "Copenhagen Consensus," as it is called, ranked reduction of CO2 emissions 16th out of 17 challenges. The top four were: controlling HIV/AIDS, micronutrients for fighting malnutrition, free trade to attenuate poverty, and battling malaria. A 2006 Copenhagen Consensus of U.N. ambassadors constructed a similar list, with communicable diseases, clean drinking water, and malnutrition at the top, and climate change at the bottom. A late 2008 meeting that included five Nobel Laureates recommended that President-elect Barack Obama allocate his promised $150 billion in subsidies for new technologies and $50 billion in foreign aid be allocated for research on malnutrition, immunization, and agricultural technologies. For a cool Kyoto $180 billion you can buy a lot of condoms, vitamin tablets, and mosquito nets and rescue hundreds of millions of people from disease, starvation, and impoverishment.
If you are skeptical of Lomborg and his branch of environmental skepticism, read the Yale University economist William Nordhaus' technical book A Question of Balance (Yale University Press, 2008). Nordhaus computes the costs-benefits of various recommendations for changing the climate by either 2105 or 2205, primarily focused on the cost of curbing carbon emissions. Economists like to compute future profits and losses based on investments made today, adjusting for the value of a future dollar at an average interest rate of four percent. If we spent a trillion dollars today (the equivalent of the recent bailout or the Iraq war), how much climate change would it buy us in a century at four percent interest? Nordhaus's calculations are compared to doing nothing, where a plus value is better and a minus value worse than doing nothing. Kyoto with the U.S. is plus one and without the U.S. zero, for example, and a gradually increasing global carbon tax is a plus three. That is, a $1 trillion cost today buys us $3 trillion of benefits in a century. Al Gore's proposals, by contrast, score a minus 21, where $1 trillion invested today in Gore's plans would net us a loss of $21 trillion in 2105.
Add to these calculations the numerous other crises we face, such as the housing calamity, the financial meltdown, the coming collapse of social security and medicare, two wars, a failing public education system, etc.
In my opinion we need to chill out on all extremist plans that entail expenses best described as Brobdingnagian, require our intervention into developing countries best portrayed as imperialistic, or involve state controls best portrayed as fascistic. Give green technologies and free markets a chance.
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Investing say 10 trillion dollars over 20 years is quite reasonable This is about $5/day per household and probably close to what each household in America wastes on a daily basis, now in our daily spending habits Yet that investment would simultaneously create millions of desperately needed jobs here AND trigger our charitable nature to donate to UN humanitarian efforts. Primarily it would fund 5 TW renewable [wind ($1/W), solar ($2/W), geothermal] carbon-free energy system. Add in more efficiency in our use of energy and we totally wean ourselves from fossil fuel energy for all sectors [residential, commercial, industrial and transportation] in 20 years. Indeed this requires a Manhattan Project mentality and China would follow right along. AGW solved! Nature can do its thing to answer questions 3 and 4.
As someone who regularly reads your work and Skeptic magazine, I was disappointed to see you cite Bjorn Lomborg so uncritically. He has a history of misrepresenting climate science to further his arguments. Additionally, his views do not represent the mainstream economic consensus regarding climate change.
He is not a true "skeptic" in the sense that you are. He is a contrarian on both climate science and climate economics -- staking out positions outside of normal academic research that are contrary to the mainstream for the sake of being contrary.
DeSmogBlog, which regularly tracks misrepresentations of climate science in the media, has an article Lomborg with useful links that I recommend to you:
http://www.desmogblog.com/bjorn-lomborg
Thanks,
Aaron Huertas
http://envirogy.wordpress.com/2009/09/22/9-co2-reductions-gives-u-s-a-new-mandate/
It's also revealing that you endorse the mid-level IPCC projections -- since virtually all the scientists involved now say they were way too conservative and that global warming is coming sooner and going to be worse than even the worst-case IPCC projections.
Indeed, most of the IPCC now say sea-level will be several meters (not a foot) by 2100, and that temperatures will rise by about 10 F (not 4.7).
As for Nordhous? He's basically a laughing stock among serious economists for his foolishness.
Skepticism is healthy, and valuable. But your dependence upon totally discredited sources smacks more of denier ignorance than real skepticism.
"Several environmental scientists brought a total of three complaints against Lomborg to the Danish Committees on Scientific Dishonesty. They reached a conclusion that..."
"Objectively speaking, the publication of the work under consideration is deemed to fall within the concept of scientific dishonesty. ...In view of the subjective requirements made in terms of intent or gross negligence, however, Bjørn Lomborg's publication cannot fall within the bounds of this characterization. Conversely, the publication is deemed clearly contrary to the standards of good scientific practice."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bjørn_Lomborg
I believe.
“I provisionally accept the estimate”
Your guess is as good as mine.
“if global warming continues”
If change continues at an unvarying pre-determined rate, future values can be accurately predicted.
We have a remote energy source that may constitute a threat to us. We require a dependable “inexhaustible” energy supply. Is it beyond the wit of humanity in its entirety, to devise means to harvest that “threat” energy, and divert it for our own use? Thereby satisfying both requirements simultaneously.
What is good for the planet is good for us. Choosing to see it in terms of what is good/bad for humans is the most preposterous stand you can take.
I could care less how many cities become inundated or how many people die from cold (more than 1.8 million die from cold annually? Really Michael? Really?). We are merely just another organism scratching around on it's surface. Sure, we have become an infestation/plague/cancer....but hoping to steer the planet based on human needs and desires is the HEIGHT of folly, THE HEIGHT. Now it is just as much folly to expect people to ever stop thinking in purely human terms...but there are examples of peoples in the last few hundred years who had a pretty good society that did not put humans above the natural order.
I suggest anyone who uses human desires and human benefit analysis disqualified as a serious thinker. Our planet is the way we found it because it managed to avoid utter holocausts, mostly due to good placement in our solar system and chance. That we are working from within to create an artificial holocaust, and screw up the planet's long string of good luck is just too tragic to bear.
It wouldn't matter to *us*. Your comment is preposterous just like DickTater said.
As members of this world, humans need to attend and care for our surroundings. If you are aware that you are inflicting a negative impact, we need to recognize and alleviate such impact as a human being with reason, compassion, and capabilities.
If your argument holds true, then we should abolish the prison system and the hospitals as well. The high costs of running these facilities certainly do not warrant law-abiding citizens or healthy individuals. So what's the point?
These gross investments are all for our future well-being; we risk cost for probably future benefits. Because if it doesn't start somewhere, it will never go anywhere.
"...I can't help but think (in my idle fantasies) that one should be forced to publicly register either one's support or Denial of AGW.
Thus, when the time comes that the costs of whatever action humanity takes begin to manifest, people should be penalised according to how they contributed to the decisions made... The Denialists should all be given no opportunity for rescue from the economic and ecological sequelæ of global warming should it occur, and if on the other hand there is no warming in 30-50 years, the AGW proponents (or their estates) should compensate those who resisted any action - after the benefits that acrue from transitions from fossil fuel industries are deducted...
I know who would come out on top in either case - and it wouldn't be the Denialists."
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/09/28/opinion/28krugman.html?ref=opinion
Michael, ya gotta remember uncertainty cuts both ways. There is growing fear that we've underestimated positive feedbacks.
First, the process is evidently accelerating. The predictions for 2050 and 2090 are likely scearios for 2030 and 2070. The human suffering inherent in global food and water crisis is unimagineable.
Will the uber-wealthy who suppress climate change science simply just "bunker down" in impenetrable underground fortresses while the remaining population scours a post-apocalyptic wasteland fighting for basic essentials?
Even if we begin to decellerate Greenhous Gas (GHG) emissions, the climate impacts will roll forward a good ways before they start to reverse - if at all.
More people will die fighting their neighbors over basic necessities than will ever succumb to heat or cold.
Much like the early innovative days when automobiles were first being developed.
We need dozens and dozens of ELECTRIC CAR competitors to spur innovation in NEW car technology!
An exciting time for Engineers and technologists!
“In MA we had a lithium-ion battery company go public raising $350 million on day one. They are a leader in battery innovation for automobiles."
What will happen to BIG 01L and this must be a 1-2 punch in the Gut!
15 mpg to 35 mpg to 99 mpg to 230 mpg to 300 mpg to electric = 0IL imports drop like a rock!
100 to 300 mpg for hybrids and electric cars have to make traders want to sell 0IL NOW!
Going from a SUV with 15 mpg to 300 mpg is a 2,000% improvement in FUEL Efficiency!
__________ __________ _____
Gas prices in 2008 were $5 per gallon in California and $6 per gallon in Canada!
If you drive say 20,000+ miles per year the savings are large!
Moving from a SUV or Truck to a high mileage 40+mpg care makes sense in many ways!
1. Assume NO CLIMATE CHANGE AND IT HAPPENS:
Answer: More islands and coast lines are covered/flooded! Solutions take years more to develop and crops fail in 0k1ahoma and other farm states. Food and grain shortages occur and prices skyrocket! America falls behind other nations due to high costs of Energy. China uses low energy costs to their advantage in manufacturing and exports and USA deficits grow!
2. Assume Climate Change is Happening and IT DOES NOT:
Answer: America stops importing 01L with average of 55 MPG and wind and solar energy providing 50% of all Electric Power. America's cost advantages power new Manufacturing Revolution and Exports skyrocket. The deficit drops and average income increases with a shortage of workers to fill all the new technology positions!
Some how I think the DOWNSIDE in scenario 2 is NOT SO BAD!
Let those that want to believe Scenario 1 do so at their OWN RISK! The rest of us should GET to WORK NOW!
We have a foundational problem with the way we assign value to property. A property should lose value if its resources are depleted faster than they appreciate, as the revenue expected to be generated by the property in future is depleted along with the resources.
If property owners were made to book changes the expected future value of their resource reserves, then they wouldn't be able to operate at the point on the demand curve that maximizes their revenue. In order to maintain reserve asset value, they'd have to stick to a fixed supply curve that would intersect the demand curve at a lower volume and higher price than the optimal supply-side condition.
(part 1/2)
Such arguments are meaningless becasue they are like triage in an emergency room. Sure, a person who has a gushot wound will be treated first, but one with cancer if left untreated with die as well. Of course, one can buy a lot of malarial nets for $180 billion, but higher temperatures also bring the risk of tropical diseases further north introducing many more people to them. It is already happening. How do you rescue people from disease, starvation, and impoverishment and then let inundating coastal waters ruin their arable land for farming and their drinking water? What do you do with tens of millions are thirsty in lands once fed by mountaintopn glaciers that have long since disappeared. To pretend there are few costs with ignoring climate change is a fool's errand and a game we should be above.