Kyle writes:

I think – to some degree – you’re conflating two theories that don’t have the relationship you’re purporting them to have.

Theory 1 – climate change, Theory 2 – markets and fuel.

You’re right that economic principles will, at some point, force an increase in the price of certain fossil fuels as they become scarcer (a combination of supply and demand changes) and higher energy prices will result in behavioral changes for consumers and changes to the type and number of producers in energy markets. If we assume climate change to be exacerbated by man-made activity, it’s still entirely unclear that by the time fuel scarcity prompts a mitigating change in human caused carbon emissions, there will still be time and resources enough to either reverse the shift or dampen its effects on the biosphere.

Shorter, mother nature knows no free market, only her own rules and timetables. e.g. The Dust Bowl

ED responds:

The Dust Bowl is certainly a good cautionary tale of improper agricultural techniques. I’m not sure it lines up exactly with climate change, however. Just as it’s entirely uncertain that fuel scarcity will prompt a mitigating change in human caused carbon emissions, it’s also entirely uncertain that it won’t, and even more uncertain that cap and trade will do anything whatsoever to curb emissions or slow climate change especially so long as China and India remain out of play.   (my italics)

On ED’s  last point—i.e. cap and trade has to be implemented across the globe or we are in prisoner’s dilemma territory and likely China and India (and Brazil) won’t go for it–I agree (and so does Kyle).

But I don’t really understand what ED is saying in that portion I italicized.  I’ll loop back to this point in a second, but first I’ll start by putting my cards on the table and saying that (as a layman in this field) I basically accept the (so-named) consensus scientific opinion that 350 parts per million is an acceptable level of carbon in the atmosphere. Beyond that we are in danger territory.  That level was passed in 1990.

I’m open to debate on the degree of danger and the best way to deal with that danger while still taking into account the current reality of poverty and disease.  But even there I mostly hold that what should be done is what is being called for by say a climate action network group. (pdf)

I also know politically there is no way what they call for is ever going to happen.

e.g. (from page 3 of the pdf):

“Industrialized countries as a group must take a target of 40% reduction of CO2 by 1990 levels by 2020.”

This statement goes under the “ambitious” category of the threefold “fair, ambitious, and binding.”

In contrast, the Waxman-Markey House Bill and the Kerry-Boxer Senate Bill are calling for 17-20% reduction from 2005 levels.

That bill is going to have one helluva time passing the Senate.  But it’s not even close to what is needed, if we are to accept the policy proposal of the Climate Action Network (which again in rough outlines I do). [Read more →]

“If anyone tries to tell you that uncertainty about climate change is a reason for inaction, he’s either a fool or a scoundrel. Probably a bit of both.” ~ Mark Kleiman

Kleiman makes a number of assumptions in his piece before reaching this one.  He assumes some hypothetical climate change statistics and then assumes that because he has made such a speculation that the policy going forward should be precautionary against said speculative fiction.  But simply because Mark Kleiman says that we might see an 8 degree (C) increase in temperature by 2100 does not make it so.

Writes Kleiman:

Ordinarily, it is the proponents of action who bear the burden of persuasion.  But in this case political inaction means, in effect, licensing a massive gamble, though no individual chooses to make it. Rather, the gamble would be the outcome of billions of uncoordinated self-interested decisions: precisely the sort of process that, in the absence of external costs, leads to efficient outcomes.  But none of the arguments for the freedom of economic activity applies to activities with huge, indirect, deferred, and diffuse external costs:  by contrast with Adam Smith’s baker, there is simply no “invisible hand” mechanism that directs private action in such a situation in the direction of the public interest.

Actually, just like with any free market, climate change will respond to market pressures coupled with government incentives.  Rising fuel costs will reduce the amount of fuel used and the less people drive and fewer things are shipped via truck and freighter, the lower our CO2 emissions will be.  The government can invest in mass transit to help ease in a different norm for transportation as traditional fuel, and therefore traditional means of travel, becomes more and more prohibitively expensive.  Private innovators can be allowed to come up with the next revolutionary inventions in renewable energy and green transportation.  The government can issue tax credits to innovators and consumers who participate in the green revolution.  They can also provide more grants to college students pursuing science and engineering degrees.

These are positive steps rather than punitive ones.  The punitive measures should be directed at individual players – polluters and industries which have the largest hand in producing emissions.  Cap and trade is too broad and too subject to capture to be effective.  Targeting specific polluters makes more sense, while nudging normal Americans toward a different energy and transportation model in the future. [Read more →]

Climatology is now infected by partisan polemics, but ice core studies that show rising carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere over the last ten thousand years are undisputed.

Scott: Okay, so, a little while ago you wrote a pair of posts stirring the climate change pot a bit. It might be easy for some folks to see your writing as simple rabble rousing for the sake of rabble rousing, calling an overwhelming consensus into question because, well, it is important to question our overwhelming consensuses from time to time, to question our underlying assumptions. But it strikes me that you were doing more than that with your critiques of the so-called “green movement” and, more specifically, Al Gore’s (in)famous chart.

Engaging in a bit of a distilling exercise, what is at the core of your unease with what is an increasingly broad movement around addressing environmental issues and, specifically, climate change?

Erik: I think that for years – decades really – the green movement was in shambles. It had its isolated victories (Clean Air Act) but was really a ramshackle bunch of disparate causes with no unifying theme beyond some vague notion that we should treat the earth, or animals, or fish, or water, or air, etc. better. It was largely a fringe movement because it was largely a movement about activism. Now, with global warming the green movement has become an actual movement rather than an assortment of activist groups, and it’s entered the mainstream. Indeed, it’s become the new conventional wisdom, and those who may disagree with it or with the proposed solutions to it have become the fringe.

What leaves me feeling a bit disquieted about the whole thing is the speed at which the science, which isn’t that old in terms of science, has become accepted as fact, and really as belief. If you disagree either with the theory or the proposed solutions to that theory, you’re angrily written off as a “denialist” and given a scarlet letter to wear around town. But this is science we’re talking about, and science is something that should be discussed openly and with skepticism. Especially when the science in question has major policy implications with very real economic ramifications. The “Climategate” emails simply reinforce many people’s fears that the whole story isn’t being told, something that I’ve worried about for a long time. My post about Al Gore’s misleading chart was just one piece of the worry I have over this whole global warming thing. The limitations of cap & trade is another.

Scott: But what would be the threshold for you in terms of accepting the science? I mean, it is relatively striking how broad the consensus amongst a disparate cross-section of scientists is on this issue. And, as you mention, it’s not as though those scientists were at the forefront of driving the nascent stages of the “environmental” or “green” movement, it was, again, as you mention, primarily an activist oriented movement for many years (with, of course, some scientists involved, but not the degree of involvement now seen).

Doesn’t the chronology of that evolution in environmentalism as an item of social consciousness suggest a certain neutral bias that lends support to the science? And doesn’t it also strike you that it is rarely the scientists themselves and more often the activists of the green movement that lash out at “non-believers” in the angry fashion you describe? Should the science in question be tarred by the actions of activists who have, to be fair, endured years of ridicule and dismissive posturing? [Read more →]

This chart shows the correlation of high global temperatures and high CO2 levels (though some have argued that if you look closely, you’ll see that temperature actually rises before CO2 levels rise, but we’ll leave that for another day.)  More interesting to me is the presentation of the data itself, and particularly the x axis which includes the present year all the way back to 650,000 years ago.

Now, compared to the life of a human being, 650,000 years is a long time.  In fact, modern humans have only been on earth for about 200,000 years, so not even a third of that chart includes human life. [Read more →]

Rortybomb points us to this post by Matt Steinglass countering Jim Manzi’s opposition to Waxman-Markey.  Steinglass writes:

There will be no snow left on Kilimanjaro within a few years. The economic cost of that change to US GDP is zero. There will be no year-round snow left in the Himalayas in 100 years. The economic cost of that change to US GDP is tiny. There will be no Everglades in 100 years. The economic cost of that change to US GDP is marginal. There will be no Venice in 100 years. The economic cost of that change to US GDP is tiny. There will be no New Orleans in 100 years. The economic cost of that change to US GDP is extremely small.

There are two issues here. First, GDP measures income, not wealth. If your house burns down, it will most likely not change your income. Does that mean you should spend nothing to protect your house from burning down? Second, GDP only measures things that can be measured in money. But the worth of many precious things cannot be measured in money….

What Steinglass fails to address is whether or not Waxman-Markey would indeed save Venice or New Orleans.   Rather than addressing the merits of the bill itself, Steinglass focuses on climate change writ large.  The fact is, this is bad legislation that is not only subject to regulatory capture but which will leave the gates already entirely in the pockets of special interests.

Once again it seems proponents of Waxman-Markey are talking right past the actual objections to the bill and speaking instead quite generally about the moral impetus of climate change legislation itself.  In the great rush to just do something – anything – because the moral consequence of doing nothing seems so great, lawmakers and supporters of climate change legislation will rush headlong into even a very bad piece of legislation so long as it allows them to wash their hands of the sin of simply standing by while the Himalayans melt.  That the Himalayans will melt anyways is secondary. [Read more →]