Keith Hennessey's Case Against Strong Anti-Climate Change Efforts
This is, as Greg Mankiw notes, a smart and interesting post. His assessment of the inter-state puzzle is spot on. (Will Wilkinson has written persuasively on the same subject.) I think my main disagreement with Hennessey is on my perception of the risks involved. Basically, I am more worried than he is, and so though I come down on roughly the same side of the issue as he does:
Therefore, I conclude the best policy is for the U.S. not to impose a domestic carbon price in the near future. To the extent policymakers believe severe climate change is a risk that should be addressed, I instead recommend they focus on pushing carbon-reducing technology R&D, and reducing tariffs and other trade barriers to the exchange of such technologies, as Dan Price has recommended.
But I’m pretty sure I’d favor spending a lot more money on the effort — somewhat less than Shellenberger and Nordhaus, but closer to them than to Hennessey or to our own Jim Manzi.
Well, but that’s the point – carbon pricing schemes push carbon-reducing R&D. That’s like saying “we should be concentrating less on crossing the river and more on getting to the other side.” Um, what?
— Chet · May 31, 10:51 PM · #
Hi Chet:
There’s a pretty serious debate about this — what’s politically feasible, what the government is capable of doing well, etc. But thanks for your thoughts!
— Reihan · May 31, 11:56 PM · #
When I was a boy, it was an article of faith among bien-pensants Upper West Siders that if we just took the money we were spending on Vietnam (or the moon landing, take your pick), and applied it to medical research, we could cure cancer. Since then, obviously, we have spent several Vietnams worth on medical research, and have hardly cured cancer. So before I give Reihan’s friends several gazillion of my tax dollars, I would need to know why they’ll do better this time.
— y81 · Jun 1, 12:43 AM · #
My take is obviously hghly aligned with Hennessey’s, but I think he dodges the key difficulty with his (and my) position in his post, namely uncertainty. That is, moving form the expected case cost-benefit analysis to address the problem of low-odds / high-severity outcomes. He waves at it, but I think that you have take on the Weizman argument (at least that it’s best form) before you can draw his (and my) central conclusion.
It’s that issue of uncertainty that rationally (in my view) justifies some technology expenditure on this. However, moving from expenditures on undeniably public goods (better prediction, geo-enginnering, etc.) to expenditures on bascially accelerating the pre-existing transition to an ever less carbon-intensive economy requires (again, in my view) a compelling answer to y81’s question. This is not a theoretical or purely partisan concern. The last big attempt by the federal governemnt to do this brought us mostly multi-billion-dollar boondoggles like the Boeing wind turbine and the Exxon shale project.
— Jim Manzi · Jun 1, 01:30 AM · #
“Since then, obviously, we have spent several Vietnams worth on medical research, and have hardly cured cancer. So before I give Reihan’s friends several gazillion of my tax dollars, I would need to know why they’ll do better this time.”
Well, for starters, cancer research depends a lot on government funding, which means to some extent government grants are going to determine the direction that research follows. R&D spurred by a carbon tax would not be funded that way, and research work would likely be much more widely distributed than cancer research is. Basically anyone who comes up with a cheaper way to save energy can enter the market to help people save money. The barriers to entry are much lower than is the case with medicine.
Also, cancer (of which there are many kinds) is probably a much harder problem. Sure, developing economical carbon-scrubbing technology for smokestacks is hard, but at least you don’t have to worry that the smokestacks will die when you install the new device.
— Jon H · Jun 1, 02:47 AM · #
I would concur that cancer IS a much harder problem, for a variety of reasons including the complexity of biological systems.
If one were to focus on, say, solar, the path to grid parity is well understood. Economies of scale are being established and several concurrent research schemes are being pursued to driving the cost down to match coal. Not a panacea by any means, but as engineering challenges go, one can break down the necessary tasks into discrete groupings, with feasible goals within our current abilities. There remain scientific challenges, but a lot of the challenge in conventional solar is a question of engineering process (driving manufacturing costs down) and reducing things like installation and module costs. I don’t think this begins to compare with the fundamental challenges we face in dealing with the myriad forms of cancer that are out there.
— jackal · Jun 1, 03:39 AM · #
The commenters seem to be saying that the chattering classes are much, much smarter than they were thirty or forty years ago, and that while the average journalist’s thoughts on cancer research (or the population crisis, or industrial policy, or whatever) back then were so stupid as to be beneath contempt, the average journalist’s current thoughts on energy production are really well-informed and intelligent and guaranteed to be vindicated by history. I remain skeptical.
— y81 · Jun 1, 12:50 PM · #
What if we put our money into better climate predictions? It’s the uncertainty of the predictions that are causing all hedging. Would a moon-shot type program where nations make a concerted effort to improve our knowledge get us anywhere? Can we make our super computers more super?
— cw · Jun 1, 02:53 PM · #
There was a PhD Comic a month back about why ‘There will never be a cure for cancer.’ That said, cancer survival rates have improved markedly in the last 30 years, from about a 50% five year rate in the mid 70s to 65% today. Since that translates into almost 100,000 fewer cancer deaths per year, I don’t think the people who preferred spending money on cancer research to burning down Vietnam have anything to apologize for.
Also, the 2008 NCI budget was $4.83 billion; total Vietnam spending in 2008 dollars was $686 billion. Contra y81, we’re not spending multiple Vietnams on cancer research no matter how you slice it.
— Bo · Jun 1, 04:04 PM · #
“What if we put our money into better climate predictions? It’s the uncertainty of the predictions that are causing all hedging. Would a moon-shot type program where nations make a concerted effort to improve our knowledge get us anywhere? Can we make our super computers more super?”
The main problem is lack of data. This is being remedied with new sensors and satellites, although one of the satellite launches failed, and it was destroyed; a similar Japanese satellite made it up safely.
Unfortunately, I suspect that no matter how accurate the predictions and models get, there will be people denying their accuracy because of errors made in the popular media 30 years ago, and because they want to save money in the short term and write off the long term as someone else’s problem.
Sooner or later, we’ll most likely have to do something, and the longer we wait, the harder it’ll be. That’s kind of the problem. It’s a bit like saving for retirement.
— Jon H · Jun 1, 07:26 PM · #
y81 wrote: “ I remain skeptical.”
Well, the problem is you’re looking to popular journalists for information. Try people who know what they’re talking about, rather than people whose profession is to know just enough, for just long enough, to churn out a couple thousand words before turning to the next topic.
— Jon H · Jun 1, 07:30 PM · #
“Try people who know what they’re talking about”
OK. I get my economics from William Nordhaus, and my science from Freeman Dyson. I don’t end up with Reihan Salam.
— y81 · Jun 1, 10:40 PM · #
“and my science from Freeman Dyson.”
He only knows some science. On other things he’s like Linus Pauling pushing Vitamin C as a cure-all.
— Jon H · Jun 1, 11:42 PM · #
cw:
I have argued extensively for better investments in prediction technology. John H is correct (in my view) that lack of data is a more fundamentla problem than “models”. The last thing we need when we invest more in better prediction is more post-grads doing “interesting” Fortran F90 modeling of climate (though unfortunately, it’s what we’re most likely to get). The other problem, beyond lack of data, is a a mangement culture which does not demand prediction validation. Better data + rigorous validation studies in the context of a motivated management team would do a whole lot.
None of this will eliminate uncertainty, or come close to it, but done corretly is likely to be a very high-payoff investment.
— Jim Manzi · Jun 2, 07:39 PM · #