The Visual Display of Quantitative Information II
Conor Clarke accepts that:
I think Jim Manzi and others are right to say — if you believe the IPCC and CBO — that the U.S. won’t experience a climate-induced decline in GDP until 2080 or 2100.
But Conor goes on to argue that the costs that Waxman-Markey is expected to impose on American consumers by 2050 – about $1,1,00 per household per year, or a little less than 1% of total consumption – are pretty trivial, because we should expect to be so much richer by then. (I’ll note in passing that, as per my posts on this, there are very good reasons to believe that the EPA cost estimate is low, and also that costs are also virtually certain to rise between 2050 and roughly 2100 when we would expect to start getting some offsetting benefits.)
He then shows a chart making the point, basically, that 1% is a small fraction of 100%. But of course, this cuts both ways. We hear constantly about the existential threat posed by global warming – Cities underwater! Drought! Famine! Think about his graphic. The expected benefits don’t even outweigh these costs. That ought to make you stop and think.
But, you might say, that is because we are taking a parochial view that only looks at the U.S. and only the next several decades (which is a pretty broad definition of parochial). We need to consider our actions as stewards of the entire planet over at least a century. OK, let me do a very simple chart for you, built from a list of simple, validated assumptions:
1. Secular long-term global growth in real per capita consumption before considering any effects of global warming is about 1.3% per year. (This is a standard conservative estimate; it has averaged about 2.5% per year over the past half century).
2. Unrestricted global warming produces a global temperature change of 4C within a hundred years (which is quite aggressive, a better middle-of-the-road estimate is about 3C).
3. Economic damages from this temperature increase are equal to 5% of GDP (which is the top end of IPCC’s estimated range for 4C of warming).
The following chart shows what income an average person on earth has today, plus the same number in constant dollars for (i) 2110 with unrestricted global warming, and (ii) 2110 if we somehow magically eliminated all damages from global warming for the entire world at zero mitigation cost, labeled “2110 w/ no AGW”.
The expected impacts of human-induced climate change are marginal as compared either to the sloppy, sentimental and self-righteous rhetoric that surrounds this issue, or as compared to the potential reduction in global material well-being that would likely be created by ham-fisted attempts to substitute political allocation of resources for markets.
Thanks for this post. I’ll write more about this later today, but I suspect the big disagreement here is not about the point in time at which US interests become rationally involved. The benefits for the US will, as you say, be slight in either direction, at just about any point in time. (Although I do think you can take that and say “let’s err on the side of caution.” I’m risk averse!)
But anyway, the climate-change costs for other countries are not trivial, and I don’t take the realist view of those costs. It’s not, say, Bangladesh’s fault that Bangladesh is going to experience hugely damaging flooding. How does that fit into your calculations, I wonder?
— Conor Clarke · Jun 26, 04:27 PM · #
Conor:
Not trivial, I agree.
But I’m sure you recognize, first, that this chart is for the world as a whole.
Second, attempting to “fix” this problem will have costs. These costs will be in the form of distortions to market allocation of resources (I mean take a look at the frickin’ Waxman-Markey bill itself, and that is only dealing with domestic interest groups). If the world were going to be consumed by floods next year, that would be a trivial concern, but that is not the prediction of any repsonsible body. What is the reduction in the annual growth rate of per capita consumption caused by any theoretical anti-AGW program as compared to its AGW damage reduction? I think you’ll find such programs very, very hard to justify.
— Jim Manzi · Jun 26, 04:41 PM · #
Only if you think we have a few extra cities, I guess.
— Chet · Jun 26, 05:43 PM · #
Chet:
My point in that sentence was that the rhetoric is unsupported.
— Jim Manzi · Jun 26, 06:50 PM · #
I will admit I’m against doing much of anything about global warming. The people who are for things like cap and trade and carbon taxes, etc. are generally in favor of everything I’m against and vice versa. However, I respect Mr. Manzi because at least he calls himself a conservative, he has a strong business background and he has called for restraint regarding any action on global warming. In addition, he does seem to take the science seriously, so I’m assuming he’s done due diligence.
But, however, still, yet…the record of all these alarmists has been atrocious. From John Kenneth Galbraith predicting the invulnerability of giant corporations like General Motors, to Paul Ehrlich predicting hundreds of millions dead from starvation or the complete exhaustion of our natural resources, and the Club of Rome predicting that economic growth would grind to a halt in the last part of the 20th century, we have seen dire predictions by liberal prophets proven ridiculous. Yet all of these predictions were taken seriously. Ehrlich and Galbraith and who knows, maybe even the Club of Rome, are still esteemed by the liberal elite.
It wasn’t too long ago that global cooling was the next catastrophe.
My point is simply that it’s difficult to take this stuff seriously, when the solution comes from “the smartest people in the room.”
Only if you think we have a few extra cities, I guess.
This is typical of liberal thinking. If we don’t buy into what they’re selling, then we just don’t give a damn about anyone else. They do it with every issue.
And really, Bangla Desh is probably the only place in the world worse than New Orleans to plan on keeping your basement dry. It gets flooded every time there’s a big storm.
— jd · Jun 26, 07:00 PM · #
It’s pretty silly to project permanent and unending growth 100 years into the future, when it isn’t at all clear that the Earth has sufficient resources to support such a trajectory.
For one, even the most optimistic estimates have our supply of liquid hydrocarbons peaking sometime in the next century. Unless we figure out a suitable replacement for them as a fuel source, world per capita consumption is going to decline, not rise.
— Travis Mason-Bushman · Jun 26, 07:02 PM · #
I mention that people like Paul Ehrlich and the Club of Rome still have acolytes and—right on cue—we get a post from Travis Mason-Bushman demonstrating my point.
— jd · Jun 26, 07:07 PM · #
Travis:
Upon reading your post again, I hope I haven’t mischaracterized you—as an acolyte of people like Paul Ehrlich and the Club of Rome.
Your talk of consumption going down makes me wonder if I have misunderstood your point.
— jd · Jun 26, 07:12 PM · #
jd, it’s simple reality that the planet Earth has a finite resource supply, and at some point growth will slow and stop. We cannot continue growing infinitely on a finite world.
Do I think that’s going to happen in the next year? No. Could it happen in the next 100 years? Quite possibly. Fresh water, in particular, is a resource which there is certainly no great surplus of. The American West has essentially hit the limit of its developable water, and aquifer overdrafting is widespread across the United States.
It is also simple reality that our global economy is wholly dependent on liquid hydrocarbons – an energy source which, as I said, even the most optimistic estimates suggest will peak and decline sometime in the next 100 years. Given that essentially everything we produce is somewhere reliant on hydrocarbons (be it plastic feedstock, fertilizer base or transport fuel), the decline of cheap hydrocarbons will certainly put a crimp on growth.
Air travel, for instance, is only made possible by cheap, widely available hydrocarbons. We have, as yet, absolutely no replacement for it there. When oil hits $300 per barrel, will anyone be able to afford flying Southwest from Los Angeles to San Francisco?
— Travis Mason-Bushman · Jun 26, 07:24 PM · #
Travis:
Your concern is, IMHO, valid. The problem with applying here, however, is that all of the scenarios in which AGW damages become significant, large growth in economic production is assumed. If global growth goes way, way down ove the next century, we would have some very serious problems, but human-induced climate change is unlikely to be one of them.
— Jim Manzi · Jun 26, 07:31 PM · #
And it’s what, your Ph.D. in climatology that allows you to come to that conclusion?
In what way does it “cut both ways”? 1% being only 1% of 100% is true; losing 1% of the world’s cities to inundation seems like a lot bigger deal than losing 1% of GDP or whatever to climate change prevention.
Secondly – why not buck the trend of conservative blogs and, you know, use some charts? Is there some rule at TAS about graphics on the front-page? Conor Clarke’s chart is so compelling because the difference in economic growth with and without WM is basically nothing. When you present a counter argument that describes data without presenting it, it makes me think you have something to hide. It’s part of what leads me to the general impression that the WM you’re talking about is absolutely nothing like what’s being talked about on your opponent’s blogs. You say the CBO reports a cost of $1100 to every family; I’ve seen numbers more like $250, or even -$40 to some individuals.
It kind of makes me think you’re being less than honest about all this.
— Chet · Jun 26, 08:25 PM · #
It was actually never the case that “global cooling” was predicted to be a catastrophe. How can you not know the whole “scientists used to predict global cooling” is a complete and total myth? I’m amazed that anyone would be so stupid as to derive an entire scientific consensus from one article in Newsweek.
— Chet · Jun 26, 08:27 PM · #
Chet:
No, those of the authors of the IPCC 4AR, which I have referenced in many, many prior posts.
As in, if (as even Conor accpets in his post) this shows poor cost-benefit over the period displayed, that means the benefits of W-M must be even smaller than the displayed costs.
You know your commenting on a post with a chart in it, right?
Chet, this is not the first time you’ve called me a liar. Fair enough. It doesn’t seem like you would want much dialogue with me then. I’ve decided to stop repsonding to your comments. I hesitated about this (I don’t think I’ve ever done it with any other commenter here), but I haven’t been called a liar by any of them repeatedly either.
— Jim Manzi · Jun 26, 08:38 PM · #
One critical point here. If the economy were to decline by 3%, we would — we are — calling it a severe recession. That 3% is not 3% on everyone and certainly not 3% on “the rich”. it’s going to fall heaviest on the poor and the middle class who be scrambling after the low-paying jobs that will be the first to go.
— Mike · Jun 27, 12:57 AM · #
Mike:
I don’t want to trivialize 3% of the economy – it’s a huge amount of money. The problem is that the fixes don’t eliminate the whole 3% (i.e., we don’t drive emissions to zero instantaneously) and these fixes have their own costs. The problem with W-M is that its a pathological case – the expected costs it imposes on us are much, much greater than the protion fo the damages it is expected to prevent.
— Jim Manzi · Jun 27, 01:17 AM · #
I appreciate that you guys are thinking carefully about this, and I wish I were able to follow the debate more closely. Perhaps this has been mentioned before, but I wonder if all of the analysis, expressed in terms of macroeconomic dollar-valued averages, misses the point.
Mr. Manzi, are you arguing that it is acceptable for some people to damage the climate shared with others if it results in a net increase of personal consumption? That is, consider a hypothetical scenario in which factory owners in China get very rich but the coast of Bangladesh is flooded as a consequence. Is your argument that this is an acceptable trade-off as long as the average consumption increase in China is greater than the average decrease in Bangladesh? It seems to me that this is a slippery slope in terms of fairness, and in terms of economic analysis may actually lead to lower overall utility. Are you aware of any analysis that has considered the utilitarian effects of this bill?
Another point, that I’m sure has been made before, is that it’s pretty clear this is a very complicated issue both economically and in terms of climatology. Wouldn’t the prudent thing to do be to try to slow down the rate of change until we have a better understanding of what we are dealing with? In other words, what happens when you take uncertainty into account? After all, the folks who priced credit default swaps thought their analysis was sound as well…
— Appreciative · Jun 27, 02:19 AM · #
Jim, we’ve heard all the doomsday arguments before. They sound exactly like the doomsday arguments against every environmental regulation since the Clean Air Act. “The economy will be destroyed, growth will stop, we’ll go back to the Stone Age.” Those didn’t come true. Why should we believe you now?
Limits on carbon emissions not only reduce the impacts of global warming, but also steer us toward better stewardship of our remaining resources.
Markets are, at best, imperfect at this because they tend to favor short-term reactions and ignore long-term consequences. Their institutional memories are nil. The modern market culture is “what did you do for me last quarter,” not “where will this company be in 15 years.” There is absolutely no concept of “what’s going to happen in 100 years.” But “what’s going to happen in 100 years” is of supreme importance if humanity wishes to continue modern civilization as we know it.
For example, if CAFE standards hadn’t been frozen for the last 20 years (while completely omitting SUVs), American auto companies might have had a greater incentive to develop fuel-efficient vehicles and hybrid drivetrains. Instead, they acted as if cheap oil was a birthright and paid little but lip service to fuel efficiency. Now, the piper is being paid. As a result of their (and our) supremely short-sighted behavior, foreign auto manufacturers hold an enormous technological advantage and our auto industry has collapsed.
Honda and Toyota looked to the future and innovated while General Motors and Chrysler looked to the past and stagnated. Now the first two are synonymous with “hybrid” while the latter two are synonymous with “failure.”
Here’s the cost-benefit analysis: we pass Waxman-Markey, lose $1,100 per family in GDP a century from now and reduce CO2 emissions, slowing the progression of global warming. We also gain the benefit of a market-driven push for more sustainable energy sources, reduced consumption (and hence longer-lived supply) of our finite hydrocarbon stocks, a cleaner atmosphere, fewer dollars spent on foreign oil, leadership in green technology, etc.
Or we do nothing, keep $1,100 per family in GDP (assuming a demand-driven oil shock doesn’t eat all that up with increased energy prices), keep dumping more and more and more and more CO2 into the atmosphere and just pray to Baby Jesus that global warming is all a myth made up by those scary atheist scientist types. Meanwhile, Japan and Europe continue to beat our pants off in fuel-efficient/clean fuel technology, we keep sending billions of dollars to Islamist Arab oil sheiks, peak hydrocarbon supply approaches ever more rapidly and we become a global pariah for refusing to do anything about global warming.
— Travis Mason-Bushman · Jun 27, 02:53 AM · #
Travis:
I’ve relied on the EPA’s estimate that the costs of Waxman-Markey would be about 0.8% of GDP. That’s not exactly “back to the stone age. It so happens that it’s also a lot more than the benefits this bill is projected to provide.
— Jim Manzi · Jun 27, 03:01 AM · #
Again Jim, that’s the same thing that was said about the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act. “It’s too expensive, the costs outweigh the benefits.”
Setting aside whether that’s true or not, cost-benefit analyses always ignore ecosystems, because the natural world has no value to economists beyond whatever they can harvest or strip-mine from it. Everything else is expendable.
What’s the cost of a receding glacier? What’s the cost of a drowned wetland? What’s the cost of a drought drying up streams?
I’m sure you could get a cost-benefit analysis that says we’d make a lot of money by drilling for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. Who cares about the wilderness? Who cares about the ecosystem it supports? Who cares about the caribou? They don’t have a price tag on them, therefore they’re valueless.
The benefits of slowing and possibly reversing global warming go far beyond anything you can slap a dollar value on. Unfortunately, it appears you’re of the breed that doesn’t care about anything but profit uber alles.
— Travis Mason-Bushman · Jun 27, 03:14 AM · #
Travis, your argument proves too much. When you assert that “the benefits of slowing and possibly reversing global warming go far beyond anything you can slap a dollar value on,” are you arguing that reducing carbon emissions should be done at all costs, regardless of the impact on economic growth and human wellbeing? You don’t argue this explicitly, of course, but it seems to be the logical outcome of your thinking. You basically are assigning non-economic “intrinsic” value to certain features of the “natural” world, and using that intrinsic value as a trump card to overcome Jim’s cost-benefit objections to W-M. That seems like a glide-path straight back to the Stone Age. I assume you would say that you don’t really want to go back to the Stone Age, but you don’t seem to have a principled basis for your line-drawing, so what would be your response to someone who (compared to you) embraces to an even greater extent an intrinsic, non-economic value on maintaining “natural” ecosystems at the expense of economic growth?
Also, on your own terms your argument fails, because real human beings will forfeit or forego real opportunities and experiences as a result of the decreased economic growth caused by W-M. Those opportunities and experiences are an important aspect of human flourishing, and likely have their own subjective, “intrinsic” value to persons who wish to pursue them. So who is to say that the non-economic costs of W-M will not also be greater than the non-economic ecological benefits that you believe will be gained?
— AJP · Jun 27, 03:52 AM · #
AJP, you’re taking the view that the only thing that matters is how much money we can make tomorrow and how many PS3s we can stick in our home theatres next week. Assuming that we as a species would like for human civilization as we know it to continue well into the future, it would be smart to consider the long-term impacts of our activities on the planet.
Yes, AJP, at some point economic growth and human wellbeing have to be subservient to the needs of the global ecosystem. Earth is the only planet we have, last I checked. If we screw it up, we don’t get to hit the reset switch and try again.
The state of our advanced civilization is, even now, one giant experiment testing the capacity of the planet to deal with anthropogenic impacts. The rate of those impacts has accelerated radically in the past two centuries, and the current rate of growth in human population and resource consumption is clearly unsustainable. At some point, we’re going to reach the limit of what Earth can handle.
As a species, we can either pretend these limits don’t exist and quite possibly go flying head-long over a cliff, or we can find ways to keep ourselves from reaching those limits, in an effort to sustain civilization as we know it as long as possible.
I would like to think that our species is smart enough not to destroy its only home. It’s possible that I’m wrong, however.
— Travis Mason-Bushman · Jun 27, 04:46 AM · #
I respond here:
http://correspondents.theatlantic.com/conor_clarke/2009/06/whats_the_point_of_reducing_carbon_emissions.php
if it’s stupid it’s only ‘cause I stayed up late writing
— Conor Clarke · Jun 27, 06:30 AM · #
I don’t understand this point, I guess.
Your chart sucks, frankly. Who taught you how to use Excel? You couldn’t pass a freshman science class with this material. Unless it was your intent to further obfuscate?
Well, you keep blowing off my concerns and using numbers and data I can’t reconcile with other sources. I’ve given you ample opportunity to explain yourself but you seemed to find my concerns risible, laughing them off with sarcastic quips about “disappointing me.”
So what exactly was I supposed to think?
Were you ever responding to them? That’s news to me. Take your ball and go home, I guess, but I don’t remember you bringing a ball in the first place.
— Chet · Jun 28, 05:45 PM · #
Paging Mark Levin … your argumentative style seems to be on the loose …
— John Schwenkler · Jun 28, 09:14 PM · #
For example, if CAFE standards hadn’t been frozen for the last 20 years (while completely omitting SUVs), American auto companies might have had a greater incentive to develop fuel-efficient vehicles and hybrid drivetrains. Instead, they acted as if cheap oil was a birthright and paid little but lip service to fuel efficiency. Now, the piper is being paid. As a result of their (and our) supremely short-sighted behavior, foreign auto manufacturers hold an enormous technological advantage and our auto industry has collapsed.
Sorry, Travis, but the notion that foreign manufacturers are healthier than domestics because of their commitment to alternative energy cars is ridiculous. Please provide any statistics you can find to back up your assertion. Correlation does not prove causation.
— jd · Jun 29, 01:53 AM · #
Jim, we’ve heard all the doomsday arguments before. They sound exactly like the doomsday arguments against every environmental regulation since the Clean Air Act. “The economy will be destroyed, growth will stop, we’ll go back to the Stone Age.” Those didn’t come true. Why should we believe you now?
There’s some irony in global warming alarmists challenging anyone for fearmongering about the future costs. Here’s what Travis wrote just a little further down:
What’s the cost of a receding glacier? What’s the cost of a drowned wetland? What’s the cost of a drought drying up streams?
Global warming folks predict unavoidable disaster on the order of Armageddon, (with video of lonely polar bears to prove it) and they say we’re guilty of doomsday arguments.
Well, as I said before, the doomsday folks like Paul Ehrlich have been disastrously wrong. Why should we believe people like James Hansen now?
— jd · Jun 29, 02:12 AM · #
@Chet
So basically you acknowledged that absurd challenge that Jim wasn’t a climate scientist was completely irrelevant and moronic, realized that your complaint about a graph was also ridiculous and decided to attack the quality of the graph, haven’t addressed any of the substantive points of the post/analysis and haven’t given any references yourself of your criticism.
Why do you expected to be taken as anything but a troll?
— Hiking · Jun 29, 03:16 PM · #
Hiking,
None of that happened. Are you sure you’re in the right thread?
— Chet · Jun 29, 03:40 PM · #
I have participated in this debate my entire adult life. This year I turn 60. A personal observation: If I have learned anything, it’s that we must preserve what we have, to the best of our ability.
I am libertarian in my social orientation (less so when it comes to economic issues). Live and let live. Still, I tell my kids to floss their teeth (every night!) and use sunscreen religiously so their teeth and skin will not look like mine 45 years from now. Protect your eyes and ears. There are many other examples.
Currently, my wife and I are remodeling our house. We’ve learned that local codes include many new regulations designed to preserve and improve the character of the community. We are spending significantly more than we expected in order to keep up with these regulations. And yet, I understand that these investments will increase the value and safety of my home. When the next big earthquake strikes, we have a good chance of surviving with little damage.
To those who complain that the doomsday theorists are wrong, I say, no. They may have been wrong in some particulars, but overall, we are witnessing serious degradation of the ecosystem. Every day I ponder the losses I see around me in the natural world. It’s hard to understand these changes by living day to day. But over 60 years, much has been lost.
To our credit, we have not been idle. And, because of the clean-air act and other regulations, we have saved many lives and dollars, and benefited from increased worker productivity as a result. What is that worth, Mr. Manzi? You know, it’s hard to assign a value to good health – at 60, with the benefit of hindsight, I now understand very well some things I might have done to improve my overall well-being in my later years. One might say that we can never foresee the consequences of our inactions. I say, err on the side of caution.
Now we come to the planet itself, and our human habitat within the ecosystem. I suggest to all that it is wise to strengthen and preserve what we have. Energy, time, and money we invest now will benefit everyone 100 years from now. This is not a zero-sum game. We can slow climate change and continue economic growth. This is a balancing act that requires judgment.
I applaud Mr. Mason-Bushman’s cogent remarks, most of which have gone unanswered (except by AJP, who is guilty of the zero-sum thinking I referred to earlier). And to Mr. Manzi, I suggest that you make a reasoned and comprehensive proposal that balances economic growth with ecosystem preservation. If you cannot make such a proposal, cease and desist from criticizing the efforts of those who believe in the value of preserving and improving our place on earth.
— Robert Ziegler · Jun 29, 07:38 PM · #
I’m not knowledgeable on the details of the issue compared to many of the posters here, but I was struck by this in AJP’s response to Travis:
The insistence on a “principled basis” is precisely where people like Manzi go wrong in this debate, I think. Precise quantification of costs and benefits, in accordance with economic/econometric theory, is an important and useful contribution to the debate, but the mistake lies in thinking that anything that can’t be precisely quantified in that way is not a serious element of the problem. The impulse seems to be to want to be as precise as possible in finding a solution, and then being led by that desire to a consideration only of the elements that are amenable to quantification.
In the case of global warming, that’s a big mistake, for reasons well-articulated by others (essentially: you can’t put an economic price on everything that is of real value). In response to the question “what about the guy who wants to take it back to the Stone Age?”, the answer is that we have to work it out along that continuum among all affected/involved parties. There might not be an algorithm for that (though, again, there is an important place for quantification in that discussion), but that’s how human beings work, and that’s the only way this problem can be handled in a way that doesn’t exclude parts that are of essential value.
If that seems “sloppy” or “sentimental,” well, sometimes reality is sloppy and sentimental, no matter how much you’d like it to fit entirely within quantificational schemes.
— hum · Jun 29, 08:20 PM · #
Interesting discussion, and far more cogent than most I observe lately. But I notice there’s no mention of climate tipping points.
“There’s some irony in global warming alarmists challenging anyone for fearmongering about the future costs.”
Very little, in my experience — not when so many on the other side (present company excepted) reflexively warn that any action to mitigate the effects of AGW will destroy the economy and kill millions of jobs.
But the main thing I’m concerned about here is whether I understand the chart. This projects world GDP will roughly quadruple by 2100, am I right? So, given the expected population in 2100, what’s the per capita income then, and what’s the effect of lowering it by 5 percent?
— Chris Winter · Jun 29, 09:06 PM · #
Very little, in my experience — not when so many on the other side (present company excepted) reflexively warn that any action to mitigate the effects of AGW will destroy the economy and kill millions of jobs.
I guess maybe you didn’t see “The Day after Tomorrow” or “An Inconvenient Truth” or those poor lonely polar bears having to swim from melting iceberg to melting iceberg, or the constant and neverending “greeniness” of every damn person and business appearing on television, radio, magazines, etc. And then of course, there’s Paul Krugman calling a vote against Waxman-Markey treason.
And I don’t really think there are that many people calling for doing nothing. It just sounds like that because we don’t like any of the doomsday solutions coming from the central planners in Washington. You, from those wonderful folks who gave us Fannie and Freddie.
— jd · Jun 29, 09:54 PM · #
Yeah, you know, when the habitat of polar bears is disappearing and their ability to survive as a species is under threat, showing them struggling to survive is not “fearmongering” – that’s pointing out the truth.
Meanwhile, all the “back to the Stone Age” doomsday predictions made about environmental regulations are provably false – we’re 40-plus years on from the Clean Air/Water acts, our air and water are demonstrably healthier and less polluted – and yet somehow our nation’s economic growth continued unabated.
Why? Because we figured out that, as Mr. Ziegler said, economic growth and environmental protection are not mutually exclusive. We can be a world leader in technology and commerce while protecting the land, water, air and ecosystem that sustain human life.
Yes, protecting the environment costs more in the short term than ignoring it. But I invite you to live in Los Angeles circa 1950 – or Beijing circa 2009 – to experience the alternative. And if you care about the land your children – and their children, and their children – will inherit, then paying a little more now is essentially the only option. Mother Earth is resilient, but even she has her limits.
— Travis Mason-Bushman · Jun 29, 11:46 PM · #
The point of bringing up the polar bears is that it’s questionable that their habitat is really shrinking: their numbers are way up. And those pictures of them “stranded” on ice floes?—they were dishonest. Polar bears can swim for sixty miles—that damn bear had simply stopped for a sno-cone.
I don’t believe that you can compare the environmental regulations we’ve already enacted to the scope of the global economic disarmament environmentalists are proposing today.
I seriously doubt that ALL the predictions are provably false. Yet my criticism still stands—that the doomsday prophesies of Ehrlich and Galbraith and the Club of Rome and the anti-nuke crowd were wildly wrong. And yet they were celebrated as prophets by the intelligentsia and media then as they are today.
And to say that our nation’s economic growth continued unabated is simply wrong. Where were you during the Carter years? Much of the gasoline problem then was due to government intervention.
And since we’re talking about things continuing unabated, here’s one: malaria. I guess it was good that DDT was banned. But people are dying as we speak from malaria, BECAUSE of the ban on DDT. DDT was banned because of the hysteria caused by Rachel Carson, another icon of the environmental movement.
Pardon me if I’m skeptical that the federal government can do anything without causing greater harm.
— jd · Jun 30, 02:46 AM · #
If DDT hadn’t been banned, it’s quite likely that our national symbol, the bald eagle, would no longer exist except in zoos. Along with virtually every other species of raptor.
I really shouldn’t need to explain how eradicating birds of prey from the global ecosystem would result in massive negative ecological consequences.
Besides, mosquitoes resistant to DDT are now widespread worldwide. Evolution has a way of making pesticides obsolete after awhile, particularly in species with high reproductive rates and short lifecycles.
Mosquito nets are a far more sustainable and effective method of preventing the spread of malaria – I don’t know of any mosquito species that have evolved the ability to cut through fabric mesh.
— Travis Mason-Bushman · Jun 30, 07:39 PM · #
jd wrote: I guess maybe you didn’t see “The Day after Tomorrow” or “An Inconvenient Truth” or those poor lonely polar bears having to swim from melting iceberg to melting iceberg, or the constant and neverending “greeniness” of every damn person and business appearing on television, radio, magazines, etc.
Your guess is wrong: I watched The Day After Tomorrow. I recognized it as entertaining fiction. I haven’t seen An Inconvenient Truth, but I’ve read enough about it to know that while it has defects, it’s substantially credible — enough so that a British court ruled it may be shown in classrooms if a printed disclaimer is provided. I’ll add that it is more credible than The Great Global Warming Swindle, which has also been shown on British and American television.
You may not like hearing warnings about environmental degradation, but you can’t claim the media are excluding coverage of the opposite side’s view.
And then of course, there’s Paul Krugman calling a vote against Waxman-Markey treason.
His point was actually that the treason is rejecting out of hand the decades worth of scientific studies showing us we’re facing a serious problem. I agree with him. In fact, I reached that conclusion a couple of months ago. See here:
http://www.chris-winter.com/Digressions/AGW/AGW_TruRant.html
And I don’t really think there are that many people calling for doing nothing. It just sounds like that because we don’t like any of the doomsday solutions coming from the central planners in Washington. You [know], from those wonderful folks who gave us Fannie and Freddie.
True, the Republicans are not calling for doing nothing, exactly. They’re just saying that we should expand our domestic supplies of oil and burn more coal to tide us over while we build those 100 new nuclear plants. Yeah, that’ll work.
Look, either you believe global warming is a serious problem, or you don’t. I believe that it is. I don’t think we’re facing imminent disaster from it, but I believe it may come to that if we delay action much longer. We don’t need a crash program. We do need a program. The Bush administration already tried “voluntary compliance” on environmental problems; we know how well that worked. The whole history of the environmental movement shows that progress requires government regulations.
— Chris Winter · Jul 1, 02:27 AM · #
I think it’s interesting that the tide is turning on the whole global warming debate. Skepticism is growing, as it should. Whatever the facts are, the environmentalists have been fearmongering this topic way too long. And they have brought us to the point of passing a truly stupid, destructive cap and trade bill in Waxman-Markey. Even my own congressman, the only PHD physicist in the House, voted against it because of the shameful way the Democrats have rushed it through.
What Obama and the Democrats are doing to this country right now is inexcusable. Obama is acting like the community organizer in chief, throwing everything at his adversaries at once, hoping they’ll just give up. Back in the 60’s it was called mau-mauing the flak catchers. It’s truly shameful. This man is truly dangerous.
— jd · Jul 1, 03:55 AM · #
It is, JD, but not in the way you think – the climate change denialists are basically on the run. They’ve been relentlessly proven wrong by the evidence and by the science, which of course has led to hilarious accusations of “a hoax perpetrated by the entire scientific community”, like that delivered on the floor of the House by Paul Broun Jr. (Shameful.)
What are they doing, JD, besides enacting an agenda overwhelmingly approved by the American people?
No. It’s just that, after 8 years of Bush, you forgot what it was like to be led by a man who was smart enough to walk and chew gum (or pretzels) at the same time.
— Chet · Jul 1, 03:43 PM · #
“Whatever the facts are, the environmentalists have been fearmongering this topic way too long.}
Do you even care what the facts are? Does your PhD physicist representative care about the laws of physics?
Read through this article:
http://www.theboywhodeniedwolf.com/2009/04/google-timeline-reveals-triumph-of-denialism.html
Now consider that, thirty years ago, responsible leaders might have heeded those warnings and begun to act on them. We might have developed more efficient cars. We might have changed building codes to cut energy waste in buildings. We might have done these things in a gradual, incremental way, with negligible economic discomfort. But our economic system was dominated by one simple doctrine: growth and short-term profits are everything, and to hell with the externalities.
Now, witness the result. The tide is turning all right, but not in the direction you think. And if the dislocation is painful, think of those lost years, and recall that short-sighted corporatist doctrine is to blame.
— Chris Winter · Jul 2, 03:10 AM · #
Commenters and commentators alike continue to make a fundamental error in responding to Manzi’s arguments, which is to take their risible basis in cost-benefit analysis seriously. As Kevin Drum and others have written, it’s simply impossible for a reasonable person to make the conclusions Manzi has made with anything remotely resembling confidence.
If all the assembled boy-genius set couldn’t predict this recession several years ago, what are the chances this under-qualified puffin can accurately project the course of the entire planet’s economy and climate for the next century?
In reading his work I can never figure out if someone is paying him to evince such monstrous egotism in the service of global warming denialism or if he’s genuinely so full of himself that he thinks his numbers mean anything. I suppose I’d guess the latter. What really puzzles me is why literate people take him seriously. Flim-flam, flim-flam, flim-flam.
— Mike Meginnis · Jul 3, 03:06 PM · #