Solution to Global Warming? Easy! Stop Economic Growth.
Finally, we've got some clarity on the subject of climate change. Gathering in sunny, fun, cruise-ship-friendly Cancun -- and how do they pick these places? -- global environmental bureaucrats are fretting in keynote speeches and breakout panels about just how to stop the climate from changing.
One paper to be delivered has the solution: stop economic growth in the west. From the Daily Telegraph:
In one paper Professor Kevin Anderson, Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, said the only way to reduce global emissions enough, while allowing the poor nations to continue to grow, is to halt economic growth in the rich world over the next twenty years.
Stopping economic growth is an outlandish and crazy idea, right? I mean, how could anyone manage to pull that off? Think of the complicated moving parts that would have to work together. First, you'd have to create an enormous public sector pension problem, then add to it tax hikes, then figure out some way to pile on huge government deficits, then engineer, somehow, a money-printing central bank and top it all off by enacting enterprise-killing regulations. Impossible!
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Aug '10
Re: Solution to Global Warming? Easy! Stop Economic Growth.
chadn737
...but I also see a problem with the mainstream trend on the center-right which ranges from skepticism to outright denial.
That outright denial is problematic, I grant you, Chad. But skepticism problematic?
A healthy, honest skepticism (and I admit not all skepticism is honest -- skepticism can be adopted in bad faith) is not a problem. A decent amount of it is necessary for good science.
I consider myself a "soft skeptic" on AGW, and I don't consider my position problematic, but honest:
The computer models being used still don't reflect the real world in important ways, like cloud-formation. And while some may laugh at citizen-scientists zealously investigating whether our temperature stations are in fact in honest locations, can we say it harms science for them to check this? Etc.
Also, when science is centrally funded, as it is, it's no big surprise that funding goes towards research likely to support a desired conclusion rather than research likely to question it. Not acknowledging the possibility of institutional bias would be silly.
These issued don't make AGW unreal, but they do make it less well-understood than many of us may think.
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Edited on Nov 30, 2010 at 8:07amAug '10
Re: Solution to Global Warming? Easy! Stop Economic Growth.
A few years back, a "world-renowned" environmentalist (so he calls himself) and writer, Lawrence Solomon, undertook a rather interesting project:
Solomon has a morbid (and I think unwarranted) fear of nuclear power, and the good sense to realize that if AGW is really as imminent a danger as it's portrayed, nuclear power may be our only hope. So he set out with an agenda: to find reputable climate scientists who expressed doubt about the threat of AGW and interview them.
He compiled the results into a book called "The Deniers". The deliberate irony of the title is that these scientists are not outright deniers: they merely have doubts about their own area of research.
A pattern emerges: these scientists generally trust what their colleagues outside their own area of expertise have to say about AGW, but when it comes to their own area of expertise -- their own research -- they are uncomfortably aware of a surplus of unanswered questions.
So everyone is believing everyone else, but doubting himself.
Of course, he was only interviewing doubters. But to have more confidence in a stranger's results than your own strikes me as an... interesting way to do science.
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Edited on Nov 30, 2010 at 8:31amAug '10
Re: Solution to Global Warming? Easy! Stop Economic Growth.
For what it's worth, I also look on the AGW issue as a game of poker:
If a person says the threat of AGW is dire, but isn't willing to embrace nuclear power, I figure he's bluffing.
AGW is either worse than nuclear power, or it isn't. If it's worse, then embracing nuclear power is the logical and moral choice. If it's not worse than nuclear power, though... well, how bad can AGW be? France practically runs its grid on nuclear power, after all.
Edited on Nov 30, 2010 at 8:42amAug '10
Re: Solution to Global Warming? Easy! Stop Economic Growth.
Chadn737 is absolutely correct. By engaging in denial about the basic facts of global warming, the opposition is fighting AGW proponents on ground where they are strongest. This is simply a poor tactical choice, whether or not you believe there is some cause for skepticism.
By keeping the debate at this level, the right has allowed the debate to be framed like this:
1. debate whether CO2 is a greenhouse gas, and man is warming the planet.
2. If you lose that debate, you must accept the draconian big government plans we have outlined.
In reality, the debate should be framed like this:
1. It's very probable, but not certain, that man has cause the Earth to warm to some degree.
2. Given that probability, what are our options?
As you move away from the basic science of CO2's contribution to the greenhouse effect, and man's contribution to CO2 levels in the atmosphere, the AGW arguments begin to become less well grounded. Even accepting that man has so far contributed to warming the planet a bit, extrapolating future trends is not easy. Coming up with an effective strategy is even harder.
Jul '10
Re: Solution to Global Warming? Easy! Stop Economic Growth.
Man may be having an affect on climate change, but it is slight. Note that the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa was equivalent to 200 megatons of TNT – about 13,000 times the nuclear yield of the Little Boy bomb that devastated Hiroshima and four times the yield of the Tsar Bomba, the largest nuclear device ever detonated. The eruption ejected approximately 21 km3 (5.0 cu mi) of rock, ash, pumice, and assorted gasses into the atmosphere which is more than man has since he appeared on earth.
The solution? Given that weather patterns are going to change due to sun spot activity and natural disasters such as Krakatoa will continue to occur regardless of what we do, it’s hubris on stilts to assume that man can do anything about climate change. Let all nations become comparatively wealthy as those that are take the best care of the environment. Also
Jun '10
Re: Solution to Global Warming? Easy! Stop Economic Growth.
And since we brought up Bjorn, I find him to be the best source/path for conservatives to go beyond the skepticism typical of the right. http://bit.ly/g6DMGw 17 minutes. or http://bit.ly/gucby1 1 hr.
Society will not slow down (it might crash, but that outcome is moot).
Solar technology is the only known solution that will work. We will continue our current "doubling" of cost-efficiency/use of solar every 2 years. This technological compound interest creates exponential growth. 2-year doubling will increase our cost-efficiency/use by 1000 times in 20 years. http://bit.ly/fepRHW Solar is about 1/2 of 1% now. It will supply 95% in 20 years, even though we will use 5 times as much energy globally.
(I assert that Nuclear is a suicidal technology. Terrorists will to use it against us, and if society does collapse, this threat - and accidents - increases exponentially.)
BTW, the only AGW skeptic question that matters is cloud feedbacks. As Roy Spencer's statistics work gets integrated it will change the models downward. And, if the feedbacks end up not being positive multiples (which I expect) we have ample time for technological solutions.
Nov '10
Re: Solution to Global Warming? Easy! Stop Economic Growth.
chadn737:
I know most here will disagree with me, but the science is real. Our climate is changing and it is being driven in part by human causes.
Edited on Nov 29 at 08:55 pm
I don't want to pile on or anything, but I can't help thinking that the phrase "the science is real," steals a lot of intellectual bases in a way that "allows the left to control the debate" on the science of climate change.
Referring to "the science" of climate change implies a unified field of study that I'm not sure exists. Climate science is an almost impossibly complex, multi-faceted beast that involves fifty or sixty interdisciplinary areas of study, each with varying degrees of certainty. I don't think anyone truly disputes the fossil record, or tree rings. But the computer modeling used to predict average global temperatures 50 years from now is an entirely different and much less reliable story.
Not to mention stories like this...
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/330/6006/957.abstract
... which is basically "whoops, just kidding about those disappearing rainforests."
May '10
Re: Solution to Global Warming? Easy! Stop Economic Growth.
age of earth: 5 billion years
life on earth: 4 billion years
what are the chances that the environment is "fragile?"
Oct '10
Re: Solution to Global Warming? Easy! Stop Economic Growth.
Chris Nowak
Referring to "the science" of climate change implies a unified field of study that I'm not sure exists. Climate science is an almost impossibly complex, multi-faceted beast that involves fifty or sixty interdisciplinary areas of study, each with varying degrees of certainty. I don't think anyone truly disputes the fossil record, or tree rings. But the computer modeling used to predict average global temperatures 50 years from now is an entirely different and much less reliable story.
You are right, there are widely diverging fields of study in climate change. Unfortunately due to the format here, I don't exactly have a lot of room to elaborate every nuance of what is implied when the word "science" is used. The left treats the modeling as if it as the same as other parts, but unfortunately so does many on the right. This is another one of the problems in the way "skepticism" is applied. Its not as bad as saying "Global Warming is false because Al Gore says so," but its borderline. There's the predictions, but then there is the actual measurements that are used to show that the globally average temperatures have increased.
Oct '10
Re: Solution to Global Warming? Easy! Stop Economic Growth.
Modeling is necessary work to make predictive hypotheses. In their failure, they also point out those areas where knowledge is still missing. For instance critics have pointed out that changes in Global Mean Temperature has been relatively flat since the late 90s despite continued increases in greenhouse gasses. An earlier Science paper this year showed that this flattening was due to decreases in atmospheric water vapor (also a greenhouse gas) during the past decade in comparison to levels in the 80s-90s which helped increase the rate of warming.This drop in water vapor during the past decade was due to increases in sea surface temperatures in specific regions of the ocean.
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/327/5970/1219.abstract
The point being that there is a significant and growing body of research based upon actual measurements of global temperatures and the effects of atmospheric gases on them. There is uncertainty inherent in all research, but the same uncertainty that applies to the physical science is far removed from the uncertainty inherent in predictive modeling and one should not be used as a criticism of the other and certainly not as a basis for dismissing the entire enterprise.
Oct '10
Re: Solution to Global Warming? Easy! Stop Economic Growth.
outstripp: age of earth: 5 billion years
life on earth: 4 billion years
what are the chances that the environment is "fragile?" · Dec 1 at 4:10am
You're right. The environment changes and is not 'fragile."
We are.
We have over 6 billion people who we can barely feed and who we cannot provide adequate clean water to. That's the real threat of climate change. Our agricultural productivity is based on water intensive usage. Even without climate change there are water shortages not just in the third world, but here in the US.
The threat of climate change is not melting glaciers and rising oceans. Its the increased variability that is introduced into things like rainfall. Most people consider rain an inconvenience. My family farms. the rain can dictate your entire livelihood. This year my father was unable to plant an entire field because rain was so intense this spring that conditions would not allow it. I'm not saying that's due to climate change, I'm illustrating the point that the basis for our entire food supply is dependent upon a very fickle thing, the weather. The increased uncertainty due to climate change is a threat.
Nov '10
Re: Solution to Global Warming? Easy! Stop Economic Growth.
Sure, computer modeling is obviously necessary when you're trying to predict the future. But the policy fights are about what those predictions say, not what the physical record of ice samples from Antarctica look like . No one is ever says, "We have to cap carbon emissions today in order to change what happened in the past."
And those predictions are, as you say, hypotheses. They're scientists' best guess based on limited information and shifting standards. As you say, it turns out water vapor behaves differently than people thought it did. As another poster pointed out, it turns out clouds might have a different effect on overall temperatures than people thought they did. And it turns out that the Amazon rainforest - that world famous "carbon sink" - behaves differently when faced with rising temperatures than people thought it would. Just seems like it's a far cry from "the science is settled."
Edited on Dec 1, 2010 at 8:53amAug '10
Re: Solution to Global Warming? Easy! Stop Economic Growth.
I understand. (I did material-science modeling as an undergrad, and my husband does nothing but modeling to keep a roof over our heads.)
I'm well aware of the difference between uncertainty in physical science and the uncertainty of predictive models: my husband and I see a lot of predictive models gone fantastically awry -- most often from hubris, or as Taleb would put it, the ludic fallacy.
People get so attached to their models that they forget to ask themselves why they should be able to expect their model to reflect reality in the first place. It's worse than physical uncertainty.
No, not to dismiss it. We need predictive modeling: we can't just dismiss it. But it's not unreasonable to ask for a bit more epistomological modesty from the modelers. That is all.
Aug '10
Re: Solution to Global Warming? Easy! Stop Economic Growth.
chadn737: An earlier Science paper this year showed that this flattening was due to decreases in atmospheric water vapor (also a greenhouse gas) during the past decade in comparison to levels in the 80s-90s which helped increase the rate of warming.This drop in water vapor during the past decade was due to increases in sea surface temperatures in specific regions of the ocean.
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/327/5970/1219.abstract
But do also please keep in mind, Chad, that the flattening of temperature has caused a lot of scientists to go looking for something to explain it away. Their grants and livelihoods -- even their egos -- may depend on it.
That does not make what they've found wrong a priori. Not by any means! Nor is going looking for something bad science -- on the contrary, it's how science is done. But it would be naive not to acknowledge the incentives the scientists face to explain the flattening away.
Edited on Dec 1, 2010 at 9:46amAug '10
Re: Solution to Global Warming? Easy! Stop Economic Growth.
Chad, have you investigated the Cato Institute's suggestions for environmental policy?
There are a lot of libertarian steps that could be taken to make our lives easier on the environment. For all the "green" initiatives our government likes to flatter itself with, the truth is that government distortion causes or exacerbates a staggering amount of un-green behavior. So why not start with curing the government's bad behavior before we give more license to the government to impose and enforce "green" behavior?
Examples: Remove some of the positively superstitious government barriers to nuclear power. Stop having the government subsidize fossil fuel and shelter fossil-fuel workers' unions. Quit the price-supports on sugar, which produces ethanol efficiently, and the weird subsidies to corn, which doesn't, and let ethanol fuel production in this country evolve naturally -- I bet it'd work better that way. Overhaul the many agricultural policies which do our environment no good whatsoever.
There already are plenty of green steps which won't compromise conservative or libertarian values. And they're usually ignored by the "mainstream".
Oct '10
Re: Solution to Global Warming? Easy! Stop Economic Growth.
Midget Faded Rattlesnake
But do also please keep in mind, Chad, that the flattening of temperature has caused a lot of scientists to go looking for something to explain it away. Their grants and livelihoods may depend on it.
You make it sound as if this were some sort of devious undertaking rather than being how science works.
That is the basis of science. Make an observation and then look for a cause. There is nothing nefarious about observing rising global temperature means followed by a flattening and then looking for the underlying causes in that change. That's no different from what I do when I observe changes in gene expression and then look for a cause.
Its not "explaining away." That's the equivalent of sweeping it under a rug.
What they have done is illuminate what is happening. Scientists have to produce results to compete in grant funding, but I'm sick of this notion that its like they are running some sort of scam. Or that new findings like that I referenced are a cover up. They aren't but that is what you imply and its also the narrative that the right likes to tell.
Oct '10
Re: Solution to Global Warming? Easy! Stop Economic Growth.
If we are going to argue that there is underlying bias in the motives of the scientists who study climate change, then to be fair we should recognize that there is underlying bias in the motives of conservatives in denying or being skeptical of the science.
Its not hard to see. Conservative economic policies are based upon free markets. Climate change is used by the left as ammo against Conservative economic policies. The Right therefore has an underlying motive for being skeptical of climate change. You need look no further than the premise of Rob Long's original post. The left wants to use climate change as an excuse to stop economic growth.
Most people here probably think I'm a bleeding heart right now. I do not advocate any of the solutions proposed by the left, but I do take strong issue with the tactics used by climate change skeptics on the Right. Be skeptical, but be skeptical for actual Scientific reasons, not because you think that every climate change study is part of a plot by scientists to secure funding or because you don't like somebodies politics or because of bad extrapolations. That's bad logic.
Aug '10
Re: Solution to Global Warming? Easy! Stop Economic Growth.
I do not deny that such is the case. In fact, I freely admit it.
We all have biases and interests -- it's the human condition -- and rather than pretending we haven't, let's just be honest about them, then do our best from there
I never suggested it's just "part of a plot". That's a mischaracterization of what I said -- you should have the intelligence and honesty to realize that.
Considering how exterior motivations might bias someone's work is not "unscientific" -- it's part of good science. It's part of metacognition. It can be overdone, but it's not inherently illogical. It's more illogical to never do it.
And bad extrapolations matter.
Edited on Dec 1, 2010 at 11:22amAug '10
Re: Solution to Global Warming? Easy! Stop Economic Growth.
Chad, I don't know how much science you've done, but as a person who's done it myself, who's been mentored by people who do it, and who has close friends -- on both the left and right -- who are quite advanced in their fields, I want you to know something.
Perhaps you already know it, but if so, you're not writing in a way that demonstrates your awareness of it:
The image of The Scientist as a totally objective creature who sees only what's there, undeluded by what he's looking for, is a myth -- jointly cooked up by non-scientists who don't understand the process and those scientists who enjoy having outsiders regard them as superhuman.
Science is an intensely human endeavor, very much entangled with our biases, blind spots, egos, and ambitions. True, scientists receive special training to discipline themselves, but the discipline can only guide human nature, not eliminate it.
For all their special gifts, for all their rigorous discipline, scientists are still human. Why is it controversial to point this out?
Nov '10
Re: Solution to Global Warming? Easy! Stop Economic Growth.
chadn737:
Be skeptical, but be skeptical for actual Scientific reasons, not because you think that every climate change study is part of a plot by scientists to secure funding or because you don't like somebodies politics or because of bad extrapolations. That's bad logic. · Dec 1 at 9:53am
I will admit to being just about the furthest thing in the world from a scientist. But I don't understand why it's wrong to be skeptical of bad extrapolations.