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Is Waxman-Markey Worth It?
I've got a bit of a ramble teed up on climate change and the Waxman-Markey bill, which unfortunately means that my conclusion is going to be buried at the end of a long post. So if that's all you want to read, feel free to skip down to the last two paragraphs. The rest is just throat clearing.
Still here? Then here's the ramble. Over the past couple of weeks there's been a lot of blogospheric chatter surrounding a cost-benefit analysis of Waxman-Markey done by Jim Manzi. I'm not going to link to the dozens of posts going back and forth about it, but suffice it to say that Manzi concludes that W-M isn't a good deal. Over the next century, it's going to cost us more in lost economic growth than it will benefit us in reduced global warming.
I didn't get involved in this conversation for a simple reason: I've been on both the producing and receiving end of too many cost benefit analyses to trust them. 
If you're being relatively honest and if you're dealing with fairly concrete, short-term issues, they're useful tools, but even then it's still the case that you can manufacture strikingly divergent conclusions by manipulating your assumptions and inputs by surprisingly small amounts. Cost-benefits usually look like they're grounded in hardheaded thinking simply because they're numerically based, but quite often they're nothing of the kind.
And that's in the best case. Climate change is far worse. Not only are we decidedly not talking about concrete, short-term issues, but there's a huge asymmetry in what we can say about the cost side and the benefit side of fighting global warming.
On the one hand, you have the actual science of climate change. And although climate models are enormously complex and subject to considerable uncertainty, they're fundamentally based on physics, chemistry, and thermodynamics. We know how much CO2 we're pumping into the atmosphere and we can project with pretty good confidence how much that's going to increase over the next century if we do nothing to stop it. We know how the greenhouse effect works, we have pretty good historical records of how CO2 concentration correlates with global temperatures, and we have a pretty good sense of the feedback loops involved in things like melting icecaps and saturation of the ocean sinks. Basically, our level of uncertainty is within tolerable bounds here. And what we know is that if we do nothing, global temps are absolutely certain to rise 2°C over the next century, fairly likely to rise by 4-5°C, and at least somewhat likely to rise by 6-7°C. The lower number would be bad but, just possibly, manageable. You could at least make an arguable case, as Manzi does, that the cost of preventing an additional 2°C is higher than it's worth. The two bigger numbers, however, would be catastrophic. Unfortunately, the science increasingly suggests that these higher numbers are considerably more likely than we thought even a few years ago, and any serious cost-benefit analysis needs to address that. Using only the lower number avoids tackling the real problem we're up against.
So that's the climate analysis in a nutshell. On the opposite hand you have the economic analysis. And that's simply hopeless. An economic analysis that goes even ten or twenty years into the future is as much guesswork as anything else. One that goes a hundred years into the future is just voodoo. It looks like economics, but you might as well be throwing darts. Compounded over a century, even minuscule changes in assumptions and operating parameters produce enormous changes in your conclusions, and the result is that you end up deep in the weeds arguing over tiny differences in those assumptions instead of simply admitting that they're flatly impossible to forecast. That's good for slowing down the debate, but not much else.
(For a couple of more detailed versions of this argument, see Dave Roberts here and Patrick Appel here.)
So where we stand is fairly simple: we have a pretty good idea of what climate change is going to do to the planet, and we have a pretty good idea that there's at least a reasonable chance that the results are going to be catastrophic (and much more catastrophic for some than for others). However, we don't have a good idea of the economic impacts of addressing climate change, and we never will. The problem is simply too nonlinear and too long-term to be analyzable, especially when the differences between high-end and low-end projections are on the order of two or three percent. When it comes to climate change, cost-benefit on anything other than a very broad scale is a mug's game.
Still, let's grant several things. First, Waxman-Markey is a kludge of a bill. It's possible that its cost-benefit is negative, and it's almost certain that, by itself, its cost benefit is quite small even if it is positive. Second, W-M's carbon caps by themselves will probably have only a tiny effect on rising temperatures. Third, global warming is a hopeless problem if we don't get the rest of the world to address it too. If China and India and the rest of the developing world don't play along, nothing the U.S. and Europe do by themselves will be enough to halt it.
That's all true. So why support Waxman-Markey? There are all sorts of reasons. For one thing, it's a good start. Also: it may be hard to persuade other countries to join us, but it will be impossible if we aren't willing to do something ourselves. And although the cap-and-trade piece of the bill starts out weak, at least it puts in place the administrative framework we'll need down the road if and when we work up the will to address climate change more seriously.
But here's what I think is the overriding reason to support W-M despite its flaws: even if it's weak, and even if the rest of the world doesn't join in immediately, it starts to align incentives in the United States in favor of inventing and deploying green technologies. (Ditto for the ETS cap-and-trade system in Europe.) And that's critically important: it's in the advanced economies of the world that new green technologies will be invented. And it's in the advanced economies of the world that existing green technologies will be proven to work on a wide scale. Once that happens — once the technologies are proven and economies of scale start to bring down their costs — the rest of the world will start to adopt them too. W-M, in its final form, may not be a strong bill, but by raising the price of carbon even a little bit, it makes the development and deployment of green tech far more likely in the United States, and therefore, far more likely on a global basis too.
And that's critically important. Conservation and efficiency and cutting back are all necessary parts of addressing climate change, but human nature being what it is, that's never going to be enough. We're going to have to invent entire new technologies as well. W-M makes that more likely, and that's why it needs to be passed. Warts and all.
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The War Over Waxman-Markey
Pass a flawed climate bill now, or wait for a better one later?
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Waxman-Markey: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
The devil's in the details of the new climate bill.
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Updated, Full Text Version of Waxman-Markey Climate Bill
Read the full text version of the Waxman-Markey climate bill, complete with amendments.
Yep
I concur completely.
I shed more than a few tears in sadness over all the deficiencies in the bill. But it's what we have, it's a hell of a lot more than we've ever done, and it's a start.
The 1% solution
I think we should use Cheney's approach. If there is a 1% chance of a catastrophe, we should treat it as a certainty.
Getting richer a bit less quickly
I confess that I haven't read all the analysis, though I agree with Kevin's view on CBAs in general. But I'm guessing that what Manzi shows is that growth will be less with W-M than otherwise. That is, we'll become richer more slowly. If so, that's an odd position. It's to say that our *present* state of material abundance is so pathetic, so wretchedly meager that we must accept no risk at all that would keep us at, oh, somewhat higher levels of material abundance but not, mind you, the absolute highest level of material abundance possible.
There is a fetishism about growth. Yes, growth is wonderful. Becoming materially richer is wonderful. But would we really be worse off if GDP growth flattened somewhat but global temperatures didn't go up so fast or so far? We eke by with 3000 square foot houses now; can we deprive our children the right to 5000 square foot houses?
One of the ways of massaging a cost-benefit analysis is to say that anything the reduces the level of growth from its theoretical maximum is by definition a cost. It would be nice if people would examine that assumption more carefully.
Is Waxman-Markey worth it?
Your analysis is well done. We have to start somewhere. As we have heard so many times nowadays, "The perfect should not be the enemy of the good." (That is a problem to, that we have to hear this so often, sigh.)
After reading Malcolm
After reading Malcolm Gladwell's article about the new Chris Anderson book, I think there's a connection between some of his points about "the free economy" and cap and trade legislation.
He writes about the psychological impact of a service going from "almost free" to "free" and what a big difference that can make. I think the same is true of even the most watered down cap and trade legislation. Once emitting carbon goes from "free" to "almost free" I think we'll be surprised at how big the reaction will be from both producers and consumers.
There's a part of me...
There's a part of me that views Cap and Trade as a way to manage who gets the contracts to paint the deck chairs on the Titanic.
It's practically macabre for the Right to be worried about the economic consequences of trying to deal with AGW, when the reductions of emissions will be forced by the effects of peak oil anyway.
Well, at least we can take comfort that the last administration left us with a good start on renewable energy, a budget surplus, and a sound banking system. [/snark]
Of course you're right.
A lot of mistakes get made in these sorts of CBAs. The most obvious is a form of tunnel vision. Benefits of W-M are global, but we only care about our own local benefits. Clearly if you define local local enough you can make virtually any action seem too expensive. Then there are fallacies about what is a net cost. A tax, or wealth transfer is not a cost -if you consider the economic system as a whole. So rather than than account only for the costs of behavior changes -using less fossil fuels, and/or paying more for efficiency measures than would be done otherwise, they seek to total up the headline costs. And then we have the other costs from continuing BAU energywise longer, i.e. we will hit the fossil fuel depletion wall quite soon anyway, and many (but not all) of the actions promoted by WM will help us prepare for that day as well.
And of course at this point W-M is the only dog we got in this fight. If it goes down other key countries will use that as an excuse to also do nothing. Then we will use their inaction as an excuse to do nothing. And so on. That is what the enemies of action are hoping for, if they can find one stick-in-the-mud country they can derail the whole thing.
No, we don't need to "invent entire new technologies"
Kevin wrote: "Conservation and efficiency and cutting back are all necessary parts of addressing climate change, but human nature being what it is, that's never going to be enough. We're going to have to invent entire new technologies as well."
No, we don't have to "invent entire new technologies". The USA and the word have vast commercially-exploitable solar and wind energy resources, that can provide all the energy we need using today's technologies, which are already being deployed on a large scale all over the world. What we need to do is drastically accelerate the deployment of existing clean, renewable energy technologies. Wind and solar are already growing at record-breaking, double-digit rates year after year, but we need to grow them even faster.
As for "conservation and efficiency and cutting back", the USA is a profligate waster of energy, and the well-being of most Americans would actually be enhanced by reduced energy consumption, totally apart from the related pollution reductions. And remember that the point of conservation and efficiency is not "cutting back" on the goods and services we enjoy -- it is getting the same goods and services with less energy, which means at lower cost.
In contrast, much of the world -- the so-called "developing world" -- genuinely needs more energy to achieve even a basic standard of human well being. There are many millions of people, for example, who have no access to electricity. And the ONLY way to provide energy for these people is with clean, renewable energy sources. Global warming and other environmental problems aside, there isn't enough money in the world to build enough large, centralized coal or nuclear power plants and the grids to distribute their electricity to millions of people in rural Africa, China and India.
I'm sorry, but if you think
I'm sorry, but if you think the behavior of a system as complex as the global climate in reaction to an essentially unprecedented set of conditions over the course of a century is simpler to predict than the economic impact of a bill, you're a bit of a fool. Even with our great mastery of thermodynamics and physics, we can't predict the weather more than a couple of days in advance. Does this mean we should disregard global warming? Of course not; if nothing else, reducing our use of fossil fuels comes with a truckload of obvious benefits. But any cost-benefit analysis is even more useless than you suggest. Don't be surprised if the computer models of global warming turn out to be wildly inaccurate, one way or the other.
Weather is not climate
"our great mastery of thermodynamics and physics, we can't predict the weather more than a couple of days in advance"
Um, weather is not climate. Our mastery of thermo and physics very well explains that, on average, it is warmer in San Jose, Costa Rica than Nome, Alaska, and that, on average it is warmer during the summer than the winter. The fact that it doesn't predict the weather in either place in 5 days hence is not relevant.
Then....
....predict the climate change in 5 years, 10 years, etc with your models? Use a historical study to test your theory. I bet it wrong! It likes the long term economic models cited in the articles, useless. You have NO evidence that CONCLUSIVLY proves global warming IS human driven. We are about COERCE and FORCE everyone to live your VALUES. This mean forcing other to do what you want, you will do that at any cost, that is oppression. You vehicle for this is the STATE..
Credence in Cap and Trade is not warranted
I don't have the assurance that you do that cap and trade 'puts in place instruments that we need'. Cap and trade is great distraction. Unfortunately it also installs with it vested interests who want to continue trading this carbon derivative. There MAY be a revision or the bill could become a placeholder for something better....but this will be a monumental struggle in an arena that is highly non-transparent. Public outrage, perhaps when we experience an El Nino and high summer temperatures, will be difficult to focus within the obscurities of banking, borrowing, trading, etc.
Science
I would argue that your claim that economics is unpredictable only adds to the much larger inherent inability to predict climate. First, while I agree there has been a warming trend, it seems to have stopped around 1999-2000. I would also argue that our output of CO2 is dependent on economic issues as well as innovation, and therefore impossible to predict. All of these models are based on conjecture from a society that, 35 years ago, was terrified of the impending global cooling crisis. The lack of verification in climate science is astounding, as demonstrated by the Mann "hockey stick" graph used by the UN IPCC.
Another point to note about the cost-benefit analyses: Manzi's point was countered by some that said well, a 1% decrease in global GDP was too broad a statistic, especially considering that this 1% could include devastating hits to smaller, 3rd world economies. I would respond that if people are worried about 3rd world economies and countries (as they rightly should be), those countries have plenty of problems now. Not problems that may or may not occur based on some theorized models, but huge problems of violence, disease, and hunger, not to mention sanitation, right now. Wouldn't the money be better spent on that?
Warming science
The science of global warming is not nearly as certain as you think. There is some correlation of CO2 with temperature, but that does not prove empirically that adding CO2 to the atmosphere has caused the observed warming. Most climate-cycle researchers do not think that glacial cycles were CO2-generated. Because the greenhouse effect is a feedback loop errors in assumptions tend to be magnified - the errors could work either way, and warming could go faster than predicted (it already has, but it is still not absolutely certain that the warming is CO2-caused). We could even be past the point of no return - or be there before the current feeble proposals are superseded.
The House has spoken
The Senate worked on energy last year, but hasn't put in it's 2 cents on this bill. I think by the time it's over the Republicans may be in a curious position of wanting to vote against some things Blue Dogs & Republicans worked out together last year.
We might even see Repubs voting down "Drill here Drill now!"
Talk about California! Your
Talk about California! Your state is threatening to descend past chaos into Somalian style anarchy! I want to hear about it!
If nothing else so I can laugh at the Calitics guy that says the federal guarantee wouldn't be a bailout because California would get it together before it needed to be on the hook. God what an idiot. I want to sign up to tell him that but it seems petty even to me to sign up for that reason.
Do I understand correctly?
The outcome of Manzi's cost/benefit seems to be: In 100 years we'll all be dead, but we'll be rich!
Denialists - things that can hurt your credibility
Warming denialists: one way to totally discredit yourself is to say the world was terrified of global cooling 25 years ago. In fact there were a couple of articles about global cooling published in popular magazines. The world was not terrified. Global cooling never generated any serious traction in the scientific community. I was there.
Another way to discredit yourself is to confuse climate with weather. Weather is about short term statistical variations. Climate is about consistent long term trends. Just because I can't predict what number the roulette wheel will stop at on any one spin doesn’t mean I can’t know with absolute certainty the house is going to win in the long term.
Denialists
J. Frank Parnell:
I agree that the global cooling scare may have differed in scale, but it still shows how the public can get riled up by bad science, which is certainly the case here. While I don't deny the earth has shown a warming trend, this trend seems to have ended about 10 years ago. That's not "weather". Also, the earth has been warmer without high CO2 levels, which by the way, is only about .04% of the atmosphere. If a the science behind climate change theory were held to the same standards as that of the drug industry, there would be much less hysteria and much more practical discussion of how to move forward. Pushing forward legislation based on subjective projections and models of inference is not a good idea.
keep trying
"While I don't deny the earth has shown a warming trend, this trend seems to have ended about 10 years ago."
So why have the eleven warmest years on record been in the past 13?
http://uk.reuters.com/article/idUKL0314515220080103?pageNumber=2&virtual...
"That's not "weather"."
No, but there are annual fluctuations due to things like El Nino.
"Also, the earth has been warmer without high CO2 levels, which by the way, is only about .04% of the atmosphere."
What's that got to do with anything? Here's a gram of cyanide. What could a gram do to a 65 kg man?
the facts on cooling
"I agree that the global cooling scare may have differed in scale, but it still shows how the public can get riled up by bad science..."
Not only was there no scientific concern about cooling, as J. Frank Parnell says, there was no public getting "riled up". Not even close. And furthermore, it wasn't "bad science". If humans weren't massively interfering with the climate with CO2 and other greenhouse gases, and with particulates and aerosols, it's entirely reasonable that the earth might otherwise be heading into a gradual cooling phase. But these natural forces are swamped by anthropogenic effects.
Brad Blasiar, The fact that
Brad Blasiar,
The fact that CO2 makes up a small percentage of the atmosphere is irrelevant. That is like saying one cannot die from ingesting a cyanide pill because the poison would only make up a fraction of our total body weight.
I hope you can cite evidence for your statement that global warming ended 10 years ago. I wish you deniers could come up something new instead of the same old thoroughly debunked chestnuts.
As for the fetishism around economic growth that santamonicamr states above - I think Gailbraith nailed this one almost fifty years ago.
Economic growth allows us to ignore to some degree one of the biggest flaws in a capitalistic society - the innate tendency to move towards a handful of ultra-rich and the vast majority being dirt poor.
The fact is that once people achieve a base level of money to satisfy their basic needs they then compare themselves to their peers to determine if they 'have enough to be satisfied.'
Our constant growth capitalistic consumer society has placed us in a hamster wheel of constantly increasing consumption where we go faster and faster and yet never actually reach satisfaction.
There are some good ideas floating around about how to get out of this wheel, but such a huge change in world economics will take a lot of time and effort to accomplish. In the meantime the ultrarich, those with the power, see no need for change.
Tripp, I would really like
Tripp,
I would really like to know how a thinking human being comes to the conclusions you reach. Do me a favor. Get a book called "Commanding Heights". Read it. Learn something about the history of economics.
I really feel sorry for you. You seem to not live in reality as far as comparison of real economies and real societies. Of course, in your brain, their exists some utopia that finds some way of equal distribution of wealth without resorting to tyranny and despotism.
Think of a very simple argument. If the most fair distribution does not result from a free society - then equality of distribution must come from some form of government coercion. Yet the amount of information gathering on private citizens to correctly redistribute must certainly destroy privacy. And after all this information to effect a so-called more equitable distribution is gathered, do you honestly think you can find an oligarchy that is willing to use this information to achieve an equitable distribution, and not pad the coffers of the loyal people who keep the oligarchy in power.
Freedom is the best hope for mankind. We do not need a better economic system, we need free people who learn to act charitably on the basis of love. Any form of government coercion, given the current state of humans, will result in tyranny. Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Replies
Actually, my point is that there isn't enough scientific evidence to justify the theory of climate change:
http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/globaltemp/globaltemp.html
These are the same authors that showed the Mann "Hockey stick" graph was just bad science and statistics
http://climatechangepsychology.blogspot.com/2009/02/stephen-mcintyre-ros...
Other factors can include the sun:
http://www.mpg.de/english/illustrationsDocumentation/documentation/press...
or magnetic field/solar wind interference
http://www.springerlink.com/content/xq081101k5l3272r/
"Such claims have now been sharply contradicted by the most comprehensive study yet of global temperature over the past 1,000 years. A review of more than 240 scientific studies has shown that today's temperatures are neither the warmest over the past millennium, nor are they producing the most extreme weather - in stark contrast to the claims of the environmentalists.
The review, carried out by a team from Harvard University, examined the findings of studies of so-called "temperature proxies" such as tree rings, ice cores and historical accounts which allow scientists to estimate temperatures prevailing at sites around the world.
The findings prove that the world experienced a Medieval Warm Period between the ninth and 14th centuries with global temperatures significantly higher even than today."
http://www.michaelkeller.com/news/news575.htm
Jesse Ausubel of the Rockefeller Institute has research showing that industrialized nations have been decarbonizing for years, without government intervention or lawyers.
http://phe.rockefeller.edu/IndustrialPhysicistWhere/where.pdf
And if "denialists" are the ones so unwilling to provide evidence, why do the Democratic Party and Al Gore refuse to have a public debate between actual scientists on this issue? Plenty have been willing, and have been turned down. I would hope we can all take a lesson from Galileo that the most dangerous aspect of science is when a point is proven based on a "consensus" of scientists. That's patently ridiculous; science is a hypothesis that is testable and reproducible.
Again, my point in my original post was that there is not enough information about possibly the most complex (and non-linear/chaotic, by the way) system man knows. There are so many possible variables, and so many conflicting reports, that to declare victory and begin legislating is both foolish and dangerous. There are much better ways to spend our money, including better research into climate science.
Forgot
I almost forgot this recent release from the Polish Academy of Sciences, which note that CO2 levels are typically preceded by rising temperatures, rather than indicating future rising temperatures.
http://www.dakotavoice.com/2009/06/polish-academy-of-sciences-report-sla...
keep trying 3
Really the treasure trove of denialist spin, aren't we, Brad? The relationship to CO2 and temperature at the end of ice ages is nicely explained here
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2004/12/co2-in-ice-cores/
keep trying
Essex et al. debunked here
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2007/03/does-a-global-temp...
and here
http://rabett.blogspot.com/2007/03/once-more-dear-prof.html
Also noted with interest your "review, carried out by a team from Harvard University" doesn't actually name who did the review, or give what peer-reviewed scientific journal it was published in. An oversight, I'm sure.
Let's see, your or "magnetic field/solar wind interference" claims that this effect may be responsible for 18% of the observed 20th century warming. BFD.
What's dangerous and foolish, to use your phrase, is to ignore a clear scientific consensus. As Kevin points out in his post, the downside risks are too high.
If you want to be taken seriously, Brad, at least by me, put your money where your mouth is and bet that temperatures will not continue to increase in accordance with predictions by IPCC and others. Try
http://julesandjames.blogspot.com/2005/06/betting-summary.html
and
http://backseatdriving.blogspot.com/2005_05_01_backseatdriving_archive.h...
Otherwise, I'll conclude that you just want to risk everyone else's health and welfare, but none of your own dough.
Prosperity and jobs
The crucial consideration is that global warming will require massive changes in lifestyle and those lifestyle changes will require manufacturing and technological skill. Which ever country best develops those capabilities will have the greatest economic growth. We knew that peak oil was coming and that prices would rise. Toyota took that as the impetus to create the Prius and they are now in the position to reap this bounty for years to come. There will be similar stories in the future and Americans will either have those jobs selling to the rest of the world, or they will be buying from the rest of the world. The W-M is the prototype for future prosperity.
"even if it's weak, and even
"even if it's weak, and even if the rest of the world doesn't join in immediately, it starts to align incentives in the United States in favor of inventing and deploying green technologies."
Gee, if only there were a way to test this theory.
Oh yes, there is. Let's go check out what happened in Europe.
...................
Ed Finerty's pithy summary of Europe from Yglessias' post on this subject:
So EU 15 is down about 200 MT from 1990 - Germany is down about 250 MT - so EU15 excluding Germany is up 50 MT - Germany is a bookeeping fiction due to unification.
This is a good example of the type of reporting we can look forward to in the GHG fantasy world. Meanwhile, in the reality based community it keeps going up, up, up.
......................
My somewhat longer and more detailed comment from the same post:
Plumer’s article on the supposed wonders of CO2 emissions trading is, basically, bullshit; the sort of obfuscation of numbers that one expects from AEI and Heritage, not from someone supposedly trying to inform the public.
Look at the actual CO2 numbers for the various EU-15 countries. It’s not hard — get them through Wolfram Alpha.
The major reduction, 12% or so, is in Germany, and we all know why that happened — shutting down obsolete plant in East Germany. Look at the other major countries: France has been basically flat for the last twenty years, and is up slightly from 1990. Italy is up substantially. Spain, in spite of its windmills, is up more than 30%.
The ONLY EU country I can find that actually seems to have made a minor reduction that isn’t obvious is Sweden.
So let’s review. Plumer tells us “But on closer inspection, the ETS seems to be working pretty well” and “found that the cap-and-trade system was driving real changes in business behavior”.
This is PRECISELY the sort of nebulous bullshit that South Park justifiably skewers whenever it brings up the subject of hippies and environmentalists. Let’s review. The goal here is NOT to have a “working cap and trade system”. The goal is not even to have “real changes in business behavior”. The GOAL, the ONLY GOAL, is to reduce CO2 emissions enough to severely reduce upcoming climate change. This is not a fscking religious issue, where what we have to do is get people to spend more time thinking worthy thoughts about Gaia, yet, like the standard “raising awareness” stupidity we hear all the time, that is Plumer’s metric for success. Even Plumer’s own guessed at future dots for EU emissions show basically business as usual for the indefinite future.
And the article makes no sense, even by Plumer’s metrics — if cap-and-trade has such strong effects EU-wide, then why such dramatic variations in the behavior of different countries? How come cap-and-trade isn’t persuading Ireland (emissions up 23% since 1990), or Greece (up 27%), or Portugal (up 41%) to do anything to reduce emissions? After all, it’s not like Greece had some sort of uber-sophisticated infrastructure in 1990 that is so difficult to improve. Gee, could it be that, in fact, cap-and-trade remains, in 2009, crap-and-talk, a moronic scheme that has done fsckall to change the world, and will continue to do fsckall?
Thanks for the 5th grade
Thanks for the 5th grade level analysis of Global Warming in the fifth paragraph. I think this is about the same level that most serious proponents of GW understand.
The problem is that the same 5th grade analysis has been presented by liberal scare mongers on a whole host of environmental issues. Basically, linear thinking leaves out all kinds of non-linear factors which are not apparent in the short run, but swamp the effects in the long run.
I mean, ask yourself why enviro-alarmists have always overestimated the time to clean up environmental problems. They do not think in non-linear terms. Only in linear trends.
So for whatever reason, like maybe that the earth's average temperatures have leveled off recently, the public is not buying GW. This means that a cap and trade system will fail.
But we must act now, says the enviro-alarmist.
Why should I trust a group of people who have traditionally been not just wrong, but very, very wrong. Why should I trust them with something as important as the American economy?
Consider two scenarios
1. We adopt Waxman-Markey like draconian measures and cut the productivity of the American economy way down. Even with subsidies for research the overall cuts that have to take place will stifle the creativity that will allow cleaner energy forms to be discovered.
2. We continue for now to exploit the cheapest forms of energy available in fossil fuels. The recovery of the economy and the productivity allows even more energy research than would happen under the wrecked economy of scenario 1. More careful GW research is able to be done to build not a shaky case, but a definite case for whether GW is a problem or something insignificant. The research opportunities provided by a strong economy allow free market discovery of efficient clean energy that is better than what would be discovered under the politically run research provided under scenario 1.
Many of you will certainly reject scenario 2 considering it the rantings of a "free-market" freak. But ask yourself, are you rejecting it because of personal ideology or historical precedent. I think history is on the side of scenario 2, others may have different opinions.
keep trying 4
"I mean, ask yourself why enviro-alarmists have always overestimated the time to clean up environmental problems. "
Too funny!
http://www.seattlepi.com/local/268605_hanford01.html
"Why should I trust a group of people who have traditionally been not just wrong, but very, very wrong. "
Oh, stop, I can't take any more!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ozone_depletion
Seriously?
Jeff S.:
You are continuing to miss my point. There is continued, if not growing skepticism, both scientific and otherwise, surrounding the climate change theory.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124597505076157449.html
It is a non-linear system. I am not trying to say that CO2 levels definitely have nothing to do with global warming, or that the earth has not warmed over the last 30 years, if not the last 8. What I am saying is that there are so many hundreds, if not thousands, of variables in this system that to say "Hey, look, this one tiny part of the atmosphere is increasing, that must be it" is ludicrous. Too, most climate science is not held to a high enough standard, and politics has overtaken the debate, as evidenced by your use of the word consensus. There need be no consensus in science, just one scientist with replicable results. That doesn't seem to have happened, again due to the complexity of the issue, and I'm sure we could both continue posting more and more articles refuting one another. That is exactly my point. Instead of having Al Gore attempt science, there needs to be some double-blind type studying, with independent groups performing and analyzing the data. The EPA needs to be more like the FDA, whose criteria revolves around double-blind studies. Any Psych 101 student can tell you the danger and folly of any other type of setup, especially in this type of charged debate. And is there a way for me to place a small bet? I would contend I've already bet quite a bit by choosing to live in New Orleans for my professional career, but seeing as it hasn't started yet, and I'm still a poor grad students living off loans, I don't have any money, in my mouth or anywhere else for that matter.
Quick extra point, the reason debate on this subject is so difficult is because people insist on inserting ad hominem attacks that have no place in this type of discussion. Assuming I just don't want to "pay" for decreasing CO2 is not only unfounded, but lazy on your part as you obviously didn't read much of my first post. I think the money can be much better spent elsewhere, especially in the midst of all the problems the country and the world faces right now. I want more debate and de-politicized science, not a half-assed bill filled with handouts that, as a few recent commenters have indicated, will likely do next to nothing.
Placed that bet yet, Brad?
"You are continuing to miss my point."
No, Brad, I get your point just fine. Just don't buy it.
"There is continued, if not growing skepticism, both scientific and otherwise, surrounding the climate change theory."
And you linking to a WSJ op-ed to make your point! An OpEd that cites "Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe now counts more than 700 scientists who disagree with the U.N. " Bull pucky. Not 700, not scientists. Too funny!
http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2009/04/inhofes_list_of_prominent_sci...
"It is a non-linear system."
This is widely known. Nice of you to notice.
"Instead of having Al Gore attempt science.."
Ah, yes, the obligatory Al Gore reference. So classy! Noticed that very wingnutty Dakota Voice piece you linked to above featured that heavily.
Cite some peer-reviewed science, preferably in a respected science journal, that demonstrates "growing scientific skepticism". You can spare me your Psych 101 musings.
And yes, there is a way for you to place a small bet. We'll be waiting.
"The EPA needs to be more like the FDA"
This quote really cracked me up. The FDA is hardly an organization that should be emulated in any scientific endeavor, where the pharmaceutical company itself performs the human testing of the new drug submitted for approval by the FDA.
There is also the issue of Big Pharma providing a percentage of the FDAs funding through payment of new drug approval fees. This is hardly a system to be copied. Finally, I can't envision a way for climate researchers to use double-blind or triple-blind studies in its area of interest.
As for Galileo, although his support for Copernican heliocentrism was not supported by most astonomers of his time, it was the Catholic Church that found his scientific theories to be heretical and that submitted him to the Inquisition where he remained basically under house arrest for the remainder of his lifetime. I wonder if there isn't a similar 'belief' issue at stake in GW denialists' efforts to debunk GW theory.
Correction
meant to say 'Copernican non-heliocentrism'
AAAARRRRG!
Had it right the first time....
The whole basis of the cooling baloney
Is to pick the record maximum date, for any metric, then any straight line drawn from there to the present proves its cooling off. Of course if you did that on your statistics exam, you would get a well deserved F. But, in propaganda class, you might get an A. And heck, since maximum records are fairly rare -even in a strongly warming system, it will almost always work.
The CO2 input is actually the biggest unknown
"We know how much CO2 we're pumping into the atmosphere and we can project with pretty good confidence how much that's going to increase over the next century if we do nothing to stop it."
In fact, probably the biggest source of uncertainty in the longterm climate projections is the human response. As you note, we know the physics a lot better than the economics, let alone the result of popular response to major disasters.
not just worse
Kevin wrote, "and we have a pretty good idea that there's at least a reasonable chance that the results are going to be catastrophic (and much more catastrophic for some than for others)."
This is actually not quite right. If the temperatures grow by 6-7 degrees Celsius, that is, if climate change is catastrophic, then it won't me more or less catastrophic for some. It will be game over for every last one.
Not just bad. Not just painful. Not just unfortunate. But, THE END. All of us gone. All of us dead. Humans, gone. Life on land, very nearly gone. Life in the oceans, decimated (literally).
6-7 degrees is game f'ing over for pretty much all life on this planet. It's a restart. A new Earth with a new beginning. It's not worse for some of us and better for others. It's the literal end of us.
When the benefit is "not the end of most living things, including us" I'm pretty sure that the costs can be pretty steep and still come out on the positive side in a cost benefit analysis.
@ Asa Dotzler Dude, this
@ Asa Dotzler
Dude, this sort of hysterical rhetoric is NOT HELPFUL. A 6 to 7 degree C temperature increase means less food and more dead people. It does not mean the near-end of life.
Or, to put it differently, plot for us the mechanisms that lead from a 6 to 7 degree hotter world to extinction of human kind.
Look, I am quite willing to concede that, under pressure of lack of food and dwindling oil some crazy country (probably the US) thinks the solution to all its problems is to nuke someone else. And, conceivably, if that spins out of control, that gets us to nuclear winter and all that implies. But I assume this is not the scenario you had in mind...
Carbon tax-shift
I think Waxman-Markey, or, more specifically, the cap and trade portion of Waxman-Markey, is TOO weak, especially when there is a superior and less complicated alternative available. I just hope that Congress has the fortitude to start again with the alternative that the leading scientists and economists have been advocating since the beginning: a revenue-neutral carbon tax.
Waxman Markey and global warming
Although I think we should press forward with Waxman Markey and Obama's energy plan, I consider it insurance, not a prescription for success--I agree with Brad above about the undertainties involved.
Because of difficulties in measuring temperatures accurately, it is becoming clear that we are not certain about the temperature record on land in the US (and probably the world), at sea (as of yet, but the Argos buoys once calibrated will certainly help), in the air (as we do not have good temperature measurements of the tropical troposphere) and the record from space is too short to satisfy longitudinal requirements.
Of course the Real Climatrons will dispute these points by calling me and the sources of some of the dispute 'denialists' etc., using the same astroturf talking points found on their cultist website run in part by Michael Mann and Steig, referred to above for statistical analysis that was sloppy at best, fraudulent at worst, and wrong in any case.
But CO2 is rising, and the temperature plateau of the last decade should give no comfort to us, and we need to start building the infrastructure to respond to whatever level of climate change ensues.
However, climate modelling is not a done deal as yet, and we should spend some time and effort improving them.
Fake "journalist" Fuller at it again
Tom Fuller is a deliberate liar who churns out product for the Ditto-Head market at the San Francisco Examiner vanity-publishing site. He dishonestly pretends to be a "journalist" while he cuts-and-pastes ExxonMobil-funded, pseudo-scientific sophistry and outright lies that he plagiarizes from right-wing websites.
He castigates the RealClimate website -- which, unlike his phony-baloney, ExxonMobil-funded "sources", is written and maintained by real, practicing climate scientists who conduct and publish major, original research in the field -- in his comment above because he was thoroughly humiliated for his blatant dishonesty, and his rubbish was demolished when he tried to peddle it there.
In short, he is a reprehensible, self-serving fraud.
I just wanted to throw in a
I just wanted to throw in a link that shows that world temperatures are not going down or plateauing, they are still going up.
The mean temperature in this decade is higher than the mean temperature in the 1990s which was higher than the 1980s which was higher than the 1970s.
People who try to use one year to make their point are just showing they're not serious (hey this week is cooler than last, I guess that means summer is over).
Why stop at the 70s?
I notice you stop at the 70s. Why?
Because the 70s were cooler than the 60s which were cooler than the 50s which were cooler than the 40s which were cooler than the 30s.
Although this past decade has been the warmest in a long time, the 30s were just as hot as the 90s. Where were the LOONEY LIBERALS back in the 30s ?????
"it starts to align
"it starts to align incentives in the United States in favor of inventing and deploying green technologies. (Ditto for the ETS cap-and-trade system in Europe.) And that's critically important: it's in the advanced economies of the world that new green technologies will be invented. "
I would agree with this for a good cap and trade bill. But this one exempts all of the worst polluters and the farming repercussions. So it kills the incentives for deploying green technologies in the areas that count. So I don't think we can use this as a reason to support *this* bill. (Unless we believe that this bill will morph later, but I think that is less likely than getting it passed in the proper form at the beginning. Regulatory capture tends to *increase* over time after bills are passed, not decrease. So background farm subsidies and coal exemptions are likely to get worse as the bill fades into the background of the administrative process because then farm interests and coal interests will be the only strong lobbies pushing, the countervailing forces doing other things).
Say it in pictures
To get a pretty good idea at what various temperature rises mean take a look at the two figures at the link one from the IPCC WG2 group on the effects of global temperature rise and the other from the Stern report. They say pretty much the same thing, up to ~2 C the dangers are small, above 3 catastrophic. Since this is turning an ocean liner, getting to a 2 C change pretty much means you will exceed 3 in a relatively short time.
http://rabett.blogspot.com/2007/12/return-of-fat-bird-eli-and-ms.html
For example for an increase of 4 C there would be ~ 30% loss of costal wetlands.
Also, in discussing temperature change it would help if everyone noted what units they are using 1 C ~ 2 F
Real Climatrons
Hey there, Secular Animist--thanks for dropping by to prove my point so quickly. We can always count on the Real Climate rabid response team.
Oh Brad
Again with the "CO2 is such a tiny component it cannot have a big affect" line of reasoning?
I can see you at the Doctors. "Hey, Doc, I'm sick and seem to have the symptoms of arsenic poisioning, and I have been eating arsenic, but it is such a tiny amount compared to all that I eat I have to believe it is my water intake that is causing my symptoms."
Tripp
Hansen, Can you do more than
Hansen,
Can you do more than put words in my mouth? Where did I say anything about a fair or equal distribution about anything? Do you disagree that a flaw in any free market is the tendency for someone to get an early lead, which gives him/her an advantage, and that tends to increase over time until ultimately there is one winner and all the rest losers, at which time trading stops? Sheesh, even the sainted Adam Smith knew about this. Why the hell do you think Economics was called the Dismal Science for all those years? Since the 'winners' have a huge aversion to any 'sharing' of their winnings, even it it allows the market to continue, we needed a different solution. A constantly increasing market was the answer. Don't you remember making the pie higher?
But the problem with a constantly increasing market is that it is not sustainable because of physical limitations. And it also puts us on a treadmill of ever increasing consumption to keep up with ever increasing production.
And are you seriously proposing that the real solution to this situation is to somehow change people, including the utra rich, so that they give away most of their money out of love?
Just how do you suggest we get the ultra-rich to voluntarily give away what they refuse to give away when coerced by taxes? It sounds like you are suggesting the ultra rich tax themselves, which I agree that would work if the amount was large enough.
So how do we get the ultra rich, without coercion, to tax themselves? I'm all ears.
Tripp