Global Warming...New Report...and it ain't happy news

Foxfyre wrote:

Well I guess the motives of the research group is to make money.....and I wonder who might be willing to pay for research that debunks the benefits of hybrid vehicles?

Who would want a study like that?

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Foxfyre wrote:

I guess there is probably truth and error in both arguments though Toyota, without looking deeper into the research group funding, etc., would certainly have more reason to make themselves look good while the research group would appear to have far less motive to exaggerate facts or numbers.

The very same could be said for a research paid by a US automobile manufacturer, isn't it?

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The worst effects of climate change will be felt by the poor
How the worst effects of climate change will be felt by the poorest
By Michael McCarthy and Stephen Castle
Published: 07 April 2007
Independent UK

Humanity will be divided as never before by climate change, with the world's poor its disproportionate victims, the latest United Nations report on the coming effects of global warming made clear yesterday.

Existing divisions between rich and poor countries will be sharply exacerbated by the pattern of climate-change impacts in the coming years, predicted in the study from the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

Increased drought, crop failure, disease, extreme weather events and sea level rise are all likely to fall much more heavily on struggling populations in Africa, Asia and South America than on the rich industrial societies of Europe, North America and Australia - who have done most to cause global warming through greenhouse gas emissions in the past, and who are best able to afford counter-measures to limit its consequences.

This picture of great inequity and a great climate divide was seized on by aid agencies and environmental pressure groups. "Governments must act now to stop a catastrophe for the world's poor," said Benedict Southworth, director of the anti-poverty charity the World Development Movement. "Climate change is no longer just an environmental issue, it is a looming humanitarian catastrophe," said Friends of the Earth International's climate campaigner, Catherine Pearce.

The IPCC chairman, Rajendra Pachauri, said in launching the report: "The poorest of the poor in the world - and this includes poor people in prosperous societies - are going to be the worst hit. People who are poor are least able to adapt to climate change."

The study, endorsed by all the major UN member states, was the second part of the IPCC's Fourth Assessment Report, or AR4. The first part, released in Paris two months ago, dealt with the science of climate change and likely future temperature rises. Yesterday's report goes on to detail the potential impacts of those rises on the natural world and on human society.

It was released in Brussels only after an all-night argument in which some countries responsible for increasingly high greenhouse gas emissions, led by China, the US and Saudi Arabia, succeeded in watering down the text from its initial draft.

However, the picture painted by the final consensus document was stark enough, setting out the dire consequences of global warming, sector by sector and region by region, if strong action is not taken to limit its effects.

The impacts are already visible, the report said, with significant changes due to rising temperatures now apparent in ice masses, water bodies, agriculture and ecosystems. Changes consistent with higher temperatures have been noted in 29,000 sets of data and 75 separate studies; they range from melting permafrost in Arctic regions to shifting distributions of fish populations, and earlier timing of spring events such as leaf-unfolding, bird-migration and egg-laying.

But it is the future impacts that are potentially catastrophic. The report sets out changes likely in the years to come in freshwater resources, food, coastal systems, communities, health and natural ecosystems.

In the last-named, they are quite extraordinary. Up to 30 per cent of plant and animal species so far assessed are likely to be at increased risk of extinction if increases in global temperature exceed 1.5-2.5C, the report says.

A picture of a great climate-change divide between rich and poor countries becomes startlingly visible in the report. Africa is the worst case. Some of the projected changes are horrifying - and only just around the corner. "By 2020, between 75 and 250 million people [in Africa] are projected to be exposed to an increase of water stress due to climate change," the report says.

African agricultural production is projected to be "severely compromised by climate variability and change," with decreases likely in the area suitable for agriculture, the length of the growing season and yield potential. "In some countries, yields from rain-fed agriculture could be reduced by up to 20 per cent by 2020," the report says.

Asia is not far behind, with many negative impacts expected. They include a water "double whammy" as Himalayan glaciers irreversibly melt - first, increased flooding in glacier-fed rivers from the meltwater, then decreased water resources as the glaciers disappear.

Asian coastal areas, especially the big cities in the seven "mega-deltas" from India's Ganges to China's Yangtze, will be at greatly increased risk of flooding, with an associated increase in death to due to diarrhoeal disease, while by 2050, crop yields in central and south Asia may drop by 30 per cent.

In Latin America, water supplies available for human consumption, agriculture and energy generation are predicted to be "significantly affected" by changes in rainfall patterns and the disappearance of Andean glaciers. Parts of the Amazon rainforest are likely to turn into semi-arid savannah.

In the richer continents the effects, at least in the short term, will not be as severe, and will be easier to defend against. Indeed, some may be beneficial for a time: in the warming atmosphere, crop yields in North America may rise by up to 20 per cent, and there may be some agricultural benefits for Australasia. Europe will have to deal with the likely disappearance of skiing, more heatwaves and an increase in flash flooding - but not starvation.

However, in the long term, the report says, any temporary benefits will be overwhelmed by the damage rising temperatures will wreak all over the globe.

The children who will pay the price for climate change

Ziaul Islam, BANGLADESH

Catastrophic flooding, associated waterborne diseases and shortages of drinking water, all caused by climate change, are likely to figure increasingly strongly in the life of Ziaul as he grows up in Bangladesh.

Ernestina, MOZAMBIQUE

Hunger is likely to play an increasingly distressing role in the life of Ernestina as she comes of age in Mozambique, with much of Africa's agriculture becoming unviable because of the rising temperatures.

Raul Bucardo, NICARAGUA

Extreme weather events, such as Hurricane Mitch which devastated his country's capital Tegucigalpa in 1998, may become an increasingly regular and hazardous fact of life in Nicaragua where Raul lives.

Luke Telos, SOLOMON ISLANDS

The violence of the sea may loom ever larger in the life of Luke from the Solomon Islands, as rises in sea levels threaten small islands with bigger storm-surges.

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This report/research group is great. Check out the level of detail in their study. Shocked

Quote:

This included, for example, the distances workers
traveled to assembly plants; the use of mass transit and/or private vehicles; the types of vehicles
driven; distances from home to plant.

So because Toyota might manufacture their vehicle in a city that has poor mass transit those costs get added in to this research.

Interesting approach................and obviously irrelevant.

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Walter Hinteler wrote:

Foxfyre wrote:
I guess there is probably truth and error in both arguments though Toyota, without looking deeper into the research group funding, etc., would certainly have more reason to make themselves look good while the research group would appear to have far less motive to exaggerate facts or numbers.

The very same could be said for a research paid by a US automobile manufacturer, isn't it?

She said that she wasn't going to look into the research groups funding Walter. She's making conclusions based on appearences instead of facts.

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maporsche wrote:

And what if we are causing GW? The increase in temperature, the increased levels of CO2, and the levels of CO2 emissions from cars/factories/power plants, etc have risen concurrently for the last 50-70 years. Correlation does not prove causation, but still it does provide some strong evidence to support it.

I'll go further than that - I'll -grant- that humans are, at the very least, a major contributor to global warming/climate change, for the sake of argument.

How much do we actually have to reduce emissions in order to halt global warming? NOBODY is talking about this number. We know that the Kyoto numbers are not that figure - Kyoto was designed to get the emissions framework in place, and tighten up on emissions later on, not that it succeeded even in that. But how much do we have to reduce emissions? This is a tremendous factor in making the economic decision on whether to reduce emissions or not! If we're talking a number on the order of five to ten percent, okay, that gets into crash project range, we can do that with a strong nuclear power plant program. If we're talking twenty percent, we really need technological advances that we don't have. If we're talking FIFTY percent, then obviously amelioration is going to be a hell of a lot cheaper than emissions reduction.

So which is it? The fact is, the same model that gives us warming projections (flawed and untrustworthy as it is - not that the programmers and scientists involved are working in bad faith, but this is the big momma of chaotic systems and our record of long-term prediction of such things is terrible) also gives us a figure of what CO2 emissions would yield no warming, or at least a lot less warming. This number isn't publicized, though, and likely it's because it would be more or less ruinous to the cause - that is to say, the required cuts are so big that they obviously aren't going to happen. I would be greatly surprised to find that it was, in fact, a smaller number; anyone have the actual figure for me?

(Think about it like this... if they came out with a revolutionary new anti-smog device for your car, that you could put in afterwards, and it only cost twenty bucks to install it, practically everyone would do it. But if it cost twenty THOUSAND to install it, practically nobody would. And if the government said you had to have one to drive, we'd have a new government the next week. ;p)

Of course, none of this addresses the role of China or India, who will sign an emissions reduction treaty, literally, the day hell freezes over. Forcing heavy industry out of western nations and into third-world nations with poor pollution controls is not, I'm afraid, a net positive for the environment OR the nation. How do you get around that? Violent conquest? Surely you understand that no amount of diplomatic anything is going to get either of those countries to agree that they can just leave hundreds of millions of people in subsistence-farming conditions forever.

Finally, if we're going to talk about it in terms of "we should do something about it whether it's us causing the problem or not", here's another question... what -is- the ideal temperature? So long as we have our finger on the thermostat, what's the number we should be shooting for? Keep in mind that the amount of semi-frozen wasteland far exceeds the amount of places where an extra degree or two makes the land inhospitable; you've got to balance agricultural enhancements against possible microclimate disruption... it's a complicated question that nobody's answering. So should we? I mean, if we're going to seek stasis at all, it should be the best stasis, right?

Without answers to these three questions, pretending we're going to do anything about global warming is a joke. First, how hot/cool do we want it to be in the first place? Second, how the hell do we institute a global emissions regime when at least 2/5ths of humanity are absolutely opposed to the idea, and manufacturing can move to that territory? Finally, even if you answer the first and manage the second, how much of a cut are we talking and how much will it COST? Once we have that temperature, that political plan, and that budget on the table, then we can have the discussion over whether we should act or not.

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Avatar ADV wrote:

maporsche wrote:
And what if we are causing GW? The increase in temperature, the increased levels of CO2, and the levels of CO2 emissions from cars/factories/power plants, etc have risen concurrently for the last 50-70 years. Correlation does not prove causation, but still it does provide some strong evidence to support it.

I'll go further than that - I'll -grant- that humans are, at the very least, a major contributor to global warming/climate change, for the sake of argument.

How much do we actually have to reduce emissions in order to halt global warming? NOBODY is talking about this number. We know that the Kyoto numbers are not that figure - Kyoto was designed to get the emissions framework in place, and tighten up on emissions later on, not that it succeeded even in that. But how much do we have to reduce emissions? This is a tremendous factor in making the economic decision on whether to reduce emissions or not! If we're talking a number on the order of five to ten percent, okay, that gets into crash project range, we can do that with a strong nuclear power plant program. If we're talking twenty percent, we really need technological advances that we don't have. If we're talking FIFTY percent, then obviously amelioration is going to be a hell of a lot cheaper than emissions reduction.

So which is it? The fact is, the same model that gives us warming projections (flawed and untrustworthy as it is - not that the programmers and scientists involved are working in bad faith, but this is the big momma of chaotic systems and our record of long-term prediction of such things is terrible) also gives us a figure of what CO2 emissions would yield no warming, or at least a lot less warming. This number isn't publicized, though, and likely it's because it would be more or less ruinous to the cause - that is to say, the required cuts are so big that they obviously aren't going to happen. I would be greatly surprised to find that it was, in fact, a smaller number; anyone have the actual figure for me?

(Think about it like this... if they came out with a revolutionary new anti-smog device for your car, that you could put in afterwards, and it only cost twenty bucks to install it, practically everyone would do it. But if it cost twenty THOUSAND to install it, practically nobody would. And if the government said you had to have one to drive, we'd have a new government the next week. ;p)

Of course, none of this addresses the role of China or India, who will sign an emissions reduction treaty, literally, the day hell freezes over. Forcing heavy industry out of western nations and into third-world nations with poor pollution controls is not, I'm afraid, a net positive for the environment OR the nation. How do you get around that? Violent conquest? Surely you understand that no amount of diplomatic anything is going to get either of those countries to agree that they can just leave hundreds of millions of people in subsistence-farming conditions forever.

Finally, if we're going to talk about it in terms of "we should do something about it whether it's us causing the problem or not", here's another question... what -is- the ideal temperature? So long as we have our finger on the thermostat, what's the number we should be shooting for? Keep in mind that the amount of semi-frozen wasteland far exceeds the amount of places where an extra degree or two makes the land inhospitable; you've got to balance agricultural enhancements against possible microclimate disruption... it's a complicated question that nobody's answering. So should we? I mean, if we're going to seek stasis at all, it should be the best stasis, right?

Without answers to these three questions, pretending we're going to do anything about global warming is a joke. First, how hot/cool do we want it to be in the first place? Second, how the hell do we institute a global emissions regime when at least 2/5ths of humanity are absolutely opposed to the idea, and manufacturing can move to that territory? Finally, even if you answer the first and manage the second, how much of a cut are we talking and how much will it COST? Once we have that temperature, that political plan, and that budget on the table, then we can have the discussion over whether we should act or not.

So what is it you suggest we do? I see a lot of questions, but no suggestions.

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maporsche wrote:

Walter Hinteler wrote:
Foxfyre wrote:
I guess there is probably truth and error in both arguments though Toyota, without looking deeper into the research group funding, etc., would certainly have more reason to make themselves look good while the research group would appear to have far less motive to exaggerate facts or numbers.

The very same could be said for a research paid by a US automobile manufacturer, isn't it?

She said that she wasn't going to look into the research groups funding Walter. She's making conclusions based on appearences instead of facts.

Excuse me. WHERE did I say that? And HOW am I making conclusions on appearances instead of facts any more than you are? You cited a rebuttal from Toyota and I addressed a rebuttal by Toyota that you posted. If you wanted me to comment on anybody other than Toyota, you should have posted rebuttals from other than Toyota. And where is all the authoritative scientific evidence from Toyota that qualifies them to state their position on this if scientific evidence is the criteria necessary to have a discussion on this?

Criticize me at will--everybody does--but at least don't put words in my mouth that I didn't say or assign intent to me that I don't/didn't have.

Sheesh, try to have a friendly conversation with somebody and that's what it gets you.

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Avatar ADV wrote:

maporsche wrote:
And what if we are causing GW? The increase in temperature, the increased levels of CO2, and the levels of CO2 emissions from cars/factories/power plants, etc have risen concurrently for the last 50-70 years. Correlation does not prove causation, but still it does provide some strong evidence to support it.

I'll go further than that - I'll -grant- that humans are, at the very least, a major contributor to global warming/climate change, for the sake of argument.

How much do we actually have to reduce emissions in order to halt global warming? NOBODY is talking about this number. We know that the Kyoto numbers are not that figure - Kyoto was designed to get the emissions framework in place, and tighten up on emissions later on, not that it succeeded even in that. But how much do we have to reduce emissions? This is a tremendous factor in making the economic decision on whether to reduce emissions or not! If we're talking a number on the order of five to ten percent, okay, that gets into crash project range, we can do that with a strong nuclear power plant program. If we're talking twenty percent, we really need technological advances that we don't have. If we're talking FIFTY percent, then obviously amelioration is going to be a hell of a lot cheaper than emissions reduction.

So which is it? The fact is, the same model that gives us warming projections (flawed and untrustworthy as it is - not that the programmers and scientists involved are working in bad faith, but this is the big momma of chaotic systems and our record of long-term prediction of such things is terrible) also gives us a figure of what CO2 emissions would yield no warming, or at least a lot less warming. This number isn't publicized, though, and likely it's because it would be more or less ruinous to the cause - that is to say, the required cuts are so big that they obviously aren't going to happen. I would be greatly surprised to find that it was, in fact, a smaller number; anyone have the actual figure for me?

(Think about it like this... if they came out with a revolutionary new anti-smog device for your car, that you could put in afterwards, and it only cost twenty bucks to install it, practically everyone would do it. But if it cost twenty THOUSAND to install it, practically nobody would. And if the government said you had to have one to drive, we'd have a new government the next week. ;p)

Of course, none of this addresses the role of China or India, who will sign an emissions reduction treaty, literally, the day hell freezes over. Forcing heavy industry out of western nations and into third-world nations with poor pollution controls is not, I'm afraid, a net positive for the environment OR the nation. How do you get around that? Violent conquest? Surely you understand that no amount of diplomatic anything is going to get either of those countries to agree that they can just leave hundreds of millions of people in subsistence-farming conditions forever.

Finally, if we're going to talk about it in terms of "we should do something about it whether it's us causing the problem or not", here's another question... what -is- the ideal temperature? So long as we have our finger on the thermostat, what's the number we should be shooting for? Keep in mind that the amount of semi-frozen wasteland far exceeds the amount of places where an extra degree or two makes the land inhospitable; you've got to balance agricultural enhancements against possible microclimate disruption... it's a complicated question that nobody's answering. So should we? I mean, if we're going to seek stasis at all, it should be the best stasis, right?

Without answers to these three questions, pretending we're going to do anything about global warming is a joke. First, how hot/cool do we want it to be in the first place? Second, how the hell do we institute a global emissions regime when at least 2/5ths of humanity are absolutely opposed to the idea, and manufacturing can move to that territory? Finally, even if you answer the first and manage the second, how much of a cut are we talking and how much will it COST? Once we have that temperature, that political plan, and that budget on the table, then we can have the discussion over whether we should act or not.

Baby steps, yo - at first, we do what we can. Technology will allow us to do more later. Proper planning of new automobiles, factories, and cities will allow even more.

You say that,

"Once we have that temperature, that political plan, and that budget on the table, then we can have the discussion over whether we should act or not."

But that's ridiculous. There are benefits to acting on climate change that are independent of any other consideration whatsoever; for example, cleaner emissions not only helps with GG levels, but makes the air... nicer to breathe.

What we really need to do is entrench the mindset that this is an important issue which needs to be addressed. I mean, honestly; we're talking about the atmsophere of our planet. We're talking about terraforming our own planet. It will take hundreds of years to have the effects we really wish to see; to say that we can't get started at all until we understand the entire several-hundred year long plan, and the whole cost, is like trying to eat a sandwich in one big bite. Better to take small bites.

Cycloptichorn

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The poor of this world have much more to fear from the authoritarian anti development intentions of the AGW fanatics and cultists who tend to view humanity as some sort of contagion on an otherwise benign planet and ecosystem, than they do from the popular fantasy of catasthrophic global warming.

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georgeob1 wrote:

The poor of this world have much more to fear from the authoritarian anti development intentions of the AGW fanatics and cultists who tend to view humanity as some sort of contagion on an otherwise benign planet and ecosystem, than they do from the popular fantasy of catasthrophic global warming.

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georgeob1 wrote:

The poor of this world have much more to fear from the authoritarian anti development intentions of the AGW fanatics and cultists who tend to view humanity as some sort of contagion on an otherwise benign planet and ecosystem, than they do from the popular fantasy of catasthrophic global warming.

Specifics, please. I have asked many times in the past for specifics on these predictions, and they are never given. Please show me that your accusation that the plan I proposed - moving forward into the future with the intent of trying to make our environment habitable in the long run - will harm the poor more than global warming will.

If you can't provide specific ways in which it will harm people, I'm going to have to assume that it is nothing more than fearmongering by the pro-pollution crowd.

Cycloptichorn

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Here's another from the small but growing chorus protesting the "Do as I say and not as I do" proclamations from the pro AGW cultists probably including most or all of their scientists, spokespersons, and advocates. It is becoming more difficult to believe they are as concerned about AGW as much as they insist that the rest of us should be concerned.

Do as our eco saviours say, not as they do
Caroline Overington
April 07, 2007

AS everybody knows, Sydney is the most vibrant and liveliest of Australian cities, so it's no surprise that dour environmentalists decided that Sydney - glorious, glittering Sydney - should be the first Australian city to suffer through Earth Hour. Earth Hour? Yes, it was a very bad idea, organised by a group known as the WWF. Not the wrestlers, apparently, but the World Wildlife Fund.
The idea was to get businesses in Sydney's central business district to turn off their lights for an hour. The organisers made it easy for them: they planned the event for last Saturday night, when most buildings were empty; and for March, when the weather was mild; and for 7.30pm, when shoppers had gone home.
The point, apparently, was to show how easy it might be to conserve some energy and to throw a metaphorical spotlight on the problem of climate change.

There was a great deal of excitement - a rival newspaper, The Sydney Morning Herald, gave up all semblance of unbiased analysis and printed itself on green paper the day before - but it fell quite flat: the great plunge into darkness never really happened. Street lights, security lights and other lights stayed on throughout Earth Hour; football was played under those giant, mosquito squatter-style mega-lights; concerts were held; cars stayed on the road; and so forth. Children could be heard complaining that their glow-sticks could barely be seen in what was gloom, as opposed to darkness.

Still, this newspaper decided to cover the event as if it were news, and on Sunday, when I came in to work, I was assigned to speak to WWF chief Greg Bourne about Earth Hour. Trouble is, try as I did all day, I couldn't find him. Why not? Because Bourne wasn't around. He was on an aeroplane.

Now, why should that matter? Well, Bourne knows this as well as anyone, but air travel is one of the worst things you can do if you believe you are trying to save the planet. On one calculation, about 11 tonnes of carbon dioxide a person are generated when flying return from Sydney to London. Another calculation is half that but, either way, it's a monstrous amount of the stuff, delivered right where the Earth is most vulnerable. Nicholas Stern - an economist from Britain who is the greens' pin-up boy - says flying by plane is the equivalent of beating the planet with a sledgehammer, or something like that.

Did that stop Bourne from boarding a long-haul flight to Singapore just hours after the great switch-off? Did it hell. He got on the plane because, apparently, it was urgently important to attend meetings in Asia with "international colleagues" who wanted to make Earth Hour a global event.

In the process, Bourne's plane dumped on the weary planet about a quarter of the C02 that was allegedly saved during Earth Hour. Organisers say 24 tonnes of C02 was saved, but in fact none was saved, just stored, in effect, for later use. And it takes a tonne or three a person to fly to Asia; on the way back, he'd dump the same amount. Now, this may be stating the obvious, but if Bourne is serious about climate change, he should not be flying. He could have been tele-conferencing. Nothing else makes sense. But, then, much about Earth Hour didn't make sense.

Consider this: the great switch-off was televised. No, really: Sky News and the BBC in London went live to the great power outage. Did that not strike anybody as, well, a touch absurd? How can people watch on TV an event involving a power switch-off? Also, the lights on the arch of the Sydney Harbour Bridge went out, as did lights on the Sydney Opera House. Sydneysiders, intrigued as to how this might look, promptly got into their cars and drove over the bridge to have a gander.

Similar things go on abroad all the time. Take Al Gore. He is the world's loudest climate-change warrior. He believes the Earth is a "ticking time bomb". Or does he? Dogged reporters in the US make the point that Gore can't really be concerned about the planet because he has three homes, including one in Nashville with 20 rooms, eight bathrooms, a guesthouse and a pool.

According to the Tennessee Centre for Policy Research, the monthly power bill for his Nashville spread is $US1359 ($1660). His gas bill is $US1080 a month. In other words, he spends almost $US30,000 a year on power. When these figures were made public recently, Gore complained that his home was an estate that included offices for himself and his wife, as well as a guesthouse, and that the bill included electricity for an elaborate security system.

Either the planet is coughing, spluttering, dying and in need of urgent action, or it isn't. Surely Gore can't mean: "Big homes, offices, private jets and computers for me; mud huts for the rest of you"?

Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is as bad. He has been preaching to the converted about climate change in California, urging people to cut consumption. But personally? He flies Gulfstream (small, private jets use fuel less efficiently than large ones). When asked about this apparent contradiction, Schwarzenegger said he had to fly private jets because he's a busy man and he needs flexibility in his timetable.

Then there are Australians such as Tony Wheeler, who founded Lonely Planet. One shudders to think how much C02 has been pumped into the atmosphere by backpackers and budget travellers at Wheeler's behest. He recently urged people to "fly less often and stay longer", as if unlimited holidays in sunny locales were in reach of everyone. Wheeler - visiting London on a business trip - said: "Absolutely. I'm the worst example of it."

It's hard to know what to say about such people except, perhaps: clean up your act.
SOURCE: THE AUSTRALIAN

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Cycloptichorn wrote:

If you can't provide specific ways in which it will harm people, I'm going to have to assume that it is nothing more than fearmongering by the pro-pollution crowd.

I don't know which specifics George has in mind, but Thomas Schelling, a 2006 Nobel laureate in economics, makes very similar arguments as he. In a nutshell, he says global warming isn't worth mitigating for industrialized countries in the North because they benefit on net from global warming. And it isn't worth mitigating for poor, equatorial countries because although they are harmed by global warming, they have more important problems to solve first. If you're interested in a sample of Schelling's arguments, I suggest you google for his name plus global warming.

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Thomas wrote:

Cycloptichorn wrote:
If you can't provide specific ways in which it will harm people, I'm going to have to assume that it is nothing more than fearmongering by the pro-pollution crowd.

I don't know which specifics George has in mind, but Thomas Schelling, a 2006 Nobel laureate in economics, makes very similar arguments as he. In a nutshell, he says global warming isn't worth mitigating for industrialized countries in the North because they benefit on net from global warming. And it isn't worth mitigating for poor, equatorial countries because although they are harmed by global warming, they have more important problems to solve first. If you're interested in a sample of Schelling's arguments, I suggest you google for his name plus global warming.

Thanks, I'll do that.

Naturally much of the cost of global warming, and fighting it, depends on how severe your predictions about the effects of GW will be.

I will add that this discussion isn't just about Global Warming, but Climate Change and pollution. Especially pollution. Many of the proposals to fight AGW have added side benefits to our environment which have little or nothing to do with the temperature or the weather.

I wonder, do these economists really extrapolate for the effects of much larger population in China, India, south America? We'll have to see.

Cycloptichorn

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Cycloptichorn wrote:

Baby steps, yo - at first, we do what we can. Technology will allow us to do more later. Proper planning of new automobiles, factories, and cities will allow even more.

You say that,

"Once we have that temperature, that political plan, and that budget on the table, then we can have the discussion over whether we should act or not."

But that's ridiculous. There are benefits to acting on climate change that are independent of any other consideration whatsoever; for example, cleaner emissions not only helps with GG levels, but makes the air... nicer to breathe.

What we really need to do is entrench the mindset that this is an important issue which needs to be addressed. I mean, honestly; we're talking about the atmsophere of our planet. We're talking about terraforming our own planet. It will take hundreds of years to have the effects we really wish to see; to say that we can't get started at all until we understand the entire several-hundred year long plan, and the whole cost, is like trying to eat a sandwich in one big bite. Better to take small bites.

You're pre-supposing we want to eat the sandwich in the first place, though.

I'll throw out the "cleaner air" argument right away. Global warming has nothing to do with traditional particulate or nitrate or whatever air pollution. The increases in CO2 levels are absolutely no DIRECT health threat whatsoever. Nobody's going to asphyxiate. In fact, efforts to produce less smog and particulate pollution actually exacerbate the problem - lower particulate counts in atmosphere mean less incoming solar energy is reflected, actually warming us up more. I'm not saying more smog is good - god knows living in Houston, right? - but it has no business in a global warming discussion.

So, essentially, you're saying, "It's essential that we depart on the journey NOW!" My position is, "Where are we going and do we even want to be there? Can we afford to get there?" You want to entrench the mindset that this issue needs to be addressed, but you do not even know if we want to address it, nor if we COULD even address it. This doesn't strike you as somehow problematic? A bit of the cart before the horse?

Maporsche asks for my recommendations. Fair enough, I hadn't made any. Here they are.

- Keep studying the climate. The quality of the historical data isn't anything near as good as the quality of the data we're gathering now; the bigger the latter is, the more accurate a model we can construct. Don't kid yourself, we do not currently have an accurate model! This would be a good idea under any circumstances, of course, but if we're interested in climate change, knowing how climate changes can't hurt, right?

- Put more money into "renewable" energy research. This does NOT mean "put more money into renewable energy" - it's essential that we figure out how to get wind, solar, tidal, or whatever cost-effective enough to actually use before we decide to convert a whole lot of the grid over to it. You could also make the case that increased space exploration money would be a good thing - big ol' power stations in orbit is a classic SF solution to the power problem - but I don't know that I'd give the money to NASA if I wanted anything done.

- Build nuclear plants. Build a LOT of 'em. Yes, yes, you have to deal with radioactive waste, but it is something that you can contain in a little box rather than spreading through the globe's atmosphere. It's a problem we can lick with current technology. If you're worried about terrorists, we can armor 'em so you could crash an Airbus 380 into them without so much as a power spike. If you're worried about meltdowns, we figured out pebble-bed technology years ago - modern reactors don't melt down when something goes wrong, they turn off. If you're worried about minuscule emissions of radiation, keep in mind that ordinary coal plants put out radiation too; something going wrong at a nuclear plant is about as bad as NOTHING going wrong at a coal plant.

I'll double up on the last one. To me, this is a litmus test to how important the issue really is to an environmentalist. Nuclear power is the only power method that we have that (a) works with current technology and (b) doesn't put CO2 into the atmosphere. If you want us to reduce CO2, but you don't want us to use nuclear power, you're -already- missing the biggest reductions available. In which case, why not ignore you on other matters? If you're irrationally worried about nuclear power, and you're also really worried about global warming, it isn't too much of a leap to conclude that your worries about global warming are probably also irrational...

('cos, Cyc is also in favor of nuclear power generation, heh.)

- Other than that, I don't recommend action. Sure, energy conservation isn't a bad thing. I use CFC bulbs too. ;p But pretending that you're "saving the world from global warming" by doing so is delusional. "If we all spit into the wind, it'll slow down a little" is not a good policy prescription!

Look, if someone can come up with the numbers to suggest that we actually can "solve the problem", I'll be a lot more receptive. But I'm not interested in a crusade. If we're going to warm up whether we cut back or not, why cut back? (Or rather, we'd better NOT cut back, we'll need the extra output in order to deal with it!) If you don't have these figures and you still think it's a problem, shouldn't you examine your position more carefully? You're advocating science and policy, NOT religion. You need to be able to maintain a chain of logic, especially if you're trying to convert people! So c'mon, let's see the numbers.

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Cycloptichorn wrote:

I will add that this discussion isn't just about Global Warming, but Climate Change and pollution.

I just want to add that the UNFCCC uses the term "climate change" for human-caused change, and "climate variability" for other changes.
(Climate change includes global cooling.)

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A difficulty in dealing with the GW cultists and their followers, is that they keep changing their terminology and the implied references behind it. An initially rational conversation about observed warming morphs, without notice, into a conversation based on the assumption that this necessarily implies rapid catastrophic warming and all the other calamatous spin-offs that are imagined to follow. A refutation of this fantasy often is followed by a retreat behind more benign terms like climate change and pollution, with yet a new set of unstated, but milder implications. However lurking behind them all is the irrational and fixed belief in an inevitable catastrophe due to an unseen. but insidious process.

The psychological implications between the rather odd attractiveness of these irrational ideas are very interesting to me. I believe they are at some level related to the equally irrational attractiveness of the idea that nuclear power applications also involve unbounded danger to the earth and humanity.

The truth is that no rational person can simultaneously believe in catasthrophic global warming and, at the same time, oppose much broader applications of nuclear power as the preferred needed substitute for current methods.

Despite this fact, these views are indeed held by most of the spokesmen and advocates of AGW - many of them who claim to speak in the name of science and rational thought. This alone is a very persuasive argument for consideration of the psychological aspects of the attractiveness of these ideas. I believe that it all has something to do with the unseen nature of the imagined hazards, and the fact that the causes and 'logic' behind the fantisies themselves are so far outside the realm of public experience and intuition.

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georgeob1 wrote:

A difficulty in dealing with the GW cultists and their followers, is that they keep changing their terminology and the implied references behind it.

Actually not in this case: it's just that the English speaking world uses and still uses the more unscientific term.

The definition is in the Framework Convention on Climate Change since 1992 ... and has certainly been in use earlier as well.

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Walter, I am happily unfamiliar with your reference and whatever it may contain. I am refering to the observed behavior of advocates of GW, both here and in the worldwide literature and public debate.

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Global Warming...New Report...and it ain't happy news

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