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My views on global warming
I expect these points to change with the evidence, but here is where I am right now...
1. It is by now pointless to deny that global warming is man-made to a considerable degree.
2. It is a very real problem. If you don't believe me, go visit the deltas of East Bengal or Bangladesh and think about it again. Sweden I am not worried about and Greenland may become valuable, but where do we put the losers and no this isn't just a few small islands in the Pacific.
3. I can imagine Manhattan and other major cities taking protective action against rising water levels, much as the Dutch do today. I recall reading that the Dutch spend about as a high a percentage of their gdp defending themselves from water as the U.S. does on national defense. That is quite a burden, but it is better than forsaking economic growth.
4. Like Arnold Kling, I do not much trust climate models. Perhaps I have spent too much time doing macro, and the experience carries over. Nonetheless uncertainty about final effects gives us more to worry about, not less. It is the worst-case scenarios for global warming which worry me, not the middling scenarios. Variance is our enemy in this matter.
5. I don't have a good plan for what to do. Imagine passing and extending Kyoto and turning 2/3 of the U.S. energy supply into nuclear, wind, and solar power. Heroic achievements, to be sure. But if China and India continue to industrialize, global warming will likely continue and perhaps accelerate, as I understand current knowledge.
6. I have yet to see a real plan which recognizes three points: a) without continued economic growth the world will probably fall apart, b) the problem is real and significant, c) any good preventive solution would require an enormous amount of concerted action across both time and across nations.
7. How much does the framing of the problem contribute to our political views on the matter? How much would we spend, or how intensively would we organize global action, if a typhoon were headed right for Bangladesh? An earthquake? A war? A much slower set of changes, not fully our fault? An out-of-control American nuclear weapon? Should it matter?
8. If we could relocate all the losers-to-be into freer and richer countries, should we consider this a satisfactory solution? Or are we still massive and unjustified aggressors if they are crying to us: "Don't let it happen, don't let it happen!"?
Posted by Tyler Cowen on May 30, 2006 at 01:32 AM in Science | Permalink
Comments
How do you account for the Medieval Warm Period? What happened to the glaciers that covered the midwest just 10,000 years ago? Why did the little ice age occur (1550-1850)??
I am glad to hear you are skeptical of the computer models. So why are you worried? This only came into the common conscience when the most extreme simulation results were presented to the public. The range of other simulation solutions were not presented. The public is too stupid for error bars?
When the solution to the "problem" is raising taxes and world government you better make sure you are right.
The debate is not over as far as I am concerned. I do not know many people who believe this is a problem.
Rick
Posted by: Rick at May 30, 2006 2:39:45 AM
Good to hear such sensible views from a hard-boiled economist, but I have a problem with 6(a). Is there any reputable scientific literature on alternatives?
Posted by: A Tykhyy at May 30, 2006 2:45:58 AM
These are very sensible remarks. Ironically, everything would be much easier if oil hit $120 a barrell and stayed there. The there would be no economic advantage to not looking for or using other sources of energy. It seems clear that technology is the only thing that can really help with this situation in the long term but there is the question of whether it would be worth slowing down the warming to give us time to find the technological solutions (nucleus fusion or highly efficient solar combined with efficient storage in hydrogen perhaps?). In other words, is it worth sacrificing a percentage or two of global growth in order to buy us thirty years?
Rick,
The trend among people who know what they are talking about is for the climate change sceptics to become less sceptical. It is always possible for people to present information in such a way as to create doubt in the mind of the layman. In cases such as these though, it is not worth pretending you understand the issues beyond your capacity. Ask super-smart people who spend their lives dealing with this stuff and if there is a broad consensus (which there is), that's your best bet.
Posted by: finnsense at May 30, 2006 3:32:25 AM
I'm one who was very skeptical a few years ago and has since changed his mind. The only reason I'm not an enthusiastic supporter -- and also why I question the enviros' sincerity -- is that the existing enthusiasts are largely ignoring geoengineering, such as the Geritol Solution.
Instead, their focus is on "solutions" that don't solve the problem but only delay it (see Lomborg, Bjorn). I would find it much easier to support the cause if it weren't being pushed by the same people that embrace the Precautionary Principle and have an unreasonable fear of technology.
I do agree that we need a viable replacement for gasoline and that high gas prices are good in that sense. The sooner it happens, the better. However, I'm not all that hopeful about it. If we could only follow Brazil's model and displace, say, 20% of current gasoline consumption we would be much better of. It's not likely to happen because our farmers, and their subsidies, are wedded to inefficient corn-based ethanol and have tariffs in place for imported ethanol.
Posted by: Robert Prather at May 30, 2006 4:23:17 AM
Rick
He is worried about the models because while the models say that global
warming is going to be as expensive as the cold war (and considerably
more expensive than the war on terror) the models may be understating
the risk. Like, for instance, the models have been understating the
hurricane risk for the last few years. See the NYT graph for Tuesday,
May 23, citing the NOAA. Specifically, the models predict that
hurricane occurrences and intensity will go up slowly with global warming,
and they are going up more quickly than predicted. Ditto on glacial melt,
etc.
This may be because the modelers are terrified of crying wolf and would
much rather err on the side of risk and not have to worry about having
their funding cut off.
Me, I'll back the insurance companies against the coal companies. I
believe that global warming is going to happen, that it's too late to
do anything about it and too expensive to do anything about it, and we
should just accept that we are going to lose the beach houses and deltas
and like that.
Posted by: wkwillis at May 30, 2006 4:32:47 AM
Some years ago, I read that dumping ultra fine particles of metal (iron?) in the seas and oceans would help the vegetal plankton prospering like a Barry Bonds on steroids. By doing so, the vegetal plankton would absorbe the CO2 like crazy and we all (including Paris Hilton and Nicole Richie) would be saved from global warming.
Anybody knowing something?
Posted by: Chris. F. Masse .COM at May 30, 2006 5:16:55 AM
"I do not much trust climate models": but then you can have no good reason to believe that global warming is caused by man. Inconsistency there, surely?
Posted by: dearieme at May 30, 2006 5:33:03 AM
Well, if you do not trust computer model just look at the 'stars'.
Venus for example, the "gold star" in Japanese. 96% of carbon dioxid. Huge greenhouse (and pressure) effect. 400°C-500°C.
Well, greenhouse effect is in fact - as far as we know - indispensable for life to appear (look at Mars: thin atmosphere leads to too cold temperatures). So I do not fear "global warming" to destroy mankind (a "macro" approach) because it will never reach a "Venusian threshold". But, on a "micro" scale, I fear that least developed countries - e.g. Bangladesh - won't be able to face the changes implied by such a temperature elevation.
Moreover, a "global" warming may lead to lower temperatures. For example, if North Pole was to melt down, I wonder what would be the result of this on the Gulf Stream. Europe caught by glaciers? "Cold war" 's back on the menu...
Posted by: Alex at May 30, 2006 5:57:47 AM
"I do not much trust climate models": but then you can have no good reason to believe that global warming is caused by man. Inconsistency there, surely?
No inconsistency is needed. Global warming has occurred (about 1 degree net in the last century, last I checked). Increasing levels of CO2 in the atmosphere will increase global temperatures. Human beings have increased the levels of CO2 in the atmosphere. We know that global warming has happened and we know that human beings have contributed to it, based on those three points, none of which are much dependant upon global climate modeling.
That does not get us far in debate, though, because the magnitude of effects is unclear: the models are not terribly trustworthy. Did humans contribute a little or a lot? What exactly are the harms involved and what are the costs of preventing/reducing/delaying them?
If, for example, global temperatures would continue to rise at 90% of the current rate if all human life just shut down, there is not a lot we can do absent extraordinary measures to lower global temperatures. If, for example, glaciers tend to melt more at the edges but bulk up in the center under current climate conditions, there may not be much in the way of sea level increases. Or all the worst-case scenarios could be understating things and we really really need to do something NOW because the effects will not fully kick in for 50 years.
If you believe that global warming from human-caused CO2 is a problem, it represents the greatest example of the tragedy of the commons. If we shut down all production as China and India kick into high gear, things are not going to get much cooler.
That is a lot of "if"s. And I certainly don't have the answers.
Posted by: Zubon at May 30, 2006 6:39:37 AM
"any good preventive solution would require an enormous amount of concerted action across both time and across nations."
That's what worries me the most, because I just don't see that kind of coordinated, concerted effort happening. What *would* solve the problem without that kind of coordination would be pushing the price of alternative forms of energy down far enough that it wasn't worth pumping the oil or, especially, digging the coal or oil shale.
Barring that, I don't see any real prospect that we will not extract and burn the carbon fuels we have until they're gone--we may slow the rate a bit, but until we have an cheaper alternative, somebody is going to use that stuff. If it comes to that, at least it is probably a much easier world political and economic problem to compensate the Bangladeshis and Pacific Islanders than solve global warming through international agreements not to burn carbon fuels.
Posted by: Slocum at May 30, 2006 6:42:44 AM
I read Kling's article about his distrust of climate models, and I wasn't impressed. Climate projections are guesses, true, but the physical realities that lie behind the models are very steady ground compared to the macroeconomic models Kling talked about. Climate models don't have to take into account people's beliefs about climate models, for one thing, and physical assumptions can be tested to a much higher degree of reliability than can assumptions about human behavior.
The projections are guesses, but they are conservative best guesses, and we should act accordingly. (It seems also to me that most of the projections assume unrealistic emission reductions).
Oh, and if you read realclimate.org (and if you don't read what the actual climate scientists blog about, what's your business posting on this topic? ;-) , the current article should be interesting to an economist, it's about voluntary emission compensation efforts - your home ground, not theirs.
Oh, and if posters like Rick did their homework, perhaps we could lay to rest the insinuations about the Medieval Warm Period, the little ice age and all the other noise being generated by political advertising agencies.
Posted by: Harald Korneliussen at May 30, 2006 6:43:50 AM
Tyler: It is my understanding that the last 7 years we have been on a cooling trend. If you are correct that the global temp has been driven by humans, then by your logic we should simply do whatever we did in the past 7 years and we can all relax. Perhaps you think that the last 7 years are all outliers? But to justify throwing out data on usually should have at least a story. So what is your story? If you don't have one, it seems irresponsible not to change your opinion immediately and stop talking about the issue as though it is settled fact that we humans are the reason for gobal temp changes. One of the other comments refers to a recent small ice age, what about that too? Did humans cause that too?
Posted by: jim at May 30, 2006 7:35:16 AM
It's not clear whether Tyler is saying that he actually believes that global warming is significantly anthropogenic or if he simply thinks it's pointless to argue about it.
The only reason it isn't completely pointless to argue about is because the typical policy solution relies on the premise that warming is largely anthropogenic and that by changing human behavior global warming could be stopped. And I can't figure out why Tyler or anyone for that matter thinks global warming is significantly anthropogenic. Obviously more Co2 --> more warming, but magnitude matters. And so far when people talk about the significance of human warming, they seem to be talking more about statistical significance, like, yes we know it exists, versus significance in terms of magnitude or power (like would the instant end of all human activity do much to slow global warming?). It's hard to believe, but Tyler may have bought into an argument that anyone familiar with McCloskey should be very skeptical of.
Posted by: scm at May 30, 2006 8:17:25 AM
Some thoughts:
1. For lack of better data, let's say I place the odds of a sustained trend of global warming at 50%. Why so low? Remember that in the 1970s everyone was fussing about global cooling.
2. Similarly, let's place at 50% the odds that the Earth doesn't regulate its own temperature through endogenous means (for instance, an increase in algae to decrease CO2 when temperatures rise). Complex systems often work this way.
3. 50% odds once again that global warming is anthropogenic. After all, Mars is warming too. It could be unusual solar activity.
4. Lets say 50% odds that an increase in temperature would be a net bad. After all, what are the odds that the earth right now is at exactly the optimal temperature? One or two degrees C warmer could increase agricultural output, etc.
5. Why not place at 50% the odds that the cheapest solution is not to do nothing. Doing nothing is often a reasonable choice. I've seen it estimated that its five times cheaper to provide every human being with clean drinking water than to implement Kyoto.
6. What are the odds that if all of the above is true, that warming will affect, me, my children, or my grandchildren. I'll peg it at, oh, 50%.
If my estimates are about right, that means there is a less than 2% chance that I should be concerned about global warming. If any 4 of the 6 are about right, that still puts it at 6%. I'm perfectly content to relax and have a beer instead of fretting about climate change.
Posted by: Eli at May 30, 2006 8:45:58 AM
"I recall reading that the Dutch spend about as a high a percentage of their gdp defending themselves from water as the U.S. does on national defense. That is quite a burden, but it is better than forsaking economic growth."
The combined ministery of Transportation and Water in the Netherlands has a budget for 2006 of 8,4 billion euro (10,70 billion dollars) out of a total federal budget of 146,7 billion euro (so roughly 5,7%). Less than half of that is spent on water management, so no more than 3% of the federal budget which is less than 1% of gdp
So in the current situation the Netherlands spents a far smaller percentage of gdp on water management than the US spents on national defense.
Nonetheless, in the past tremendous amounts of money have been spent on water management (f.e. the Deltaworks) and it is probably a smart idea for the US to reallocate some of its National Defense budget to Water Management. There is still one substantial difference between the two countries though; Half of the Netherlands is (already) below sea-level.
Posted by: Jos Rooijakkers at May 30, 2006 8:59:33 AM
You seem to confuse two related points. The Earth is warming up slowly right now, completely naturally. The global warming "crisis" is that humans are speeding up that warming. Even without human influence, the oceans will likely rise inches over the next couple centuries, causing lots of flooding and loss of coastal lands. This is a problem for people that needs to be dealt with, completely separately from our influence on how fast this is happening.
Posted by: Rick Wash at May 30, 2006 9:07:04 AM
Well, I don't want to go into the science, since that is for climate scientists, geologists and such (although I don't trust the former anymore, too much denial and snobbism).
However, I think global warming is just a big excuse for getting a totalitarian state, or rather a facist state (if you look at Kyoto especially). Of course there will be a climate change and it will be partly man-made (or rather accelerated), but if I read the records of the 20th century correct, than we have an S-shaped curve that is going to signify a change.
However, I think the earth will adapt, which might or might not result in regional changes, perhaps it is even only intermediate and we will see a complete backlash after this peak...
The problem is that we have no solutions today. There is no possibility to substitute the automobile with something equally cheap as the Otto-Motor or the Diesel. There is no way to substitute nuclear power or coal power by more natural friendly sources.
Solar cells are by physical definition limited to a degree of efficiency of 15 %, not including losses due to heat, which would lower it. So, there is only reducing cost by optimizing manufacturing processes and minimizing costs of materials.
Water power is limited (as are Tide-power plants) to, well, water that stores potential energy (height difference).
Windpower is promising, since up to know only mediocre engineers have been planning windmills, it seems. There are many conceptional errors, which can be optimized according to my Professor of Product Creation and Analysis. However, windmills are a pollution to the environment and to inhabitants by itself and I don't think that they are the solution we looked for.
After all, the energy problem is not easily solved and so is the mobility problem, so there is nothing else to do as to adapt... or crash the industry and start all over again...
Posted by: Max at May 30, 2006 9:08:19 AM
Ah, yes, one last remark:
I also think the term "global warming" is misplaced, because it is rather climate change than a warming. You can't argue that something warms globally, if there are actually serious cooling trends going on. Especially, since many scientists argued that mean global temperatures don't say a damn and we should rather study the impact on regions (which, incidentially, is what most bio- and climate scientists are doing). However, the predictions range from freezing cold in Europe, to tropical island Europe, so I give a damn about predictions. Also, we have always been on the lower edge of the IPCC predictions, which I think can be safely seen as a collective of all knowledge known to man by now.
Posted by: Max at May 30, 2006 9:14:03 AM
A. Request: Please write more on the issues in 6(a).
Two remarks re 6(a)
1. Shouldn't it be "economic growth per capita"?
2. I have been surprised how responsive population growth has been to economic success. i.e. how significant the birthrate declines have been in some countries as they become more industrialized.
B. I have become more "at ease" with this issue after studying
i. the 400,000 year temperature data from Vostok Ice Core and
ii. the similar history of ocean levels and
iii. ice age glacial coverage
Not that the implications are fun BUT that we can look back and see a likely range of temperatures, ocean levels and ice coverage.
In short - worst case the water levels will get no more than 20-30 feet higher (and could get 400 feet lower in a severe ice age).
So plot the limits of ice and water on a topographic map and you have your "Core Inhabitable Territory" (CIT). Plan accordingly.
Posted by: AnonyMoose at May 30, 2006 9:15:35 AM
Forgot to include Vostok ice core temperature data for 400,000 years. About 120,000 years ago it was about 3 degrees C warmer than now and about 25,000 years ago is was 9 degrees C colder than now.
Posted by: AnonyMoose at May 30, 2006 9:25:53 AM
The important point is that whether you believe or disbelieve global climate change based on anthropomorphic emissions, the climate history is strewn with lots of rapid significant changes, not to mention other global issues like supervolcanos and large meteor impacts.
Rich people can survive climate change better than poor people. This applies 50 years ago, today (look at Katrina), and 50 years from now. If we can move most of the Earth's population to being rich, we all will survive these climate threats much better than if most of the population remains poor.
We know the path to riches - economic freedom combined with strong & transparent institutions to uphold property rights.
Posted by: Mr. Econotarian at May 30, 2006 10:12:52 AM
Another problem with global warming: the Leftist-enviromentalist proposed solutions don't involve markets, just more government and less freedom.
Posted by: Mace at May 30, 2006 10:26:37 AM
I'm deleting Marginal Revolution from my bookmarks list. Mr. Cowen, you've become part of the idiot herd.
Posted by: Keith at May 30, 2006 10:27:22 AM
I'm have doubts about human cause on global warming and whether there is a long term serous problem. When all these scientists and proponents of the theory start making serious life changes to stop emissions from their own lives, I'll take it a lot more seriously. At this point everyone wants someone else to fix it.
I went on a trip to Alaska and there was a discussion on enviromental factors at ANWR and global warming. Amazingly nobody considered it odd that we all flew several thousand miles to get together at a resort to discuss containing polution. When I mentioned these could have been done via internet meetings the answer was that we aren't the problem, government and big business are the problem. Once people making a living off of the theory start making major life changing action to prevent pollution at serious levels and personal hardship, I'll take it all much more seriously.
Posted by: Steven Roberts at May 30, 2006 10:27:58 AM
One thing that I can't figure out is how the skeptics seem to be continously waiting for some final, definitive piece of proof before taking action. As you say, it's ultimately a probablistic question and the concept of spending money to address the problem should be framed in such terms. Even if you don't care about Bangladesh, what's the total value of the global coastal real estate that would be inundatated by a 5 m sea level rise? Even if this is only a 1% probability occurrence, it's worth spending money to defend against. I've seen the same arguments sensibly deployed in favour of asteroid defense and they seem just as applicable here.
As for a plan? I'm not convinved it's as intractable or painful as people claim. First a few numbers for context:
- world GDP (according to CIA factobook): $60 trillion (PPP).
- cost of Iraq war to date: about $400 billion (born by one country!)
- annual extra cost to the world of $70 oil vs $30 oil (at 80 million barrels/day consumption): $1.2 trillion
These are some pretty staggering figures. Now let's assume that the world can afford 1% of GDP to fight global warming, that's $600 billion/year. So what do we do with out $600 billion/year? For simplicity's sake, we'll assume that the two primary sources of CO2 are coal/gas/oil fired electric power stations and vehicles so we'll only address these two. Global power generation capacity is about 4000 Gwatts, of which 60% comes from fossil fuels, or 2400 Gwatts. So here's the super simple plan. Replace it all with nukes. Assume that after a 5 year ramp up time of planning and construction, 400 Gwatts of new power (@ 1 billion/Gwatt) comes online (you had to spend $400 billion/year for the first 5 years to ramp up). It's take 6 more years to fully retire the fossil fuel plants but after 11 years, they're gone.
Now cars. the global fleet average needs to drop by, say, 30%. The solution (which leverages all those nukes we're building)...plug in hybrids. US fleet average is currently 27.5 mps for cars and 20 for light trucks. We'll assume that these numbers double with smaller fuel economy gains in other countries, where cars are already more fuel efficient.
Note that this hyper simplistic solution doesn't include more conservation, renewables (solar, wind, ethanol), carbon sequestration, etc. The point is that it's not as intractable as it seems. As to the means, I think all of here like market mechanisms but I suspect that they alone won't suffice. A revenue neutral gas tax in the US that sets a price floor @ $4.00 a gallon would be a good start. I imagine that there are many other good and imaginative (and non-totalitarian) options.
Posted by: ramster at May 30, 2006 10:42:08 AM
