From MIT’s campus newspaper, The Tech:
Not worth the fight huh? Them’s fightin’ words to some people.
Opinion: Global warming not worth the fight
The United States would gain little in trying to forestall climate change
Global warming is real. It is predominantly anthropogenic. Left unchecked, it will likely warm the earth by 3-7 C by the end of the century. What should the United States do about it?
Very little, if anything at all.
As economists, we are inclined to take the vantage point of the benevolent dictator, that omnific individual with his hands upon all of the policy levers available to the state. When placed in such a position, the question of how to respond to global warming is answered by performing a simple comparison: does x, the cost of optimally mitigating carbon emissions, exceed y, the benefit of that carbon mitigation? Where the answer is yes, the global carbon mitigation effort remains rightfully nascent, where the answer is no, it springs up and becomes law with a just and sudden force.
H.L. Mencken once wrote, “Explanations exist; they have existed for all times, for there is always an well-known solution to every human problem — neat, plausible, and wrong.” Such is the economist’s explanation of climate change.
Global warming is a tragedy of the commons, carbon emissions are a negative externality, and reducing CO2 in the atmosphere is a global public good. These types of problems have been well-studied by economists, and solutions to them are known. Unfortunately, these solutions require a sovereign power to enact them, and in this world there is no global power to enforce economically optimal solutions, no benevolent dictator, no organ of international government capable of superceding national sovereignty and its attendant self-interest. The international system is not cooperative — it is best defined as anarchic and follows the Thucydidean maxim: the strong do as they can… the weak suffer as they must.
Instead of thinking as economists, we should think as international relations realists. In the realist school of thought, a man comports with another’s will only in proportion to the cudgel wielded over his head. We will not, solely through moral suasion, convince others to act against their own national interests.
Countless man-hours of scientists and economists have gone into trying to estimate the costs and benefits of climate change mitigation. Yet the real question is not whether y is greater than x, but rather whether it is greater than x + z, where z is the cost of enforcing an agreed upon reduction in carbon emissions. This is the minimum threshold that must be passed before any action is possible, and the chances of passing it in the near future are slim: not in least part because we lack the technology to monitor the emissions of other countries. But even if we did have the technology, the nature of the problem makes the challenge nearly impossible. Suppose two nations Alpha and Beta, agree to limit their emissions, and suppose further that it is cheaper for Alpha to reduce its emissions in the present while it is cheaper for Beta to limit its emissions in the future. What prevents Beta from reneging on its agreement after Alpha has already committed to a reduction? The act of punishing a defector, whether it comes in the form of a trade sanction or other action, is itself a public good that carries some cost to the punisher.
The sound and the fury that has characterized the public discourse on global warming often obscures a basic economic fact: we are in the situation we are in because it requires fewer resources to generate electricity with coal or propel automobiles with petroleum than it does to accomplish those same goals with solar cells and biofuels. The “green economy” our politicians have placed on a pedestal is not an improvement over our existing one — there is no gain to be had in producing with the effort of three men what we previously accomplished with two. We should tolerate this inefficiency only insofar as it helps us avoid some other, greater harm.
Full story here
h/t to WUWT Jimbo and Climate Depot
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I like the common sense conclusion but the position on temperatures is untenable. No economist nor any climatologist for that matter can phrase a valid projection of average temperatures in the next century. We simply do not know or understand enough, so please be a little patient before jumping to conclusions.
I’d love to hear what an Alfred P. Sloan Professor of Meteorology, Department of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences of MIT would say to this. A guy by the name of Richard Lindzen?
Of course, he’s not a STAFF COLUMNIST or anything fancy like that…
I’ve been trying to explain this to people for years.
The carbon crisis of the commons is a b$tch, but the governing system that would have to be created to enforce an international carbon cap would be the mother of all b!tches.
Interesting, but is based on GCM output. Probably irrelevant except as an exercise in acting as a lightning rod for Warmista sound and fury. He’s right, of course. Doing nothing is the optimum policy, but not for the reasons he states.
Not sure about the “MIT professor” claim. Perhaps…
This from a 2008 article:
“Keith Yost is a graduate student in the Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering and the Engineering Systems Division.”
REPLY: Thanks, my incorrect assumption. I’ll make a change to the headline. – Anthony
vboring says: “…The carbon crisis of the commons is a b$tch, but the governing system that would have to be created to enforce an international carbon cap would be the mother of all b!tches.”
No problem. We’ll just put Barbara Boxer in charge.
Romm is blowing a gasket and it does heat the atmosphere. His current target of wrath is the Koch oil family. also loyal MIT grads.
Wow! Just WOW! A glimmer of rationality at last! 🙂
Not to mention that scarcity will drive us to alternative energy, no enforcing body required.
Silly economist – trying to invoke reality into a climate issue … /sarc off
IMO humans do not mitigate well at all but indeed show a great propensity for adapting. Why not stay with our strengths by adapting to warmer climate with no loss of global economic power rather than the absolute certainty of some loss for a very small gain from mitigation if any? Adaptation drives efficiency ( and vice versa) and efficiency will be the driving force behind our adaptation of cleaner, cheaper energy.
Anthony, In the interest of truth in post-titles … I’m not sure that Yost is a faculty member at MIT … he appears to be a recent alumnus, though.
[From the about page:]
Nonetheless it is most refreshing to see a member of the younger generation who has not permitted climatically correct dogma to overcome that which anyone’s critical thinking skills would lead him/her conclude.
Yost’s conclusion is worth noting:
REPLY: Hit refresh- Anthony
Innovation to improve our energy resources is good; exclusion of energy options because of an unproven theory is not. Wind and solar are not necessarily bad, but we need to evaluate the whole system, not just focus on carbon as the silver buller.
What an utter load of tosh. 3-7degrees C of a rise this century? In his dreams.
Have these people not considered what will happen if they are wrong. Joe and Jill Sixpack have been so brainwashed into thinking that CO2 causes temperatures to rise, that when temperatures do fall, they’ll be leaving their cars and their lawn mowers running in the driveway to “save the world from global cooling”. Never mind the other nasties that get emitted alongside. You’ll get other people demonstrating at Wind Farms because they don’t create enough CO2. At the extreme end, you might even see people climbing up onto other peoples’ rooves to rip their solar panels off. We’ve already seen the plane stupidity in the name of being “green”.
I just hope I live to see the day when these people are held to account for their alarmism.
“Not worth the fight huh? Them’s fightin’ words to some people. Romm explosion in 3…2…1.”
Is that what you want though, Anthony? Of course Romm will explode, if not before you posted this opinion piece, then surely now that you have.
What’s up with this? I remember fondly how WUWT used to pride itself on taking the highroad in civility, but now it seems that you’re settling on taunting your opponents with meaningless op/ed pieces?
This isn’t positive.
REPLY: Mr. Romm has pulled no punches in denigrating me on a weekly basis, sometimes biweekly, and I almost never respond. What most never see is that I’ve written several responses, but then decided “why bother?” and put them into the bit bucket. – Anthony
Tamara – that scarcity won’t occur any time soon .
“reducing CO2 in the atmosphere is a global public good.”
Is it?
I posed these questions to a “warmist” friend, just as a “thought experiment”: Suppose I invented a Magical Machine which would suck all that “excess” CO2 out of the atmosphere – overnight (it’s a really big Magical Machine!). Tell me what you want and I’ll set the dial. 250 ppmv? You got it. No charge.
Do you believe that the temperature would drop by 0.7C? (or whatever number you believe)
Do you believe that storms, tornados, and other extremes of weather would become less frequent and/or less intense?
Do you believe that agricultural production would decrease from the decreased CO2? (if not, why not?)
If so, do you believe that this would starve billions of people?
If so, is this okay with you?
I just got weasel-words from my friend (he’s a good guy, and not normally an idiot, he’s just delusional on this point).
Anyone (lurking “warmists” in particular) have any thoughts on these questions?
Best,
Frank
carbon emissions are a negative externality, and reducing CO2 in the atmosphere is a global public good This from MIT, confusing carbon and CO2, think they would know better.
Tamara says:
October 15, 2010 at 12:19 pm
Not to mention that scarcity will drive us to alternative energy, no enforcing body required.
Scarcity of what? The oil that would supposedly have run out by the year 2000?
“Countless man-hours of scientists and economists have gone into trying to estimate the costs and benefits of climate change mitigation.”
As industry becomes ever more efficient, mankind sees itself in the situation that it can expend a larger and larger percentage of total man-hours available into entirely vain and futile enterprises, like guarding sunbenches, parking lots or shopping malls, or sending delegates to UN conferences, endlessly quibbling about imaginary dangers, conferencing from here to eschaton, in ever-growing numbers, until entire nations find their whole raison d’etre in servicing assemblies of delegates, like Belgium already does. UN Climate Conference delegates together with all the traveling pressure group delegates are the true green jobs (and yobs); giving rise to more jobs – policemen, prostitutes, taxi drivers, journalists, cameramen, an endless procession of nonproductive laborers of a neverending carnival of fear.
What we need to get rid of are the breaks between the conferences. Let every major city on Earth have its yearly Climate Week like we have Fashion Weeks. What amount of air travel we could generate.
“Mr. Romm has pulled no punches in denigrating me on a weekly basis, sometimes biweekly, and I almost never respond.”
Hi Anthony.
I can certainly sympathise with your position, and I do. I just like to think that part of the reason WUWT has become so popular over the years is that it has so very rarely resorted to the kinds of attacks that so often characterise other blogs on climate. Honestly, it has had its moments, sure… but admittedly they have been rare, and as you point out- it’s probably a further testament to your character that stuff like this doesn’t get posted more often, considering the pressures you’ve had to endure from other quarters. You seem to do pretty well under the circumstances 🙂
I just wanted to express, as a reader with an opinion, that this post isn’t a positive one. Imo it puts WUWT in a bad light, however much fun it might have been to post it (and I feel I understand your reasons). You have an enormous amount of support now from lots of different people, it may be better to perhaps focus on this rather than on what a few people may be saying about you on other blogs.
Anyway, that’s just my two cents. It’s your blog after all.
REPLY: Thanks, you make a good case. I’ve removed the reference to Mr. Romm. – Anthony
Well, a lot of silliness in the article, but silliness based on the idea that global warming is a significant problem that needs to be dealt with, and various assumptions underlying that. As a result, the conclusion is in some ways even more important.
In other words, even assuming a huge rise in temperature and a significant environmental problem from global warming, it doesn’t make sense to try to do much about it on the enforcement side.
Interesting quote: “there is no gain to be had in producing with the effort of three men what we previously accomplished with two.” In the old Soviet days, bureaucrats would sometimes break up one person’s job and divide it among two or three persons to create more jobs for the masses. Resulted in tremendous inefficiencies, but, hey, at least everyone was employed.
Whoa! – While Yost might be accepting the warming line, he does something that means something to the most dedicated believer – he reaches for their wallet. Gov’mnt is good at reaching for someone else’s money and a considerable number of folks approve, especially because they benefit from the theft. But Yost puts the expense at an individual as well as national level.
The pause he creates with his argument – ie you can’t afford it! – is the opening needed for more data to be looked over, determined to be bogus, and even perhaps for reason to begin to dawn.
One can hope.
Mike
—Do you believe that the temperature would drop by 0.7C? (or whatever number you believe)—-
Most likely about half that.
—-Do you believe that storms, tornados, and other extremes of weather would become less frequent and/or less intense?—-
Yes, less energy would be would be taken into the system, less intense El Nino, much less water in the atmosphere.
—-Do you believe that agricultural production would decrease from the decreased CO2? (if not, why not?)—-
No, there is plenty of CO2 at 250ppm from the natural cycle to maintain agriculture.
—-If so, do you believe that this would starve billions of people?—-
No.
—-If so, is this okay with you?—-
No.
Anthony, I kind of agree with Stu, at least insofar as it relates to gratuitious comments about specific individuals. (Generalized gratuitious comments and comments about specific individuals that are not gratuitious are less problematic, IMHO). Romm is clueless and mean-spirited. Just ignore him . . .
More global warming nonsense from educated people who haven’t done their homework. (I can’t believe the authors trotted out the old saw about a 3 – 7 degrees C temperature increase this century.) We could pump up atmospheric CO2 concentration two to three times, and it’s doubtful the temperature rise would show up as little more than background noise.
What the “brains” at MIT should be worrying about is the onset of global cooling. Most data — declining solar activity, negative PDO, historical solar trends — point to a coming Dalton Minimum or, perhaps, Maunder Minimum. Heck, we could be on the cusp of a Bond event (it’s been around 1,470 years since the last one, and they occur at approximately 1,470 intervals).
Ten years from now no one will be talking about global warming. They’ll be complaining about heating bills and bitching about skyrocketing food prices as cold weather shortens the growing season and freezes out wheat production in Canada and other northern climes.