Guest Post by Willis Eschenbach
A few months ago [2012] in the New York Times Green Blog they talked about “monetizing” the “social cost” of carbon. The article said:
In 2010, 12 government agencies working in conjunction with economists, lawyers and scientists, agreed to work out what they considered a coherent standard for establishing the social cost of carbon. The idea was that, in calculating the costs and benefits of pending policies and regulations, the Department of Transportation could not assume that a ton of emitted carbon dioxide imposed a $2 cost on society while the Environmental Protection Agency plugged 10 times that amount into its equations.
How does one “monetize” something, and what is a “social cost” when it is in its native habitat?
First, the easy one. A “social cost” is generally some estimated or inferred cost to society from something, in particular a cost that is not reflected in the price of the item itself. For example, alcohol has a social cost in the form of a variety of societal problems. That cost is not included in the raw ex-factory price of alcoholic beverages.
Next, to “monetize” a social cost means 1) to attach some monetary value to that social cost, and then 2) to attach that monetary value to the retail cost of the product in the form of an increased price. In the case of alcohol, that is usually done through government taxes. Sometimes, the revenue from these taxes is dedicated to ameliorating that social cost. In the case of alcohol, that might be in the form of alcohol dependence programs or clinics. Other times the income goes into the general fund.
This is generally not a problem as long as there is widespread agreement about the existence of the social costs. In the case of carbon emissions, however, no such agreement exists. There is no evidence of current costs or damages, only models of possible imagined future damages. Accordingly, even among those who agree that there is a social cost to carbon emissions, there is wide disagreement about the size of those costs.
However, despite the differences, and despite the lack of evidence of any demonstrable costs, the attempt to “monetize” the imagined future damages from carbon emissions continue apace. As you might imagine, I object to the whole process. Oddly, they didn’t listen to me, and the article in the NY Times say that they have settled on a value of $21 per tonne of carbon. The article said one government agency was using $2 a ton and another was using ten times that, or $20 a ton. So I guess they took the average of the two and used that average of $21 per ton for all government calculations … but again I digress.
Over-riding everything in this question is the unthinking, un-acknowledged destruction from jacking up energy prices. This always hits the poor hardest, as I have discussed elsewhere. Energy taxes, including carbon taxes and “monetizations” are the most regressive tax of all. But I digress … I was discussing monetization of carbon.
Let me recapitulate my two main objections to carbon monetization. The first is that for many issues, including carbon, there is no agreed upon way to establish the monetary values. In the case of CO2 there are questions about the very existence of such costs, much less their value. As the NYT article points out, there is great disagreement over the $21 figure even among those who agree that there is some social cost to CO2. Since there is no actual evidence of any actual costs, this is all merely claims and counterclaims, even between adherents. There is no objective way to settle the disagreements.
My second objection is that while people are often in a hurry to monetize the social costs of something, they rarely take the necessary other step. They rarely are in a hurry to monetize the social benefits of something. But if you do one, you have to do the other. After all, this is why it’s called a “cost/benefit” analysis …
I have even had someone seriously argue that there is no need to monetize the social benefits, because they were already included in the market price. After all, he argued, the reason we buy something is because of the perceived benefits. So they are already included in the price.
I find this argument singularly unconvincing. Some benefits are already included in the price, and some aren’t. Since a single counter-example will serve to disprove the general theorem, let me take a social benefit of CO2 as an example. This is the known effect of atmospheric CO2 levels on plants, which is that they increase their production with increasing atmospheric CO2. Obviously, nobody goes out and buys gasoline for their car in order to help the plants, so it is not included in the market price. However, increased plant growth is an undoubted social benefit, a huge one that affects the whole world. Therefore, it is an un-accounted for social benefit, one which does not get included in the price.
Accordingly, let’s take a look at monetizing this un-accounted social benefit. Curiously, the value of increased plant production is both easier and less contentious to calculate than are the claimed social costs of CO2. Why?
Well, it’s because the claimed costs of CO2 are future, imaginary costs that cannot be measured, where the increased plant production is both real and measurable. But I digress.
The folks over at CO2 Science have looked at the experimentally measured increase in plant biomass due to a 300 ppmv increase in atmospheric CO2. The figures are here, in Table 2. The changes are different for each plant, ranging from about 30% to 60%. So let’s be conservative and use the bottom end, an average 30% increase from a 300 ppmv increase. CO2 levels have gone up about 115 ppmv since pre-industrial times. This means that there has been on the order of a 10% increase in the annual production due to CO2.
Now, how much is this 10% increase in global plant production worth? Well, the marvelous FAO database called FAOSTAT puts the value of the annual plant production at ten trillion dollars annually, so lets assume a third of that, say $3.3 trillion dollars. Is $3.3 correct? There you have the problem with monetization … no way to know. But assuming that a 10% increase from some smaller value is due to increased CO2, that puts the annual value of this one single solitary social benefit of CO2 at over $300 billion dollars.
How does that compare to the proposed $21 per tonne social cost? Well, at present we’re emitting about 9.5 gigatonnes of carbon annually. That would mean that the total monetized social cost would be $21 times that number of tonnes emitted, which gives us about $200 billion dollars per year.
So here’s the balance—we have a verified, measurable social benefit to the planet of $300 billion annually, and an unverified, unmeasurable estimated social cost of $200 billion annually. Which leaves me with just one burning question …
When do I get my check for the social benefits I’m providing? The US has provided somewhere around a third of the CO2 responsible for that social benefit, that’s $100 billion per year in benefits … three hundred million Americans, that’s about $333 per American per year …
w.
PS—What’s that I hear you saying? You think I calculated the benefits wrong?
Well, certainly, perhaps I did. After all, it was just a rough cut. But all that does is bring us back to my first objection to “monetizing” CO2 … it’s very hard to get agreement on the actual values.
PPS—Note that I’ve only considered one single social benefit, the increase in plant production. Since their claimed costs relate to claimed future temperature rises, how about the benefit of increased ice-free days at the northern ports if temperatures do rise? And the longer growing seasons if temperatures increase? How much are they worth worldwide? They likely have included the extra costs from air-conditioning to fight the fabled future heat, but have they included the reduction in winter heating? I could go on, but I’m sure you get the point. The whole thing is an exercise in fantasy, shifting sands with no clear answers.
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Caldermeade says:
January 12, 2013 at 2:06 pm
I tried to read the study you refer to but it was paywalled. I doubt greatly that cassava will be “useless” because of elevated CO2, that makes no sense. If you have an unpaywalled copy send it to me and I’ll take a look.
Finally, in any case the odds of hitting 1,000 ppmv are very slim in this century at least, and perhaps ever. So once again, an AGW supporter is getting all hot and bothered about something that might, and I emphasize might, happen in a hundred years … sorry, but that doesn’t move me in the slightest.
w.
trafamadore says:
January 12, 2013 at 8:36 pm
davidmhoffer says: “I provided you a link to an article discussing a peer reviewed paper recently published in Nature.”
—————————–
“Right. Does the paper say that droughts cant be caused by AGW? No. It says there is no conclusive evidence that that droughts are caused by AGW but there could be. That means we dont know. Which is what I said.”
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
No, the paper means nothing. It discovered ZERO, and revealed ZERO new evidence. It's only implication is that the AUTHOR ASSERTS HE doesn't know, and that no one else can.
Which is NOT what you said.
YOU said the paper has 'meaning.'
YOU said it and provided no basis for measurement of it that meaning, just religious conviction it HAS 'meaning.'
That means YOU assert, that because the AUTHOR asserts NO ONE can know,
no one can. But you've given zilch indication of why.
People are asking you repeatedly which field of energy instrumentation you say claims there is man made global warming. We've got billions of dollars' infrared sensing based in space. We've got billions of dollars based on the ground in thermal sensing.
We've got an entire photographic history of the sky since invention of photography and no indication that increasing heat on atmospheric gas, is creating more thermal turbulence, limiting astronomical viewing through the increase in that effect – that motion on gas is heat effect derived from the convective currents of earth frequency infrared.
That's called the twinkling of the stars, and we've got computerized machine assemblies which flex the mirrors of many major earth-based telescopes, to take that effect out. We've had these for thirty years. Not a soul's ever said a word about the need for more flexing of the telescope mirrors, or more days being lost to bad viewing from too much convective waver.
So it goes with the entire infrared astronomy field based on earth, not a soul's ever noticed a steadily climbing earth frequency infrared rate, or we'd have heard about it.
Which means you've got a learning disability of some kind. Because the theory that man adding CO2 can add measurable change to ANYTHING related to climate is pretty well shot to the same tiny pieces as the grasp you seem to have of just what scientific fields your religion is flying into the face of.
You'd better go ask yourself if you really think the entire space-based and earth based infrared astronomy fields are unable to tell whether there's any more atmospheric infrared in the earth frequency.
Hey wait that's right someone did check that for 12 to 14 years, by laying out infrared meters out in the U.S. Midwest: ground zero for your religion's apocalyptic meltdown.
Turned out as mankind's co2 emissions rose by a third, night time atmospheric infrared went
D.O.W.N.
Which is impossible, according to your religion.
Just sayin.
D Böehm Stealey says:
January 12, 2013 at 7:48 pm You do not understand the Scientific Method. It is your conjecture that AGW is a problem. It is your conjecture that CO2 causes global harm. Therefore, it is incumbent upon you to provide testable scientific evidence, per the Scientific Method, verifying that global harm.
Um, you have devised what you call a conjecture. Your proposition is that carbon dioxide causes no disbenefits at all Feel free to prove it.
Tom_R says:
January 12, 2013 at 8:27 pm
Climate Ace says:
January 12, 2013 at 6:45 pm
These elements are ignored in Willis’ post detracts significantly from the credibility of the post. As does the absence of a time frame. As does his ignoring other aspects of monetization of CO2 emissions, including that by the insurance industry.
Nonsense. All of those factors are included in the $21 per ton that the alarmists claim is a reasonable estimate. Willis accepted the alarmist value in his calculation. Nothing was ignored.
Not really. Willis left out the monetisation that the private sector is already putting on CO2 costs, regardless of what government does with its $21 per ton. It would be difficult to calculate but the insurance industry (around 7% of the global economy) might have the stats vis-a-vis premiums. Rather harder to calculate to way AGW risk is being monetised in venture capital.
Climate ace your lack of facts and logic combined with your assertions, assumptions and gibberish pseudo science buzzwords has convinced me that cagw exists. Than you.
JFHultquist
cf RIRO, I hadn’t realized there was more than one possible meaning. ‘Rubbish In Rubbish Out’ was what I had intended.
mpainter
“4) the impact on food availability caused by chemical changes in the oceans, for example, the possible collapse of Southern Ocean fisheries based on pterapods”
You seem to be obsessive about ‘acidification’. BAU boosters love to hate the term so I don’t use it.
I was referring to the changes in ocean chemistry arising from rising concentrations of atmospheric CO2.
@trafamadore
“Thank you for your effort S. Meyer, but you found internet opinion pieces not published articles. And even in them the word “maybe” was everywhere.”
I am puzzled. One of my references was from the Journal of Hydrology, one from a US government (U.S. Climate Change Science Program), one from National Geographic and one refers to the most recent IPCC draft report.
Those are hardly “opinion pieces”.
As to the maybe: A degree of uncertainty is in the nature of statistical evidence. I am afraid there is no absolute proof. If you were to put up the hypothesis that “looking at the moon causes blindness”, an honest scientist can tell you that there is no evidence for that, and that is as good as it gets.
Alex says:
January 12, 2013 at 10:06 pm
Climate ace your lack of facts and logic combined with your assertions, assumptions and gibberish pseudo science buzzwords has convinced me that cagw exists. Than you.
Excellent. Now we can get to work to improve your spelling, grammar and punctuation.
BTW, I saw a suggestion on an Australian blog which might appeal to BAU boosters: why not hold a 400ppm CO2 victory party? It is quite an achievement and deserves celebration as a symbol of humanity’s mastery over nature.
Alan E Eltor
I would appreciate a link or reference to your comments about infrared trends and the inference that might be drawn therefrom. I had not heard that point made before and am intrigued to know more.
The good news here is that the smoke that blanketed our place this morning has been blown away, a cool change has swept past, and we have had a generally good day. The humans have come out of their cool caves and are out and about.
All fires are either out or contained and we can relax until the next hotties which will be later in the week.
The firies have done a magnificent job.
Allen B. Eltor says: “No, the paper means nothing.”
Hum. Isn’t that what I said? You used 500 words to say that? Maybe I am missing something, perhaps you should use 2000 words.
Climate Ace;
With your rapier-like intelect it is surprising that you would lower yourself to posting on a drooling hillbilly moron site like this one. It must cause brain cell loss and migraines and diminishes your station.
The monetizing CO2 idea is excellent. Using CO2 to replace the USD for settlement of US govt accounts would overcome the debt ceiling/defecit problem. Being an invisible gas would conceal the fact that the emperor has no clothes. Is the gas bag half empty or half full?
sarc
On the creeping monetisation of carbon pollution:
http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/national/new-fire-tax-in-train-for-nsw/story-e6frfku9-1226553009361
Climate Ace:
You have been trumped repeatedly.
So, you can stop snowing this thread with your nonsense and play somewhere else. I suggest trafamadore’s playpen would be a suitable place for you and the two of you could try to share your toys.
This would allow the grownups to discuss on this thread without your continual interruptions and tantrums.
Richard
Hey Climate Ace, your climate dog don’t hunt:
http://petaluma.granicus.com/MetaViewer.php?view_id=3&clip_id=986&meta_id=190697
A 300 ppm increase in the air’s CO2 content typically
raises the productivity of most herbaceous plants by
about one-third (Cure and Acock, 1986; Mortensen,
1987). This positive response occurs in plants that
utilize all three of the major biochemical pathways
(C3, C4, and crassulacean acid metabolism (CAM)) of
photosynthesis (Poorter, 1993). Thus, with more CO2
in the air, the productivity of nearly all crops rises, as
they produce more branches and tillers, more and
thicker leaves, more extensive root systems, and more
flowers and fruit (Idso, 1989).
On average, a 300 ppm increase in atmospheric
CO2 enrichment leads to yield increases of 15 percent
for CAM crops, 49 percent for C3 cereals, 20 percent
for C4 cereals, 24 percent for fruits and melons, 44
percent for legumes, 48 percent for roots and tubers,
and 37 percent for vegetables (Idso and Idso, 2000).
References
Cure, J.D., and Acock, B. (1986). Crop Responses to
Carbon Dioxide Doubling: A Literature Survey. Agric. For.
Meteorol. 38, 127-145.
Idso, C.D. and Idso, K.E. (2000) Forecasting world food
supplies: The impact of rising atmospheric CO2
concentration. Technology 7 (suppl): 33-56.
Willis you said
Finally, in any case the odds of hitting 1,000 ppmv are very slim in this century at least, and perhaps ever. So once again, an AGW supporter is getting all hot and bothered about something that might, and I emphasize might, happen in a hundred years … sorry, but that doesn’t move me in the slightest.
That is unfair as I was responding to,another poster who said 1,000 ppm was the ideal concentration.
Climate Ace said (January 12, 5:35 pm – otherwise one loses track): “BTW, I notice that you ignored the fact that the Coalition has as a policy the spending of $10 billion of taxpayers’s funds to reduce Australia’s CO2 emissions by 5% by 2020”.
Ah – so it’s a cobber from Oz! Wait a mo – we haven’t seen the Bear around of late: this looks suspiciously like a new incarnation. Grrr to you from the Old Country (in case it rings a bell)!
richardscourtney says:
January 12, 2013 at 11:42 pm
Climate Ace:
You have been trumped repeatedly.
So, you can stop snowing this thread with your nonsense and play somewhere else. I suggest trafamadore’s playpen would be a suitable place for you and the two of you could try to share your toys.
This would allow the grownups to discuss on this thread without your continual interruptions and tantrums.
Richard
You are a seagull. You have not participated in a single discussion of substance on this thread. You turn up like a seagull, squawk a bit, and then crap all over the place. I suggest you do the classic seagull stuff now and fly away.
Richard G says:
January 12, 2013 at 11:54 pm
Hey Climate Ace, your climate dog don’t hunt:
Stop making up stuff about me. I have never said that increased concentrations of atmospheric CO2 will not have an impact on productivity.
To underdstand them you have to get down and dirty with reality. The figures quoted in this study, inter alia, depend on the continued availability of phosphorous as an input. Over the course of the next century, this is questionable at best.
[the site rules require civility, both of you take note, thanks . . mod]
Billy says:
January 12, 2013 at 11:26 pm
Climate Ace;
With your rapier-like intelect it is surprising that you would lower yourself to posting on a drooling hillbilly moron site like this one. It must cause brain cell loss and migraines and diminishes your station.
It would be nice to know what you are talking about. I have not spotted a single hillbilly. I have seen anyone drooling. I have no issues with migraines. My station is as it was.
So stop making stuff up about me.
The monetizing CO2 idea is excellent. Using CO2 to replace the USD for settlement of US govt accounts would overcome the debt ceiling/defecit problem. Being an invisible gas would conceal the fact that the emperor has no clothes. Is the gas bag half empty or half full?
I am most excellently glad that I live in Australia and not the USA. We have a carbon pricing mechanism and practically all useful economic indicators show that our economy is in a much better state of health than that of the USA. (Even the dopey Opposition whose leader has said ‘Climate Science is Crap’ has a policy of doing something positive about CO2 emissions.)
Compared to the US, we have lower unemployment, lower inflation, higher growth rate, lower debt to GDP ratio, higher international ratings agencies ratings, etc, etc, etc. Home borrowers do not have negative equity in their houses here and the Aussie dollar has been above parity with the US dollar for some time. And it is mostly safe to go out for a walk at night.
I have admired the US since I was a child and I still do. I think that, apart from the tendency to go to war unnecessarily, and also to shoot each other in huge numbers during a time of peace, US civilisation has been, on balance, a great force for good on the planet. In particular I believe that the US has been especially good at forcing the pace on the democratisation of large slabs of the world. I look forward to the US leading the planet on addressing the AGW.
I wish you guys all the best of luck going forward but am a tad concerned that you are going to need more than luck. What with Guns R Us, the Tea Party fruitloops, your carbon problem and your debt problem you have huge challenges. Nevertheless, I have great faith that you guys will pull through and sort it all out.
Best wishes with it.
Willis and readers, I apologise for my countryman, who apparently considers him/herself an “Ace”.
The concept of monetising externalities is hotly debated, and possibly contains more junk numbers than climate ‘science’. You will all have read those dumb articles in the MSM that say something like “Experts estimate that the cost of (road accidents/obesity/alcohol consumption or another bugbear du jour) is eleventy billion dollars per year, and growing …”
These numbers, when analysed, consist only fractionally of anything that can be measured, like medical costs or infrastructure costs. The bulk of the number consists of made-up statistics. A common one is loss of quality of life, another favourite is loss of economic production. Bizarrely, in the case of someone who dies prematurely, they may incur a cost for not being alive (premature death), a cost for not working and a cost for loss of the quality of life they would have had if they had kept on living. I am not making this up.
It is a popular tactic of lobby groups of all kinds who are trying to raise the profile of their issue. Not only do they confuse social costs with personal costs, a lot of the numbers they cite are meaningless in economic terms. Once you are dead, you don’t cost society anything, ever again.
Environmental activists have enthusiastically embraced this idea. Instead of, as in ordinary tort law, somebody having to actually demonstrate a real loss that they can claim compensation for, huge numbers can be conjured out of the air and used as an excuse for all embracing regulation.
It is complete voodoo. While it makes sense to say to a factory, or a household – you can’t dump your rubbish in the river because it adversely affects everyone who lives near it or uses it, that is not the same as what the EPA and our local equivalents now do. Instead, they invent statistics (like the infamous mercury rules recently mooted in the US) which do not identify a single real victim but proceed to bludgeon everyone with ideologically driven rules. Anti-CO2 rules manage to combine the worst of climate ‘science’ with the shonkiest economic hokum. Quite a coup for their proponents, not great for those who have to pay the bill.
Climate Ace finally succumbed to his/her/its basic instincts, posted a bunch of spitballs and fled. No surprise here.
Monetizing the Effects of Carbon
Posted on January 11, 2013 by Willis Eschenbach
I would like to thank Willis Eschenbach for this post.
There is unquestionably a significant benefit to commercial agriculture and to the biosphere for a doubling of atmospheric CO2 from 280 ppm to 560 ppm. Commercial greenhouses inject CO2 into the greenhouse up to 1000 ppm to 1200 ppm to increase yield and reduce growing times. There is roughly a 40% increase in cereal crop yield due to a doubling of CO2 from 280 ppm to 560 ppm.
When atmospheric CO2 rises plants can make more effective use of water which means less water is required for irrigation and there is reduce desertification.
Environmentalists should be fully in support of the rise in atmospheric CO2, for the reasons noted above, and as scientific analysis and observations indicates the temperature rise due to a doubling of atmospheric CO2 from 280 ppm to 560 ppm by the end of 2100 will result in roughly 1C warming with most the warming occurring at high latitudes which will also result in an expansion in the biosphere due to an increase in the growing season and increased precipitation. All of the unbiased research supports these conclusions.
Why has logic and reason been removed from the discussion of atmospheric CO2 rise?
I do not understand how a gas that is absolutely essential to life on this planet has been deemed a pollutant by the EPA.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016788090700045X
Impact of elevated CO2 and temperature on rice yield and methods of adaptation as evaluated by crop simulation studies But increases in the CO2 concentration up to 700 ppm led to the average yield increases of about 30.73% by ORYZA1 and 56.37% by INFOCROP rice.
http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/crops/facts/00-077.htm#f1
For most crops the saturation point will be reached at about 1,000–1,300 ppm under ideal circumstances. A lower level (800–1,000 ppm) is recommended for raising seedlings (tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers) as well as for lettuce production. Even lower levels (500–800 ppm) are recommended for African violets and some Gerbera varieties. Increased CO2 levels will shorten the growing period (5%–10%), improve crop quality and yield, as well as, increase leaf size and leaf thickness. The increase in yield of tomato, cucumber and pepper crops is a result of increased numbers and faster flowering per plant.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090218135031.htm
Published today in Nature, the 40 year study of African tropical forests–one third of the world’s total tropical forest–shows that for at least the last few decades each hectare of intact African forest has trapped an extra 0.6 tonnes of carbon per year.
The reason why the trees are getting bigger and mopping up carbon is unclear. A leading suspect is the extra CO2 in the atmosphere itself, which may be acting like a fertiliser.
African forests have the highest mammal diversity of any ecosystem, with over 400 species, alongside over 10,000 species of plants and over 1,000 species of birds. According to the FAO deforestation rates are approximately 6 million hectares per year (almost 1% of total forest area per year), although other studies show the rate to be half that (approximately 0.5% of total forest area per year). The African Tropical Rainforest Observation Network, Afritron brings together researchers active in African countries with tropical forest to standardise and pool data to better understand how African tropical forests are changing in a globally changing environment.
http://www.co2science.org/subject/t/summaries/transpiration.php
Transpiration
Transpiration – Summary Most plants respond to increases in the air’s CO2 content by displaying reduced stomatal conductances, which typically leads to reduced rates of transpirational water loss. This water savings often results in greater soil moisture contents in CO2-enriched ecosystems, which positively feeds back to increase plant growth. In this summary, we review a few papers that treat various aspects of this phenomenon.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6036529.ece
“There is no doubt that the enrichment of the air with CO2 is increasing plant growth rates in many areas,” said Professor Martin Parry, head of plant science at Rothamsted Research, Britain’s leading crop institute.
TREES and plants are growing bigger and faster in response to the billions of tons of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere by humans, scientists have found. Researchers in Germany recently discovered that wheat grown in similar conditions would produce up to 16% more grain.
http://www.springerlink.com/content/w7gy1cyyr5yey994/
Carbon dioxide effects on stomata responses to the environment and water use by crops under field conditions
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/07/090731-green-sahara.html
The green shoots of recovery are showing up on satellite images of regions including the Sahel, a semi-desert zone bordering the Sahara to the south that stretches some 2,400 miles (3,860 kilometers). Images taken between 1982 and 2002 revealed extensive regreening throughout the Sahel, according to a new study in the journal Biogeosciences.
The study suggests huge increases in vegetation in areas including central Chad and western Sudan. In the eastern Sahara area of southwestern Egypt and northern Sudan, new trees—such as acacias—are flourishing, according to Stefan Kröpelin, a climate scientist at the University of Cologne’s Africa Research Unit in Germany.
“Shrubs are coming up and growing into big shrubs. This is completely different from having a bit more tiny grass,” said Kröpelin, who has studied the region for two decades. In 2008 Kröpelin—not involved in the new satellite research—visited Western Sahara, a disputed territory controlled by Morocco.
“The nomads there told me there was never as much rainfall as in the past few years,” Kröpelin said. “They have never seen so much grazing land.” “Before, there was not a single scorpion, not a single blade of grass,” he said. “Now you have people grazing their camels in areas which may not have been used for hundreds or even thousands of years. You see birds, ostriches, gazelles coming back, even sorts of amphibians coming back,” he said. “The trend has continued for more than 20 years. It is indisputable.”