Potential economic benefits of reversing rising temperatures would benefit developing countries greatly, representing a global GDP growth of 200%
University of California – San Diego
New research from the University of California San Diego finds that solar geoengineering–the intentional reflection of sunlight away from the Earth’s surface–may reduce income inequality between countries.
In a study recently published in Nature Communications, researchers examine the impacts of solar geoengineering on global and country-level economic outcomes. Using a state-of-the-art macroeconomic climate impacts assessment approach, the paper is the first to look at the economic impacts of climate projections associated with solar geoengineering.
While de-carbonizing the world’s emissions sources continues to pose a large challenge, solar geoengineering, which is process where incoming sunlight is intentionally reflected to cool rising temperatures, could help avoid the worst consequences of global warming. This analysis is the first to project the response of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to the specific pattern of cooling solar geoengineering produces.
The methodology estimates the historical relationship between climate, represented as mean annual temperature and precipitation, and country-level growth in economic production, measured as GDP per capita. This estimated climate-economy relationship is then applied to project and compare economic outcomes across four different climate scenarios for the next century – if global temperatures stabilize naturally; if temperatures continue to rise; if temperatures were stabilized as a result of geoengineering; and if temperatures were over-cooled from geoengineering efforts.
“While precipitation has little to no effect on GDP growth in our results, there is a relationship for temperatures,” said first author Anthony Harding, a visiting graduate student with UC San Diego’s School of Global Policy and Strategy from the Georgia Institute of Technology. “Applying these historical relationships for different models, we find that if temperatures cooled there would be gains in GDP per capita. For some models, these gains are up to 1,000 percent over the course of the century and are largest for countries in the tropics, which historically tend to be poorer.”
In an economic model projecting a solar-geoengineered decrease in the average global temperature of around 3.5 degrees Celsius, the cooler climate would increase average incomes in developing tropical countries, such as Niger, Chad and Mali by well over 100 percent over the course of the century, compared to a model where warming continues to occur. For the U.S. and countries in Southern Europe, the same model showed a more moderate increase of about 20 percent. While the effects for each individual country can vary across models, the changes in temperature associated with solar geoengineering consistently translate into a 50 percent reduction of global income inequality.
Similar to previous studies which have explored the relationship between hot weather and low productivity, the findings in Nature do not reveal the mechanisms for why this correlation occurs.
“We find hotter, more populous countries are more sensitive to changes in temperature – whether it is an increase or a decrease,” said Harding. “Those hotter countries are typically also poorer countries. With solar geoengineering, we find that poorer countries benefit more than richer countries from reductions in temperature, reducing inequalities. Together, the overall global economy grows.”
A fundamental step in understanding the potential risks and rewards of solar geoengineering
Harding and corresponding-author Kate Ricke, assistant professor with UC San Diego’s School of Global Policy and Strategy and Scripps Institution of Oceanography, highlight that there are many unknowns about the impacts solar geoengineering intervention efforts would have on the Earth’s atmosphere, a cause of concern for scientists and policymakers.
However, predicting the economic impacts of solar geoengineering is a fundamental step towards understanding the risk tradeoff associated with the new field of study, which is advancing rapidly. Many emerging technologies have recently been developed to manipulate the environment and partially offset some of the impacts of climate change.
“There is a problem with solar geoengineering science in that there has been a lot of work on the physical aspects of it, however there is a gap in research understanding policy-relevant impacts,” Ricke said. “Our finding of consistent reduction in inter-country inequality can inform discussions of the global distribution of impacts of solar geoengineering, a topic of concern in geoengineering ethics and governance debates.”
While the economic models used in the study do not reveal the impacts solar geoengineering has on income inequality within countries’ borders, the research results on GDP growth provide incentive for additional work on the global governance of solar geoengineering.
The authors write, “Our findings underscore that a robust system of global governance will be necessary to ensure that any future decisions about solar geoengineering deployment are made for collective benefit.”
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More information can be found in Nature Communications (“Climate econometric models indicate solar geoengineering would reduce inter-country income inequality.”) The DOI for this paper is 10.1038/s41467-019-13957-x.
Solar geo-engineering will reduce income inequality after the developed world shuts down all of its hydro, hydro-carbon, and nuclear-based sources of energy. Everyone will then be equally poor.
This is about as idiotic and non scientific as a study can get. The most egregious error from the start is the statistics 101 error of confusing correlation with causation. There is no linkage mechanism identified between GDP and weather.
Form of government and economic policies are far and away the biggest drivers of standard of living. First world economies share the common characteristics of a democratic form of government, rule of law, free market economies, and free people. These conditions do not exist in Africa, regardless of the weather or climate.
The best example of the contrast may be North Korea vs South Korea, where the weather is similar and the people originated from the same racial or ethnic backgrounds. The main difference between the two is that North Korea is a totalitarian slave state and South Korea is a mostly free market democracy.
GDP per capital in South Korea is $37,600 vs GDP per capita in NK of $1,700. As another example, GDP per capita of Hong Kong, which sits on a rock, is $61,500 vs mainland China of $16,700.
The obvious point, completely disregarded in this waste of resources study, is that the main driver of economic well being around the world is form of government and free market vs socialist economic system. The climate of one place vs another or the change in climate in any particular location plays a very minor role in standards of living.
I would suspect that the average temperature of South Korea would be higher than the average temperature of North Korea.
“As the Canadian economy collapses and millions of farmers file a class action suit against BigAcademy (#USCDknew), President Maduro was observed scratching his head and wondering perplexedly, ‘Why haven’t things improved? I should be rolling in billions by now.’
“News at 11:00.”
(Photo footnote: Why does Mali need this giant greenhouse if it’s already too hot?”
I wondered about the “greenhouse” photo myself. I am guessing that this is probably more like a sun screen. You see it in gardens planted by first-generation Italians in NJ where they hang cheese-cloth or similar fabric on poles to shade the tomato plants. The vegetables mentioned in the caption are temperate zone produce and may not do well under a relentless equatorial sun.
It appears they do use greenhouses.
https://www.investmali.com/en/projects/installation-and-operation-10-greenhouses-production-market-garden-crops
So the country is clearly not hot enough yet.
Probably to keep the added CO2 contained where the plants can make use of it and grow better
Not sure that’s a real greenhouse, I don’t see any extra CO2 source.
Adopting solar geo-engineering will reduce income inequality after the developed world shuts down all of its hydro, hydrocarbon-based, and nuclear sources of energy. Then everyone will be equally poor.
“…research from the University of California San Diego finds that solar geoengineering…”
Didn’t bother reading the rest of it, geoengineering is entirely without merit.
It isn’t really research anyway but computer-game playing.
They seem to be assuming that the reason why countries are poor, is because those countries are hot and if they cool them down, absent any other changes, those countries will become wealthier.
I’ve heard it said that there are some ideas that our so outlandishly stupid, that only an academic could believe them. Well these “academics” have proven that case.
Construct and lent white parasols to everyone, good income, light increase in albedo, perfect 😀
The more expensives with built solar driven ventilator. 😀
All it takes is some elected idiot like AOC to try it.
I can’t even imagine the unintended consequences of this ##$*%&$!
These people will not be happy until the climate has returned to what it was 200 to 300 years ago.
https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=ice+fairs+on+the+thames&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwi83cfP0YPnAhXQQkEAHYMtAREQ_AUIBigB&biw=601&bih=794
“These people will not be happy until the climate has returned to what it was 200 to 300 years ago.”
No, they won’t be happy until the only jobs are government jobs and they run the government. When that occurs, climate will cease to be an issue.
Yet these numskulls fail to realise or just don’t care, that guvments have NO money, it’s taxpayers money, & if the only workers are taxpayer-funded then there’s gonna be an awful lot of brown smelly stuff flung through the air!!!! I recall in the strike-torn UK in the 1970s & 80s how trade union reps & especially state workers, would stand on a platform shouting that they aren’t asking for much, just parity with the private sector! The reality of course is that is the very last thing they wanted, 8 weeks fully paid holiday per year minimum, generous sick pay, all sorts of other benefits to go along with it all, flexi-time for many state employees, etc! Theydo pretty well out of it, but the rhetoric goes before them as usual!
Gee, what could POSSIBLY go wrong…?
AGW theory predicts greater warming at the poles. Surely reducing temperatures near the equator by 3.5 deg C would amplify polar cooling. I assume thay expect mile high ice here in the UK. There be madness around.
I believe that most poor people in darkest Africa are farmers. It is hard for me to understand why reducing both sunlight and carbon dioxide will help them grow more food
No most of the poorest in darkest Africa are dodging bullets and trying not stay off the radar of the latest despot ruler, warlord or gangs in the country.
Well, if the world is ready for this, it’s certainly ready for my latest invention, Albedo Hats! Each one purchased reduces African inequality, so buy at least two. Just send me $15:00 and proof of IQ and I’ll send you a square of cardboard covered in foil. Oops, I mean your smart new Albedo Hat!
Good one, Shark! That made me laugh!
But I think I would remove that requirement for proof of IQ if I were you, because that will cut seriously into your sales.
A better idea than geoengineering would be to supply those people in the tropics with air conditioners and electricity to run them and then instead of cooling the whole planet, they can just cool the rooms where the people live. Much more doable than lowering the global temperatures.
They’ll just publish anything in those scientific journals anymore, won’t they. Giving credence to craziness. What a world we live in!
I dunno.. I figure I would still get enough money to make a considerable amount of cash. My target markets are extinction rebellion, earth first etc. That’s why the maximum IQ requirement.
You forgot the reflective pet coat market because half these inner city dropkicks have fur babies that they spend ridiculous amounts of money on. If you could do something in the latte market then you could really triple down on fleecing them.
It’s hotter in Saudi Arabia than in a host of 3rd World poor countries. Why are they rich? They developed their resources without NGOs on safari blocking development projects.
“Our findings underscore that a robust system of global governance will be necessary to ensure that any future decisions about solar geoengineering deployment are made for collective benefit.”
Hmmm… I was going to go on about the linear thinker geoengineer tinkers and their obliviousness to the le Châtelier Principle that would be invoked by such a dumbo project and a word or two about unreliable Economic Models being coupled with Climate Models that, even with massive shifts in goalposts and creation of fake data, still run hot. But no. The quoted passage above was the point. Good old robust global gov for “Collective benefit”.
Oil in that statement … HOW DARE YOU.
We are the “Collective benefit”, you will be assimilated, resistance is futile.
All I needed was that last paragraph:
“Global governance.”
Yeah no thanks. Everyone who’s tried that has not only made their citizens destitute, they had to force millions of them to take permanent dirt naps.
“While precipitation has little to no effect on GDP growth in our results, there is a relationship for temperatures,” said first author Anthony Harding…He is welcome to come out to Australia to look at the devastation of Primary production under the present drought.
This idiotic solar reflection temperature reduction idea is best compared to the Mad Queen in “Alice in Wonderland” ordering the gardeners to paint the red roses white. The “climate Deniers” are then dealt with by the Queen ordering “Off with their heads!”.
The sole aim of these hair-brained Global Ideas is not to improve the climate but to bring about “World Government” with the “Climateers” in charge, and jobs only existing under government control. At that point climate will magically cease to be an issue.
I read through the comments hoping at least one person would state the obvious but sadly it wasn’t there. I have always been humbled by the intelligence in this room but apparently not a single one of you realizes they’ve been geoengineering for well over 20 years now. You haven’t seen the sprayed grids in the sky?
So help me God if you say those are normal airplane contrails I’m gonna slide through the cable wire and smack you for stupidity.
Contrails have reduced average temperatures over the last 20 years? I didn’t know that. Or are they geoengineering something other than temperature. You didn’t specify. I guess they could be geoengineering for lower IQ in the population. There is some evidence for that. 🙂
“We find hotter, more populous countries are more sensitive to changes in temperature – whether it is an increase or a decrease,” said Harding.
Here’s the problem. “Changes in temperature” and “average temperature” are completely different things. Even if you could lower average temperatures by 3.5 degrees, the daily temperature would still vary. You would still have heat waves and cool waves. Once the population got used to the lower average temperature, they would still be sensitive to temperatures that varied from what they were used to. So you would not see a tremendous increase in average income just by reducing the average temperature by 3.5 degrees.
Did this study prove its point by comparing third-world countries with average temperatures that differed by 3.5 degrees? If so, did the countries that were 3.5 degrees lower have an average income 100% greater than the warmer countries? I seriously doubt it.
“The authors write, “Our findings underscore that a robust system of global governance will be necessary to ensure that any future decisions about solar geoengineering deployment are made for collective benefit.”
This sounds like something out of the UN playbook. So I wondered ” Who funded this study?” Going to the paper on the study in Nature Communications I find it this: “K.R. and A.H. [the two main authors, Katharine Ricke and Anthony Harding] thank the Deep Decarbonization Initiative for support of this research.”
And what, I asked, is the “Deep Decarbonization Initiative?” (DDI) It turns out is a creature of the Univ. of Calif. San Diego (UCSD). These types of “initiatives” are generally a person whose job it is to generate multi-discipline grant requests that can be assembled from various departments in the university, or alternately where grants can come to be distributed to the various departments. Where the DDI gets its funds is not readily discernable.
There is also this sentence in the Acknowledgements: “The authors thank Sikina Jinnah and David Victor for helpful input on the global governance implications of this paper.” Dr. Jinnah is an Associate Professor of Politics at the University of California at Santa Cruz (UCSC). Dr. Victor is a professor at UCSD who received his PhD in political science from MIT. When you search the UCSD website for “Deep Decarbonization Initiative” Dr. Victor is face that comes up. Apparently he is coordinator of the DDI.
So.… because the models for Climate Change(tm) show a ‘problem’, they have modelled some geo engineering solutions that, according to the economic models, will make the world better.
Wow.
And to think the only place you used to see this many models were catwalks and hobby stores.
What could possibly go wrong?
Just posting this without comment as I really, really do not know what to say. Horrific. Full article at link.
‘EDUCATION’ continues its slide into indoctrination and brainwashing. The Cultural Marxist’s “long march through the institutions” is now substantially complete.
https://climatism.blog/2020/01/14/children-of-the-ignorant-new-zealand-schools-to-terrify-children-about-the-climate-crisis/
It seems odd to me to declare that millions of hectares of solar panels are going to save the world, and then say you’re going to deflect their energy source. Or is it that they’re already looking for new ways to spend our money?
Am I missing something? Part from the fact that leftist scientists have gone stake raving bonkers!
*sigh* I wish my greengrocer was like her…
Isolated ignorant model dependent researchers…
Where their statement ignores the lack of temperature increase in the tropics.
Their conclusions fail to acknowledge the imbedded pyramid scheme. Where the researchers programmed into the model that renewable energy produces consistent reliable abundant cheap energy which immediately increases local employment and wages… All without GDP producing jobs, businesses or products.
These people fail to understand just how massive, complex and resilient the earth’s atmosphere is. Geo engineering is like throwing a grain of sand at a beach.