Essay by Eric Worrall
Apparently Trump should have told voters how climate change drives inflation.
A ‘doom loop’ of climate change and geopolitical instability is beginning
Published: December 9, 2024 11.21pm AEDT
Laurie Laybourn Visiting Fellow, Global Systems Institute, University of Exeter
James Dyken Associate Professor in Earth System Science, University of ExeterIt is a common refrain to say that geopolitics gets in the way of climate action. From the war in Ukraine to trade tensions, each year seems to bring another immediate priority that diverts focus from the imperative to act on climate change.
…This is a vicious circle. Climate change is making geopolitics less stable, which harms climate action. This will worsen climate change, meaning more geopolitical instability, and so on. The risk is that this “doom loop” runs faster and faster and ultimately derails our ability to phase out fossil fuels fast enough to avoid the worst climate consequences.
…
Climate-flation
The recent election of Donald Trump offers a potential case study of how this doom loop could be beginning to emerge.
…
In the years leading to the election, the US experienced its highest rates of inflation in over four decades. While inflation eventually fell, many Americans couldn’t cope with far higher prices. Trump made inflation a major focus of his campaign and it’s clear it played a role in his victory. What he didn’t mention was how climate change is increasingly a factor driving inflation.
…
At the moment, the link between climate change, inflation, and politics is a “weak signal” of how the consequences of climate change can frustrate our collective ability to tackle the causes of climate change. In a recent academic paper, we called this “derailment risk”, the risk that the world ultimately cannot stick to a path that rapidly phases out fossil fuels and avoids the worst climate outcomes.
Read more: https://theconversation.com/a-doom-loop-of-climate-change-and-geopolitical-instability-is-beginning-244705
…
I just can’t get past the fact 10s of thousands of kids will have their understanding of the world shaped by these people.
On one hand they claim people are overlooking the impact of climate change on inflation. Then they immediately go on to say climate change is a weak signal.
Of course people are overlooking climate driven inflation if it is a weak signal. The majority of the inflation people are currently experiencing clearly has other causes, such as skyrocketing energy prices caused by punitive climate activist political attacks against fossil fuel companies.
The obvious followup question is, will global warming become a strong signal on any timescale any of us care about?
A quick glance at Earth’s paleo history shows us how unlikely it is that climate change will ever be an issue we need to care about, on any reasonable timescale.
For starters, the Earth is currently way too cold, not too hot. We are all locked in the Late Cenzoic Ice Age, an ice age which began 34 million years ago, and shows no signs of releasing its grip. The Earth has thrived in much warmer conditions than today, and with much higher CO2 levels than today. There is substantial evidence the biomass carrying capacity of the Earth has been substantially degraded by the current ice age, compared to previous warm epochs.
In an ice age like the Late Cenzoic we are currently experiencing, ice is a far greater threat than global warming. Don’t be fooled by the current interglacial, the last glacial maximum was so severe, it may have come close to being an extinction level event.
As we approach the end of the Holocene, we shouldn’t be worried about shaving undetectably small fractions of a degree off global temperature, we should be worried about today, here and now, and what we can do to remove obstacles to prosperity and economic well being.
If we pay any attention to the long term at all, that attention should be directed to ensuring the ice never again threatens to extinguish all life on Earth – a far greater long term problem than whether your rose garden blooms a few weeks earlier than normal.
The only “doom loop” is efforts like the Energiewende, which raises prices and limits the supply of energy. Failure to slap down the mad enthusiasm of its advocates, and their inability to recognize its failure is the real issue.
re: “In the years leading to the election, the US experienced its highest rates of inflation in over four decades.”
.
Oh crap.
.
You mean the Bidenomics-inspired (and misnamed) Inflation Reduction Act didn’t ‘arrest’ inflation BUT RATHER accelerated it?
.
WHAT are we to learn from this (one wonders)?
Nothing. We will learn nothing. Just wait until the next election.
re: “We will learn nothing.”
And – “We will like it.” I think that’s how the saying goes … /s
When JD Vance is elected? Vance will continue the a$$f*cking DJT is giving the climatards.
“In the years leading to the election, the US experienced its highest rates of inflation in over four decades. While inflation eventually fell…..”
Inflation hasn’t fallen, it’s just going up at a slower rate. It hasn’t gone down to 1.4% where it was when Biden took office! What we need is a rate of minus percentages.
He’s using “inflation” as shorthand for “the rfate if inflation”. See his previous sentence. It’s a common practice to use “inflation” as shorthand for “the rate of inflation”. The common misunderstanding is that a fall in (the rate of”) inflation should mean that prices are falling. PPerhaps it would be nbetter if people always talked about the rate of inflation rather than ‘inflation’. But ‘inflation’ implies an increase, as when you inflate your tyres or a balloon.
The same mis-use of terms applies to “Carbon” when we really mean “Carbon Dioxide”
re: “Inflation hasn’t fallen, it’s just going up at a slower rate.”
.
Familiar with the term ‘compound interest’ or no? Works similarly with inflation on prices (the effect is cumulative or ‘compounding’ as term is coined) …
The ‘inflation reduction act’ is actually the ‘green new deal’ renamed to get congress to pass it.
A play on the term “New Deal” coined in the FDR years perhaps?
Are you disagreeing with the statement that “In the years leading to the election, the US experienced its highest rates of inflation in over four decades.” Are you saying that the statement is false? If so, I’d like to know where you get your statistics from.
As for the IRA accelerating the rate of inflation, where, again, do you get your statistics from? The US rate of inflation reached its highest point in June 2022 when it was 9.1%. By Ocrtober 2024 it had fallen to 2.4%. I don’t say that to defend President Biden or his so-called IRA, but facts are facts.
1) <sarc> and </sarc> were implied in my opening post (IF you are at all familiar with the HTML tag system); I sense you may just be slightly humor impaired.
2) See previous post regarding the term compound interest (compound inflation in this case); The effect inflation has (rising prices) year over year (quarter over quarter) is a cumulative, non-linear ‘compounding’ factor.
Example, cumulative inflation 21.9%
The warmers are now “grasping at straws “ to save their beloved theory. That’s all they have left. The game is over & the fans are leaving the stadium. Game, set & match to the skeptics & realists.
I wonder if this lame attempt by climate cranks to conflate weather conditions and cost of living angst was prompted by surveys showing that climate was way down the list of pressing concerns most people were facing in their lives.
I’ve forgotten just which election is was, but the cry was “It’s the economy, stupid”
Hasn’t changed.
It was a poster sign that Bill Clinton kept on his office wall to remind himself what to focus his messaging on.
“It’s the economy, stupid” authored by one James Carville (Clinton campaign manager) I think …
Listening to the climate crowd is like listening to a cultist – so brainwashed that they see climate spirits causing trouble everywhere they look.
WHEN all you have is a climate hammer, everything looks like a climate nail …
— un-attributed
What happens to global warming advocates/sceptics if global warming resisters/believers admit defeat?
They won’t go away. They will probably get government climate change consulting gigs like Pelosi’s daughter.
Was your point that “CAGW” was a scam to begin with?
If that scam fails, they’ll just morph into another form to promote “The Cause”?
(I think “The Cause” dates back to eve3n before 1917.)
Some will back any cause that leads them to more power and wealth.
Most of us just want to be left alone.
The “doom loop” sounds a bit like this:
You get robbed at gunpoint by someone who wants to take your stuff. You fight back with your own gun.
To them, the problem is with the guns, not the person who wanted to take your stuff.
It is quite clear that the measures governments have undertaken to control the weather and avoid the mythical climate crisis are the most important and fundamental causes of inflation. Once you make energy, agriculture, transport and all the secondary products linked to energy unnecessarily more expensive, everything else will rise in price. This doesn’t take a university degree to understand but, for the elite ruling class, it appears there will never be enough education or integrity for them to understand and/or admit the truth.
But, but … inflation is caused by climate change. Climate change alarmism, that is. Climate change alarmism drives wind and solar renewables installation which pushes up the price of electricity which drives inflation.
Inflation is defined as too many dollars demanding too few goods. There is no other definition.
Since the US government decided to spend 33 trillion dollars that didn’t exist in the economy since 2008, what else would you expect?
re: “too many dollars demanding too few goods.”
So, who put those wheels in motion? Governments? Via regulations? Via failure to approve land leases for energy-fuels exploration, to include even Uranium exploration? The classification of more federal land be off-limits to exploration let alone production or mining operations for like rare-earth elements?
Not so. Inflation is a general increase in the prices of goods and services in an economy, regardless of cause.
Very nice Eric.
Thanks Bob
Energy costs are driving inflation.
Chevron, Exxon, Oxy and other energy companies stock prices had a good run up starting in about 2020 that coincided w/Biden’s start in office and concurrent jump in consumer prices. Along with other commodities. Now I have to go find the financial article I read that argued that energy prices drive consumer prices more that federal deficit spending. Other commodity prices did nicely at that time too. Gold price has done quite nicely.
Gold is real wealth. Everything else is an “IOU” slip of paper. Those IOU’s work as long as everyone thinks they will be paid back. Since governments realized they could just tell banks to allow more IOU’s, the trend in the value of the IOU’s has not been good….
Energy costs may contribute somewhat to inflation. They don’t drive it.
“Inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon, in the sense that it is and can be produced only by a more rapid increase in the quantity of money than in output.” –Milton Friedman
When you enlarge the money supply faster than the demand, inflation ensues. See the graph below for a visual representation. Guess who conjures money out of thin air to fund their manifold new programs and to “give” to the people? It’s supposed to come from taxes, but in reality the money is conjured into existence with the assumption that someday it will be paid down by future taxpayers.
Blatantly false. For example, the 1970s oil crisis caused high inflation without the money supply changing.
“Blatantly False” is a bit narrow minded, Mike. Gov’t “money printing” can be a cause of inflation due to the “supply- demand curve” of capital itself. Classic economics would point to a decrease in “supply” or increase in “demand” of a commodity as being a more basic definition of inflation. But gov’ts can use fiat money on a whole different level…
One thing nice about being a devout Climate Cultist; you never have to think before opening your mouth to screech! The truly devoted Greenblobber knows that; regardless of the problem; warming, cooling, or occasional bad weather; CO2 from reliable, fossil fuel energy is the SIN, and humanity is the problem!
At an atmospheric CO2 level of 425 ppm the ratio of CO2 to atmosphere is only 1 part CO2 to each 2350 parts of atmosphere. That’s what is known as a trace
At the MLO in Hawaii, the concentration of CO2 in dry air is now 422 ppmv.
One cubic meter of this air has 0.839 g of CO2 and a mass of 1.29 kg.
This small amount of CO2 can heat up such a large amount of air by a very small amount if at all.
The claim by the IPCC since 1988 that CO2 causes global warming is a lie.
1,000,000 parts minus 425 leaves 999,575 parts; that is a trace.
It all comes down to the evil gas that is produced when we humans use fossil fuels to get energy for all the modern civilization versus burning wood around a campfire, in a tent or cave entrance.
So why don’t we realists attack and diminish/destroy the evil gas chain of reasoning that the warmists are continuing to use over and over?
Gums wonders…
Lots of money was printed to keep the economy from going into recession as a result of COVID-19 and its restrictions. That fueled inflation.
If money has been issued but “wealth” is stagnant, the resultant inflation is equivalent to a tax on everyone’s savings, investments, real estate….doesn’t affect anyone living from day-to-day….steals wealth from “savers”, especially retirees…..
When will we know when “climate change” has been defeated? No more hurricanes? Not gonna happen. No more tornadoes? Not gonna happen. No more floods? Droughts? Stinky weather?
“Climate change” does not drive inflation, climatards drive inflation, Democrat Party drives inflation, leftist ideology drives inflation
If you want to see climate inflation then print up $1.5tn (IRA) and hand it to people like this …
https://x.com/Project_Veritas/status/1863960384513753213
I oncehad a parent attend a Parents’ Evening at the school where I taught. It so happened that I had some notes written on the board in my classroom about the causes of inflation. The parent read the notes and then announced that I had missed out the most impirtant cause. That was back in the 1970s. Nowadays I can imagine a parent coming in and telling me that the most important cause was climate change. The Economics textbooks will now all have to be re-written thanks to these two non-Economists. The main problem, however, would be to explain falls in the rate of inflation. Presumably the explanation would have to be that the fall was due to climate change disappearing.
it’s even worse than this
to the extent there is any “climate-driven” effect on inflation, it’s driven entirely by climate change actions, particularly emissions controls