White House Edits Climate Change—Why?

Ronald Bailey | June 8, 2005

"Bush Aide Softened Greenhouse Gas Links to Global Warming," reads a front page headline in today's New York Times. Ah, the stupidity!

In other climate change news, eleven national academies of science, including the US National Academy of Sciences, issued a joint statement yesterday declaring, "Climate change is real." The statement also declares, "There is now strong evidence that significant global warming is occurring." The statement cites the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's 2001 projections that average global surface temperatures will increase to between 1.4 and 5.8 degrees centigrade above 1990 levels by 2100. The joint statement also cites IPCC estimates that thermal expansion and glacial melting will increase sea levels by between 0.1 and 0.9 meters by 2100.

The statement then goes on to recommend various policy responses including "acknowledge that the threat of climate change is clear and increasing." OK, there is man-made global warming. Now what? Just how big the threat is is what matters for selecting appropriate policies. If the temperature increase is at the lower end of the IPCC range (and satellite data since 1978 that find the global average trend is an increase of 0.09 degrees centigrade per decade suggests that it may be), then the urgency to adopt drastic and costly remedies will be a lot less.

After all, the average surface temperatures rose by about 0.6 degrees centigrade (+0.2 or -0.2 degrees) and sea level rose by about 0.2 meters in the 20th century without provoking global ecological and economic catastrophe.

The joint statement also advises world leaders to "launch an international study to explore scientifically-informed targets for atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations, and their associated emissions scenarios, that will enable nations to avoid impacts deemed unacceptable."

The crucial issue that the national academies statement is addressing is that so far there is no good scientific basis for defining what in fact constitutes "dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate." Clearly a lot more scientific research on this question needs to be done.

The joint academy statement also calls on world leaders to "identify cost-effective steps that can be taken now to contribute to substantial and long-term reduction in net global greenhouse gas emissions."

Sounds great, right? However, there is more than one way to achieve long-term reduction in greenhouse gas concentrations. The world could start on a long slow path to reductions by beginning cuts now, or the world could continue on a path of rapid technological and economic growth and make steep cuts later to achieve the same eventual concentrations of greenhouse gases.

There good reasons to question the reductions now versus reductions later strategy, according to a 2000 Resources for the Future study which concluded, "According to the estimates in most I[ntegrated] A[ssessment] models, the costs of sharply reducing GHG concentrations today are too high relative to the modest benefits the reductions are projected to bring." So which is better? Which is more cost-effective? That's not science; that's politics and economics.

By adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere (chiefly carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels), humanity is increasing global temperatures. How much? Uncertain. How dangerous? Uncertain. How best to handle it? Uncertain.

Given these uncertainties, White House functionaries had no need to exaggerate. Shame on them.

Comments

|6.8.05 @ 1:55PM|#

It's uncertain whether smoking 2 packs a day will kill me any earlier than I'll die otherwise, so I may as well keep smoking, eh Ron?

|6.8.05 @ 2:12PM|#

Luisa:

Sigh. Please show more originality in your attempted insults.

Regarding the certainty of dying of lung cancer from smoking see URL: http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/lungcancer/

|6.8.05 @ 2:13PM|#

That was a good post, Ron.

The world could start on a long slow path to reductions by beginning cuts now, or the world could continue on a path of rapid technological and economic growth and make steep cuts later to achieve the same eventual concentrations of greenhouse gases.

To me, that's the real crux of the argument. Some people don't agree with that sentence, some do. I happen to think there is some anthropogenic warming, though I won't pretend to know how much. Climatologists are well-suited to tracking down the answers for us, and eventually they'll be able to pinpoint exactly what is going to happen and why. Where they are less well-suited is in devising a policy response to the issue. Economists and statisticians need to play a role as well, and not just one ideological breed of economist. And that's where the political argument is. One side doesn't trust the free market to do anything to fix the problem, and the other side does. Claiming that global warming is an outright hoax might be anti-science, but it's not anti-science to suggest that Kyoto isn't the best response, or that the problem is overblown.

On top of this fundamental disagreement, there are indeed people who are acting in bad faith on both sides. There are those in industry who just worry about the bottom line, and are lying to protect it. There are people on the right who are sick of the environmentalists crying wolf and don't believe anything they say anymore, and who then reject any fact with an ad hominem. Some on the left see climate change as a chance to stick it to evil big business, or to achieve other social or economic goals. And yes, there are those who blow things out of proportion for funding. None of these groups are doing a service to the real debate.

|6.8.05 @ 2:22PM|#

Ron Bailey, admitting global warming exists.

Ladies and Gentlemen, the window has closed.

Jason Holliston|6.8.05 @ 2:24PM|#

Luisa: first, that analogy doesn't overlay very well. Smoking a couple packs a day has been absolutely proven to increase the chances of dying earlier than you would have. Global warming in general, and especially anthropogenic warming, are standing on a lot shakier ground.

Second, even if you assume that the analogy is applicable, both decisions have to have normal cost-benefit analysis done. There are plenty of people out there, for example, that make an informed and well thought-out decision to continue smoking after running their own cost-benefit analysis. The same goes for anthropogenic global warming: we have to decide how bad it really is and what the cost is for commiting to certain corrective paths. Those costs may very well be higher than not doing anything we're not currently doing.

What Mr. Bailey was saying is that while quantifying those costs and benefits is the job of science, deciding on the correct course of action is absolutely not the job of the scientists.

|6.8.05 @ 2:27PM|#

Why so quick to believe the science academies, Ron? If they are using the 2001 panel's findings, then they too are factoring in the bogus hockey stick chart. If burnibg oil causes the "problem", we needn't worry about it for long. It won't be more than a hundred years or so before we run out. Anyway, a few degrees either way isn't going to hurt anything.

|6.8.05 @ 2:28PM|#

Climate change won't lead to GLOBAL catastrophe--some areas will actually be better off than they are now. Seems to me the main problems will be of a more localized and largely political nature. For example--countries like Bangladesh are barely above sea level now. What happens when 180 million Bangladeshis are flooded out? I doubt they'll be kind enough to drown quietly to avoid disturbing their neighbors, so where will they go? Which country will take them in? What if nobody will?

What about the places in South America and Africa that get pretty much all of their water from yearly glacial melt? When those glaciers are gone for good, so's the water. So do the world's rich countries--which contributed to most of the warming--take in these people or let them die oof thirst and starvation?

The grand and bitter irony of climate change is that the ones who did the most to cause it will also be the least affected by it.

|6.8.05 @ 2:31PM|#

phocion,

"Economists and statisticians need to play a role as well, and not just one ideological breed of economist." Agreed. Too many quality minds have boycotted the effort to devise a solution for ideological or financial reasons, and the project has suffered for it.

I disagree that "One side doesn't trust the free market to do anything to fix the problem, and the other side does." Cap and trade schemes have met with some support among environmentalists.

"Some on the left see climate change as a chance to stick it to evil big business, or to achieve other social or economic goals." The existence of "watermelons" is undeniably true, and the presence of responsible conservative voices within the global warming consensus will help sift the wheat from the chaff.

|6.8.05 @ 2:35PM|#

And before the thread wanders completely off the original point...

What a load of crap we've got working in the White House. Actions like this are why the left has become the "Reality Based Community."

|6.8.05 @ 2:37PM|#

Global warming?? You selfish bastards, it that all you can think about - you own back yard? What about galactic warming? Do you realize how much the ambient temperature of the Milky Way has gone up in the last 100 years? Won't someone think of the extra-terrestrials?

|6.8.05 @ 2:44PM|#

Climate change won't lead to GLOBAL catastrophe--some areas will actually be better off than they are now.

That's true, and not stated enough. It's also true that people aren't going to wake up one day and find the sea or desert in their backyard. The effects of climate change are gradual. Depending on who you ask, they could be on the same scale as possible natural variances in temperature. A world able to adapt to certain levels of change has advantages over a world where people do whatever they can to ensure change doesn't happen.

Even if climate change turns out to be a fat load of crap after all, and scientists start scratching their heads when the next decade is the coldest on record, it's worth having the discussions about environmental impacts that don't respect political boundaries and what, if anything, the world should do about climactic shifts.

What would/should the USA do if glaciers start creeping south to Boston and New York? Let Gaia take over and flee south? Start pumping out CO2? Nuke 'em? Climate doesn't give us easy answers.

gaius marius|6.8.05 @ 2:44PM|#

What happens when 180 million Bangladeshis are flooded out?

you mean "when", ms jennifer -- as it will certainly happen, whether or not its the result of anthropogenic effects or solar output variation or what-have-you. in the past, both migration and civilization have been consequences of environmental change (eg., the gradual dessication of the saharan steppe and fertile crescent). i'd expect more of the same.

of course, one should also expect those effects if the globe cools by 10 degrees, only in different places and patterns -- and who's to say what it will do? IA models are still closer to tennis-ball-and-flashlight than reality when it comes to resembling the earth.

|6.8.05 @ 2:52PM|#

I disagree that "One side doesn't trust the free market to do anything to fix the problem, and the other side does." Cap and trade schemes have met with some support among environmentalists.

Fair enough. I consciously simplified the comparison for argument's sake. More accurately you could say there are two schools of thought about the intersection of environment and economics. One is relatively biased toward environmental concerns, and the other toward economic.

Everyone acting in good faith would really like a both clean environment and a vibrant economy. The difference is over where to set the policy to optimize those. Again, I'm leaving the loons (of which Bush might be a member) out of the serious debate here. On the other hand, Bush could totally shut down all climate change research and say it's fake, but he hasn't done that (yet) either.

|6.8.05 @ 3:00PM|#

On the other hand, Bush could totally shut down all climate change research and say it's fake, but he hasn't done that (yet) either.

Bush is a pretty damn good pol. He can straddle any issue like it was a saddle on the horse he just milked!

|6.8.05 @ 3:00PM|#

If world economic growth continues at the current pace (growing 7-fold or so over the next 100 years), I suspect that Bangladesh in 2100 will be about as flooded as the Netherlands is today. Mitigation (cutting GHG) is not the only response to climate change. Adaptation using the fruits of technological progress will probably have a much more important role to play.

|6.8.05 @ 3:12PM|#

phocion said : "On the other hand, Bush could totally shut down all climate change research and say it's fake, but he hasn't done that (yet) either"

Its much more useful to have your appointees edit the science and turn it into propaganda. If he were to shut it down it looks like he is trying to hide something, but tainted results are a much more useful tool.

And like Ronald implied...what is the point of doctoring research whose conclusions are already kind of uncertain. A cynic would believe the point would be because an oil man President doesn't even want a hint of bad press or any acknowledgement of the existance of Global Warming to affect the finances of his oil buddies. But thats just cynical.

I tend to believe that even a reasonable solution that requires ANY reduction is fossil fuel consumption or higher efficiency standards will be met with resistance by a business community who is so focused on quarter to quarter bottom lines, but I guess we will see.

|6.8.05 @ 3:13PM|#

I thought I recalled an article in the not-too-distant past on this very web site, possibly by Ron Bailey (Ron, correct me if I'm wrong) about how continuing to build more efficient fossil fuel-burning plants will do more to help reduce the amount of damage being done because of GHG emissions. The alternative, it seems, is to pretend newer plants will not do a better job than their predecessors and indulge the "cap and trade" fantasies of the Kyoto Protocol as a cure-all for carbon emissions.

As an advocate of nuclear power (albeit one very much concerned about the adequate removal and storage of waste products), shouldn't the scientific community do further examination of cleaner alternatives to fossil fuel?

Question for Ron: What's the status of biodiesel? Is it the real deal?

|6.8.05 @ 3:14PM|#

Gaius-
I did say "when."

I do think a lot of the problems from climate change will be caused more by closed borders. The waterless peoples of South America and Africa won't be allowed to simply move to greener pastures, because the folks living in said pastures will start complaining about all those damned immigrants, or something.

Joe-
I can't speak for others, but I'm not commenting on the fact that Bush was dishonest here for the same reason I don't comment when it gets dark at night--what the hell else did I expect?

gaius marius|6.8.05 @ 3:16PM|#

i have a question regarding the "reality" of all this.

let's say i accept

Carbon dioxide levels have increased from 280 ppm in 1750 to over 375 ppm today ? higher than any previous levels that can be reliably measured (i.e. in the last 420,000 years). Increasing greenhouse gases are causing temperatures to rise; the Earth?s surface warmed by approximately 0.6 centigrade degrees over the twentieth century.

what has that to do with

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) projected that the average global surface temperatures will continue to increase to between 1.4 centigrade degrees and 5.8 centigrade degrees above 1990 levels, by 2100.

?

i mean, isn't it quite clear that modeling an inconceivably complex, massive and chaotic system like earth is essentially impossible? that any model we can construct will be such a reduced and incomplete version of the reality as to be essentially purposeless, except as a vehicle for self-delusion? and that the models in existence have never even approached anything like induction by enumeration because they cannot test the reality repetitively to gain confidence?

it simply seems to me that the irreducible complexity of the system will always defy meaningful analysis, despite what adherents of scientism and the cult of techne might like to believe. our models, such as they are, being hopelessly reductive, are constructed essentially by backtesting some ideas and adjusting parameters to fit the data we have collected on the recent past -- a sample size too small to be significant, really -- and in any case without anything that an appropriately honest scientist would call a well-understood mechanism.

any prediction our IA models eject on a hundred-year scale then is little better than a coin flip -- for the same reasons that mathematical models backtested to fit the stock market invariably lose money. the reality is itself unpredictable -- the actual open system is both complex and chaotic.

so why should these predictions be treated seriously?

|6.8.05 @ 3:22PM|#

Heat, schmeat, I still don't know what all the fuss is about. I moved from New York to Florida 25 years ago. Sure, it's hotter here than it is there, but I got used to it. I think much of the extreme northern and southern hemispheres would welcome increased beach time. And who cares about the people on the equator? They're too busy killing and eating each other to worry about hotter days and nights. Get out your sunblock and relax.

gaius marius|6.8.05 @ 3:22PM|#

I do think a lot of the problems from climate change will be caused more by closed borders.

i think the pace of climate change, such as may occur, is likely to be slow enough to have the borders change to fit it over time, ms jennifer.

|6.8.05 @ 3:31PM|#

Gaius-
Borders will change, but the fact remains that there will STILL be people in a given country who find themselves completely without water or arable land or the other necessities of living, and they'll still have nowhere to go.

|6.8.05 @ 3:37PM|#

As an advocate of nuclear power (albeit one very much concerned about the adequate removal and storage of waste products), shouldn't the scientific community do further examination of cleaner alternatives to fossil fuel?

They're doing quite a bit on hydrogen, nuclear, and wind. I've gotten government grants to study advanced non-military reactor concepts, but keep in mind that even the current generation of nuclear power plants is safe and clean. There's not really a scientific problem to be overcome there. There's just more political opposition than wind has, and a regulation-induced economic problem. We wouldn't have waste disposal problems either, if the scientists (and not Congress) got to choose where the repositories go.

Hydrogen needs a lot more science, but it's being done about as quickly as it can be, in my estimation.

|6.8.05 @ 3:42PM|#

i mean, isn't it quite clear that modeling an inconceivably complex, massive and chaotic system like earth is essentially impossible? that any model we can construct will be such a reduced and incomplete version of the reality as to be essentially purposeless, except as a vehicle for self-delusion? and that the models in existence have never even approached anything like induction by enumeration because they cannot test the reality repetitively to gain confidence?

Um, no.

Consider, if you will, a hockey puck: it's filled with billions of complex organic molecules, all of which are subject to gravitational forces that interact with every other bit of matter in the universe, and electromagnetic forces as well. Could you possibly believe that I can predict -- with a simple polynomial equation, no less -- what will happen to that hockey puck when I drop it off the edge of a table ?

Or let's talk about the corn market in the U.S.: it has thousands of participants, all of whom are human beings subject to whim and folly, and the market is overlaid with a complex system of federal food quality regulation and agricultural price supports. Could you possibly believe that I could predict in what direction the price of corn would move if someone were suddenly to announce that they had an extra ten million bushels available for sale?

The answer is, of course, yes, even though the systems I am thinking about are very complex.

So let's talk about climate: I have a model that says that the average temperature in Boston is going to change from month to month because the earth is tilted on its axis. Presumably you buy that one. Is it really so implausible, then, that someone might come up with a model that might tell us something about the way changes to the composition of the atmosphere affects climate?

This is not to say that any particular model of climate is necessarily right, but proclaiming that climate is too complex to be modeled is just silly. Climate isn't any more complex than lots of other things that are modeled every day.

|6.8.05 @ 3:46PM|#

phocion,

I've heard that scientists have discovered a strain of bacteria that feeds on radioactive by-products. Any truth to that, and if so, how far along are they in using this bacteria on nuclear waste? I don't think it's enough to just store the waste somewhere; an effective and efficient method of neutralizing it needs to be developed as well. That is my only cause for hesitation in supporting nuclear energy over fossil fuel.

|6.8.05 @ 3:55PM|#

What happens when 180 million Bangladeshis are flooded out?

The price of cotton shirts goes through the roof?

But seriously, Ron Bailey's point in the comments above about technological and economic advance is a good one and raises some interesting issues. If economic and technological progress does continue apace, future generations are going to be much wealthier than we are. Why should we expect the relatively poor to sacrifice for the relatively wealthy? We wouldn't expect those Bangladeshis to live a more austere life so that Americans can enjoy a clearer view of the mountains. Why should the analysis be any different when the wealthy and poor are separated temporally rather than spatially? Or, perhaps the point is more clear if we try to imagine someone at the turn of the 20th century being told she would have to live an even more difficult and poor existence so that today we might enjoy a bit more comfortable life.

And speaking of the turn of the 20th century brings up the other point: trying to predict what those technological advances will be and how they will reduce or alter the problems we might face is an utterly impossible task. Just imagine the leading scientists of that day trying to deal with the problems that faced the world then without knowing what was coming in the next few decades, much less the entire century. Could they have imagined that technology would make possible crop yields that would seem staggering by the standards of the day? Would they have predicted that the horse manure problem (a serious issue in crowded cities like New York) would disappear in a matter of years? That infectious disease would be virtually wiped out in the developed world? The list could go on and on. Anything they would have come up with to deal with those or any other problems would seem laughable in hindsight. It seems a bit arrogant to think that our attempts to deal with what we imagine will be the problems of the next century would seem any less humorous to people in 2100.

|6.8.05 @ 3:57PM|#

alkali - I don't have many (if any) scientific bona-fides, but I disagree. Not that we won't someday be able to get a good climate model, but that we don't even know all the factors to put into climate models we might come up with now.

There are solar and other extra-earth phenomenon that even physicists and astronomers can't explain that may influence climate, for example.

As to where I stand, I just think that even though it's possible that there is anthropogenic GW going on, it is far better to try to advance our technology than to adopt Kyoto or some other emissions-capping scheme. The reason is because advancing technologically has additional benefits for people everywhere and that climate change is slow to occur. I think technology can "catch up" to any GW problems we may face.

But I agree with phocion, I want a clean environment and a vibrant economy!

|6.8.05 @ 3:58PM|#

I've heard that scientists have discovered a strain of bacteria that feeds on radioactive by-products. Any truth to that, and if so, how far along are they in using this bacteria on nuclear waste? I don't think it's enough to just store the waste somewhere; an effective and efficient method of neutralizing it needs to be developed as well. That is my only cause for hesitation in supporting nuclear energy over fossil fuel.

They do have that kind of thing, but IIRC that's more for cleaning up after a spill or dirty bomb (and I think they have resins and things that can do it more effectively). The problem with radioactivity is that you can't totally get rid of it through any chemical process. You can move it, separate it, etc, but each atom of the radioactive isotope is still radioactive unless you do a nuclear process to it (or it decays naturally).

What you can do to speed up natural decay is to put it in an accelerator or reactor until most of the stuff is transmuted to natural isotopes. To get rid of most waste that way would be super expensive, and there's basically no economic incentive whatsoever for doing it. It's still the subject of a lot of study at the national labs though.

Burying it, particularly after you take the really hot stuff like cesium and strontium out, isn't really a bad way to get rid of the waste, all things considered...

gaius marius|6.8.05 @ 4:00PM|#

Could you possibly believe that I can predict -- with a simple polynomial equation, no less -- what will happen to that hockey puck when I drop it off the edge of a table ?

mr alkali, this misses the point entirely.

Could you possibly believe that I could predict in what direction the price of corn would move if someone were suddenly to announce that they had an extra ten million bushels available for sale?

and closer to the point is -- you can't. i know folks who had shorted google recently knowing that restricted holders of the ipo were going to be free to come to market a few months ago. obviously, additional supply would drive the price down. right? wrong. instead the price went from 200 to 290.

this is my point entirely. the system cannot be predicted with reductive truisms like you're forwarding -- more co2 does NOT mean higher temperatures; you only assume that to be true because it matches your intuition. it might mean that -- or it might mean cooling -- but which way and to what degree? there is no answer. the system is both complex and chaotic.

there are circumstances under which some complex systems will behave predictably. certain impulses do set up regular responses. but only a diminishingly small minority, as it turns out.

proclaiming that climate is too complex to be modeled is just silly. Climate isn't any more complex than lots of other things that are modeled every day.

except, of course, that most things that are complex are very, very poorly modeled -- such as the economy or the stock market.

this topic is *vastly* more sophisticated than you're treating it, mr alkali, and goes to hte heart of why the scientismic view of the world as a clockwork that needs only to be revealed is utterly wrong. i'd recommend maybe cary neeper just for starters.

Mike|6.8.05 @ 4:02PM|#

I've heard that scientists have discovered a strain of bacteria that feeds on radioactive by-products. Any truth to that, and if so, how far along are they in using this bacteria on nuclear waste?

That would be physically impossible. Anything bacteria could do would be chemical -- and chemistry doesn't eliminate radioactivity, only time does.

|6.8.05 @ 4:43PM|#

Thanks for the link on lung cancer. I had no idea the rate for smokers was 10%. From all the stuff you see on TV, you'd think it was 98%.

|6.8.05 @ 4:49PM|#

I don't think that solar power, as presently used, is an answer; hydroelectricity and wind power both are useful, but they have limitations, and if we start taking enough energy out of the natural flows to power our entire civilization, I think there will be some pretty bad side effects. Solar power is more useful, but it's crazy to do it on the ground; solar power satellites make more sense, even if they're [a lot] harder to set up.

Hydrogen isn't an answer. You can't get hydrogen without cost; if you get it from hydrocarbons, you still have the carbon dioxide to deal with, and if you get it from cracking water, you're spending energy to get it. It might still be useful as a portable energy source, but it's not feasible as a primary energy source. Besides, there's still no easy way to cart hydrogen around; liquid hydrogen is nasty to deal with, and you need about three times as much [by volume] to replace the same amount of hydrocarbon fuel.

No easy answers here. If I had my druthers, it'd be a mix of nuclear fission for the short term, nuclear fusion [hopefully] for the long term, and hydrogen burners for mobile applications like cars. Or maybe - just maybe - cold fusion is the answer.

|6.8.05 @ 5:15PM|#

This:

"By adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere (chiefly carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels), humanity is increasing global temperatures. How much? Uncertain. How dangerous? Uncertain. How best to handle it? Uncertain."

Should be something that everyone agrees on. I can't figure out why the obvious follow up for some is that we must do something now. We don't have any idea what we are dealing with or if spending zillions will have any effect at all. If any resources need to be spent, they need to be spent 100% on resolving the uncertainties.

|6.8.05 @ 5:16PM|#

Technology and money may help human populations adapt in a strictly material sense, but if the populations of a few thousand Pacific Islands are relocated to "receiver" countries, those cultures will be gone within a few generations.

Frankly, I don't think this is a problem to be solved by throwing money at it. Seawalls, relocations efforts, a giant planetary air conditioner - tailpipe remedies are inherently inefficient, and tend to only succeed at sloving the immediate problem by creating a lot of unintended consequences.

We need to find smarter ways to maintain our society, not just pay more to have our trash hauled away.

|6.8.05 @ 5:19PM|#

Jason L, do you really need to be reminded that there are degrees of uncertainty? The "Absolutely Sure" game can be played indefinitely by any medium intelligence 14 year old.

|6.8.05 @ 5:28PM|#

joe:

Implied in my comment is that all of those uncertainties are very large. I haven't seen any level of certainty from anyone concerning consequences of inaction, costs of alternatives, or effects of reductions. I don't think we are anywhere in the same galaxy as the 'reasonable man' you are proposing.

|6.8.05 @ 5:49PM|#

The real issue here is whether it is possible to have a global consensus on an appropriate temperature for the earth, even assuming we had sufficient scientific and technological control to collectively move it wherever we wanted at reasonable cost (say by altering the planetary albedo through cloud-making or cloud-inhibiting). The earth has had many average temperatures in the past, some cooler and some hotter than the present one. The question of where to set the global thermostat would be the one of the nastiest international political footballs of all time--picture a bunch of crazed children fighting over the TV remote, then multiply by a factor of 1000 or so.

gaius marius|6.8.05 @ 6:04PM|#

picture a bunch of crazed children fighting over the TV remote, then multiply by a factor of 1000 or so.

lol -- true.

but it's all besides the point, anyway, isn't it? the earth isn't a frickin' tv set. you apply an impulse A under conditions A' and observe outcome X. the you present impulse A under conditions A' and observe outcome Q. do it again and get outcome Z. the system is fundamentally not predictable; it is complex and chaotic, and people would do well to stop pretending that they have any idea what effect any disturbance -- up, down or same -- will have on it. it isn't a matter of "degrees of uncertainty" at all. the system does not present reproducable outcomes under any circumstances, and may give opposite outcomes on identical impulses.

|6.8.05 @ 7:49PM|#

Technology and money may help human populations adapt in a strictly material sense, but if the populations of a few thousand Pacific Islands are relocated to "receiver" countries, those cultures will be gone within a few generations.

Y'know, I just don't think that's worth a few trillion dollars. Especially if that few trillion is taken from the developing nations, who will remain desperately poor instead of having a good life in a century. Personally, I'd rather have the population of those few thousand islands be wealthy than have them maintain their traditional lands and be poor. And probably, most of them would too. Most of them would probably even rather lose their traditional culture and be certain that their children won't go hungry, that they'll have a good education, that they'll have good lives, and that their children will too.

Better, as several people have said, let them get rich and build seawalls to protect their traditional lands. If the worst projections of global warming are true, of course.

|6.8.05 @ 8:02PM|#

There are a number of cheap and easy first steps we can take to help mitigate CO2 build-up. The easiest and cheapest is simple carbon sequestration, in the form of planting trees. If you are truly concerned about CO2, don't wait for others to take the lead; do it yourself. Plant trees on your property. Drop seeds along the highway. Lobby your local governments to allow individuals to plant trees in public right-of-ways. A lot of rural interstates have a right-of-way that is freakin' HUGE! Plant trees in the median and on the sides. Plant thick hedgerows to act as both headlight barriers and as slowing barriers (should a vehicle leave the road) in front of the trees.

These measures don't need to be expensive, although government involvement will invariably make it so. Dropping seeds and letting nature do its thing is plenty good enough. Each pound of carbon that is one of these trees is a pound of carbon that used to be in the atmosphere. Plus, these trees contain a lot of water, which is also a greenhouse gas.

Simple measures, made on a wide scale, are effective first steps. They help buy us time while we refine the science and perfect less carbon-intensive technologies. And best of all, these are things that individuals can do by themselves.

Help sequester carbon today. Scatter tree seeds along public right-of-ways. Then lobby your transportation departments to let the new growth be.

|6.8.05 @ 8:12PM|#

"The real issue here is whether it is possible to have a global consensus on an appropriate temperature for the earth..."

No, it's not. The real issue is the degree of harm caused by the change from one average temperature to the next. Maybe New York City would be an objectively better city if it, and its coast, were located 10 miles inland. But New York is located where it is, and if the coast moves 10 miles inland, it's going to suck.

|6.8.05 @ 8:15PM|#

grylliade, trillions of dollars? Uh yeah, and if we ban leaded gasoline, there will be no automobile manufacturing industry in America by 1975.

This is no time to go all Chicken Little on us. Assuming that technological breakthroughs that would lower the cost of achieving the GHG reductions will never happen, and extrapolating that the entire effort will be done using current technologies at current prices, is a foolish exercise.

|6.8.05 @ 8:44PM|#

Here joe comments on how we can't project possible costs of cutting GHG emissions using today's data, but is fully willing to "do something" based on equally useless data (ie climate models).

You can't have it both ways.

|6.8.05 @ 9:08PM|#

I have to agree with gauis -

A chaotic system by definition is not one where long-term predictibility is possible. The weather is a prime example of a chaotic system.

The problem is, chaotic systems don't work on "degrees of uncertainty" because it changed the way scientists view certain systems. It used to be that a +/-10% in the initial conditions, would translate into a +/-10% in the answer. This is not the case in chaotic systems. Small inaccuracies in initial conditions can produce vaslty different results under the same conditions, making long term predicitibilty impossible. And since we can't measure to infinite accuracies, this is a problem without a solution.

|6.8.05 @ 9:13PM|#

grylliade, trillions of dollars? Uh yeah, and if we ban leaded gasoline, there will be no automobile manufacturing industry in America by 1975.

I think that, given both the actual cost and the opportunity cost, trillions is a conservative estimate. I think that a hundred trillion is what the IPCC estimates their best course would cost, given forgone growth and costs that are actually paid. Of course, they wouldn't put it that way, since forgone growth isn't counted as a cost. But, of course, that's the opportunity cost.

This is no time to go all Chicken Little on us. Assuming that technological breakthroughs that would lower the cost of achieving the GHG reductions will never happen, and extrapolating that the entire effort will be done using current technologies at current prices, is a foolish exercise.

Since I think the best course is to do nothing, as technological breakthroughs will make the whole question academic in a few decades, I tend to agree with you. That's exactly why I think that doing something right now, especially given that we don't know exactly what will work, nor have any way to make a reasonable guess, is the worst course we could possibly take. Anything we do now could have no effect, or even a negative effect; we could make our best guess, but our best guess is right now worth the paper it's written on. I think the best approach is "wait and see," but of course that's not very satisfying.

|6.8.05 @ 9:19PM|#

I think I'll wait until it comes out on DVD.

|6.9.05 @ 9:50AM|#

Lowdog,

Technology changes over time - ie, the carbon-intensity of economic activity can drop.

The laws of physics do not change over time - the same amount of CO2 in the atmosphere will have the same effect now as it does in 1000 years.

|6.9.05 @ 9:54AM|#

Six Sigma,

"A chaotic system by definition is not one where long-term predictibility is possible. The weather is a prime example of a chaotic system."

Well, yes and no. It is impossible - not just hard, but impossible - to make predictions at a certain level of specificity in a chaotic system. But it is indeed possible to make accurate aggregate predictions. This is why the National Weather Service can tell us months in advance that there is going to be more hurricaine activity during the storm season, and even predict pretty accurately how many big storms there will be, but cannot predict with any accuracy at all where hurricaines are going to make landfall.

Or, I can't tell you at all when fatal accidents are going to occur at the intersection of Bridge and VFW. But I can make a pretty accurate prediction how many fatalities there will be there over the next five years.

|6.9.05 @ 11:31AM|#

Perhaps the new culture which arises from the convergence of displaced pacific islanders with the people of wherever they resettle will be better than both of the original cultures?

If eminent domain is OK in this country, why isn�t it OK when a few thousand people on islands threaten the prosperity of billions of poor people around the world? Doesn�t the Vulcan philosophy of �The Good of the Many Outweighs the Good of the Few? apply?

As far as NYC being 10 miles inland, I think that would be AWESOME! The lack of beachfront property in the area makes beachhouses extremely expensive, we could use a few hundred miles of new virgin beaches, and the added bonus of laughing at all the rich folks in the Hamptons losing their investment money would be icing on the cake.

gaius marius|6.9.05 @ 4:13PM|#

But it is indeed possible to make accurate aggregate predictions.

it is sometimes possible to develop a probability map, mr joe, by observing the system forward from some initial condition over time. but no single run can be predicted at all. and, of course, the map will vary with every variation of the initial conditions.

with the earth, we get a single run, and can't measure the initial conditions.

Mark Bahner|6.10.05 @ 11:06PM|#

Testing.

Mark Bahner|6.10.05 @ 11:41PM|#

Ron Bailey writes, "If world economic growth continues at the current pace (growing 7-fold or so over the next 100 years), I suspect that Bangladesh in 2100 will be about as flooded as the Netherlands is today."

But world economic growth will NOT "continue at the current pace," Ron!

This is a common misperception. In fact, it is shared even by Nobel laureates in Economics, IMNSHO. (That's "In my not-so-humble opinion.")

See my bet #194 at Long Bets:

http://www.longbets.org/194

Or see the Google cache, if the Long Bets server is still down.

In the year 2000, Bangladesh's per capita GDP was $1750 (PPP, year 2000 dollars, per CIA world factbook of 2001). This can be compared to the world per-capita GDP of $7200 in 2000.

If Bangladesh's per capita GDP grows at a rate exactly equal to the world per capita GDP growth rate, here are my predictions for Bangladesh's per capita GDP (all values in year 2000 dollars) over the 21st century:

2020: $3,200

2040: $7,500

2060: $32,000

2080: $243,000

2100: $2,430,000

In other words, I predict that the per-capita GDP of Bangladesh will be approximately equal to the Netherlands today by 2060. And by 2100, the per-capita GDP of Bangladesh will be about 50 times higher than any country on earth at present.(!)

Remember, you read it here, first. :-)

Mark ("If I can see farther into the future than most people, it's because I have access to giants' time machines.")

P.S. My blog has several posts explaining some of the thinking behind my predictions for world economic growth in the 21st century:

http://markbahner.typepad.com