Reason Writers Around Town

Julian Sanchez | December 7, 2005

In a report to Tech Central Station from the Montreal Climate Change Conference Ron Bailey looks beyond Kyoto for approaches to global warming.

Comments

VM|12.7.05 @ 1:19PM|#

TCS:
this would be that corporate stoogie site, right.
"It goes from god to jerry to you... to the cleaners. right, kent?"

heh.

remember, if you doubt the effectiveness of kyoto, you're in bed with ID people.

M1EK|12.7.05 @ 2:09PM|#

How many more TCS links must you foist on us before people finally get skeptical that you're not just Republicans who don't like drug laws?

This story, as most of Bailey's are, is a thinly disguised attempt to slam people trying to work on mitigating climate change by hiding behind the skirts of 'technology will save us', which, absent economic incentives for it to do so, it doesn't, never has, and never will.

What are those economic incentives? CAP AND FRIGGIN' TRADE.

David Rollins|12.7.05 @ 2:16PM|#

Here's a neat trick for your liberal friends:

If we are running out of oil and other fossil fuels, then won't the greenhouse effect diminish over time?

/troll

Seriously, in a free market we'll never run out of oil (the Julian Simon argument), but it will eventually become so expensive that solar, nuclear, et al will command an increasing share of our energy production.

Mike|12.7.05 @ 2:41PM|#

If we are running out of oil and other fossil fuels, then won't the greenhouse effect diminish over time?

"Don't worry honey. I'm not going to stop at that red light because the car will run out of gas eventually."

|12.7.05 @ 3:29PM|#

M1EK,

Even you think that technology will save us, so please spare us.

...which, absent economic incentives for it to do so, it doesn't, never has, and never will.

The introduction of new technology is far more complex than the one-way, black-box, etc. notions you hint at here. Economic incentive alone has never alone by itself (or even in major part in many cases) explained how new technologies arise in human societies. Perhaps a primer on the history of technological development will do you some good.

|12.7.05 @ 3:30PM|#

M1EK,

The beauty of most of your remarks is that they can so easily be demissed out of hand as the rantings of an ignorant person.

|12.7.05 @ 3:32PM|#

After a while I do tire of the liberal version of the homo economicus as much as I do the conservative version of such.

VM|12.7.05 @ 4:07PM|#

"After a while I do tire of the liberal version of the homo economicus as much as I do the conservative version of such"

hear hear!

|12.7.05 @ 4:10PM|#

Please finish this sentence:

Even without regulations capping carbon emissions, the economic incentive to reduce the emissions will come from _________________.

David Rollins|12.7.05 @ 4:20PM|#

Even without regulations capping carbon emissions, the economic incentive to reduce the emissions will come from the depletion of fossil fuels. I'm being serious. I guess you could say that the burning of wood would contribute carbon, but I don't think I need to make the economic argument there as this has gone out of fashion in all but subsistence economies.

"Don't worry honey. I'm not going to stop at that red light because the car will run out of gas eventually."

I don't follow your analogy. Are you saying the "red light" in this instance is some horrible climate crash from which we will never recover? I ain't buying it.

Larry A|12.7.05 @ 5:19PM|#

'technology will save us', which, absent economic incentives for it to do so, it doesn't, never has, and never will.

In the 1960s the gloom and doom folks started predicting famine no later than the 1980s. In the 70s it was the 90s. In the 80s it was the 00s. Today these same prognosticators are bitching because people the world over are too fat.

Technology in action, and only one of the available examples.

Mike|12.7.05 @ 5:24PM|#

I don't follow your analogy. Are you saying the "red light" in this instance is some horrible climate crash from which we will never recover? I ain't buying it.

Decreased supply may increase prices and lessen demand. New technologies may reduce the harmful effects of burning fossil fuels. The question is, will either of these happen soon enough to prevent irreversable environmental damage? It's all about timing.

|12.7.05 @ 6:15PM|#

The question is, will either of these happen soon enough to prevent irreversable environmental damage?

Or, will either of these happen soon enough to prevent irreversable environmentalist-induced economic damage?

|12.8.05 @ 8:36AM|#

Dave Rollins, the depletion of fossile fuels, counting coal, is decades, perhaps many decades, away - probably too late to prevent disaster.

Mike P, did you know that if leaded gasoline is banned, there will be no automobile manufacturing by 1975? Damn chicken littles, you should have a little faith in the ability of industry to innovate.