vimothy
yurp
Yes, but still better to encourage growth than to retard it in the name of saving the environment. E.g., the true disaster in Burma was man made.
Anti Global Warming Tech?
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Yes, but still better to encourage growth than to retard it in the name of saving the environment. E.g., the true disaster in Burma was man made.
D
droid
Guest
Yes.
vimothy
yurp
Is it a positive or normative distinction?
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
Well sure, but the frequency with which weather events like this seems to be increasing, and the chance that this isn't something to do with human activity is looking pretty fucking slim. I remember this statistic about Atlantic hurricanes, which is that out of the 13 most violent storms of the 20th century, 12 occurred since 1985...
D
droid
Guest
So lets get this straight. We should encourage growth with the ostensible aim of alleviating poverty and improving living standards for the poor in the mid/long term, despite that fact that this will result in a massive increase in poverty and a decrease in living standards for all (and especially the poor) in the mid/long term.
D
droid
Guest
vimothy
yurp
No, your anthropocentrism is pretty self-explanatory.
I think we should stick to our assumptions, which are nearly always right, and all live in mud huts and weave yoghurt.
On the other hand, we could try to encourage growth because
- growth is the only thing that will pull billions of humans out of poverty
- developed regions/nations will be better able to ameliorate the effects of climate change
- developed regions/nations will be better able to disengage from the causes of climate change
I dunno about that, but I think it's still unproven, or at least debated?
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
The fact remains that accelerating climate change could push billions of humans into EVEN WORSE poverty.
And this:
is extremely misleading: developed nations *cause* far more climate change in the first place, don't they? I mean, who is responsible for the greater quantity of greenhouse gas emissions: the average American or, say, the average Angolan? And don't tell me the US is 'ameliorating' anything...
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droid
Guest
I see. You're avoiding the question with a rather pathetic attempt at humour and misrepresentation and simply reiterating your (controversial to say the least) political beliefs.
How do you reconcile your prescriptions with the points made above, and the widely held scientific consensus that in order to avoid the worst consequences of climate change C02 emissions must be restricted now (when it may make a difference) rather than later.
You treat the pursuit of 'growth' as an article of faith. A point of view which seems to affecting your logic. Surely you can see the contradiction in hastening and worsening the effects of climate change in order to allow nations to 'ameliorate' their effects? Why not just try and avoid the problem in the first place? Oh, thats right - we cant interfere with the sacred cow of 'growth' and the accumulation of short term profits...
I can picture you giving advice on the bridge of the Titanic... 'Don't bother attempting to avoid that iceberg Captain - it may not cause as much damage as you think, and anyway, if we try and avoid it, we'll slow down the whole voyage'....
vimothy
yurp
Could push, or will? The fact is that no growth will definitely push billions of humans into worse poverty.
If "global disaster strikes", would you rather be living in America or Angola? You're working with a static model: if growth occurs, to the extent that climate change increases or decreases or whatever, then people now poor will be rich and able to solve their own problems.
It's a question of trade-offs, costs vs benefits. Since holding back poor nations in order to maintain our own position (at the top of the pack) is not morally defensible, since holding back poor nations will certainly increase (their) poverty, since you are asking poor countries to shoulder most of the burden, since your models are only models and the future is uncertain, since people are dying from hunger and AIDS and cancer right now...
Oh and,
Total U.S. greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions were 7,075.6 million metric tons carbon dioxide equivalent (MMTCO2e) in 2006, a decrease of 1.5 percent from the 2005 level according to ‘Emissions of Greenhouse Gases in the United States 2006’, a report released today by the Energy Information Administration (EIA).
U.S. GHG emissions per unit of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), or ‘U.S. GHG-intensity,’ fell from 653 metric tons per million 2000 constant dollars of GDP (MTCO2e/$Million GDP) in 2005 to 625 MTCO2e/$Million GDP in 2006, a decline of 4.2 percent. Since 1990, the annual average decline in GHG-intensity has been 2.0 percent.
U.S. GHG emissions per unit of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), or ‘U.S. GHG-intensity,’ fell from 653 metric tons per million 2000 constant dollars of GDP (MTCO2e/$Million GDP) in 2005 to 625 MTCO2e/$Million GDP in 2006, a decline of 4.2 percent. Since 1990, the annual average decline in GHG-intensity has been 2.0 percent.
vimothy
yurp
What question -- your snide insult?
What is the cost?
What is the cost? (It has nothing to do with losing short-term profits, BTW.)
I can picture you giving advice on the bridge of the Titanic... 'Don't bother attempting to avoid that iceberg Captain - it may not cause as much damage as you think, and anyway, if we try and avoid it, we'll slow down the whole voyage'....
Right, whereas you'd say, "thea ship is bound to sink as we cross the Atlantic. Instead, I shall swim!"
Mr. Tea
Let's Talk About Ceps
I don't think anyone is trying to say that economic (which of course implies industrial) growth isn't desirable, or indeed necessary for bringing whole countries and world regions out of dire poverty - or at any rate, I'm certainly not saying that - we're just questioning the doctrine of growth-at-any-cost. If there's a choice between fast growth accompanied by profligate resource use and environmental damage, and a more moderate pace of growth that is sustainable because a bit of thought has gone into the medium-to-long-term consequences, isn't it at least possible that the latter is, overall, the more sensible option? There doesn't have to be NO growth just because some people are worried about sustaining a breeding population of Panamanian golden tree-slugs...
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droid
Guest
Sigh... your ideology just DEMANDS that you be difficult here doesn't it?Here is the question again;
So lets get this straight. We should encourage growth with the ostensible aim of alleviating poverty and improving living standards for the poor in the mid/long term, despite that fact that this will result in a massive increase in poverty and a decrease in living standards for all (and especially the poor) in the mid/long term?
Simple enough really.
Ah - the lonely cry of the economist
Good question Vimothy , and before you pull Lomborg and the Copenhagen consensus out of your pocket (since its the only riff you seem to play on this issue):From the Stern report:
“If we do not act, the overall costs and risks of climate change will be equivalent to losing a least 5% of global GDP each year now and forever. If a wider range of risks and impacts is taken into account, the estimate of damage could rise to 20% of GDP or more. While in contrast the costs of action – reducing greenhouse gas emissions to avoid the worst impact of climate change – can be limited to around 1% of global GDP each year”
http://www.sd-commission.org.uk/publications/downloads/Turner-EconomicsClimateChangeFeb07.pdf
And Monbiot on Lomborg (details can be found in 'heat'):
Bjorn Lomborg challenges me to respond to his contention that the cost of curbing carbon emissions is comparable to the cost of global warming itself, and that the money would be better spent elsewhere. He hardly makes it difficult. His methodology and his presentation of the figures are both profoundly flawed.
Lomborg begins by deliberately choosing the most optimistic assessment of the likely damage caused by climate change, and the most pessimistic estimate of the expense of minimising it. This latter figure appears to count the costs but not the economic benefits of investment in new energy sources and energy-efficient technology. Some estimates suggest that the transition to energy efficiency could result in a net gain rather than a net loss to the global economy.
But Lomborg’s more important mistake is to assume that we can attach a single, meaningful figure to the costs incurred by global warming. If there is one thing we know about climate change, it’s that it is a non-linear process, whose likely impacts simply cannot be totted up like the expenses for a works outing to the seaside. Even those outcomes we can predict are almost impossible to cost. We now know, for example, that the Himalayan glaciers which feed the Ganges, the Bramaputra, the Mekong, the Yangtze and the other great Asian rivers are likely to disappear within 30 or 40 years. If these rivers dry up during the irrigation season, then the rice production which currently feeds over one third of humanity ceases to be viable, and the world goes into net food deficit. If Lomborg believes he can put a price on that, he has plainly spent too much of his life with his calculator, and not enough with human beings.
Reading Lomborg’s work, it is hard to reach any conclusion other than that he is telling the powerful what they want to hear, irrespective of the real costs to everyone else.
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2004/05/18/costing-the-earth/
Incorrect. I say: 'we're heading straight for those icebergs - wouldn't it be safer to take the long way round?' Your response: 'Let's just plough straight through, we'll lose money if we delay, and anyway, this ship is INDESTRUCTIBLE!'
vimothy
yurp
That's cool 'n seems pretty reasonable. I see it in terms of a Lomborg-ian cost-benefit analysis: what's the best way to spend our limited resourses? And in the same vein, what are our actual choices? It's obviously not as simple as "profit-maximising myopia until mass death" vs "tree-hugging impracticality in service of economic stagnation", or however both sides of the divide view one another. Instead, the actual policy choices are where we should look. What is the costs vs benefits of, e.g., Kyoto? Maybe climte change is really bad, but perhaps not as bad as some other dilemas facing humanity, and perhaps the other dilemas are easier to solve.
Maybe, maybe not. Anyway, "In the long run, we're all dead".
Maybe, maybe not. Anyway, "In the long run, we're all dead".
D
droid
Guest
Thats a pretty nihilistic point of view for an economist to take. I assume you don't have any kids?
Whats your take on the Stern report? Lomberg isn't the only economist working on climate change y'know, and Monbiot takes him to pieces in both the data he uses and in ethical terms in 'heat'.
Personally, I'm convinced that climate change is probably the greatest threat faced by humanity since the last ice age - certainly since the end of the cold war, and the threat of widespread nuclear holocaust abated somewhat...
vimothy
yurp
Not really -- it doesn't have anything to do with ideology (???), but with you not putting a question mark at the end of your question, so that it read as a statement. You corrected (and therefore implicitly acknowledged ) it in your post above , but it actually read,
So lets get this straight. We should encourage growth with the ostensible aim of alleviating poverty and improving living standards for the poor in the mid/long term, despite that fact that this will result in a massive increase in poverty and a decrease in living standards for all (and especially the poor) in the mid/long term.
Reading down the thread, the only question you actually posed was,
Do you need any other blatantly obvious facts explained?
Indeed.
Ah - the lonely cry of the economist
What does it have to do with being an economist (which I'm not, in any case)? How is it not a good question, since it is as implict in your view as mine, FFS? And furthermore, when have we ever discussed this before?
All depends on how fast GDP is growing though, doesn't it? If (as seems highly likely) we are entering a period of slow growth, 1% of GDP could easily be 50% of growth, if not more.
The high cost in GDP terms Stern finds is due, in part, to his use of a unreasonably low social discount rate (0.1%). I find myself agreeing with Richard Tol and with William D. Nordhaus a lot more than with Stern (though I'm sure that's because of my "ideology").
So, should the social discount rate be 0.1 percent, as Sir Nicholas Stern, who led the study, would have it, or 3 percent as Mr. Nordhaus prefers? There is no definitive answer to this question because it is inherently an ethical judgment that requires comparing the well-being of different people: those alive today and those alive in 50 or 100 years.
Still, we may at least ask for consistency in our decisions. Forget about global warming and consider the much simpler problem of economic growth. How much should we save today to bequeath to future generations if we really believed in a 0.1 percent social discount rate and the other assumptions built into the Stern model? The answer, according to Sir Partha’s calculation, is that we should invest 97.5 percent of what we produce today to increase the standard of living of future generations....
It is even more implausible given that future generations will be much richer than those now living. According to Mr. Nordhaus, the assumptions used in the Stern Review imply that per capita yearly consumption in 2200 will be $94,000 as compared with $7,000 today. So, is it really ethical to transfer wealth from someone making $7,000 a year to someone making $94,000 a year?
Still, we may at least ask for consistency in our decisions. Forget about global warming and consider the much simpler problem of economic growth. How much should we save today to bequeath to future generations if we really believed in a 0.1 percent social discount rate and the other assumptions built into the Stern model? The answer, according to Sir Partha’s calculation, is that we should invest 97.5 percent of what we produce today to increase the standard of living of future generations....
It is even more implausible given that future generations will be much richer than those now living. According to Mr. Nordhaus, the assumptions used in the Stern Review imply that per capita yearly consumption in 2200 will be $94,000 as compared with $7,000 today. So, is it really ethical to transfer wealth from someone making $7,000 a year to someone making $94,000 a year?
I'll come back to Monbiot vs Lomborg when I have more time.
Incorrect. I say: "stay on the ship". Your response: "no way, it's safer in the water!"
And so on, ad nauseum...
It's a joke, a play on Keynes' famous anti-neo-classical (anti-"free-market") argument that short run effects are the only things that matter. I thought you'd be a fan.
It seems methodologically unsound. The well known critiques are all better, IMO.
Not seen the Monbiot piece you're refering to. Link?
Maybe, maybe not. But pejorative and CAPITAL LETTERS don't make the case for you, at least as far as I'm concerned.
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droid
Guest
Sheesh, one minor typo and you suddenly lose the ability to read? It was obviously a question.
Who's calling who snide?
If it walks like a duck... Its not the same question. You seem to view the cost purely in economic terms, not social, ethical or physical terms.
And we haven't discussed this before. Thats how predictable your stance is. And, judging by your response to Mr. Tea above, I was correct.
From the PDF I linked to:
...And yet Stern’s conclusion that we should act now to offset climate change
damage later, does feel ethically compelling, even while that simple example I
just used does not. And there are good reasons why that is the case – because
what is proposed in climate change action is not a sacrifice of average
consumption today to achieve increased average material consumption in 2100,
but instead a more complex trade-off which makes the whole concept of one
discount rate a huge simplification. [Slide 15]
For we are back with the problems encountered earlier – how to aggregate
market and non-market effects and how to aggregate welfare effects across
countries of widely different prosperity. If for instance we believe that the future
is one of growing material consumption, but declining environmental quality, and
that we value both separately, then the discount rate, whatever the eta, should
be positive for consumption because it is worth less at the margin as it grows
and negative for environmental quality because it’s getting more precious as it
declines. And we can only aggregate these together and use one discount rate if
we are very confident about the relative weight we attach to those two divergent
trends.
And the discount rate should also in principle vary according to who loses and
who gains. If an average British citizen sacrifices consumption today for the
benefit of a richer average Briton in 100 years time, the discount rate should
clearly be positive and perhaps higher than Stern’s eta of 1.0 implies. But if an
average Briton sacrifices consumption today to benefit a poorer African in 2100,
the discount rate should be lower – and if even in 2100 the poorer African will
still be poorer than the average Britain today, it should actually be negative.
Ideally we shouldn’t be applying one across-the-board discount rate, but
discount rates which reflect specifically who sacrifices and who gains but that
implies adding yet more complexity to already horribly complex models. Picking a
slightly lower eta than might normally be appropriate, is one way of offsetting
the bias introduced by the simplifications which practicality requires.
So perhaps truth, or at least best judgment, lies somewhere between Stern’s
base case assumption and Dasgupta’s. [Slide 16] But if it does, Stern’s overall
conclusion still stands – because if you vary the eta to 1.5, increasing the
discount rate to about 3%, you still end up with costs of adverse consequences
above and possibly far above the low costs of mitigation. The sensitivities in the
Stern Review showing costs equivalent to between 2.9 and 10.2% of GDP, even
if we take a higher eta of 1.5 (and even before adjustments for equal weighting
of human life rich and poor, and before any allowance for uncertain but
potentially important socially contingencies.)
Stern’s argument for an ethical rather than descriptive basis to the setting of a
long-term discount rate is therefore compelling: and his conclusion that the costs
of climate change greatly outweigh the costs of mitigation is convincing. The
economic case for action is clear.
damage later, does feel ethically compelling, even while that simple example I
just used does not. And there are good reasons why that is the case – because
what is proposed in climate change action is not a sacrifice of average
consumption today to achieve increased average material consumption in 2100,
but instead a more complex trade-off which makes the whole concept of one
discount rate a huge simplification. [Slide 15]
For we are back with the problems encountered earlier – how to aggregate
market and non-market effects and how to aggregate welfare effects across
countries of widely different prosperity. If for instance we believe that the future
is one of growing material consumption, but declining environmental quality, and
that we value both separately, then the discount rate, whatever the eta, should
be positive for consumption because it is worth less at the margin as it grows
and negative for environmental quality because it’s getting more precious as it
declines. And we can only aggregate these together and use one discount rate if
we are very confident about the relative weight we attach to those two divergent
trends.
And the discount rate should also in principle vary according to who loses and
who gains. If an average British citizen sacrifices consumption today for the
benefit of a richer average Briton in 100 years time, the discount rate should
clearly be positive and perhaps higher than Stern’s eta of 1.0 implies. But if an
average Briton sacrifices consumption today to benefit a poorer African in 2100,
the discount rate should be lower – and if even in 2100 the poorer African will
still be poorer than the average Britain today, it should actually be negative.
Ideally we shouldn’t be applying one across-the-board discount rate, but
discount rates which reflect specifically who sacrifices and who gains but that
implies adding yet more complexity to already horribly complex models. Picking a
slightly lower eta than might normally be appropriate, is one way of offsetting
the bias introduced by the simplifications which practicality requires.
So perhaps truth, or at least best judgment, lies somewhere between Stern’s
base case assumption and Dasgupta’s. [Slide 16] But if it does, Stern’s overall
conclusion still stands – because if you vary the eta to 1.5, increasing the
discount rate to about 3%, you still end up with costs of adverse consequences
above and possibly far above the low costs of mitigation. The sensitivities in the
Stern Review showing costs equivalent to between 2.9 and 10.2% of GDP, even
if we take a higher eta of 1.5 (and even before adjustments for equal weighting
of human life rich and poor, and before any allowance for uncertain but
potentially important socially contingencies.)
Stern’s argument for an ethical rather than descriptive basis to the setting of a
long-term discount rate is therefore compelling: and his conclusion that the costs
of climate change greatly outweigh the costs of mitigation is convincing. The
economic case for action is clear.
The problem with your twists on the metaphor is that I'm not some tree-hugging environmentalist who wants to jump of the ship. I simply want to minimise the damage from a disaster that 99.9% of scientific opinion agrees is going to occur unless we take action now to try and prevent it.
Sorry. I didnt realise you had a sense of humour.
You'll have to read his book.
Uh huh... cos thats the only argument Ive put forward here...
Your position seems to be 'it may not be that bad, its the future, who knows what might happen, in the meantime, heres some real problems...'.
Do you have any evidence that contradicts the IPCC's findings (which btw, are considered by many climate experts to be conservative in their estimates)?
vimothy
yurp
It was statement. "Answer the question", you said, so I looked for the question. Of course, it's all about ideology, though, isn't it? My ideology DEMANDED that I take you literally.
Nope
Well, it's all pretty predictable and boring, right down to the pointless arguments about question marks, whose metaphor is better and dismissal of "ideologues".
Yeah, I read that. The point still stands. Stern basically picks 20% out of thin air.
Well if you could read and respond without jumping to knee-jerk conclusions about people (other people, of course) motivated by "ideology", you'd see that I implicitly recognised that in the post you're half quoting.
ok
Uh huh... cos thats the only argument Ive put forward here...
Your argument / assertion = climate change will be the greatest disaster to befall man since the ice age and anyone who disagrees with me does so because of their ideology.
Oh, and here's the Stern report.
That's almost right...
D
droid
Guest
You obviously didn't look very hard.
Er.. I haven't dismissed your arguments now have I? Ive addressed them, and you still haven't answered that 'question'.
I like the expression of disgust at your own pedantry btw...
Expand.
Clarify.
Nope. I said that was my personal belief.
My argument is that there is an almost unanimous scientific consensus that climate change will have severe effects on the lives of billions in the mid to long term, and the only way to alleviate the threat is through a reduction of C02 emissions now.
Your response (whilst providing absolutely no evidence to back it up) is that this may not happen, cos its like, y'know, in the future, and anything could happen in the future, and anyway, an attempt to curb emissions will interfere with economic policies that you have an inordinate amount of faith in (which is what I mean by 'ideology'), thus increasing poverty in the short term.
Your argument rest on the assumption that effects of climate change may not be 'really that bad', putting you in the marginal contingent of big oil science and vested interests. Now perhaps you have some convincing data to back up this position?
So surely you have the evidence and expertise to back up your assertion that the vast majority of climate scientists are wrong? Or are you just recycling WSJ editorials on the topic?
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Actually I don't think this is as self-evident as all that. Unless I missed it - I haven't seen any discussion here of the argument that redistribution may be a better way forward than "growth," or at least as important.
Of course it matters what you mean by growth - but if it includes bringing the less developed world up to first-world levels of consumption and waste I think we've got a problem.
Or does people's definition of "growth" include reducing first world levels of consumption and waste?