Is climate change overblown? What about the positives?
So, I just read this article here and have had a discussion with a friend who's pretty conservative.
Maybe I'm missing something; but, what are your thoughts about climate change? Please skim the article, thanks.
Maybe I'm missing something; but, what are your thoughts about climate change? Please skim the article, thanks.
Comments (109)
Hidden in this dispute is the right's bias toward promoting humans above all else. I, for example, see value in a pristine forest, but only to the extent humans benefit from it. If, however, I were to find that pristine forest as having inherent value worth protecting regardless of human benefit, then I'd be inclined to ignore your article and do whatever were necessary to save it. That's where a dispute lies.
Also, because it is generally seen as unhelpful to the GW narrative, the findings of the main climate/economic models are not discussed in the media. Basically, they show that up to ~2C warming is beneficial.
http://www.spectator.co.uk/2013/10/carry-on-warming/
>:O But what if the operation of this invisible hand doesn't land us in the Pareto Optimality point?
Quoting Question
And by the way I'm a conservative, not a liberal :P
>:O I see you've learned your economics well!
No but what I meant is how do you know that the invisible hand of the markets selects the best outcome? What if, instead of a race to the top, it is a race to the bottom?
Efficiency. Ie. a process that can be made more efficient (via technology). Then, via competition the technology gets implemented in day to day living, thus leading to greater productivity and that leads to a boon for everyone in terms of lower costs and expenditures.
If you've noticed the lower the profits for implementing such gains in efficiency the better it is for everyone (entry to the market, competition, inflation).
If (a), I fear you may be right, but I think it's worth giving it our best shot anyway, given how dire the consequences of continuation of business as usual seem likely to be.
If (b) then I'd love to hear how you believe that externalities can be internalised without compulsion from government (or quasi-governmental organisations like the UN or WTO).
No that's not at all the case. At least not necessarily so. As game theory illustrates, competition often results in the worst outcome for all parties involved - for example see Prisoner's Dillema. Consider a scenario from the natural world as well - the trees that grow taller steal the light of smaller trees and therefore survive more. Thus they beat out the smaller trees. And yet, they are the least efficient trees, because they have small trunks, and have to carry the water all through their very tall body against gravity. The small bushes are more efficient at doing the job, and yet they get wiped out! Instead it's the tallest, and objectively weakest trees that will win the race.
Say also we're competing to win over a girl. It's not the one who is most fit for survival between us two who will win. It's the one who fits with whatever preferences she has. Her preferences dictate the rules of the game, and her preferences don't have to be in line with the optimal outcome. Competition may just as easily be a race to the bottom as it is a race to the top.
Think of John D. Rockefeller. He hated competition. He was the richest businessman ever. Think of Peter Thiel - read his book from Zero To One (it's quite philosophical). He hates competition too! Competition is a race to the bottom - it's a way to destroy yourself. Don't compete. Never compete. Run away from competing.
I'm not sure; but, I think the Prisoners Dilemma would be apt as a reference here.
Furthermore, it seems that most countries have bought into the neo-liberal doctrine that free markets can solve any problem (even those which have been created by the same free markets), and that intervention in terms of laws or regulations are detrimental to the existence of free markets, which have brought so much prosperity. What's more, there is a very strong opposition from the right to not pass any such regulation and taxes for carbon emissions, which you can see with Brexit and the oncoming Trump era.
I might have oversimplified the issue; but, I suppose you get the point.
Yeah, but without competition, you have no progress. Not everyone can have a product that initially doesn't have any sort of competition even though that's the shortest way to becoming rich. I mean, it's hard to do that nowadays, at all.
Progress doesn't come from competition. Innovation is never the result of competition. Think of your own innovations. It's always finding a niche, doing something differently, being creative, thinking outside the box.
You should really read Thiel's book - he argues monopoly is the most efficient operation of markets (and I tend to agree to a large extent, in the sense that the absence of competition is to be desired). If I have a small restaurant, and my grandmother works in the kitchen, my mother serves the food, I cook it etc. all so that we can pay the bills - what chance do we have to be innovative? Anything we do will be copied + We're too stuck in the rat race, bothered by survival. You can't be innovative when you don't have the resources you need to be innovative with. And competition destroys profits - it makes us work harder for, ultimately, nothing. But if I'm in some niche, where I have almost no competition, then I make good profits, in an easy way. Because I make money easily, I have a lot of spare time and resources to be innovative - to truly do important things. Musk is innovative because he can afford it!
I will tell you a story...
A big fish does not bother to come live in a small pond. Why? It's too small for him, he can't waste his time. However, in the bigger pond in which he makes his home, lots of small fish come - because the pond is large and appealing! And the big fish rejoices and swallows them all - he is King of the Pond. But the intelligent small fish on the other hand, sees that he's too small for the big lake and the dangers are too great. Thus he chooses the biggest pond in which he's the biggest fish. Then he grows, conquers his pond, eats the other fish and becomes bigger. Then he moves to the next biggest pond, where again he is the biggest fish. He proceeds in the same manner. One day, he looks at the big pond, where the first big fish is, and he realises that he is now bigger than that fish. Therefore he moves to that pond, and eats the King of the Pond, who complacently sat on a lake waiting for small fish, instead of looking for fish closer to his size! >:O ;)
Did you like the story?! :D
I'm not sure I do. Are you just suggesting that we're doomed, because the US right will probably manage to block any effective action from the US? If so, I suspect that you're correct about the US, but that doesn't necessarily mean no action will be taken. It's a long shot but I think that there is a faint hope of a solution coming from China, who stands to suffer much worse from climate change. Since they don't have to worry about democratic elections, they can take action much more swiftly and decisively. And with the continuing growth in their economic power and the decline of that of the US, before long they may be able to force the US to follow suit, particularly if Europe joined them in that effort (as would be the case if it were happening now).
I doubt that that situation can arise soon enough to avert catastrophe. But at least there's a chance.
I'd argue that innovation is encompassed by competition. Meaning competition and innovation aren't two mutually exclusive ideas. Take China for example. They will always have a strong comparative advantage over the US in terms of cheap labor and cheap raw materials. I do agree, however, that innovation is central to any service based economy...
No, I'm actually making the case that climate change isn't as bad as it is portrayed to be.
Quoting andrewk
Yes, I'm pretty sure China is much more informed on the matter than even the U.S.
However, I'm not all that worried about the future, to be honest. China is well on its way to making solar grid parity with respect to coal and natural gas. Furthermore, they're investing heavily in nuclear. China will probably leverage their position with other BRIC members to offset the dangers of excessive climate change. It's really is a matter of time until that happens. Hopefully sooner than later.
Melted polar ice will raise ocean levels enough to obliterate most of the world's coastal cities and lands, where the largest concentrations of people live. This won't happen overnight, but it also won't be avoided overnight, either. Fisheries and farm land will also be disrupted (most fish are hatched along shorelines).
Continental regions will not experience global warming evenly, either. The American southwest region is expected to experience deepening drought and excessive heat. The north mid-lands will experience not just more rain, but more rain in more frequent heavy rainfall. So, what's the problem with that?
A lot of people live in the SW, and as it becomes hotter and drier, their continued residence there will become increasingly unsustainable. They will have to resettle at great cost. As for the northern plains states, the source of a huge share of the nation's and world's food, they tend to be flat. A 10 inch rainfall on top of higher average rainfalls generally means flooding (which is bad of course) but it also means a drop in crop yields as flat fields stay under water for too long a period. A drowned corn, wheat, bean, sunflower, etc. crop in July means no crop at all. Even with a longer growing period, midsummer crop loss means no crop that year.
The glaciers in Asia are melting. The ice will be gone sometime in this century. Yes, there will be heavier -- and more unpredictable -- monsoons. A 20 inch rain would seem to solve the problem of glacier loss, but it doesn't. A sudden heavy rain (say, 10-20 inches) is too much to deal with. The soils can not begin to absorb that much rain, and it runs off causing severe flooding.
As one approaches the equator (even as close as the southern US) excess heat will make it increasingly difficult to spend the usual amount of time outdoors during the summer months required to run agriculture, fisheries, infrastructure repair, roofing, and so on. This will most likely be a late 21st century problem, but that's only 60 years away.
So yes: there will be benefits. One will be able to ship goods through the arctic ocean between Europe and Asia. The downside of a warm arctic is more methane in the atmosphere as the tundra melts and starts rotting, and releasing methane hydrates. Methane is a much more powerful greenhouse gas than CO2.
A warm Arctic might also mean a disruption of surface and deep ocean currents. So who cares? If the gulf stream is disrupted, Europe will get a lot colder. (It won't warm up enough to eliminate winter.) A much colder, and maybe drier Europe, will not be pleasant.
Carbon emissions are becoming less intense (x amount of carbon per y share of GDP), but it is still increasing and according to Chinese sources will continue to increase for a period of time because China is still in it's planned process of industrializing and urbanizing -- both of which involve increases in carbon output. (https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/making-sense-of-china-s-drop-in-coal-use/)
Granted, they are building more nuclear and solar plants, but in such a huge economy still being transformed, "Peak carbon" has probably not been reached yet. And the year after peak carbon doesn't mean no carbon, it just means a bit less carbon. That applies to the rest of the world's economies too. And don't forget India which will be an increasingly massive producer of carbon from various processes.
The US remains #2 after China in world carbon output.
Well, call it what you want. I don't think any conservatives are jumping on the Musk-Mars interstellar highway.
I've been talking with a friend and essentially the argument goes that limiting growth today (sacrificing GDP) instead of saving it at a higher discount rate over, say 60-100 years when the discount rate will lead to a significantly higher return on saved money, then most of these prognostications will come to fruition is better than sacrificing current GDP growth and then tackling the problem of climate change in the future.
Another point worth mentioning is if coal and natural gas, which are the cheapest available sources of power are abundant, then we ought to utilize them to achieve the maximum amount of growth possible. Then, when the resources run out or there are other cheaper options, then move onto utilizing those options.
No, because they're not utopians.
Your friend has zero reasons to be confident in his economic predictions for 60-100 years hence. I know nothing about your friend; he might be a genius, but he still doesn't know what is going to happen economically in 100 years. Nobody else does either. I personally would not bank on such advice.
Go back to 1917 and ask yourself, what predictions in 1917 bearing directly on the economy have proved true in the intervening century? Nobody predicted the great depression, World War II (or any subsequent war); nobody predicted the immense importance of radio or automobiles or TV to the economy; nobody anticipated the manned landing on the moon or the absurdly expensive and wasteful Star Wars initiative of the Reagan Administration; nobody predicted antibiotics, the elimination of smallpox or polio, the 1918 worldwide influenza epidemic (only 1 year later) that killed between 20 and 40 million people in about a year. Nobody predicted AIDS, Ebola, or Zika either.
The human ecology and human economy is far more complicated than global weather. The range of predictions about global warming or climate change, whatever term you like better, is based on comparatively straightforward climate models which are based on physics, chemistry, and accumulated data. It's much easier to confidently predict what will happen to climate over 50 years with a doubling of CO2 methane in the atmosphere than it is to say what GDP will be 25 years from now.
You know, the Great Recession of 2008 was not predicted 15 minutes before it began.
Quoting Question
Have you learned nothing about the real world?
Look, at the time of the carboniferous epoch (359.2 to 299 million years ago) the world was very warm and humid and had high levels of CO2 in the atmosphere. The ancient forests, and animal life of the swampy world died, were buried, and locked up a lot of the excess CO2. It became coal, oil, and gas.
250 years ago we all started digging up all this sequestered carbon and burned it for various purposes. We've dug up a good share of the coal, sucked up even more of the oil, and have tapped a lot of the natural gas. All of the carbon we dug up and burned became the CO2 that is causing the planet to rapidly warm up. That's what CO2 does.
A lousy 2ºC is no crisis you say. It is, because the amount of CO2 that it takes to warm up the earth that much will be very hard to remove. As we continue to add CO2, even at an decreased rate, the climate will continue to warm. At 2ºC increase, serious climate and weather problems start to ensue.
Why? Physics and chemistry again. Put a lot more energy into the atmosphere and the result will be more extreme weather, more erratic weather, and worse.
So, Question, we can be much more sure of negative climate developments than we can of beneficial economic developments.
It will cost less to implement sustainable solutions now rather than put it off until later.
While fossil fuels are cheap and abundant we should be transitioning away from reliance upon them.
Rather than trying to do so when fossil fuels have become more scarce and more expensive.
It's a big subject, but I will focus on a couple of the more obvious(in terms of likelihood) ramifications of increased greenhouse gas emissions. As pointed out, the seas will rise, the maximum is approx 66m increase in sea level if all the ice above sea even were to melt. Antarctica will melt more slowly than Greenland, so let's look at Greenland, the icecap is showing extensive signs of irreversible collapse(in the absence of a big freeze), large areas around the coast are experiencing rapid flow of unstable glacier action. Basically it is melting fast and accelerating in rate of melt. This is all scientifically proven to be happening. If this icecap melts the sea level will rise by approx 7m. So this is going to happen, there is a lot of debate about how long it will take to melt, between say 50 and 1000 years. However only modest rises will spook the folk living in coastal cities, real estate prices will collapse and it won't take long for a stampede to develop. But where will they go? Will it be an orderly retreat? Where will the energy and building resources to fuel the move come from? What about the real estate prices elsewhere? How will their food be provided? Etc etc.
Secondly, the inability to change.This is a big subject, so I can only scratch the surface here. Already there is protectionism of oil, coal and gas production. Not to mention mass reliance on these sources. In many countries the initial move towards greener solutions has faltered and now we are moving into a more protectionist global politics, all the fine words about a greener future may be just that, words. If we are very lucky we might actually achieve peak carbon within our lifetimes, but somehow I doubt our resolve. Even then, the reductions from that peak will be slow and hard won. But with the issues with the climate change we are already experiencing and with a modest rise in sea level. The sociopolitical and economic disruption will likely kaibosh any good intentions. All we need to scupper it is a world leader or two to say a rude word out of place. Not to mention the cancer of creeping civil wars.
Now you may say, like your friend, that it can be put right later. But this is wrong, it can't even in a perfect world. In terms of the ecosystem the repairs would take millennia, given perfect conditions. Any species loss is pretty much permanent and problems with rapid ecosystem change and disease are likely to ravage any attempts to correct it. We shouldn't forget that good soil is part of that ecosystem. All our food is grown in that soil(similarly the oceans). In terms of climate and geology, rapid changes in erosion, weather patterns and problems with the stability of the Earth's crust will hamper our efforts and cause civil unreast and the spread of civil war.
Which ever way you look at it, the only way is down. Tell this to your investors and how long will it take for the money to dry up. I know, let's just not tell them, then everything will be alright,... not!
But we are certain of the economic benefits of increased atmospheric CO2. We can measure them in global greening, the sparing of land due to increased agricultural productivity, the reduction in water extraction.
Deserts disagree:
http://www.csiro.au/en/News/News-releases/2013/Deserts-greening-from-rising-CO2
I think this is a much better narrative than denial in the context of climate change debate.
If it's futile to try to predict the future and all we really can know is what will happen right now, then it seems the proper decision would be to ignore the possible negative distant future consequences of global warming and simply do what will right now result in positive consequences. That is, maybe ignoring global warming will result in a thriving 2116 economy, but, then again, maybe it will result in its collapse. We just don't know. On the other hand, we do know that a continuation of use of fossil fuels will continue to lead us to a predictably thriving economy in the near future, so let's do that.
As the supply dwindles the cost of doing modern business will increase.
I think it is good to develop more sustainable alternatives now while our current modes of energy consumption are relatively cheap, rather than put it off.
Your suggestion that what big oil ought to do is to concede certain points to the climate control group in order to gain credibility, but then to argue that a certain amount of global warming is tolerable in order to protect big oil's ability to continue drilling is a strategy decision that may or may not work. Sure, your approach shows a fidelity to truth, but the oil company isn't looking for integrity (and I'd submit that the other side to this debate isn't either); it's looking for an advancement of its interests however that might be best achieved.
Consider the used car lot scenario. The car's worth $10,000. The sticker says $15,000. I offer $5,000. If we're both equally good negotiators, we end up at $10,000. Sometimes the better negotiator gets a better deal. Regardless, when they said $15,000, they didn't think it was really worth that, and I didn't really think it was worth $5,000. Whether I should have just said $10,000 take it or leave it from the get go is a strategy question. Maybe it've worked, or maybe I'd have ended up paying $12,500.
But let's assume that it is true for the moment.
Like Hans Rosling said somewhere, there is a painful trade-off between regulations, to fight climate change, and saving human lives.
Carbon tax, for example, is regressive (in the economic sense of the word). This means that it will hurt the people with lower income substantially more than those with a higher income.
There are about seven billion people in the world. The rich west accounts for about one billion, and the rest are quickly emerging. They will emit more carbon, and taxing that will reduce their big climb out of poverty.
Either the scientific work done by the majority of scientists can be trusted but if you're arguing it cannot then doing so by referring to other scientific work is then completely arbitrary. If you're going to choose one scientist's results over another, you're going to have to go into the scientific methods used, the theories tested and the data collected. Anything else is just trying to find justifications of beliefs that don't seem to be currently supported by the majority of climate change scientists. And claims that "it's become a religion" or "full of left wing bias" are simple assertions and speak of your own personal bias and says zero about the science behind climate change.
Quoting Emptyheady
Alternatively that's proof that the West didn't pay enough for the pollution it caused. Tragedy of the commons and all that.
http://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/43543 :-}
The tragedy of the commons is an economic theory of a situation within a shared-resource system (clean air) where individual users (countries) acting independently according to their own self-interest behave contrary to the common good (fucking pollution) of all users (everybody) by depleting that resource through their collective action.
EDIT: 2 secs of Wiki and some editing since that was quicker than dregging up what I learned 15 years ago.
EDIT 2: A well-know method of adjusting that individual behaviour is transferring the costs to those actually using the shared-resources. E.g. the West didn't pay enough for the pollution because it externalised those costs to the rest of the world.
*sighs* It is really time that most of you open a book about economics...
"The tragedy of the commons is a very real economic issue where individuals tend to exploit shared resources so the demand greatly outweighs supply, and the resource becomes unavailable for the whole. "
"The tragedy of the commons is an economic theory of a situation within a shared-resource system where individual users acting independently according to their own self-interest behave contrary to the common good of all users by depleting that resource through their collective action."
"In 1833, the English economist William Forster Lloyd published a pamphlet which included a hypothetical example of over-use of a common resource."
http://www.investopedia.com/terms/t/tragedy-of-the-commons.asp
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons
----
edit: it is derived from the game theoretical idea where the equilibrium is tragic -- i.e. self-defeating economic behaviour that is unique to common resources.
Quoting Emptyheady
edit2: privatisation was a solution to correct this self-defeating economic behaviour.
edit3: do not conflate externalities with tragedy of the commons. This is just bad-economics.
http://www.investopedia.com/terms/t/tragedy-of-the-commons.asp
Honestly, take 10 minutes -- it is not hard to understand its workings -- to read it up and then come back and have a proper laugh at yourself.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tragedy_of_the_commons
Edit: Carbon tax for instance.
Edit 2: Also, aside from the economic discussion, how about getting back to the other points I made?
Now this is funny, in order to safe face, you are straw-manning me?
Quoting Emptyheady
Where did I say it was the only one? "a solution" and somehow you pretended I said the 'only solution'. Like I said earlier, the tragedy of the commons is a unique phenomenon of non-private property systems.
Now, you could also interpret it as a coordination problem, but privatising is probably the best solution, generally speaking. You already have a hard time to even understand the basics, let alone granting an authoritarian politician the power to regulate such a complex system.
I'm not sure how else I was to interpret this as private ownership as the only solution but my bad. I do note that I merely raised this issue as an example of the tragedy of the commons (which it is) and I received the above as a reply against my suggestion that the West apparently didn't pay enough for the use of certain resources.
I also fail to see how the tragedy of the commons and the externalisation of costs are unrelated. To me it seems quite obvious that certain costs (pollution) are borne by people who didn't cause and aren't causing them. That means that producers in the past and now haven't paid and aren't paying the correct price for the use of resources. Since I'm not keen on having the air I breath privatised and also fail to see the practical possibility of doing so, there are other solutions more appropriate to tackle this problem.
Actually that is kind of the point, privatization does not work with common resources as people will act in their own individual self interest which has a net negative effect for all agents.
Is it? In a centrally planned economy without private ownership this problem probably wouldn't occur either. So it seems a unique phenomenon to any mixed system.
Yeah I never said that...They are not unrelated, what I said is, 'do not conflate them'. You tend to project things on me that I never said.
Quoting Benkei
The possible solutions are (i) privatisation, (ii) coordination or (iii) internal regulations.
(i) The best solution is obviously privatisation, because private property would abolish issues you addressed completely -- you conflate national property (sovereign country) with private property (individual) -- but privatisation requires a sovereign entity enforcing its rules and recognition, but there is none beyond a sovereign country. For example, there is no legal recognition of private ownership in space, hence there is barely any private investment into space exploration.
(ii) The alternative is coordination, like putting quotas on fishing for example. But no one is surprised if you see a headline that an Asian fishing ship ignored the quotas. Who is going to force China to back off?
(iii) Another one is regulation, but that is only possible within a sovereign country, so it does nothing to address the examples you issued.
edit: so to provide an answer for your issues, if you can't privatise it, try to coordinate and hope for the best -- which is exactly what we do now.
Take over fishing for example.
Privately owned business harvest from the fish population and each compete with one another.
Because everybody has equal access to the resources and because all agents will act in accordance with their own individual self interest the problem of tragedy of the commons will occur.
To solve the problem requires a social solution, where the community devises regulations to prevent the issue from occurring.
You thought the problem was common ownership, when in fact it was a problem of access and self interest.
The problem occurs when all agents
a) act in their own self interest
b) have equal access to the resource
c) and the demand increases beyond supply
It is not clear what you think privatization accomplishes.
The solutions are
a) agents must act with a social interest
b) the access must be limited
c) the demand/supply must be supplemented
or some combination of these things
The position of the anti-climate change folks is one of both intentional and unintentional worldview bias on the part of the scientists. Their belief is that the there is either an intentional anti-business effort on the part of the scientists or that the scientists are so indoctrinated to a liberal point of view that they will inevitably produce results supportive of their position. The vast majority of scientists do not consider themselves Republican (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/10/only-six-percent-of-scien_n_229382.html).
Since climate change deniers believe there is inherent bias running throughout the supposedly objective scientific process, and the climate change deniers lack the expertise to conduct the experiments themselves, they either reject or are very skeptical of the climate change conclusions.
My point here is that it is rational and not at all arbitrary to reject the conclusions of someone you find lacking credibility. What would be irrational would be to fully accept the credibility of the scientists but to simply refuse to accept their inconvenient conclusions. I don't think that is at all what is happening. I think what is really happening is that the general public (myself included) has no idea what sort of experiments have been conducted or what sort of data has been collected, but we are all asked to accept the conclusions because most scientists say it's valid. If tomorrow they report they were wrong, I suspect you'd change your mind. Whether placing trust in the consensus of the experts is reasonable and rational is debatable because polling scientists is a not a scientific act. It's a political one.
It is by definition...
"In Hardin's classic piece "The Tragedy of the Commons," a commons is a natural resource shared by many individuals. In this context, "shared" means that each individual does not have a claim to any part of the resource, but rather, to the use of a portion of it for his/her own benefit."
That is the definition of a non-private ownership, isn't dear?
Just have a look at what you wrote:
Quoting m-theory
Private property would entail private ownership of the fishing population, hence rejecting it as a communal resource.
Now do some rethinking. The ball should start rolling as soon as you get this.
I think predicting the future is irrelevant here, at least to the degree that you demand that it be predicted. For example, see how Warren Buffet makes his money. And surely, the economy is almost at 20k, an all-time high.
Quoting Bitter Crank
I'm not sure if you've gotten the point of this topic; but, climate change up to a certain point is actually beneficial to the economy and the world. If the smart scientists are right that a small increment in temperature will lead to a runaway effect, then we will walk over that bridge when the time comes (60-100 years from now).
What compels you to say that? If we do a simple cost-benefit analysis, then investing in solar or renewables now is impractical. If we end up being uncompetitive wrt to China or India, then the best outcome is to seek the lowest cost technology to ensure growth. Furthermore, solar and other renewables would have to be adopted unanimously by all G20 nations. If one country backs out of said commitment, then the house of cards falls.
You can start it though. Buy a few panels, land them on top of your house, or appartment building, make some energy! You're young, you have lots of time to recover the costs. Sell to your national grid, or use the electricity yourself!
That's a sentiment peddled by the left. I think, I've already demonstrated that climate change isn't a necessary evil.
If you want to become like Warren Buffett is today, you can't do what he is doing today, you have to do what he was doing when he was young. Why? As the capital you control increases, you have to change the way you play the game quite significantly. It's very difficult to place 300 billion or whatever Berkshire's assets add up to. The most important thing for him is to beat inflation. The more money you have, the more you will be hurt by inflation, and the harder it will be to beat it. Why? Because the big risk is having so much money that a share of it sits unused because you're not able to find the right investments fast enough. The idea is that you have to find very big deals (and there's not many big deals around) - a big deal is useful because you get rid of a large chunk of money in one go. Let's say you could get a return of 100% on investments of 10,000 each. You're not going to get involved in that if you're a billionaire because each 10,000 investment takes time. You'll prefer the 2% return on 1 billion beating inflation over the 100% return in 10K pieces, because you simply wouldn't have the time to make all the deals required and to manage them.
There's a reason why Warren Buffett is suddenly arguing against hedge funds, for long-term investments at low rates, etc. This is exactly what he needs. When he was young though, he was involved in a few risky deals. He was running what used to be probably one of the very first hedge funds. Inventing a new way to invest is what made him so rich. Because when he was small he had to take risks. Now he hates risk. Of course. Risk injures him more than helps him now. But this used to be the other way around.
People in the 1970's never saw the advent of shale oil or fracking. As technology progresses comparatively to the scarcity of oil and coal, then technology will make efficiency gains to maintain a low to stable price.
Look at nuclear for example. Due to hysteria and emotional reasoning, nuclear has become an expensive source of energy despite being a potentially viable source of energy for decades. Laws and regulations have made it an unviable source in the US, while India and China are investing heavily in making it a safer and abundant energy source.
By the way, I was more right than left before I became Green.
It has to do with a limited resource,access to the resources, and individual actors seeking individual interests.
Quoting Emptyheady
You can't be serious, how could individuals own the populations of fish in the ocean.
Just let it go, you don't know what you are talking about and trying to save face has only dug you deeper.
Yes, I addressed that exactly. Again, what I said to Benkei goes for you as well.
Quoting m-theory
And of course you have no clue what you are talking about.
All you are concerned about is a particular narrative "the free market is always the answer" unfortunately for you the real world is more nuanced than that.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average may be almost at 20k, but the DJIA is not the same as the economy. Stock markets are speculative, and there is a somewhat tenuous relationship between the various stock averages and the actual financial/industrial activity in a country. The reason the DJIAI is still close to its high of 19,987.63 is that speculation keeps it there. Speculators are more confident in stock when the economy is at least reported to be doing OK.
The economy (actual production, consumption, profitability, rates of return on investment, employment, debt, etc.) and the DJIA or the S&P 500 are not chained together. Thousands of corporate reports showing actual financial results reveal how the economy is doing (that and Bureau of Labor Statistics, et al). There is a relationship between the actual economy and stock market, but there isn't a one-for-one relationship.
Quoting Question
Of course I get the point -- I'm an urban sophisticate, just like you.
We can look at the Medieval Warm Period and the "Little Ice Age" that followed it. People were much better off physically and economically during the Medieval Warm Period than they were during the cooler "Little Ice Age." Here it is, all graphed out:
But bear in mind: Global warming didn't begin in the 1990s. It's been progressing for something like 2 centuries.
The warming that has happened in the last two centuries is considerably greater than the warming during the Medieval period, and the level of CO2 in the atmosphere continues to rise. We passed the arbitrary 400 ppm in the last year. The warmer it gets, the more water vapor and CO2 there will be -- guaranteed by the laws of physics and chemistry. Add methane to the mix. The more water vapor, CO2 and methane, the faster the feedback loop.
We may, might, possibly, probably are, or could be past the point of beneficial warming. I've been around long enough (70 years) to see some warmth related changes. When I was in high school (before 1964) iris, peonies, lilacs, and bridal wreath peak blossomed for Decoration Day (aka Memorial Day). For the past 10 years, at least, these plants have been fished blossoming before Memorial Day. Migratory birds are returning 2-3 weeks earlier, and some birds have decided to skip migrating -- this in Minnesota. Insects that used to be killed off in the winter (ones that infest trees, particularly) are now surviving winter. It isn't that winter has disappeared across the northern tier of states. It is just that very cold periods are much shorter than they used to be with spring arriving earlier, and winter beginning a bit later. The last really long brutal cold spell in Minneapolis was the winter of 1983-1984 when the temperature in December '83 was near or below zero, with a low of -29ºF on Dec. 19.
The credibility of climate change science is dubious at best. H2O and CO2 are very similar in greenhouse capacity, yet the amount of H2O in the atmosphere is many times more (perhaps hundreds of times more) than the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, and constantly varies by an amount many times more (perhaps hundreds of times more) than the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere.
You might be surprised to hear that the scientific record supporting global warming is not and has not been kept a secret. You don't have to subscribe to obscure or well known but technically difficult science journals to become aware of what the information is. Unfortunately for you, if you have have not been paying attention for the last 25 years or so, you'll have to do a fair amount of catch-up reading.
If for the last 25 years had you regularly read general science articles in papers like the New York Times, Washington Post, Scientific American, and so on; had you been watching the Lehrer News Hour on PBS, had you been listening to news on National Public Radio, had you watched NOVA and Nature on PBS, you wouldn't be in this slough of deficient information. You would have heard many explanations about what data had been gathered, how they got it, how the analyzed it, and what the upshots were.
Why must renewables be unanimously adopted by all G20 nations? Why, if one backs out, does this prevent the other 19 from continuing to benefit?
Are you aware of the effects that the thinning of the ozone layer have had on the climate of the planet?
This time around, its humans who have to survive it.
Anyway I hope we do survive as we would've learned a valuable lesson and be more careful.
Anyway even if as you say climate change science is dubious, the effects on glaciers and the climate can be observed firsthand. So the sea level is going to rise a few metres, causing major problems for any coastal city.
To clarify: The Benkei dude was probably the most "right" just because he hit all the points that Hardin and Lloyd (and Malthus) did. Plus he reasonably pointed out that Hardin's paper is kind of nuts (which is absolutely is, it would never get published these days).
Emptyheady was right, Lloyd, in his Lectures, does seem to think the problem/tragedy is specifically endemic to common property systems historically and, drawing heavily on Malthus, concludes that private property posed a solid solution or at least stood the best chance of pushing people toward developing a solution (This basically starts on page 20, drops off around page 38ish, and wraps up in the last ten pages).
M-Theory was finally right - Hardin showed up in 1968 and said "Fuck privatization, those weird guys got it wrong with their "technical solutions", they relied to heavily on the potential advancement of free market oriented technology, and didn't have a reasonable way to address adding negative things to the commons (literally "pollution"). Hardin then gets openly wacky ("radical" as he says) on the reader and goes, "Hey, lets go back into Malthus and Lloyd and just say that the commons of population is enemy" (i.e. free reproduction). The solution? Legislation or responsible moral education that stops people from breeding all willy-nilly.
So see? Everyone wins.. yippee. The god damn absurdity of argument was so distracting I basically lost track of what the rest of this thread was even about. It look me full circle back to page 1 to figure out everyone else was talking about climate change.
Thank you for this does of sanity, Carbon.
Actually, it's the effect of CO2 which is quite complex, the effects of ozone thinning is rather straight forward. Ozone absorbs solar energy in the high atmosphere (stratosphere). Ozone thinning allows that energy to reach the surface of the earth. What has been observed by NASA (which we can be logically attribute to ozone thinning) is a lower temperature in the upper atmosphere, and a higher temperature at the earth's surface.
This should be taken into account by anyone who attributes higher surface temperatures to a build up of CO2. A correlation between two things does not necessitate that one is the cause of the other. A claim of causation must be justified.
Quoting Punshhh
That's the point, the amount of water in the atmosphere varies greatly, due to precipitation and evaporation. It varies by an amount many time greater than the total amount of CO2 in the atmosphere. If H2O and CO2 are similar in their capacity as greenhouse gases, how is a doubling, or even tripling of CO2 going to have a significant effect on the climate, when the amount of H2O already continually varies by an amount many times more than this?
In other words, CO2 is the constant, and H2O is the variable. The effects of the variable are far more substantial to the subject at hand, than the effects of the constant. How does any credible science treat the variable as a constant, thereby allowing the constant to be treated as a variable?
Damn! All I've watched was Foxnews.
Of course you are right.
I just don't agree that is reasonable to argue that all goods can be made excludable.
That to me is silly.
The variation in the water cycle is well known, it's covered by the science of meteorology. The role played by both water and CO2 in historical climate, such as glaciation and hot periods is scientifically understood. It's true that some of the triggers of glaciation are not known, but once a change is underway, it is fairly well understood.
Yes, the CO2 is constant in its increase. It can't vary due to a lack of precipitation etc.. There are for the water cycle longer frequency variations, such as long periods of sea level and glaciation change.like I say, currently sea levels are rising. I wonder why?
Some of this stuff seems like clever-sounding argument for the sake of argument. The question for policy-makers is, in our locality, or in concert with others in other localities, what would the wise thing to do be?
The problems of increased flooding, for example, aren't going to go away and aren't going to be addressed by the kindest of entrepreneurs as part of the market system, unless their factory is going under. Investment in changed infrastructure is required, which will have to be funded by taxation or charity. My own locality has been badly hit by repeated flooding in recent years; and on a global scale, countries like Bangladesh and major cities worldwide face likely devastation unless we prepare for worst case scenarios, having revised downwards the criteria for worst-case scenarios (where I live we've had once-in-100-years floods, by criteria proposed in 2000, five times since 2000). In some cases there are no reasonable preventative measures and we just have to work out how to be resilient, but even that costs public money: rehousing, refitting housing, and so forth.
No, no Hanover. Don't put yourself down. What you need is an in-house Climate Wonk. Get rid of the lawn and pool boys--also the housekeeper, you can't afford it all--and hire an in-house wonk who can supply you with every comfort that statistics and charts can offer. You'll probably want to request a curvaceous, sultry wonkess from Brandeis University who can fluff up your pillow and sit by your bed and read you lewd and lascivious nighttime tales from the Interagency Climate Change Adaptation Task Force as well as boil a kosher egg for your breakfast. (Personal services are charged separately.)
You can continue to watch Fox News and still be well informed.
Yes, I was finding it depressing too, I suppose I feel solace in the idea that we are, on the whole, accepting that there is a problem and starting to make some efforts in tackling it.
Regarding the issue of flooding, we can deal with it fairly easily, it just needs some joined up thinking and cooperation. Once the upper catchments have been restored to their natural state of scrub and forest, with perhaps a few beavers, along with natural overspill reservoirs and sinks. Rather than the rule of the grouse moors. The flash floods through the towns would be much less intense. In some cases like Lynmouth and Boscastle concrete flood channels might be required through the town. Quite simple really, well apart from the red tape and backward thinking landowners and politicians. Are you aware of the work of George Mombiot? He has some exciting ideas about re-wilding and reform of EU agricultural subsidies (which are aimed at preserving the current countryside ecosystems in aspic).
More concerning is the imminent collapse of ecosystems and the mass extinction event we are witness to. Far more difficult to address, and once lost, if not irretreavable, will take millennia (rather than a couple of generations to destroy) of hard work to restore. The Millennium Seed Bank and an increased network of Zoos will help. But will only be able to save a portion of species. We can theoretically cope with a small increase in temperature of up to say 3 degrees Celsius. Although this would be a gargantuan struggle with much suffering due to the size of our populations, provided we don't descend into civil wars. But we could theoretically ride out the storm with civilisation intact.
The bigger worry though is a runaway climate change scenario in which we become encased in a shroud of cloud, rather like Venus. Which would be disastrous for humanity, we would survive, but the majority would die and the few survivors would be right back in the Stone Age for millennia and would have lost all our hard won knowledge and technology. Something which I suspect has happened numerous times to humanity in the past( well not the same level of technology though). This last possibility is what we should be concerned with and I'm sure the scientific community is on board. We just have to keep our fingers crossed now that the politicians don't turn in the direction of denial, or mess it up. Industry and the corporate world are on board, but tend to be self-interest focussed.
It isn't rational because it's a logical fallacy to reject an argument based on the perceived authority of those making its case - especially on something as flimsy as political affiliation. Moreover, the consensus is over 97%. What happened to those 40% Republican scientists? Third, it's not just US scientists that say this so the political affiliation discussion only goes so far and really is only a US discussion.
Do you think the Netherlands, where if water levels rise, is happy with conclusions that mean 40% of our land-mass, where over 60% of the people live, will disappear? We'd rather not have to spend trillions of euros on having to ensure the safety of our country and there's a big incentive therefore to get it right before spending that money, regardless of your political leanings. The consensus here is close to, if not exactly, 100% with respect to climate change and the dangers it creates with respect to rising sea levels, increased rain and river discharges. So for us, there are no benefits. It's nice though that there's a few more trees and less deaths from cold winters.
How about those areas in the US where scientists have a particular personal incentive to get it right, such as NY? What's the consensus then?
BTW, the IPCC report does go into some of these benefits which seem to be there to some extent (but not much research available) but the benefits quickly deteriorate with an increase in temperature above 1 or 2 degrees celsius (depending on the type of crop or trees).
For instance:
[quote=IPCC]A second reason for concern is the distribution of impacts among people and across regions. The impacts of climate change will not be distributed equally. Some individuals, sectors, systems, and regions will be less affected—or may even benefit; other individuals, sectors, systems, and regions may suffer significant losses. This pattern of relative benefits or losses is not likely to remain constant over time. It will be different with different magnitudes of climate change. Some regions may have gains only for certain changes in temperature and precipitation and not for others. As a result, some regions that may first see net benefits eventually may face losses as well as the climate continues to warm.[/quote]
and
[quote=IPCC]It has not been assumed that all the impacts of climate change will be detrimental. Indeed, several studies have looked at possible benefits. Moreover, adaptation is a means of maximizing such gains as well as minimizing potential losses.
However, it must be said that potential gains have not been well documented, in part because of lack of stakeholder concern in such cases and consequent lack of special funding. Examples that have not been fully documented include the possible spread of tropical and subtropical horticulture further poleward (but see some New Zealand studies, on kiwi fruit, for example—Salinger and Kenny, 1995; Hall and McPherson, 1997b). In southern parts of Australia and New Zealand, notably Tasmania, there could be gains for the wine industry, increased comfort indices and thus tourism, and in some scenarios increased water for hydroelectric power generation.
Guest et al. (1999) have documented possible decreases in winter human mortality alongside possible increased summer mortality (see Section 12.7.1), and Howden et al. (1999d) have shown that Australian wheat yields may increase for 1 or 2°C warming, before showing declines at greater warmings (see Section 12.5.3 and Figure 12-3). A similar situation may apply to forestry (see Section 12.5.4). Such studies take account of gains from increased CO2 concentrations. Changes in overseas production and thus in markets in some cases also could lead to greater demand and higher prices for Australian and New Zealand primary products (see Section 12.5.9), but only if such changes do not disrupt world trade in other ways (e.g., lower capacity to pay).
Vulnerability and adaptation to climate change must be considered in the context of the entire ecological and socioeconomic environment in which they will take place. Indeed, adaptations will be viable only if they have net social and economic benefits and are taken up by stakeholders. Adaptations should take account of any negative side effects, which would not only detract from their purpose but might lead to opposition to their implementation (PMSEIC, 1999).
Adaptation is the primary means for maximizing gains and minimizing losses. This is why it is important to include adaptation in impact and vulnerability studies, as well as in policy options. As discussed in Chapter 18, adaptation is necessary to help cope with inevitable climate change, but it has limits; therefore, it would be unwise to rely solely on adaptation to solve the climate change problem.
In some cases adaptation may have co-benefits. For example, reforestation to lower water tables and dryland salinization or to reduce storm runoff may provide additional income and help with mitigation (reduction of GHG emissions). However, other potential adaptations may be unattractive for other reasons (e.g., increased setbacks of development in coastal and riverine environments). These considerations have particular application in Australia and New Zealand. Studies of adaptation to climate change in Australia and New Zealand are still relatively few and far between. They are summarized in the remainder of this section.[/quote]
So in fact, they specifically avoid confirmation bias by allowing for benefits even though the research for that is rather sporadic so far.
Credibility of the person is critical when you have a distrust of their data gathering and computations. Obviously, if you were accused of murdering your neighbor, your mother's credibility in asserting you were with her and could not have done it would be suspect (as she does dote on her little Benkei) as would any physical evidence she might present to prove your whereabouts.
With regard to political affiliation bias, it goes beyond that to the point of being a liberal worldview consistent with anti-corporate and anti-business interests. Anyway, I'm not arguing as forcefully against climate change as it might appear, but am only pointing out that there is nothing irrational per se in climate change deniers looking skeptically at the backgrounds of those presenting the climate change conclusions.
It also appears that you're inconsistently arguing both sides of this, on the one hand criticizing those who reject arguments based upon the perceived authority of those making the case, but then appealing to authority based upon the perceived authority of those who make the case by suggesting I should be concerned with the number of bona fide scientists who have concluded a particular way.
Quoting Benkei
The OP asks what the positives of climate change might be, and whether the loss of the Netherlands is or isn't a positive is a matter of opinion.
Quoting Benkei
Tragedy of the commons is an issue that is unique to communal owned resource (i.e. non-private ownership systems). Yes, there are possible solutions to deal with this phenomenon besides the obvious privatisation -- like I stated here -- BUT it does NOT negate the FACT that it is still a specific phenomenon of common resources systems and none-existent in private ownership systems.
An analogy is that populism is a unique (inherent) phenomenon of democracy, and so is the tragedy of the commons to common resources.
I know that I am right here, because this is just a basic economic fact, not a political opinion. Your knee-jerk reaction is meaningless.
Like I said, open a book about economics lad...
I'm curious how is the Nederlands preparing for climate change? Are we going to see floating cities?
Frankly, I don't see how climate change can be avoided. To what degree is debatable. It's just too much to ask for countries to do something about it when the same countries telling the other one's to do something were, in fact, the main contributors to the current situation.
How does privatization resolve the issue of rivalry?
Some countries are doing things on there own.
Look at Masdar for example.
You have oil rich countries in the middle east seeking to integrate alternative energy into their infrastructures so that they are not critically reliant upon fossil fuel energy.
I think it is important for western countries to remain competitive.
The technology is pretty much there, the problem is integrating it into the infrastructure.
For developing countries this is less of an issue because it can be done as they grow.
But for the west there is a larger cost because our infrastructures are already developed and will have to be retrofitted and upgraded.
I don't think the west should shy away from this because it will be expensive, the cost for doing this is only going to increase and putting it off will only cost more.
This is because to integrate alternative energy into the infrastructure will require fossil fuel energy costs, it is not until the alternative are integrated that we reap the benefits of offset costs.
Even ignoring the climate argument it is still strategically important that the west remains competitive.
At least to me.
20 billion was approved in 2014 to improve our existing system of dykes. It's a decent start.
We also had a court case in which citizens demanded the government do more. They won but not sure about the state of any appeal or to what extent the government is taking action to reach the 25%.
That's what lawyers keep telling themselves but it really isn't. Even someone who isn't credible could still be telling the truth. Logically, this doesn't hold any water.
It's understandable that people do it because so many people around them do this but it's neither here nor there with respect to the veracity of the climate change research. It's also a cop-out for either side to stop listening to each other. "Oh, can't trust what he says because he's a Republican/Democrat". Rational discourse doesn't work that way. And your bare assumption that "a liberal worldview [is] consistent with anti-corporate and anti-business interests" is very telling. It's not even true for most leftists but that requires you to take others that don't agree with you a bit more seriously to absorb.
No, there's a primary argument: it's a logical fallacy.
There's also a secondary argument that when assuming that credibility has bearing on the veracity of the data, those people claiming it's an issue are left having to resolve the following points:
1. the discrepancy between the split between liberal and conservative scientists and the split between climate change asserters and deniers
2. the blind spot with regard to non-US researchers
3. no data on consensus of researchers in the US in danger zones (e.g. who have worries that presumably would trump political affilition)
Quoting Hanover
Har har.
Of course. If Hitler says the blue sky is blue, it's still blue, despite his somewhat sullied reputation. However, in many instances (like climate change), we can't just look up at the sky and confirm the veracity of a statement ourselves, so we are left to rely upon the credibility of the speaker to some extent. It's for that reason, for example, if Charles Manson and his band of merry men and women deny having murdered anyone, yet a group of disinterested witnesses tell us otherwise, we tend to believe the disinterested witnesses, mostly because we understand why Manson may be inclined to lie, but we don't understand why the witnesses would.
And we all do this very thing on this forum all the time. For example, once I cited to a website for the proposition that most Palestinians wanted the elimination of Israel, and you ruthlessly ridiculed me over the reference, claiming that I was a patent fool for relying on such a biased poll, damaging my pristine reputation and making me less believable than I previously was.
Quoting Benkei
I agree that both sides tend to ignore the nuances of the other, which is why Republicans are often summarized as racist rednecks, but I can recognize that the right does the same to the left as well.
I don't agree though that the polarization we have in US society isn't very real and very deep, which lends itself to a reasonable distrust of anyone who arrives at a conclusion opposed to one side's political position. Using a legal analogy (because that's all I can apparently do), it's reasonable for a jury to have a healthy distrust for both parties because the jury expects that both lawyers are going to present their cases in the best possible light, leaving the jury as the objective body to ferret out the truth. That is, in the legal context, polarization is expected, but an objective body is inserted in to resolve the truth of the issue. I'm not sure, though, that in US society that there's any mainstream objective body waiting to hear both sides and ferret out the truth. The press has openly abdicated it's role as an objective bastion of truth, and the courts are openly questioned by both sides depending upon their ruling.
Your examples don't change the fact that it is logically incorrect. In the case of Manson, it shouldn't follow logically from the fact that he's untrustworthy but because we have statements from witnesses that better match the facts. If his statement would match the facts and not contradict other statements, then regardless of his trustworthiness, we would have to acquit him due to reasonable doubt. If the statements of witnesses cannot be corroborated by facts, they should not be used no matter the presumed trustworthiness of the witnesses as opposed to those of Manson.
Quoting Hanover
You have the unfortunate quality of bringing out the worst in me. Nonetheless, always a good escape from the echo chamber.
Quoting Hanover
Fair enough. So how about you start being more distrusting of Republicans et al. and I'll do the same for US liberals and other leftists. ;)
If you assert an epistemological standard as high as "beyond a reasonable doubt," then I suppose we'll be forced to deny the existence of all sorts of generally accepted facts. For example: What time will Benkei be in today? Well, for the past 10 years, he's shown up at 8:30 to 9:00, so I'd say 8:30 to 9:00. Fair enough, although I can't say that beyond a reasonable doubt.
That is to say, you've inserted a non-common sense legalistic principle in here. I will say pretty unequivocally, though, that if you asked me whether I believe beyond a reasonable doubt that the waters will rise in the Netherlands in the next 100 years to the point of making it uninhabitable, I'd say no. I'd also say that I couldn't assert the opposite either to that level of proof: that the waters won't rise to that point.
To be sure, though, if Manson told me anything that seemed at all incredible, I'd be justifiably less likely to believe him than if a close friend told me the same thing. Why? Well, because Manson is a known psychopath who values truth and his reputation very little. That tidbit does matter.
A juror will be struck for legal cause if he or she indicates a financial interest or a leaning or bias for or against either party. I seriously doubt you'd find it ok to have your wife preside over your divorce proceedings (not that it shall ever to come to that), for example. Per your reasoning, we should not object to any holding by the biased judge or juror because credibility of the decision maker (whether it be a judge, juror, scientist, witness, or whoever) is an irrational criterion to consider when evaluating the decision.