Two Russian scientists have bet an English climatologist that the global temperature will drop over the next ten years. The Russians believe that the sunspot cycle has a significant impact on warming or cooling of the earth. At least that is what they say. My son recently showed me an article in the Atlantic (his public school English teacher makes him read it) authored by Gregg Easterbrook entitled ?Global Warming: Who Loses?and Who Wins? Easterbrook believes that Russia and Canada would most benefit by a rise in the global temperature. Perhaps this bet is a ruse to allow the global warming engine to run for another ten years.
Gregg Easterbrook and presumably the Russian scientists believe that global warming is not a zero sum phenomena. They are of the opinion that there will be losers and winners. So, if global warming is a fact then it seems we, as Americans, have two options to address it. The first and most obvious is that we can attempt to decrease our contribution to greenhouse gasses and encourage others to do the same. The second option is that we can attempt to take advantage of the opportunities presented in a warming world.
If we choose the only the first option we need to face the facts. As we sit here in our hybrid vehicles the Chinese and India are throwing up huge clouds of CO2. In the future their burgeoning economies will produce more and more. Even if we reduce our huge CO2 emissions there is nothing that tells us that this will have any substantial effect at all. We will have done the right thing by the planet but in the end the warming will occur regardless. We should try our best to reduce our emissions and develop sustainable energy policies, but will this be enough?
If we choose the second option the world may not pass us by. If we know what the future holds I think it best to prepare for those times. I know that many contributors to this blog feel that global warming is here and that it is now approaching a runaway stage. If this is the case I do not know if there is anything we can do to reverse this trend. India and China and the rest crave the riches that economic development and cheap energy provide. The question is very simple. Shouldn?t we try and prepare our economy and our national infrastructure to take advantage of the warming world?
I am trying to decide how to answer that question. Boy, I’m stumped.
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Sarcasm aside: Global warming does not simply mean Canada and Russia will get more moderate, we’ll get warmer, and India will get very hot. There are consequences in sea level, rainfall, survival of numerous species, and encouragement of invasive species. Taken together having the globe warm up at this rapid rate will be a disaster. It’s worth it to work very hard to avoid that disaster. Think food and availability of water and a lot of refugees. It’s a disaster for which there is much more evidence than there was for WMDs in Iraq and similar logic applies here — only based on evidence.
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Of course, we will have to prepare for that disaster. I’m not sure why you think we have to choose your option 1 or your option 2.
I think that we need to take both approaches but it seems that the anti global warming movement concentrates too much on option 1 and almost never even addresses option 2.
I’m trying to think about what you might be suggesting. Should begin relocating the Netherlands and Bangladesh now? What should we do about droughts? Greater irregularity in the weather? Ecological consequneces are very difficult to foresee.
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You write, “If we know what the future holds I think it best to prepare for those times.” The trouble is that most of the consequences are either hard to predict (vines and catepillars) or impossible to mitigate (drought and hurricanes).
but if we are unsure, why do we assume that it can only be bad?
We don’t assume that. We just haven’t seen any upsides yet. Have you?
I used to read Easterbrook’s “Tuesday Morning Quarterback” columns religiously until he kinda over-cuted it to death. But the columns made his name stuck in my head. I remeber being amazed at how often Easterbrook would deny or disagree with global warming, making himself out to be a contrarian hero. So I’m hesitant to take a lot of what he says seriously avout the subject, now that he’s on board… If he couldn’t understand the data in 1999 that marked a clear trend, can he really understand it now?
when it comes articles even remotely attached to science.
is The Poor Man’s smackdown of Gregg Easterbrook. It’s link-rific!
The immortal credo of Terminator 2. A warming world appears inevitable — it’s already warming. What we want to avoid is a boiling world where many of our major cities are under water and our economy can’t function properly. So, yes, it’s important to be pro-active and try to change things for the better rather than throw our hands up in the air and invade Canada.
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As to your specific points: (1) on a per capita basis, we contribute far more to CO2 emissions than any other country on earth. We can make a real difference to our own well being even if China and India etal increase their emissions. Have you been to any major Chinese city recently? Many are blanketed by thick clouds of noxious fumes: the air looks cloudy all the time. (2) we should cooperate with China and India etal to develop technologies that will them grow while reducing their emissions. There is no necessary correlation between economic growth and environmental destruction.
Have you been to any major Chinese city recently? Many are blanketed by thick clouds of noxious fumes: the air looks cloudy all the time.
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Just like Steubenville OH and Charleston WVa in the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s.
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As the economies in those areas grew (or people left), the demand for a cleaner enviornment also grew. It will probably happen in China and Inda as well.
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There’s no doubt that the US might be able to help, but it’s doubtful that that help will be a panacea.
The point, however, is that we figured out ways to have both power and clean air. We can make a ton of money if we invest in clean energy technologies, and if we work with developing countries to help them get rich in a cleaner and more healthy (for all of us) way, in my opinion.
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The status quo, however, as RegularJoe rightly points out, is a rapidly changing and rapidly warming world. The question is what, if anything, we can and should do about that.
…the proposed wager is silly in the extreme. Do a bit of data gathering over a number of years, then do a regression analysis on the various variables, then report the results of the regression analysis, and I’ll pay attention.
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Othewise, as far as I can tell, the data is largely anecdotal. Interesting, but anecdotal.
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BTW, I wasn’t in London at the turn of the 19th-20th century. I was in Charleston WVa in the early 1950s. Hang the freshly washed clothes on the line outside, and they would become brown from the particulate matter in the atmosphere.
I don’t disagree at all.
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But, boy what a problem. The US didn’t care about this stuff until the early 60s, and arguable the early 70s. Environmentalism is an artifact of affluence– affluence created by the industrial economy.
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So we might expect India and China to give a hoot about this when they reach the per capita level of the US in the 60s or 70s. At which point their energy consumption, and carbon footprint, will be orders of magnitude greater than the US in 2007.
What basis do you have for saying that? I am curious. Lots of societies, arguably every society, tends to its environment, or it perishes. The Sierra Club was formed in 1892, hardly a time of affluence by 2007 standards that measure indoor plumbing, material possessions, public health, etc. Earlier societies had their own environmental codes, from taboos to legal codes.
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And after you are through with that, I wonder if you really think that there is just an inevitable cycle as work here — dirty industrial development to clean service economy, perhaps — or if you think things can change for the better. The history of, for example, communications suggests that technological improvement can help some groups leapfrog past stages.
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And then finally, I take it from your comment that you think development and environmental protection are oppositional, rather than complementary as I suggested. I wonder what your basis for that it, too đŸ™‚
I apoligize that this answer must be briefer than your question deserves.
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One, environmentalism as a luxury. My basis for this is simply that there was no serious environmental regulation or enforcment in this country until the 1960s. Prior WWII, people were happy to have a job, and if it made the river go on fire, then oh well. Even the Sierra Club– early environemtnalism– was devoted merely to the setting aside of national parks, Yosemite in particular. You’re talking about CO2 regulation, which is just on a different level than that.
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Two, my pessimism is roooted in the rise of the Chinese economy. That government is entirely authoritarian, even dictatorial. It specifically abandoned the ideological basis for its legitimmacy in the late 70s and early 80s. Its legitimacy now rests on brute force and extremely rapid economic growth. Without the growth, the force won’t be enough, and they risk revolution (especially as the growth is now expected by the population.) They do not have the educational infrastructure to support an information age service economy at the national level. This might change in their boom town cities like Shanghai, but they have an awful lot of unskilled, illiterate people who need work NOW, and so they will rely on manufacturing. They have an awful lot of coal to fuel manufacturing growth. Those circumstances do not lend themselves to getting CHina to implement serious limits on CO2.
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The only place that has accomplished the leapfrog that we hope for is Ireland. They, using EEC money, made HUGE investments in education during the last few decades, and have successfully become an information age economy. But note that it took decades to get there. Why do we think that India and China will wait?
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I do think that clean energy is an opportunity for economic growth; it is not pure economic drag. But I don’t see China or India, let alone the rest of the developing world, leading the way on technology innovation. I hope that I am wrong.
First, to your earlier post…
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Just a wee bit of hyperbole there. The world will not be boiling, all life will not die, our cities will not be under water. I think you watched “The Day After Tomorrow” a few too many times. Even under the most drastic predictions by the IPCC, CO2 levels and the temperature will not even approach the heights or rapid changes apparent from the geologic record that were present in the past. And life on this planet survived those changes and will survive these changes. Of course not ever single species will, but the vast majority will. Evolution happens at a much more rapid rate then previously suspected. The oceans will not raise overnight, flooding our cities. The water will rise gradually and we will find a way to adapt to this. In fact the Dutch already have.
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Second, I think CMD point on environmentalism following prosperity is evident in our society. Sure there were things like the Sierra Club, and let’s not forget Henry David Thoreau (local and older then the Sierra Club), but those were not the mainstream. They were fringe groups and thinkers. Environmentalism did not become mainstream until the Baby Boomers. In fact, most people trace the real begin of the environmentalism movement to the publishing of Silent Spring in 1962.
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And don’t try to point to native Americans or some other pre-industrialism/colonization group. The notion of the aboriginal, “undeveloped” man as an environmentalist is largely a myth. The backing for my statement is the example of Easter Island. In short, the pre-“civilized world” inhabitants did not live in harmony with the environment until the white man came along. They used and abused the natural resources to the point that there was no more natural resources remaining on the island and they died off and/or left. And they didn’t do this to feed themselves or their children. They used up their resources to compete with rival tribes in building those big, funny looking heads that the island is famous for.
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Finally, your notion that industrialism and environmentalism are not competing is wrong. They are diametrically opposed forces. Industrialism involves destroying the environment, using up resources to build houses, factories, to grow crops, raise cattle, manufacture things. And, obviously, environmentalism involves protecting these resources. And in developing nations they are in more opposition. There is little profit in early production to care about things like using renewable energy sources (unless it is the cheapest available) or using renewable natural resources (like bamboo instead of oak trees). Further there is little available currency from the consumers to decide to pay more for a product that is produced in a manner better for the environment. Do you think that the factory workers in China would buy organically grown produce based on the premiums on those items? In a developing country industrialism and environmentalism are naturally going to oppose each other. Now, we could interfere with this natural cycle. This could be done by the free market by educated consumers. Something that is not likely based on the way most people flock to box stores like Walmart and only care about the price they pay. Or this could be done by regulation. We have tried some optional approaches, the Kyoto protocol, and that does not appear to be working. We could try something more direct, like an environmental tariff on products imported from countries that do not adhere to some set of environmental standards. But that could have negative effects on our economy.
Gregg Easterbrook and presumably the Russian scientists believe that global warming is not a zero sum phenomena. They are of the opinion that there will be losers and winners.
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In game theory, zero-sum describes a situation in which one participant’s gain or loss is exactly balanced by the losses or gains of the other participants. In other words, a zero sum game has winners and losers. Global warming is a negative sum situation because the total negative effects are greater than the total positive effects. It would be zero sum if the positive and negative effects balanced out.
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(thanks to Wikipedia for the succinct definition)
but how do you know that it will be a negative sum game? Couldn’t it possibly be a positive sum game? No one seems to talk of any benefits that will accrue to the human race but there must be some. I think that is why we need to reassess our approach to global warming. How can we benefit from the climate change? How can we ameliorate some of the damages? How will we survive and compete?
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Seems to me that it has not yet been decided whether it will be a negative or positve sum game. It is all about what we do to prepare for the future.
is that US Presidents have consistently watered down global warming efforts that the rest of the world would have gone along with, such as the Kyoto Protocol. If the US had been serious about stopping global warming decades ago, it is likely now that some significant economic incentives would be in place by now to encourage cleaner energy in all countries.
Let’s see how Europe has performed before you blame the US for not joining.
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Shawn, I read somewhere that total US energy consumption per capita is down 9% 1990 to 2000. If true, isn’t this better performance than the rest of the world? I’ll try to find the link.
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The best economic incentive for cleaner energy is higher energy prices.
In this country we don’t sacrifice in our wars. We stopped doing that in 1945. Higher energy prices are the easiest solution but that would call for sacrifice. Americans don’t like to sacrifice. Exhibit A is the Bush War on Terror. What sacrifices have the American public been called upon to make?
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Here I sit in Wuhan, China, and I’m not seeing it.
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The Chinese emit one tenth of the greenhouse gasses as tUSA per capita. Since they’ve got 4 times the population, that means that tUSA is emitting 2.5 times as much GHG as China. India emits one twentith of the greenhouse gasses as tUSA.
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We’ve seen this game of beating the China/India drum on GHGs, but there are two facts — yes facts — that you’re ignoring.
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1. They emit far less GHG per person that tUSA.
2. They emit far less GHG in TOTAL than tUSA.
Plus, they’re poor. Really poor. Poor unlike tUSA poor. A growing economy is helping the poorest improve their standard of living. I don’t fault them for wanting air conditioning — I’m sitting in a meekly AC’d office and the temperature outside will top 95 degrees, with high humidity. It’s a cooler than average day in Wuhan.
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We emit about 25% of the world’s GHGs. Yeah, a reduction by tUSA will have a significant impact. And, since we’re emitting about twice as many GHGs per person as most of Eurpoe, it’s clear that we could make substantial cuts to our emissions without hurting our quality of life. If we were to reduce our emissions to what Europe emits per person, the worldwide GHG emission would drop by more than 10%. China currently emits about 10%. That means their emissions would have to double to overcome the gains by tUSA. That isn’t going to happen for many years, especially since the Beijing Olympics in 2008 and the World Expo in Shanghai in 2010 have gotten the government to work very hard on improving air quality… subways are being built in major cities, and auto emission standards have risen dramatically in the past few years. When their Three Gorges Dam comes online in 2009, they’ll be getting 22 500 MW of clean power — and will be able to turn off a huge number of coal fired power plants.
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Will China turn green overnight? Nope. But, there is movement in China to make things cleaner, and since China is so interested in presenting a high quality of life to the world in 2008 and again in 2010, the government is using a heavy hand to help reduce pollution.
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But, why should they care after that? After all, in terms of GHGs, they know damn well that tUSA are pigs in terms of GHGs. Why should China try to cut when they’re producing less than tUSA, with far more people? Where’s the equity there?
As far as I can tell, for Global Warming you can be part of the problem or part of the solution. tUSA has taken the stance that we won’t help solve the problem unless everybody else goes first. Europe has taken a leadership role, knowing that somebody has got to go first and that the problem is too big to play a game of chicken. China and [to a lesser extent] India… they’ve got hungry mouths to feed, and they’re making advancements internally and in terms of public policy about as fast as tUSA.
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tUSA has no moral high ground, and therefore has no way to help China make this transition, since we haven’t even made it ourselves. In the mean time, we’re effectively taking turns punching each other in the arm, and even though it hurts we won’t stop punching in case the other side punches back. It’s foolish dude.
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Bottom line: the problem today isn’t China or India. It’s the USA. We are the problem, and we must stop using other nations who produce far less GHG than us as an excuse.
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