Lubos makes a provocative comment to my contemplation of Griffin's comments on climate change
I can't resist following it up, despite its inappropriateness.
Consider war.
People are killed in war, but we as a culture distinguish the manner and motive.
Let us ignore the issue of "who started it" and just consider the process.
People fighting the war kill their opponent, it is a matter of kill or be killed and is broadly considered justified.
People die incidentally to the process of fighting. The "collateral casualties". This is an inevitable consequence of the process as it is conducted in the modern world. It is generally agreed that it is an unfortunate side effect and one that should be minimized.
There are incidents of deliberate but not planned killing. Basically when you have a group of people psyched up to kill, they may not always stop when they should. So they "take it out" on people who are not involved in the fighting but just happen to be there. This is considered wrong, and is punished to some extent, but generally only moderately.
There are incident of deliberate killing as retaliation or to be exemplary. Execution of hostages or as collective punishment. This is now considered very bad, and is harshly punished, up to and including death sentences in the modern era.
Then there is deliberate genocide - systematic planned killing of populations not for what they did or in order to affect the process of fighting, but simply because of who they are. This is generally considered the greatest crime possible.
Genocide has nothing to do with climate change.
But, what we do, right now, in the process of living our lives and running the economy leads to "collateral casualties" - some of this is inevitable trade-offs; we accept people dying in high speed car accidents because the benefits of transport are so high - we try to ameliorate the situation with regulation and safety equipment. It is an acceptable trade-off because the collateral casualties are collectively small, about 1-in-10,000 per year.
But quantity matters, and if cars killed 40 million - not 40 thousand - in the US each year, we would probably not accept the trade-off.
We would probably not accept the trade-off if we knew with some certainty that cars would kill 40 million in 2050 because of driving we did now.
We generally do accept the trade-off if driving cars now leads indirectly to 400 thousand people dying somewhere else this year...
Climate change has a moral implication at the second level of the rank above.
When we, in the process of our normal lives, burn fossil fuels, we collectively incur collateral casualties. It is a messy issue because the casualties are not immediate - they happen in other places and at other times.
Further, the marginal contribution to the process is small - it is not you who is responsible, if you were the only person driving an SUV there would be no collateral cost. It is the diffuse aggregated, external cost that adds up.
This is very very hard to account for in any sort of local or short term analysis of trade-offs and responsibilities.
The reason people have started to worry, and to speak out and call for collective action on this issue, is because there are good, scientific reasons for thinking the long term collateral cost of fossil fuel burning is very very large. And we are in the privileged position of having the ability for the first time to find and burn all the fossil fuels in the near future.
It is on us.
That the cost is deferred does not leviate the moral burden, much.
If your army destroys the crops and kills no one, merely leaves millions to starve next winter, then you have committed a greater crime than if you incidentally killed a few people through recklessness.
You can argue that there is no responsibility because you don't know the people will starve. Maybe a miraculous convoy of food supplies will arrive from someone else to feed them, even if you don't plan to provide it and no of no one who will.
This is not an exoneration of the responsibility. That there is some uncertainty does not excuse inaction. Relying on future miracles is foolish.
What to do about climate change, when, how and what the new trade-offs should be are hard questions with uncertainties. But we need to face up to the realistic prospects of large scale medium term climate change, and to pro-actively consider what our response should be. Preferably in a rational manner which openly allows for trade-offs on externalities and responsibilities.
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I personally don't think that there is any positive measurable increase of collateral casualties due to the existence of advanced civilization - quite on the contrary: the richer the civilization is, the less casualties there are. Compare America and Africa.
But even if there were increased collateral casualties, I think it is deeply arrogant to impose a certain benchmark for the "right" temperature or "right" CO2 concentration on the whole world and eternity. It is as arrogant as any other attempt to manipulate with the whole society. Communists also claimed that capitalism was creating collateral casualties among exploited people. Nevertheless, capitalism is still the best system that has reduced the number of casualties - and increased wealth - substantially when it was allowed to work.
Marx's arguments and theses about a protection of workers, analogous to the warming religion arguments, have been dramatically falsified by the utter failure of systems that followed his ideology. But certain people are always ready to adopt extremely similar assumptions and justifications of similar big plans again and again.
If you have traffic rules, they are not to meant to make the speed of cars constant forever in the future or anything like that. They just make it harder to drive too quickly on the road, among other things. These rules are mostly voluntary because people agree that they protect themselves. They protect each driver, in fact. Each driver more or less realizes that driving too fast is risky.
Nothing like that is true about the "climate change", if I have to use this silly tautology. Surely about 1/2 of people or nations in the world would benefit from a warming by 1-2 Celsius, for example. There exists absolutely no justifiable principle to say that the people who hypothetically won't benefit have the right to force others to prevent them from the harm, or they even have the right to force others to spend trillions of dollars to avoid the harm.
There are trillions of other quantities that are changing. The price of transistors decreases which reduces their producers' profit. Should we adopt a law that the price of transistors can't drop because of these losses? Would you agree that it is a complete stupidity? Why don't you agree about the same thing in the climate context?
We seem to disagree about some very profound moral questions - the climate disputes are really moral and political in character. You and many others are looking at all these things from the perspective of extreme political ideologies where there is state with its leading party and its task is to calculate the best possible outcome for its uniform population that is controlled by its state, and such state has the right to command everyone. Moreover, you do all these calculations of benefits completely incorrectly, as governments almost always do.
I still respect the freedom individuals. No bureaucratic organization has the right to dictate anyone how much CO2 he should emit or in what temperatures he should live.
One driver's emissions of CO2 clearly don't directly kill or harm any concrete identifiable person and that's why they're simply legal and must be legal. If dynamics of the world and the society leads to some changes, they're just legitimate changes, and the task for people and animals is to adjust themselves to the constantly changing external conditions.
"Hello, Mr. Pot!"
"Hello, Mr. Kettle, my you're looking awfully sooty today!"
Lubos, can you point to anything that suggests 1/2 the world population would benefit from global warming?
Also, you say that arguing for CO2 emission restriction is based on calculations of the common good that are completely incorrect. Could you expand on how you calculate that increased CO2 is beneficial, or at least neutral to the US, which is one of the larger CO2 emitters?
Dear JohnD, the reason is the principle of equilibrium. No living being views the temperatures around as permanently perfect. It's impossible. But in a longer term average, the existing beings have been roughly adjusted to live in the environment where they live. Their "optimal" temperatures follow a distribution with nonzero width (many degrees, well above the predicted changes for 100 years) and the central value around zero.
It follows that one half of them have an optimal temperature above the current value & prefer warming and one half of them have a temperature below the current value & prefer cooling.
I think that this conclusion is also obvious from a Z2 symmetry of linearized physics around the current temperature. I think that every intelligent child from a kindergarden must know why it is approximately 50:50.
Concerning benefits from the U.S., I think that both costs and benefits of a 1-Celsius-degree-like warming on the century scales are unmeasurably and unprovably small. Nevertheless, it is clear that agriculture in virtually all regions will be helped and a huge amount of energy costs will be saved on heating - because we clearly spend much more energy on heating than air-conditioning, so warmer weather clearly makes things cheaper.
Canada will benefit much more from a hypothetical warming, especially if it gets access to the currently frozen paths in the Arctic oceans. So will Russia with an unfrozen Siberia. Sahara is likely to be wetter. As far as I can see, it is pretty much a win-win situation. But I suspect it is just because I am not looking at the whole global picture. A more complete appraisal would lead to something around 50:50 in positive vs negative benefits from a hypothetical warming.
A few degrees change may sound small, but it is not. During the height of the last glaciation period Earth's temperature was only 8 degrees Celsius less than now.
It is true that some organisms (particularly the short-lived ones like weeds) are capable responding in very quickly to changes in environment. However, that is not universally true.
If you're not convinced that rising temperatures can be harmful, consider this: even a small change in semiarid regions is enough to make them true deserts (think for example Australia, which is experiencing the worst drought in centuries). India and China are dependent on the meltwater from the Himalayan glaciers; mountain glaciers are thought to disappear rapidly as temperatures rise. It is obvious that longer warm period in colder regions is beneficial for agriculture; again, the positive aspects of warming can be nullified by increasing pest problem.
Even if the continental glaciers of Greenland and West Antarctica (it is unlikely that East Antarctica will experience major melting) don't melt at all, sea levels rise just because of heat expansion: warmer water requires larger volume. One meter rise means huge areas of land becomes flooded. Cooler, less salty meltwater causes another problem, that is shifting sea currents. It is suspected that the Golf Stream may stop before reaching the Norwegian Sea meaning that temperatures in Northern Europe plummet nulling any warming there (which is ironic since it is believed to be one of the few regions which can actually benefit from the warming in the short term). Not a good prospect for us living there.
Changing rain patterns are especially dangerous; imagine that the monsoon rains no longer reach India. A billion people are completely dependent on them and serious disruption could endanger many million lives. Last time when that happened, in 19th century, millions died. It is possible also that warming increases water vapor in the atmosphere and that in turn causes more rains and we can avoid this. On the other hand, water vapor is far more efficient greenhouse gas than CO2, so that is not necessarily good news...
Therefore, it is incredibly irresponsible to say that we can trust that the effects of global warming are likely beneficial. Compared to potential humanitarian, ecological and economical risks that global warming causes, likely economical losses caused by CO2 emission reduction are next to irrelevant. Furthermore, oil supplies are not infinite; long before oil actually starts to run out oil production has ran into problems because of both increasing demand and the fact that pumping oil becomes more and more difficult as "easy" oil fields start to dry up. If we continue as if there were no problems at all, the economical shock caused by skyrocketing oil prices will be severe. So, even from a purely economical point of view the purely fossil fuel-based economy must be replaced with a more sustainable alternative relatively soon. The sooner is better, since then we can minimize the impact of global warming and decreasing oil supplies.
As an example, imagine having a modern, efficient solar panels as the source of electricity in your house. If you live in a relatively sunny region, you don't have to import electricity from elsewhere at all. That means you don't have to pay your electricity bill. Which means pretty quickly all electricity in your house is free. Not a bad alternative?
Also, if you happen to enjoy coral reef diving, you may want to do it while you still
can (I gots to plug my home institution...)
The scientific evidence of major problems from global warming is mounting. Even if some of it is hyped, enough of these studies point to a course of action that favors reduction of CO2.
Dear Dunkleosteus, your list is nice and inspiring but it is still a selective biased list of negative things.
Indeed, pests like warmer weather, usually, but so do other organisms. Warmer weather, unless it is dry, simply helps all of life. Also, the worst examples of malaria have been known in cold areas.
I could enumerate the same list of positive effects and claim that almost everything is positive. But I won't play such a silly children's game. It is very clear that warming can help some and hurt others.
Even if there were more cases where people and others are hurt, the difference between hurt ones and those who benefit can't exceed the huge investments that are being proposed. And incidentally, even if they did exceed, no one has the right to limit other people's freedom to achieve this overall profit.
There are indeed other reasons to replace fossil fuels but the ideal amount of investment into fossil fuels is dictated by the markets. Today, the amount of available oil these days and in foreseeable future simply looks large enough so that expensive alternatives are inefficient and too huge investments into research don't pay off. This situation will change at some point in the future.
Any artificial intervention or regulation is almost guaranteed to make all these things more wasteful and less thrifty.
JohnD: you must know very well that there exist 10,000 times cheaper methods to help to save coral reefs than the cooling of the whole planet. A rational person or policymaker will propose local solutions for local problems. Proposing global solutions for local problems is idiocy.
Lubos Motl said:
Dear Dunkleosteus, your list is nice and inspiring but it is still a selective biased list of negative things.
So it's a list just like your previous list, only negative?
I could enumerate the same list of positive effects and claim that almost everything is positive. But I won't play such a silly children's game. It is very clear that warming can help some and hurt others.
You just did, in your previous comment. Of course, your "happy happy joy joy" optimistic list (which ignored, e.g., any possible effects of higher sea levels on storm surges on coastal US communities, among many other things) amounts to something like 8% of the world's population. So where's the "equilibrium" in helping 8% and hurting 92% of the world's population?
Any artificial intervention or regulation is almost guaranteed to make all these things more wasteful and less thrifty.
This is, of course, the standard whine of narrow corporate interests. "Don't impose regulations or alter our market environment, the entire economy will collapse!" "Don't take away our ability to hire child labor, we'll never be able to make a profit!" "Don't shut down the slave trade, how will the American economy possible function?" Etc., etc.
I find it fascinating how people who claim to be proponents of capitalism can be so pessimistic about its ability to adapt to changes, as if it's some fragile, delicate flower unable to tolerate even the slightest shift in conditions. Changing the market environment will cause problems for some corporations, especially those so sluggish and unimaginative that they can't change their practices. It will also produce advantages for others, and for new companies that emerge to exploit the altered market environment. Why doesn't your simple-minded 50:50 "equilibrium" argument apply to corporations?
Dear Dunkleosteus, your list is nice and inspiring but it is still a selective biased list of negative things.
Sure, I listed them because each of them are negative enough to cancel most positive effects caused by global warming. A longer growing season in the northern Europe is hardly worth of millions of deaths in South Asia.
Warmer weather, unless it is dry, simply helps all of life.
That is untrue. Take for example coniferous forests; slight warming may be beneficial, but the optimal temperature is easily missed if the change is large. We don't know if global climate becomes more or less dry, locally no doubt there will be changes in precipitation. In my opinion, that is too big risk to take.
Oil is too cheap source of energy in the sense its usage makes searching alternative sources less appealing. But as I said earlier, oil production runs into troubles long before oil actually starts to run out. Since I don't trust markets are capable of taking responsibility I don't see any alternative but regulation (subsidies for alternative energy sources, extra taxes for fossil fuels).
Please don't misunderstand me: I strongly support technology as an improvement of life; being a Luddite is not an option. However, history has shown that cultures are very dependent on environment and can collapse very quickly if the source of food is destroyed. Prime example are the Easter Islanders who descended into incredible savagery as their culture collapsed when their island's ecosystem was destroyed. Unless we want to follow them, we must make certain that we don't destroy ourselves in the process. In a very complex system as our world there are great many "unknown unknowns", feedbacks we are not aware of. So a certain amount of caution is always good.
Dear Peter, could you please be more specific how you got your numbers 8% and 92%? I gave you a calculation of the correct approximate calculation that leads to 50% vs 50%. Without a rational justification, you shouldn't be surprised that I will view your numbers as silly jokes.
The principles about freedom are not principles of corporate interests. As you correctly wrote, many corporations will lose when various changes occur and when the invisible hand is allowed to act. Freedom is the most important principle that gives the maximum to individuals in average and that drives the overall economy up - exactly the outcome that you say you want to achieve but you seem to be 100% ignorant about economics i.e. how to achieve it.
Dear Dunkleosteus, that's bad if we don't know whether humidity will go up or down here or there because it is, in fact, more important for any question of life than a 1 degree temperature change. The word "warming" in "global warming" has led to completely skewed research of the climate which is why most of its results have become useless.
Best
Lubos
Dear Peter, could you please be more specific how you got your numbers 8% and 92%? I gave you a calculation of the correct approximate calculation that leads to 50% vs 50%. Without a rational justification, you shouldn't be surprised that I will view your numbers as silly jokes.
We'll skip over the fact that you keep referring to "1-degree" increases, while the latest IPCC report puts the likely range as 1.8-4 degrees Celcius.
You gave no such "calculation." What you said (as unsupported, wild-ass guesses) was that things would be better for the US, Canada, Siberia, and perhaps the Sahara. The combined population of the US, Canada, Russia, and Sahara[*] amounts to about 8% of the world's population.
The general forecast is very clearly for worsening conditions (lower crop yields, more storms and flooding, more heat waves and droughts) at low latitudes. Most of the world's population lives at low latitudes.
[*] assuming 100 million for the population of the Sahara.
"The principles about freedom are not principles of corporate interests. As you correctly wrote, many corporations will lose when various changes occur and when the invisible hand is allowed to act. Freedom is the most important principle that gives the maximum to individuals in average and that drives the overall economy up - exactly the outcome that you say you want to achieve but you seem to be 100% ignorant about economics i.e. how to achieve it."
erm, history does seem to show no restrictions leads to robber barons, not a healthy economy.
Further, "average" is a tricky word. The mean of (0,0,0,4) is 1, as is the average of (1,1,1,1). If these sets are distribution of wealth, it is pretty clear that the second one is far more desirable than the first, but on "average" they look exactly the same. The median is a far more meaningful measure of how well the economy is doing. It is not clear at all that pure freedom is the best way to achieve this.
Another point Lubos are missing with all of this is that markets are based on short term private value expectations. My favorite example of why putting blind trust in markets doesn't make sense follows. (I got this from a econ class i took last semester and has a name of so-and-so's paradox)
Consider a road system that looks like:
a /\ b
c \/ d
segment a takes 1 time unit, segment d takes one time unit. c and b both take y/x time units, where y is the number of cars on the road and x is the total number of cars. Everyone wants to go from point ac to bd. Under this system and assuming perfect knowledge etc, the market forces (here people trying to minimize their travel time) will
cause the cars to evenly divide and each car will take 1.5 time units. If the system is now changed to
a /|\ b
c \|/ d
where there is no cost to go down the center road. In this case all cars will first take segment c, the middle, then segment b. In this case the total travel time for everyone is 2 time units. Everyone would do better if they never used the middle road, hence having their 'freedom' restricted.
The basic point is that in some cases markets work extremely well (for example producing widgets), in others they don't work so well (see the road example, health care, treatment of labor, enviromental(pollution, global warming (which should be called global weather destabalization)), maintaining resouces (forestry, fisheries etc), and other such things that involve long term but important externalities). When markets don't work they need to be tweaked via government taxes, regulations, incentives etc.
I'm sure that Lubos will be willing to share his benefits from global warming with the displaced Bangladeshi family that he will so generously allow to live in his back yard.
@Lubos
"I still respect the freedom individuals. No bureaucratic organization has the right to dictate anyone how much CO2 he should emit"
Of course they have, as much as they have the right to dictate an individual how tall a house can he build on this street. This is called organized society and we all live in some.
"One driver's emissions of CO2 clearly don't directly kill or harm any concrete identifiable person"
They harm *all* persons, i.e. everyone of us.
"and that's why they're simply legal and must be legal."
There is no reason why everything which "does not directly kill or harm any concrete identifiable person" must be legal. For example, buying a XVI-th century palace and blowing it up does not harm any "concrete identifiable person" but still would be illegal in many civilized countries (including, I suppose, the Czech Republic).
Lubos is a troll. Ignore his pseudo-scientific rantings.