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This is a continued discussion from a conversation between greenfyre and I that can be found here: http://digg.com/environment/bjorn_lomborg_TED_2005

Quick summary:
Admitting my limitations and being aware of the deep impacts of climate change. I advocate that smart economics is the best way to approach Climate Change policies. In such a statement, I hold that programs such as [or similar to] Kyoto, Carbon trading, Carbon tax, ectra... are not high priority policies and as such should receive very few funds, resources and attention. I admit that this is not true in all cases, and that such policies can be a better investment than many other options, however are in the larger scope poor. Furthermore, I outline some keys area climate change policy could focus on in order to get backing from those in my school of economics:

• Address population growth.
• Include positive action solutions: such as carbon sequestration or cooling technology.
• Have true cost readjustments directed toward re-compensation not tax revenue.
• Mitigate costs by pigging backing on infrastructure upgrades.

Greenfrye seemed to me to highlight and question three major areas of this argument.

1) "I find that i)there is a too easy and completely unsubstantiated dismissal of the real costs and consequences of climate change, and ii) there is no assessment of the true effetiveness of other programs when they are coping with those consequences (ie if you don't deal with climate change it will happen, and it will have consequences)."

To which an accounting metaphor is used:
Column A - Resources put into climate change
Column B- Resource required when climate change effects are more pronounced.

Saying also: "IMHO C&T, Kyoto, etc are so ludicrously out of synch with the true magnitude of the problem that they are no more than symbolic."

2) "That is treating it as a zero sum game. I assume the models deal with variables that feedback to the economy, so if CC causes the economy to shrink more than dealing with it would, whereas dealing with it creates more resources to be generally available, how is that factored in?"


3) "Fair enough, but sometimes you have to try the impossible because anything less is absolutely certain to fail, whereas the impossible is merely certain to fail. That may sound oxymoronic, but I think history abounds with examples."

Now my responses, I welcome anyone to the discussion.

Toward the first argument of real cost.
Solving climate change is not a policy or an action. We as economists do not therefore even try to analyze the costs associated with solving climate change. What we do is take from the science and political movements actions or policies and look at the cost:benefits to determine the best priority. I would love to discuss a specific action plan and how we go about calculating in real cost when analyzing that specific policy, but in general that is a harder egg to crack.

As for the accounting scheme. It assumes a huge point from my point of view: investing in stopping climate change solves as it intends. That is simply not true. Am I missing your point? We can not take in account that math [as I understand it] simply because you don't even potentially solve climate change in almost all proposed policies and that needs to be taken into account, not to mention the foreseeable consequences of specifically proposed climate change policies.

Toward the second argument of factoring in real cost.
Feedback is not an easy[quick] thing to explain, but put as simply as possible:

In regard to a policy like kyoto, it firsts scales since the effects are merely prolonged not mitigated. In addition, on a positive side, it tries to adjust to account for stalling those effect for x amount of years, the effect of resource redistribution [e.g.creatied opportunities] and the effects of having those policies in place on future policy. On the negative side, it tries to adjust to account for macro-economic costs[e.g. loss of certain energy alternatives], foreseeable effects of micro-spending redistribution [e.g. how will this effect how an institution spends it revenues], effects on the cost of goods, effects on labour growth. There is also a variety of smaller variations on both the positive and negative side.

Toward the third argument of drastic action.
Would you agree with including my four recommend additions? What would you add or not include? In est, what is your vision of the "hail mary pass"?

Way Cool!!

...but I must return later tonight.
So far, it seems as if you're both right, but I'm sure we can fix that....

Personally, I have quite a few problems with Bjorn's "economic logic," but I'm sure I could use some more information and education in that area. I've only seen the coolit video, and a talk he gave on cspan about the video.

Looking forward to more....
Feel free to start; I definitely like your "4 additional recommendations." To what are those added? What are the basic recommendations (cutting CO2? or?).

My vision of a "Hail Mary" would be some orbiting (or high altitude) solar shield/mirror, to either increase or decrease insolation in the North Pole region. Each country could even have their own....

But let's not get off onto that tangent too quickly.

One objection I have to Bjorn is how he compares economic benifits (i.e. Malaria) with GW costs.
He should compare more than just the benefit of reduced malaria against the whole of the cost of GW abatement.
There are many other benefits, to include with malaria reduction, when balancing the gross cost of GW abatement.

Maybe this is oversimplified, bit it'll give you an idea of my take on this until later.

Thanks,
~samwik

Fully agree with your statements ... although I would add a couple of others ...
1) moderate tax increases on energy to further imbue a sense of energy efficiency in the developed world
2) a philosophy that no policy change results in reduced access to cheap energy for the undeveloped world.

I do not agree with either Greenfyre or Samwiks views on Lomborg. Firstly, with Greenfyre, it is immediately clear that resorting to insults is not going to lead to a good discussion. Lomborg clearly hasn't either been dicredited or disgraced - he just did a full page article in Time magazine - for Gods sake.

And if you want to get into specifics, the Malaria story is just great ..... everyone should read that part of his book. In summary :
1) The presence or absence of malaria has nothing to do with global temperature but everything to do with government health policy - which is why there isn't any malaria in the US or in Europe - like there used to be.
2)Implying that malaria is due to GW just lets useless 3rd world governments off the hook.
3) The solutions to malaria are simple - mosquito nets and improved health policies. I don't see how anyone can argue with Lomnborg when he says that if you want to reduce malaria, lets start there.
4) The malaria story is a massive irony for do-gooder eco-mentals. If it hadn't been for their insistence in banning DDT. 2 million Africans a year wouldn't be dying of it today.

Hey, those two ideas sound good too; ...but as for grace and authority....

Yea, Time magazine doesn't have anything to gain by stirring up controversy, or advocating for the continuation of business as usual, do they?
Isn't that you who occasionally brings up the "Global Cooling" scare, that Time magazine started back in the 1970's, as an example of how much credibility they deserve? Or was it the fallacy of relying on one scientist (author), or one study, to 'prove' some point, because their funding and other motives could be suspect?

Yes, I guess Time is as good a source as any; because the scientific journals won't publish anything that isn't pro-AGW, because that's what all the funding only is for (where did I read that?).
===

But let's try to stick to economics; or is this mostly about the Bjorn-based arguments?

I'd talk about heat-deaths, because that is one where he can be shown to be just plain wrong with a few comments on "cherry-picking;" but....

As for Bjorn's discussion on malaria, -mosquitos, like polar bears, are just red herrings!
I don't disagree with his facts about malaria necessarily; it's just his rhetorical use of those facts, illogically juxtaposed against GW mitigation, is such an annoyingly obvious obfuscation.
.
.
...His summary was something (on BookTV) like ...if we spend billions of dollars on GW abatement, we'll only prevent 2 additional malaria death in the next 20(?) years; and think of all the mosquito nets we could buy with that money to prevent so many more malaria deaths....
...as if it's either/or; and there's no lag-time....

I hope I remember that correctly, because....
I get angry again, just recalling the idiocy of that logic; and the people nodding like sheep in his audience.

....Sorry, ...how about his heat-deaths. That's one where I can be a bit more dispassionate.

...or I would think agricultural, forestry, and water/food harvesting adaptations would be much greater economic considerations. I'll do some looking around.

Thanks,
~

p.s. For some surfings on "Econometrics"
http://www.scienceagogo.com/forum/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=27119#Post27119

~

Hey Con

Well, I had some time when I first suggested this ;-)
OK, off we go

#1) My bad. I was not asking about the cost of addressing climate change, I was talking about the cost of not addressing it (hence cost of cc vs cost of policy/actions/other)

"investing in stopping climate change solves as it intends"

We take it as given that unintended consequences mean that is certain not to be the case.

However, recall that I am coming at it from the perspective of a biologist, not an economist. To use an anology, whatever arguments you may have about the cost of treating your lung cancer, the cost of not treating it is sort of eye catching.

Ditto climate change. One of the miscommunications is about uncertainty. There is tremendous uncertainty about timing and about sequencing and so on. However, assuming runaway climate change (bear with me) there is very little uncertainty about where it eventually goes even if we aren't sure how fast and exactly how it gets there.

Where it goes is probably a dust belt of desert that encompases all of the current tropics, sea level rise of 150+ m, and so on. Granted 100,000 yrs later or so all will be largely restored, but 4000 generations is a hell of a long diet.

But we needn't go there. About a third of humanity and over 50% of food production is within 5 m of sea level. What are the economics of sea level rise of 5 to 10 m?

How likely are these scenarios? No one really knows, but so far we are steering a course straight for them and the accumulating data is consistently that things are worse and faster than we had thought.

So back to economics, a thought experiment. To keep your job it is required that you place a revolver against your temple and pull the trigger. How many shells in the gun constitute an acceptable level of risk given the payoff?

To equate it to climate change I would estimate that the range of current credible opinion is that there is 3 to 6 shells in the metaphorical gun. There is a handful (literally perhaps 5 scientists with any credential worth mentioning) who claim there is no gun, and of course Lomborg who argues that a bullet in the head might feel very nice.

There, last time I understated my point, this time I overstated it, it all evens out ;-)

The trouble with the policy discussion is that you are limiting it to existing or proposed policies. On the one hand that is realistic in the sense that why would one discuss pie in the sky.

OTOH nothing that is planned or even contemplated remotely comes close to having a chance of acheiving anything meaningful wrt climate change. So how realistic is it to do analyses of policies that exist to create the illusion of action when in fact there is little to none?

OK, I agree with your 4 points, but it's not enough. We literally do need to get carbon emissions down to zero more or less over night.

Now the fact is a 65% reduction relative to the avg NA is pretty straightforward; I have done it within a system that operates to prevent you doing that, so who knows what could be acheived if there was actual infrastructure support?

That is from a technical perspective. From a political perspective I may as well be talking about teleporting to Andromeda

Going back to your last post

1) Preparations for a less hospitable earth.
2) Implementation of some the radical climate change technology.
3) Global local-action toward eco aware lifestyle.
4) Corporate environmental shift.
5) More radical political movement.
6) Greater eco costs factor into prices forcing radical market changes.
7) Pockets rebuilding form the ashes of mass devastation.
8) An unforeseen technological advancement.

8) Is literally Hail Mary,
1) We can do it. Pointless, but it may make people feel better, like hybrids and biofuels.
2) through 6) are all needed immediately
7) May be our only hope

We really need to get Brad in on this (user dobermanmacleod http://digg.com/environment/Weather_patterns_can_permanently_shift_in_a_year?t=16374186#c16374186 ). He argues that we haven't got a prayer without geoengineering, and I have to admit he is almost certainly right.

What's an average NA?
===

...meanwhile....
"...and of course Lomborg who argues that a bullet in the head might feel very nice." ~greenfyre
Thanks for my best laugh of the day....

Aackk! I see you're focusing on emissions and not the absolute level of CO2 in the atmosphere.
see the link below:

I do agree that before we start terraforming Mars, we should perfect our skills here at home; but....

I hope by geoengineering that you don't mean somethimg like those crazy schemes to shoot aerosolized sulfates into the upper atmosphere; but rather the kind of "agricultural and forestry practices that sequester carbon."
see: http://www.scienceagogo.com/forum/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=27120#Post27120
[James Hansen on sequestration]

...or maybe "geoengineered" efforts to restore the balance and productivity of the oceans.

My idea is that these land and ocean, bio-based sequestration methods will simultaneously address problems of poverty, education, health and disease management, hunger, fuel, (Millennium Development Goals), etc.
This will make sequestration much more cost effective.

Thanks ~fyre,


~samwik

Samwilk
"To what are those added?"
Really any policy seeking to address global warming, both individually, locally, nationally, and globally.

What are the basic recommendations
Part of the problem is there are competing ideologies as to what to measure our impacts, losses and successes in. Are basic performance measures:
lower consumption or lower pollution(bi product);
lower total eco-impact or lower net eco-impact;
total growth/(available resources) or total growth/impact;
And until these tough questions are compromised and agreed upon, there really is no basic recommendations, rather each interest has slightly different objectives addressing the common problem.

My vision of a "Hail Mary" would be some orbiting (or high altitude) solar shield/mirror
As of now I have sadly seen little interest in the political circles in this technology. It will be interesting if all the recent space exploratory activity will change that any. I will also find it curious if the stir in the private sector after the x prize (et al) will lead to a viable private initiative possibility. That would truly mark a new age in the scary and exciting develop.

"His summary was...as if it's either/or; and there's no lag-time"
I am with you on the anger here, though one of the reasons we as economist often use examples like this is not to say one should do one or the other. Rather we attempt to illustrate the pure cost inefficiency of Plan A over Plan B as to direct more funds into more likely to succeed option. Rarely is the best course of action ever placing all the eggs in one basket, there is recognized to be unforeseen factors at play. We as humans do however have a tendency to simply invest too much in the risky investments, and showing the extreme is often the best way to demonstrate the impacts of that over-investment.

ImranCan
"1) moderate tax increases on energy to further imbue a sense of energy efficiency in the developed world"
I certainly see where your coming from, but I am not so sure this is the best course of cost adjustments. Such tax revenue is then spent how? Will that have any relation to why the tax was implemented? Not to mention, most of the time such programs rightfully leads to great burden being put on high energy consumers, yet due to the inevitable public importance, it leads to public pressure to diver those funds (indirectly) back to high energy consumers seriously compromising the original objectives of the energy tax.

I think, a better program would collect said 'energy readjustment tax' and filter it directly[within reason] into objectives related to the why the tax is implemented. Be that as an every growing incentive via an x-xprize type model toward energy efficiency and carbon[bi product] sequestration, ect. An impact fund for those hit by the effects of 'high energy use'. Funding for initiative that work against the effect of high energy use, or a combination of the above. In such a system, the setting of the 'energy tax' will first be in relation to the demand of 'impact', and in addition will scale to the unique repercussions of higher energy cost without compromising objectives.

"2) a philosophy that no policy change results in reduced access to cheap energy for the undeveloped world."
Why oh why does the developing world want to get in our trap I will never know. This is not a good idea, but if they want the rope maybe we should let them hang. Growth is essential, especially in these struggling areas. I understand energy and infrastructure are the backbones to that, but this is not a good idea in the slightest.

The developed world I believe should not play fair with the developing world. Honestly, the developing world has the potential to leap-frog, but they need to approach their problems with in-house local solutions. Fueling their dependence (which is what this is IMO) is malarkey and compound every problem we have as an economy. These economies need to aim for niches, most of these are not 'cheap energy' fueled (IME). That said, I respect the reasoning.

GreenFyre
Well, I had some time when I first suggested this ;-)
Isn't that always how it goes. And please feel free to take your time in replying.

I was talking about the cost of not addressing it
Honesty, I both understand your thinking on that and am completely perplexed by it. I mean on the one hand, as a biologist, consistently looking at the impacts, how can you help but focus on the cost of not addressing Climate Change or of the impact of the static application of current policies.

To some extent I do as well, but and here is where I can not understand the application. It seems to me to very counter productive and illogical to predominately approach it this way. Not to say it is, but that is how it can easily seem to me. I mean to think, 'what will happen tomorrow?' instead of 'what can I do to help make tomorrow the best it can be?' is a big paradigm shift, not to say you or myself don't ask both to some extent.

I [and I am sure others] honestly just don't really care[though that is a very poor choice in wording], as I just don't see us doing nothing as any more likely then that teleportation to Adromada. I think it is on the public consciousness, that actions are being done, and that those are only going to get larger scale. I just don't think the status que is what your proposition makes it out to be. So then it seem to me just about getting more awareness, which I would argue is ineffective and counter productive.

I am not quite sure how to bridge that gap in our views, or even if we have to. I just wonder as to the purpose of such an evaluation outside the context 'policy specific' approaches. Is it to raise the alarms? If so why? What makes global warming seem like such a small issue in the public consciousness? Why is awareness the target? [I am not so extreme in position, but it the best way to approach the question]

whatever arguments you may have about the cost of treating your lung cancer, the cost of not treating it is sort of eye catching.
Yes it is. But without the context of the costs/effectivness of the opinions for treating your lung cancer all your doing is scaring yourself into making foolish choices, no?

Where it goes is probably a dust belt of desert that encompases all of the current tropics, sea level rise of 150+ m, and so on. Granted 100,000 yrs later or so all will be largely restored, but 4000 generations is a hell of a long diet.
It sounds like just the challenge to push a new revolution. How exciting. ;-) :-p

About a third of humanity and over 50% of food production is within 5 m of sea level. What are the economics of sea level rise of 5 to 10 m?
Bottom line, indoor farming becomes a lot more feasible, higher altitude real-estate prices raise, and population centers shift. That is to say, something in the range of system shifting portions.

How likely are these scenarios? No one really knows, but so far we are steering a course straight for them and the accumulating data is consistently that things are worse and faster than we had thought.
Scary stuff, I know I for one am worried.

To keep your job it is required that you place a revolver against your temple and pull the trigger. How many shells in the gun constitute an acceptable level of risk given the payoff
Depends on the job-market. ;-) :-P

More seriously, what is the the equivalent of another job? I mean looking at taken risk:benefit of taking shell out, now that I'd be curious toward.

"you are limiting it to existing or proposed policies...nothing that is planned or even contemplated remotely comes close to having a chance of acheiving anything meaningful wrt climate change. So how realistic is it to do analyses of policies that exist to create the illusion of action when in fact there is little to none?"
Quite, your conclusions shall reveal just that, but the feedback can be used to draft better proposals and actions. As long as the will is strong you likely to form a workable solution over time.

We literally do need to get carbon emissions down to zero more or less over night.
Before we need to use geo engineering, before the critical mass is broken, or before we are all dead?

Now the fact is a 65% reduction relative to the avg NA is pretty straightforward; I have done it within a system that operates to prevent you doing that, so who knows what could be acheived if there was actual infrastructure support?
That is the encouraging part.

That is from a technical perspective. From a political perspective I may as well be talking about teleporting to Andromeda
The political prospective is the king maker for a reason though, and that responsibility didn't come out of a vacuum. No?

8) Is literally Hail Mary
Agreed

2) through 6) are all needed immediately
3,4,& 5 are coming trends I would argue.
6 is on the drawing boards in almost all political circles.
2 has some traction, and has a 15-25 year gap. Which may very well be too long.
1 & 7 are reactionary and have a surprising amount of infrastructure in place.

I would love try to cite, but would need to know your yard stick first.