TT's Lost in Tokyo — by TokyoTom

See Ron Bailey’s recent summary of developments about whether it may be possible to buy time on climate change with technological fixes.

Libertarian Iain Murray supports government funding of geo-engineering approaches.  See my previous posts for more on geo-engineering.

More at the NYT’s Dot Earth blog

Possible geo-engineering obviously poses a number of sticky issues regarding government action in this area, including justification, choices of technology and responsibility for possible risks.

“You have been warned: green fascism could soon be on the march.“ 

So does libertarian Ron Bailey, science correspondent for Reason magazine, take up the alarm raised by Fred Pearce of New Scientist, who believes that enviros will point to the ongoing wave of food shortages to argue that more starvation in the developing world is on the way unless a renew focus is placed on family planning.  Says Pearce:

“And now food shortages are growing and we will get more. [Paul] Ehrlich, we are bound to be told, was right after all. You have been warned: green fascism could soon be on the march.”

Well, although neither Bailey nor Pearce introduces anything in the way of current evidence for fascism among greens (but rather seem to be jumping in order to claim an “I told you so” later), both might very well be right that enviros will claim that food shortages are the result of overpopulation –  but so what?  Does concern about food shortages, or burgeoning populations in other countries and the stresses they place on natural environments and societies, make “fascists” out of “greens”?

But more importantly, why are guys like Ron in such a hurry to brandish an emotional rhetoric that diverts our attention from understanding real issues, rather than shining a spotlight on them?  Granted, the emotional tug of bashing ideological enemies is strong, and Bailey (not without reason) has long been in the enviro-bashing camp (even as he has come around to accepting that climate change is a problem), but this is disappointing.  I mean, even Sean Corrigan was able to see past his detestation of enviros to keep his primary focus on government interference in agricultural markets as the primary factor in his recent post on food supply shortfalls.

I note that I have already addressed elsewhere, both in Corrigan’s thread and in another post – Too Many or Too Few People? Does the market provide an answer? – various aspects of the interactions between markets and human population; I post here for readers’ information the comments I made to Ron on the thread to his post:

TokyoTom | April 25, 2008, 6:12am

Ron, I’m surprised that you would go to the effort of spreading rather thin hype about “Green fascism” without bothering to explore from a libertarian perspective whether the Green fascists have grounds for concern, what the institutional underpinnings of environmental and “overpopulation” problems might be, or what our own connections to those problems are.

It’s rather simple, really: we see both cleaner environments and the demographic shift in relatively wealthy nations that protect property rights, as families and other economic actors are largely forced to bear their own costs, which provide incentives to keep both pollution and families under control.

Where populations are still growing rapidly – and environmental degradation continues apace – are societies that do not protect property rights, so that economic actors do not internalize all costs, and families to a significant degree face a free-for-all over resources that are not effectively owned or protected.

“Development” thus presents many aspects of a “tragedy of the commons”, a tragedy that we feed with our own consumer, commercial and industrial demand, which is sourced from assets that are not clearly owned, but are simply up for grabs – whether we are talking about the strip-mining of the oceans, the replacement of the Amazon and SE Asian tropical forests with soybeans and palm oil/biofuel plantations, or industrial and commercial enterprises that don’t bear the costs of their pollution (or of the power plants supplying their electricity).

The “Green fascists” see the destruction at the end of the chains of demand that we in the West pull and the destruction resulting from population growth that is unchecked by the pricing signals from effective ownership, and they are rightly concerned. That they fail to understand the institutional underpinnings is of course to be regretted, but it is a failure that can be remedied by a little education.

That you chose not to use your knowledge of the dynamics of “tragedy of the commons” to educate but instead to decry “Green fascists” is a similar failure, and one that I hope you will regret and try to remedy.

As it is, it seems as if you enjoy the emotional rewards of partisan struggle more than really exercising your noggin or making a contribution to directing attention to where solutions to where real problems might lie – in improved property tights protection and governance in the developing world.

Care to contribute, or just to raise an alarum about the evil greenies?

Regards,

Tom

 Just where are the libertarians who actually like to exercise their reason?

Ron Bailey of Reason, reporting from Bali, has an interesting post up summarizing the discussion by James Connaughton, director of President Bush’s Council on Environmental Quality, on one small aspect of the climate conundrum, namely, what would be actually involved in meeting the energy shortfall implict in targets to reduce CO2 emissions by half by mid-century.

 The crux?

Connaughton offered an interesting thought experiment. The major economies emit 22 gigatons (1 billion tons) of CO2 annually. In one reference case, those emissions would rise to 37 gigatons by 2050. So, Connaughton says, assume that we need to reduce current emissions by half from current emission—by 11 gigatons—to stabilize CO2 atmospheric concentrations. That means that the world would have to find the equivalent energy that producing 25 gigatons of emissions would have produced in 2050.

To get a handle on what this might mean, Connaughton asked, “How big is a gigaton?” One gigaton is equivalent to 273 coal-fired electric generation plants with carbon capture and sequestration (CCS). Of course, there are only a few demonstration plants now, and 273 plants represent 7 percent of the world’s current coal-fired generation capacity. Estimates of how much CCS might cost range between $150 to $250 per ton of carbon (or $50 to $80 per ton of CO2). By one estimate CCS would raise the cost of electricity to 25 to 40 percent; others suggest that the increase could be as much as 85 percent.

Connaughton also pointed out that avoiding the emission of a gigaton of CO2 implies building 135 new nuclear power plants. The world has 400 now. In addition, a gigaton is equivalent to 270,000 windmills which is 4-times more than are currently operating. Growing enough biofuels to reduce a gigaton of emissions would take an area twice the size of the United Kingdom. Of course, such projections rely on the deployment of near-term technologies. It’s impossible to tell what new technologies a higher price on carbon fuels might call forth from the world’s laboratories.

http://www.reason.com/news/show/123945.html

Further to my post on Al Gore’s Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, Dr. Roy Spencer, a prominent climate scientist/skeptic and lead guitarist in a contemporary Christian rock band at St. Mark’s Lutheran Church in Huntsville, Alabama, has kindly emailed me the link to two songs that his band has done, mocking Al Gore and climate change. 

And so, without further ado – since I don’t mind a little mockin’, here’s Roy and the rockin’ EcoFreako Commune with:

– “Earth Has A Fever”; and

– “I Want To Mock Al Gore All Night”

http://www.ecofreakomusic.com/.

More on Roy here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/20/AR2006052001151.html.

But since one good turn deserves another, I’m sure the good doctor will not object to a little ribbing as well.  His conservative views reflect his upbringing and religious faith, which are evident in his praise for “Intelligent Design”.  http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=080805I.  Surely there is no reason to suspect that the same religious faith and conservative views might leak into Dr. Spencer`s climate science — which was persuasive enough to string along libertarian skeptics like Ron Bailey at Reason Magazine (editor of “Global Warming and Other Eco Myths How the Environmental Movement Uses False Science to Scare Us to Death”) and others (such as libertarian law prof Jon Adler; Skeptic Mag’s Mchael Schermer and Gregg Easterbrook) for quite some time — until

— until Dr. Spencer (and his side-kick IPCC member John Christy) was shown to be sufficiently wrong on atmospheric temperatures over two years ago that Ron Bailey and other libertarian pundits abandoned their public doubters positions and converted in droves, Bailey in posts such as “We’re All Global Warmers Now; Reconciling temperature trends that are all over the place“, http://www.reason.com/news/show/34079.html, “Betting on Climate Change It’s time to put up or shut up“, http://www.reason.com/news/show/34976.html, “Global Warming Data Sets Reconciled“, http://www.reason.com/blog/show/113722.html, and “Confessions of an Alleged ExxonMobil Whore; Actually no one paid me to be wrong about global warming“, http://www.reason.com/news/show/36811.html.

But who cares about science, anyway?  Far more important (and healthier) for us to enjoy the righteous guitar licks he gets in while mocking and rockin Al Gore!

[Update below – Roy Spencer’s band plays “Earth Has a Fever”!]

The speech is worth listening to, especially by those who are inclined to reject Gore’s views on our changing climate, the challenges posed by human activities that affect the climate and his suggestions for political, social and private action, both to mitigate effects and to adapt to them.

CNN video of the speech is here: http://www.climateprotect.org/node/279 (Gore’s website), and the released text is here: http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2007/gore-lecture_en.html.

The policy core of Gore’s speech was the following:

This week, I will urge the delegates in Bali to adopt a bold mandate for a treaty that establishes a universal global cap on emissions and uses the market in emissions trading to efficiently allocate resources to the most effective opportunities for speedy reductions. This treaty should be ratified and brought into effect everywhere in the world by the beginning of 2010 – two years sooner than presently contemplated. The pace of our response must be accelerated to match the accelerating pace of the crisis itself.

Heads of state should meet early next year to review what was accomplished in Bali and take personal responsibility for addressing this crisis. It is not unreasonable to ask, given the gravity of our circumstances, that these heads of state meet every three months until the treaty is completed.

We also need a moratorium on the construction of any new generating facility that burns coal without the capacity to safely trap and store carbon dioxide.

And most important of all, we need to put a price on carbon — with a CO2 tax that is then rebated back to the people, progressively, according to the laws of each nation, in ways that shift the burden of taxation from employment to pollution. This is by far the most effective and simplest way to accelerate solutions to this crisis.

The world needs an alliance – especially of those nations that weigh heaviest in the scales where earth is in the balance. I salute Europe and Japan for the steps they’ve taken in recent years to meet the challenge, and the new government in Australia, which has made solving the climate crisis its first priority.

But the outcome will be decisively influenced by two nations that are now failing to do enough: the United States and China. While India is also growing fast in importance, it should be absolutely clear that it is the two largest CO2 emitters – most of all, my own country – that will need to make the boldest moves, or stand accountable before history for their failure to act.

Both countries should stop using the other’s behavior as an excuse for stalemate and instead develop an agenda for mutual survival in a shared global environment.

– Al Gore December 10, 2007 

[Anyone familiar with this issue may note Gore DID argue that, as a result of human actions, “the earth has a fever”.  (He went on to say “And the fever is rising. The experts have told us it is not a passing affliction that will heal by itself. We asked for a second opinion. And a third. And a fourth. And the consistent conclusion, restated with increasing alarm, is that something basic is wrong.”)  SOMEWHERE I ran across a great spoof of that by Roy Spencer’s band.  I’ll post it once I dig it up.]

Gore shared the Nobel Peace Prize with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC); the speech by R. K. Pachauri, Chairman of the IPCC,  Oslo, 10 December 2007.  Pachauri’s speech is here:  http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2007/ipcc-lecture_en.html.

Flash Update!

Roy Spencer, a prominent climate scientist/skeptic and lead guitarist in a contemporary Christian rock band at St. Mark’s Lutheran Church in Huntsville, Alabama, has kindly emailed me the link to two songs that his band done, mocking Al Gore and climate change.  And so, without further ado – since I don’t mind a little mockin’, here’s Roy and the rockin’ EcoFreako Commune with:

– “Earth Has A Fever”; and

– “I Want To Mock Al Gore All Night”

http://www.ecofreakomusic.com/.

More on Roy here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/20/AR2006052001151.html.

And since one good turn deserves another, I’m sure the good doctor will not object to a little ribbing as well.  His conservative views reflect his upbringing and religious faith, which are evident in his praise for “Intelligent Design”.  http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=080805I.

But that doesn’t mean that there is any reason to suspect that the same religious faith and conservative views might leak into his climate science — which has proven sufficiently wrong to drive libertarian Ron Bailey at Reason Magazine (editor of “Global Warming and Other Eco Myths How the Environmental Movement Uses False Science to Scare Us to Death”) and others (such as libertarian law prof Jon Adler; Skeptic Mag’s Mchael Schermer and Gregg Easterbrook) into announcing over two years ago that “We’re All Global Warmers Now; Reconciling temperature trends that are all over the place“, http://www.reason.com/news/show/34079.html, “Betting on Climate Change It’s time to put up or shut up“, http://www.reason.com/news/show/34976.html, “Global Warming Data Sets Reconciled“, http://www.reason.com/blog/show/113722.html, and “Confessions of an Alleged ExxonMobil Whore; Actually no one paid me to be wrong about global warming“, http://www.reason.com/news/show/36811.html.

[updated] A great new post by libertarian Ron Bailey of Reason here:

Congratulations to Al Gore
But be wary of the man’s proposed solutions for global warming.
Ronald Bailey | October 12, 2007
http://www.reason.com/news/show/122960.html

1.  Here are some excerpts (emphasis added), followed by a copy of my comments over at Reason:

[Gore is] wrong to characterize global warming as a moral and spiritual problem. Man-made global warming is not some kind of environmental sin. It’s just another commons problem that has emerged as human civilization continues to develop. Most environmental problems arise in what are called open-access commons. That is, people pollute air and rivers, overfish lakes and oceans, cut down rainforests, and so forth because no one owns those natural resources and therefore no one has an interest in protecting them.

The point is clearest in the case of tropical forests and fisheries. No one owns the forests or fisheries, so anyone may exploit them. No one has an incentive to leave any trees or fish behind because, if they do, someone else will harvest them and get the benefits for themselves. In other words, those who immediately benefit from exploiting the resource do not bear the long-run costs of its ultimate destruction. This mismatch between benefits and costs is a recipe for disaster. Similarly, no one owns the global atmosphere, so there is no incentive for anyone to protect it from various pollutants, including greenhouse gases that tend to raise average global temperatures.

Generally, humanity has solved environmental problems caused by open-access situations by either privatizing the relevant commons or regulating it.  …

As a skeptic of government action, I had hoped that the scientific evidence would lead to the conclusion that global warming would not be much of a problem, so that humanity could avoid the messy and highly politicized process of deciding what to do about it. Although people of good will can still disagree about the scientific evidence for climate change, I now believe that Gore has got it basically right. The balance of the evidence shows that global warming could well be a significant problem over the course of this century. …

Yale economist William Nordhaus … calculates that the optimal policy would impose a carbon tax of $34 per metric ton carbon in 2010, with the tax increases gradually reaching $42 per ton in 2015, $90 per ton in 2050, and $207 per ton of carbon in 2100. A $20 per metric ton carbon tax will raise coal prices by $10 per ton, which is about a 40 percent increase over the current price of $25 per ton. A $10 per ton carbon tax translates into a 4 cent per gallon increase in gasoline. A $300 per ton carbon tax would raise gasoline prices by $1.20 per gallon. Following this optimal trajectory would cost $2.2 trillion and reduce climate change damage by $5.2 trillion over the next century. …

Man-made global warming is an economic and technical problem of the sort that humanity has solved many times. For example, forests are expanding in rich countries because they have well-developed private property rights. Also in rich countries, regulations have helped once polluted rivers and lakes to become clean and have drastically cut air pollution. One of the keys to solving environmental problems is economic growth and wealth. …

In any case, global warming is not the result of environmental sin; it is the result of human progress creating another commons problem. … I have no doubt that man-made global warming is an economic and technical problem that an inventive humanity will solve over the course of the 21st century.

Still, congratulations are in order to Al Gore for being recognized by the Nobel committee for his persistence in trying to get humanity to pay attention to this new commons problem.

2.  Here is a digest of my comments to Ron:

Basically, a great post, but I’ve got a few small quibbles.

1.  You were right last year when you said that “In the end, the debate over global warming and its obverse, humanity’s energy future, is a moral issue.”
http://www.reason.com/blog/show/113924.html

2.  I share your understanding of the economics and institutional problem and agree that a straightforward explanation of these is important for very many.

3.  However, you forget what evolutionary psychology, Ostrom and Yandle have explained to us so well about how our innate moral sense drives and underpins mankind’s success as a species by enhancing our ability to cooperate and to overcome commons issues.
Ostrom: http://conservationcommons.org/media/document/docu-wyycyz.pdf
Yandle: http://www.fee.org/publications/the-freeman/article.asp?aid=4064

Our long history of developed rules and institutions (informal and formal now overlapping) are based on our moral sense and the effectiveness of these rules depends critically on our moral investment in accepting their legitimacy – witness our views on murder, theft, lying and “not playing by the rules” – and in voluntarily complying with them.

Our moral sense reinforces our judgments about when rules/institutions are not working and the need to develop new ones in response to changing circumstances and new problems.  When we see a problem that we think requires change, it is unavoidable that we respond to the status quo, the behavior of people within it and the need for change with a moral sense. 

This is simply a part of our evolutionary endowment.  (Of course, other parts of our endowment accentuate our suspicions of smooth talkers and help us catch free riders and looters and to guard against threats from outsiders.)

4.  Accordingly, while it’s unclear how deliberate Gore’s talk of “a moral and spiritual challenge” and “lifting the global consciousness” is or whether this is a productive approach for some people, I think it is fairly clear that, in order to build consensus for a solution to the climate commons problem (and other difficult commons problems) and to ensure that any agreed solutions are actually implemented, we will need to bring our moral senses to bear.

In other words, it is RIGHT to worry about climate change, but no meaningful/effective “solution” can be reached or implemented unless it is FAIR and the parties involved have sufficient TRUST (backed by information) in each other.

5.  You have understated the AGW problem, especially in light of the inertia both in our energy systems and in the climate, the long duration of CO2 and other GHGS, and the rapidity with which the climate is already changing – faster than even this year’s IPCC reports: http://www.carbonequity.info/docs/arctic.html

6.  It is surprising that in referring to Nordhaus you have not indicated the ways in which it seems clear that Nordhaus has understated the costs and risks of climate change and the utility of acting sooner rather than later, as noted by Weitzman, Sterner & Persson, Quiggin and others, or that by “revenue recycling” as noted by McKitrick we can substantially reduce the costs of carbon abatement policies.
http://www.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/Weitzman/papers/JELSternReport.pdf
www.rff.org/Documents/RFF-DP-07-37.pdf
http://johnquiggin.com/index.php/archives/2006/11/17/stern-on-the-costs-of-climate-change-part-1/
http://www.uoguelph.ca/~rmckitri/research/co2briefing.pdf

7.  You fail to note that while there are real costs to our economies to build climate change institutions, once established in principle any resulting carbon pricing reflects real costs and is not a “cost” to the economy.

8.  It is a puzzle that you did not note that the most powerful way to call forth the investment and behavior changes that would help us to “find a cheap, low-carbon source of energy” and to limit GHG emissions would be to find ways that would effectively price GHG emissions.

9.  Finally, one further comment on this:

“One of the keys to solving environmental problems is economic growth and wealth.  … So keep in mind that anything that unduly retards economic growth also retards ultimate environmental clean-up, including global warming.”

Not sure what you’re driving at here.

As far as developing countries go, efforts by Western nations to address climate change are actually net subsidies to them (by dampening Western demand for fossil fuels) and are providing incentives and investment for growth.

And as for Western economies, at least in principle internalizing externalities by enclosing commons (that have provided value which has not been factored into GDP) doesn’t retard economic growth, but enables it by forestalling the destruction of resources, permitting greater wealth-generating private transactions and reducing inefficiency.