Science is a matter of data, experiment and falsification. Nature has no interest whatever in your particular ‘ism’, whether it be liberal, conservative, left, social, commune, cannibal, left, or libertarian. The universe just is and it does not give a damn what you believe about it.
I happen to feel the science is on the side of human caused climate change, but that is not what I want to discuss. In fact, I am going to strongly discourage that particular debate to the point of removing comments arguing either “t’is!” or “No, t’isn’t!”
The discussion I would like to see is about the answers we as libertarians have if climate change is indeed real. Now if you believe as I do that it will happen, then obviously you have already been thinking about this issue. If I am wrong and nothing happens, then so much the better. If you believe there is no change, as I am sure many of you do, and you are wrong… the end result could be a complete loss of credibility and a delegitimization of everything we hold dear. The populace will not suffer gladly those who are wrong, especially if they have lost their homes and livelihoods.
Greenists, leftists, socialists and so forth have policies to ‘deal’ with the problem. In many cases these policies are simply their same old statist wish lists intellectually applied to the problem at hand. If change does occur, and most particularly if it occurs and appears or can be claimed to have been ameliorated by those policies they will use it against us.
This need not be the case. I am quite sure there are answers (and better ones) to all, or at least as much of the problem from our framework as from any other. Here is a range of scenarios for our discussion:
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We get 1-2 degrees of overall warming.
We get between 1 and 10 meters of rise in mean sea level.
As wildcards, with low probability but not low enough probability:
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Fresh water influx from the Greenland icecap modifies the salinity of the North Atlantic deep current and this pushes the Gulf stream southwards, adjusting Europe’s climate to match that of the same latitudes in Canada.
A major iceshelf in Antarctica ‘ungrounds’ and causes really major sea level rises of 30 meters or more over a period of a several decades.
The scenario would unfold over time as follows:
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CO2 output hits its maximum value in the late 2020’s or early 2030’s and then begins to fall, despite continuing population increases, due to technological changes in primary energy and fuel production. I do not know whom the market winners will be, only that some technologies will supplant our current way of doing things.
Population peaks around 2060 and then tails off by several billion by the end of the century. This is based on a UN demographic projection whose trends have been roughly correct for as much of my life as I have been interested in such things.
The total CO2 and other factors causing more energy to be absorbed by the Earth climate system lag the CO2 input maximum by some time and begin to trail off around 2050.
No solar Maunder type minimum’s occur, ie, insolation of our planet remains pretty much constant over this century.
Most of the climate changes are neither dramatic nor sudden, although a change in the Gulf Stream might only take a few years if it did happen.
Some examples of the questions to ask are:
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How would we handle the disastrous consequences for low lying nations? Would we have a class action suit of the form: ‘Individuals Residing in Bangladesh, Florida, The Netherlands, Pacific Islands et al v. Fossil Fuel Using Individuals’, for recompense for loss of real estate?
To what extent does amortization of property purchases write down the losses?
There would be winners and losers. For example, the US breadbasket would move northwards into Canada; some areas would become arid that were not; some areas would become tropical paradises that were not. As I have said before, complex non-linear systems can do just about anything when you pump energy into them. We will have to presume the results will be surprising and unpredictable. Some places might become hell hole swamps and others find themselves under glaciers. Mathematical chaos moves in strange ways. How should people deal with these unknowns?
Given this set of possible worlds, what do you feel are libertarian solutions which would turn more people towards our ideas than against them? If we do not have and sell our alternatives we are going to see policy decisions by others that we are not going to like one little bit, climate change or no climate change.
As the Boy Scouts say: Be Prepared!
Remember, this is not a debate about climate change. Such comments will be deleted to keep things focused. I want discussion to center on how free individuals would deal with the worst, should it happen.
Simple, caveat emptor. Try and sue the Chinese government, just imagine your likelihood of success. Why not model the takeover of the world by the Chinese on the basis that “Climate Change” induced political foolishness reduces all possible opponents (exclude the Russians) into a blue, useless funk.
And? What freedom oriented policy options do you propose? I am looking for effective answers to a very real debate which we cannot afford to lose.
The populace does not suffer gladly those who are wrong, especially if they have lost their homes and livelihoods.
My experience has been otherwise. There is no shortage of people who will go along with bad ideas if they think the people espousing them mean well.
Greenists, leftists, socialists and so forth have policies to ‘deal’ with the problem. In many cases these policies are simply their same old statist wish lists intellectually applied to the problem at hand.
See above.
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Regarding your scenarios, the eggheads recently determined that the gulf stream shutdown was not something that was going to happen. Apparently the original data was not confirmed to be a trend by subsequent data.
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# How would we handle the disastrous consequenes for low lying nations? Would we have a class action suit of the form: The individuals residing in Bangladesh, Florida, The Netherlands, Pacific Islands et al v. Fossil fuel using individuals for recompense for loss of real estate?
I don’t know how non-US court systems would handle such a suit, but suing individual US citizens would be incredibly difficult due to the requirement that party x caused some specific injury to party Y, and suing the government has the doctrine of sovereign immunity to overcome- i.e., the government can only be sued if it consents to be sued.
As a practical matter, local problems would be the responsibility of local governments, much as natural disasters like earthquakes or hurricanes are now. Other parties may (and probably will) choose to assist, but are under no legal obligation to do so.
# To what extent does amortization of property purchases write down the losses?
Could you elaborate on this? I’m not at all sure what you’re getting at.
# There would be winners and losers. For example, the US breadbasket would move northwards into Canada; some areas would become arid that were not; some areas would become tropical paradises that were not. As I have said before, complex non-linear systems can do just about anything when you pump energy into them. We will have to presume the results will be surprising and unpredictable. Some places might become hell hole swamps and others find themselves under glaciers. Mathematical chaos works in strange ways. How should people deal with the these unknowns?
The same way they deal with unknowns now- mitigate problems, capitalize on opportunities.
How would we handle the disastrous consequences for low lying nations? Would we have a class action suit of the form: ‘Individuals Residing in Bangladesh, Florida, The Netherlands, Pacific Islands et al v. Fossil Fuel Using Individuals’, for recompense for loss of real estate?
Umm, think about the chances of such a suit being successful. How can each and every Fossil Fuel Using Individual know with certainty that they are damaging the property’s of others through their actions ?
You couldn’t prove it, even if sea levels did rise, because once again, the earth’s climate is an extremely complex and dynamic system which still cannot be modeled and predicted reliably using computers.
Every single individual on the planet uses fossil fuels.
If you are liable for fossil fuel use, then every baby, cat, dog, monkey and giraffe is also liable. Every living creature on the planet breathes and emits C02.
You are losing the debate to the other side. I have not presented answers, only questions. What is the answer for 300 million Bangladeshi’s if nearly their entire country goes under water due to the actions of others? Is this any different than if I throw my trash into a stream that runs through my property and after some number of years it dams it up and floods your house next door? Is your policy to say “screw ’em”? If so, what do you then do with 300 million very pissed off Bangladeshi’s?
The problem is there. Do you have a market solution that avoids the obvious UN levy on Western nations that *WILL* occur? I want to avoid that. Does anyone have ideas how?
There is no libertarian solution to climate change, which is why libertarians are generally hostile to the idea – not because they know anything about the science, but because it challenges their belief system. It is not possible for anyone to own the atmosphere or the climate. Therefore, a tragedy of the commons is the inevitable result.
It is all very well to be hostile to collectivism. It isn’t a good idea to use a hammer to fix a watch. But it is also good to recognise when you are faced with a problem such as knocking nails in.
At the risk of sounding dismissive of the seriousness of the problem, I’m going to suggest that free individuals would confront this type of problem by claiming on insurance if appropriate and possibly moving and starting over.
By its very nature, a free society does not have to construct a plan to deal with this problem. Individuals will react as they see fit. Even the most cataclysmic climate changes seem likely to occur over decades; plenty of time for an individual to makes specific plans. A property owner by the coast can make some provision to deal with rising sea levels, building a defensive wall may not be enough to protect the property long enough for it to pass to the owner’s grandchildren but it may very well be possible to take action to preserve the property for the remainder of the owner’s life.
Also, I am going to repeat a point I made once before on this blog. There is no hope of saving Bangladesh from drowning by getting China to stop building coal power plants. There is a very good chance that by promoting free trade and liberalising society Bangladesh can, in 50 years, become as prosperous as the Netherlands and therefore able to protect itself from drowning.
Actually, the question has already been answered, and by the IPCC itself. The answer is contained in the SRES A1 family of scenarios. What do they say, you ask; will you not precis that for us?
Well, yes I will. The SRES A1 family of scenarios says that we should carry on as we are, but increase free trade and thus the exchange of technology and ideas all over the world. In this scenario, Developed nations continue to develop new technologies and Developing countries do, indeed, develop and become level with the Developed countries.
This scenario has slightly higher temperatures than the models preferred by climate alarmists (and politicians) but in the A1 scenarios, the world is four times as wealthy as it would be under the policies currently being pursued.
As we are all more wealthy, we are far more able to adapt to the changing climate and are thus still considerably better off.
Thus, by the IPCC’s own models, the libertarian position of free trade with the world is the correct solution to the problems that we might face.
Alas, this model is not beloved of politicians (since it does not justify tax rises and increased control over populations), nor the EU (which is, after all, a customs union and therefore exists to stifle free trade) and nor of the scientists (because “carry on as you were” is not a terribly exciting scenario and is unlikely to bring in the billions of dollars of grant money (not to mention self-importance and prestige) that the more melodramatic headlines do).
Next!
DK
What do you do with the Bangladeshis? You move them all the Siberia or Canada. In a free world, there is no barrier to immigration.
In some ways, the answer is trivial – we do what we have always done in the face of disaster. What would the free world do in the face of the Black Death of 1347, that killed maybe 100 million people, a fifth of the world population? Or a modern equivalent? People try to adapt, adjust, recover, survive. Why do you suppose there has to be an answer that makes everything fine?
In other ways, the answer is hard. It’s the tragedy of the commons again, a standard question for any free market philosophy. One way is to turn it into a market, as the enclosure acts did for the commons. In this case it would mean somebody claiming ownership of the atmosphere, and charging you for permission to breath. (It has long been said that governments have always hankered after taxing it.) The other way is to create a market in goodwill, reputation, honour, whatever you want to call it. People who pollute lose goodwill, which in an information-rich society has a real cost. That does rather rely on having good information though.
Another idea you might like to think about is that of “climate futures”. Issue bonds that pay out at a rate of 20% a year after 50 years, but become void if the sea level rises more than a metre. Or vice versa, if you like. Take your bets, ladies and gentlemen, and whoever turns out to be wrong pays for the damage done – either to the climate or the economy. Only problem might be that those betting on warming might be tempted to pollute a bit extra to make sure they win. But nothing’s perfect, eh?
You won’t have to wait for that lawsuit, they have already started-
Since we’re dealing in scientific facts, let’s not forget that the earth is going to change regardless of whether it is due to man made forces, a combination, or none of the above. There is nothing we can do to change this. Climate records show mass upheaval consistently throughout the history of the earth. There is abundant evidence of several different cultures throughout the world that were literally washed away under the oceans.
Instead of arguing over who we should think about suing, or who is “responsible”, we should be thinking about what we are going to do to save/move people who are living in places that will end up much like many other former coastal cultures, mainly because we now have the science to predict the areas that are in the greatest danger.
It is the height of ignorance to argue about who rearranged the deck chairs.
I’ve already put my general context on record on this question in this thread at March 1, 2008 01:20 AM:
And at the beginning of that comment, I agree with Pa Annoyed’s statement:
That said, there can be no legal action between nations regarding climate. That way be certain doom. Relations between nations are purely matters of treaty and we should be as careful with treaties as an insurance underwriter writing a policy for a known swindler. In other words, if at all possible, don’t.
Whether ice sheets in Europe or submersion in Bangladesh, we should deal with these situations as we did the SEA tsunami. And while another nation may not be losing its land to the sea or to ice sheets, it may be losing its rainfall and be in as dire of straits.
The model for dealing with global scale weather and its effect on humanity should be the method for dealing with local weather and its effect on wheat harvests. A futures contract market where perhaps future rents for land can be sold and bought on a futures market and speculators assume the risk based on the best projections available at any given time.
For example, instead of buying December wheat hoping it will go up in value, a speculator may by 2012 crop season Sahara farmland hoping it will go up in value. A resorts investment fund may hedge by purchasing Hudson’s Bayfront futures. The rents would track the markets best predictions as they changed.
Some will say ‘the Bangladeshis are too poor to buy land futures anywhere’. Well, their poverty exists in the present and is not a consequence of climate, it is a consequence of government policy. The solutions to bad government policy are irrelevant to climate change discussion and would be necessary in any case.
You are losing the debate to the other side.
…because the format of the debate is akin to the old question “have you stopped beating your wife?”
I have not presented answers, only questions. What is the answer for 300 million Bangladeshi’s if nearly their entire country goes under water due to the actions of others?
Whatever happens is going to happen over decades, not in the next month.
As a practical matter, the Russians, Saudis, and other oil-producing countries are not going to stop producing oil, China and other developing countries are not going to stop building coal-burning power plants, and industrialized countries are not going to stop consuming oil. CO2 emissions are not going to fall anytime soon.
The only practical answer is for the government of Bangladesh to change in ways that encourage wealth creation so that the nation of Bangladesh has the resources to mitigate whatever problem arises, because the Russians, OPEC, China, and industrialized countries are not going to do it for them.
If that’s ‘losing the debate’, there are fundamental problems with how the debate is set up.
The assumption of the scenario is that the changes are caused by people. If you have not realized already, the discussion is aimed at the most difficult case because that is the one we have to answer in the political arena to make our case for liberty.
Climate change is just the example; I can’t think of another with the same properties right now, but if we have real answers to this one we probably have answers to just about anything.
So stick with the scenario as stated.
How about talking about those who will suffer a double whammy – Africa? Africa might suffer more from the changing climate than any other continent. Especially because of the lack of social safety nets provided by governments. Is there a solution for Africa when they have so much else to focus on – health, poverty, war and hunger? Or are we caught in a Catch 22 with no sustainable solutions? More on this in my blog at http://angryafrican.wordpress.com/2008/03/02/solving-the-changing-african-climate-a-catch-22/
If the question is what is the best libertarian solution to turning more people towards our ideals then the answer surely lies in exposing the failures of those who have not applied these ideals to their respective populations.
Too easy…..
Why, send in Mr Blair of course!
Messiah to the rescue
Since free marketers and libertarians frequently get tarred with the brush of callous disregard for our fellow man when in fact it’s involuntary transactions we (at least some of us) oppose, not compassionate ones, what about the possibility of using the ever increasing wealth produced by those free markets to voluntarily fund relief efforts?
Even better if those efforts could be market oriented in some way. Perhaps emergency venture capital, micro loans, or something similar? Maybe not sufficient, but I suspect the effects would be substantial.
If the science were a little more settled there’d be a good case, in my opinion, for taxing the carbon output as an externality, but it runs afoul of three problems I can see right away:
1. We don’t yet know the size of the problem so it’s not possible to set the proper tax rate.
2. It’s not possible to apply the tax globally. (and for most purposes that’s a good thing)
3. If it’s an actual tax, which is to say it goes to a government, you can be sure it will be used for anything and everything but compensating for the externality.
my 2 cents.
Short, cynical comment… but if it does happen this way, I don’t think it will be free individuals who will be making the decisions, unfortunately.
Dale’s asking a very worthwhile question. And I agree with his caution. It does opponents of green puritanism and environmentalism as a governmentalist pretext no good at all to cleave to every crackpot theory as “disproving” the received wisdom on climate change.
Received wisdom is always wrong in detail. But it is freqently explicating real facts.
The trouble is, I don’t think we have an answer that’s ever going to be acceptable. We are just as open to the spite of various sorts of collectivists as being “to blame” in advocating freedom in the first place, as we are in economic matters.
For from my point of view the question, “How do you manage the climate/ecology?” is akin to the one, “How do you manage the economy?
If you are my sort of libertarian you recognise the impossibility of the task. Even if we know what “better” looks like, and how some things work, making things better is impossibly complex task, requiring an infinity of correct decisions about an infinity of matters. Planned intervention is far more likely to be damaging than to achieve its intended effects.
One can manage a firm, a farm, one’s own body – any relatively small open system – with a fair degree of success, though it remains very possible to fail. Attempts to manage big systems in which you can’t ascertain, let alone control, significant inputs, are guaranteed to fail.
The best we can do is identify a few factors (maybe as few as one) that affect the behaviour of the system and regulate them in order that the rest of the system can adapt more smoothly. What you can’t do is micromange individual choices or particular components of the scheme.
If human carbon dioxide production, say, is a driver (which is very plausible, though it might turn out to be wrong), then the liberal rationalist’s best suggestion is that a pricing system must not be rigged and must not be rationed; only a uniform pricing mechanism will encourage efficient human adaptation to reduce emissions. Privileges for “the poor”, “those who aren’t to blame”, or what officials deem “environmentally friendly” activity, will create not competition to reduce emissions but competition for those privileges, and higher levels of emmission than otherwise. See any OPEC member for an illustration of the political consequences of carbon taxation as the prime activity of government.
John points out some real problems with a carbon levy very clearly. The last is the worst: government is the beneficiary, so government has an incentive to “tackle the problem” ever more intensively, no matter how bad it is. Government only does positive feedback. And by pouring more resources into government, and its clienteles which don’t have the incentive that other actors do to reduce its inputs, looks like a good way of encouraging more wasteful polluting activity.
See my post here, too.
There may not be a “solution” at all, and if there is, bigger government is definitely not it. That’s the same problematic sell we have on almost every topic, in a world that believes “the government should do something about it,” whatever “it” is.
Has anyone a means to impose a cost premium on any resource short of making it scarcer or more desired, or monopolising it? No.
“The discussion I would like to see is about the answers we as libertarians have if climate change is indeed real”
Yes it is real. Like it has been seen the earth is earth. Sorry but your point make no sense. Climate is always changing, cooling or warming. So of course it will “happen”. Global warming is already happening, and stopped a few years ago. The funniest thing is that it’s now that we have a 0.6°c drop in global temperatures in one year that we talk the most about how the global warming will kill us in an apocalytic way.
By the way. If the IPCC is right, then the best way for people to be prepared is to be the wealthiest they could. Because the wealthier they are the better they will adapt to change of their environment. And for that, we know that freedom is the only way.
But i’m sad with such a debate, because i think you’re just falling into the trap of all this collectivists who have just found in a man-made global warming their (hopefully) last excuse against capitalism.
We have 3 or 4 years to wait before they’ll have to admit that their predictions were wrong. But the evil may already have been done…
Dale, so far few people have answered your excellent questions for the simple reason that a lot of capitalists approach AGW in the same way that the idiotarian fringes of the right and left treat radical islamism, etc: they deny it is a problem. Libertarians have to at least be prepared, if they want to be taken seriously, to sketch out what will happen. Here’s my take:
Encourage as much economic growth as possible. The more “stuff” we produce, the easier it is to do things we may need to spend money on, like better flood defencies, irrigation of arid areas, reconstruction of urban areas and the like.
Lawsuits: the trouble is pinning the blame precisely on who is responsible. So long as some people have enough evidence to rebut AGW, lawsuits will founder.
Technological fixes: companies could start to get involved in figuring out ways to suck Co2 out of the air, working on “carbon capture” tech, and the like. Also, the high price of crude oil is bound to encourage more “cleantech” investment, not out of altruism but out of good old self interest. With crude over $150 a barrel, say, it is bound to focus minds.
There is a large and growing body of free market environmentalism out there, looking at homesteading of the seas, forests, etc. I’ll try and add in some more ideas when I get a bit of time.
I’d like to see think tanks like the IEA, Adam Smith Institute and others do more to answer the sort of questions you come up with. You are right: the left has all the best tunes on this issue, which is a problem.
Good question.
It exposes a fundamental practical problem of untrammelled (sp?) libertarianism.
I would have thought that Devil’s Kitchen’s answer (let everyone be rich) is the obvious libertarian one.
Alternatively, Dale should become an arms dealer and sell as many and as powerful arms as he can (as cheaply as is consonant with him making a profit) to the Bangladeshis so that they can invade Holland.
Firstly, no significant land and populations need be lost to the sea. Things simply wouldn’t happen that fast and even the IPCC no longer plug sea level rises of that magnitude.
Technology exists now to do this, just go and look at the Fens at, say, Littleport, to see how much higher the sea is compared with the land.
The other arguments here are missing the point. The Bangladeshis need to be able to afford to build these defences or have other richer countries build it for them. Free market economics are the answer to this.
Land values then become irrelevant. The fens and Dutch Polders are not worth less than any other land. In fact they are worth more due to fertility issues. Any flood losses become restricted to the value of infrastructure and not land. Assuming there is plenty of warning it then becomes less profitable to maintain and improve existing buildings, further reducing the eventual net loss.
Concerning agriculture, we should not assume that changes will remove existing land from production. Tropical regions are very good at producing sugar cane, for example. Efforts should continue to be made in preventing and reversing desertification,since this,and not climate, is the limiting factor. Significant areas of the Sahara are being successfully reclaimed.
In a world of high food prices, there is no reason why deserts should not be used for glass horticulture or hydroponics. Water is the issue. There will be no lack of it, just infrastructure to desalinate and transport it, again a problem of cost which free market economics and technology can address.
I’m not sure that hell hole swamps or glaciers could take up a significant part of productive land, but dikes and drainage are the answer for swamps, which then become very productive as water is not a limiting factor. It may be that the increase in North and South latitude temperatures will increase the total productive area for agriculture in the world.
We can be pretty sure there will be no change in the Gulf Stream, there is plenty of evidence for that.
Conclusion: whatever way you look at it, climate change is a non issue. It is not the point that we have to convince the alarmists, you cannot change ideology with facts. As for people not forgetting those who are wrong – on the contrary, when an issue becomes a non issue, it very quickly becomes forgotten – the 1970s ice age, heterosexual AIDS, BSE etc.
Sorry,
FU’d my link.
Industries in China and India use several times as much energy per unit of economic out put than those in the US, Europe and Japan.
Selling (or if necessary donating) the technology to become more energy efficient to those two countries will reduce CO2 output much more than anything that could be done in Western economies.
That is what you should focus on, and it should be you main talking point. You can also get the most ardent AGW sceptics on baord with this, for they know very well that less Chinese and Indian demand for energy will help to keep inflation in check..
Adaptation. It is what humans do very well.
That should have been “anything else that could be done by Western countries”, not “anything that could be done in Western economies”.
Btw, if efforts to reduce CO2 should become more expensive than the public is willing to accept, it won’t be the libertarians’ credibility that is in danger. If climate change should become a powerful enough phenomenon to be completly undeniable, the public would nevertheless go into complete denial, for at that point, countermeasures would be so expensive that they endanger our lifestyle :
“Bangladesh getting submerged, that’s just bad luck. Nothing that we can do about it. How about some inexpensive solution, such as teaching the Bangladeshis how to swim? And you know, if we wait just a bit longer, it will be even cheaper, for there will be less pupils to teach.”
Don’t forget insurance. If premia skyrocket in flood zones, hurricane zones or areas otherwise menaced by climate-induced weather, then there will be a strong market-driven incentive to put things right, by encouraging building in safer areas, using stronger, or more flexible, materials, or by discouraging building in vulnerable spots. The crucial thing is that goverments must not try to prevent insurers from hiking premia: the price signal of the market should be allowed to do the job.
Insurance is also an industry well-placed for ideas on these issues as these companies are supposed to be experts at risk assessment.
Great questions, Dale. I work in climate science and climate policy** and have often wondered how libertarians would go about approaching this problem. I’m certainly no expert on libertarianism but my guess would be to go down the Coasian route of trying to divvy up the rights to everything and then sell them. First imagine a system with no lag: when one burns, say, one’s tonne of coal, one would pay for the environmental externalities. At some point, presumably, the rising cost of these externalities would make one prefer something else (second generation biofuels, say, or a solar panel) to coal. My guess is that this would work pretty well (kinda worked for SO2 in the US).
The complicating factor seems to me to be the lags in the system. It’s the total stock of atmospheric co2 (let’s stick to co2), rather than the year-on-year emissions, that provides the radiative forcing, which in turn acts to heat up the planet, which has a thermal inertia so the response (which does the damage) lags the forcing (by quite a bit).
(1) One problem is that the bunch of people doing the emitting are not necessarily even alive at the same time as the bunch of people receiving the damage.*** And, given the moderatle huge uncertainties surrounding ascertaining the (future) damages associated with climate change, how can we price the externalities?
(2) The other problem is, even if we knew how the proper cost of these externalities, how much should generation x care about generation z. Do libertarians have a consistent view on social discounting?
That’s just a couple of quick thoughts… I think the unusual structure of the problem poses some interesting challenges to normal public policy responses, which is why it’s an interesting area to work on. While I’m not actually a libertarian myself, I do think libertarian critiques are really valuable and often compelling. A genuinely engaged, libertarian policy to address climate change would be of very real value in terms of giving real options to policy makers, who at the moment tend to look to welfare-reducing green responses simply because they’re there. I expect that genuinely well thought out environmental policies that aren’t based on command and control would actually go down pretty well with a lot of policy people (though probably not in Brussells).
Dave
**No I am not on any government’s payroll, by the way… nor am I a green.
***Some caveats apply…
It’s a very good question Dale. I’m an AGW skeptic, but I’m glad you’ve asked this as it mirrors my own view. You can’t just hope that every such problem will be false. Libertarians et al do need to address what they would do if AGW or some similar crisis were real. I’ve had very little success getting other people to see this. It could be real. Let’s presume it is.
I think firstly we need to say that libertarians would look for the most practical solutions and would try to avoid those which allow for corruption and profiteering at the expense of the masses. Socialist? I don’t think so. Since any scheme such as Carbon Trading is statist anyway, we have to ensure that ordinary people aren’t being screwed over for the benefit of a few Gores.
The next thing we need to recognise, I believe, is that “emissions” are the wrong thing to be concentrating on. The carbon cycle on which life is based requires carbon emissions. The carbon used to construct an organism needs to be “emitted” again so that new organisms can be constructed from it. We can see life as consisting of two types of organisms- one (plants) which use solar energy to construct their bodies from atmospheric carbon and another (animals) which emit that carbon in order to gain energy to live. Anyone complaining about cows farting, or bread baking emitting CO2 has missed the point; that carbon has to be “emitted” as part of the cycle of life. Digestion is carbon emission, and whether a particular carbon atom comes out of the cow’s bum as a fart, or as poo which is then eaten by a different microbe and emitted, is irrelevant. Measuring emissions is the same as measuring atmospheric emission of rain, and crying that it must be stopped or the sky will run dry.
What matters is addition of extra free carbon to the Earth’s biosphere, and we have the luck that we can easily see where that extra carbon is coming from- fossil fuels. Luckily, extraction of fossil fuels is in the hands of a relatively small number of companies, which are easily controlled by the state.
Yes, the solution would have to be statist. There isn’t a “libertarian” solution, any more than there is a libertarian solution to war- which is why so many libertarians are in denial about that too, and cling to the idea that there are no aggressors in the world (except ourselves, it’s all our own fault, if we stop being imperialists everybody will love us and not attack us, kind of thing, which ignores such questions as precisely what Poland did to deserve being invaded by Nazi Germany etc).
So as I say, you would need a governments imposed solution, on carbon “production”. We don’t need to care about emissions of what is already in the biosphere, we just need to stop more carbon entering the cycle.
The solution then is simple. You phase out oil and gas and coal extraction as fast as possible, by government mandate. You build nuclear power plants. You only allow fuels made from biospheric carbon. You only allow plastics made from biospheric carbon. Of course you wouldn’t need specific laws on that since the plastics industry would have no choice, as there’d be no oil to buy. There is less travel, the airline industry would probably be radically reduced in size. You search for something like the Bussard Reactor as a replacement for as much current energy production as possible.
Sorry, but that’s it. We’d have to compromise and admit to a statist solution. The focus for libertarians would have to be the maintenance of as much liberty as possible in the face of the threat.
The above presumes the bad or worst case AGW scenarios of course.
Oil and coal are finite and demand for them is increasing worldwide. As they become rarer they become more expensive, which encourages both efficiency and alternate sources.
Consequently history and the market is already driving us towards a low CO2 economy.
The beauty of liberty is that a free man is in no way compelled to solve another man’s problems, unless he considers it beneficial to himself do so. So Bangladesh’es free inhabitants can solve their own problem should sea level rise. Build dikes, move, or swim. Not my problem.
I rather thought the point of Libertarianism was not to put forward a plan but rather recognize that free people will find solutions if it is in their self interest.
Case in point – solar power. Due to increased investment in furthering the technology we’re due to see Moore’s Law affecting our power generation capabilities.
I must add, that when I say ‘investment I mean this not in the ridiculous ‘green’ companies who simply insist on forcing impractical ‘solutions’ down people’s throats with heavy public subsidy – I’m talking about the genuine research and advancement being carried out in Silicon Valley with regards to the conjugation of nanotechnology and photo-voltaic materials.
The market for cheaper energy is there, nothing is cheaper than ‘free’ (capital injection to set up a plant/personal system and low-to-nil maintenance costs) for the individual.
The market in this instance will drive adoption.
In turn, if you have access to plentiful and free energy, why the hell wouldn’t you be running your car on it? The rapid advancements in electric vehicle design (brought on by newer, lighter materials and much increased battery life – perhaps even involving Nanometer-Capacitors which are, for a geek like me, quite frankly the coolest invention since the transistor) mean that it’s entirely possible that most of our cars (perhaps even all our new cars) in 2020 will be hybrids or just straight out-and-out plug-ins like the Tesla Roadster’s mid-range offspring.
The bottom line is, people will start acting when it’s in their PERSONAL interest. That’s what we supposedly recognize as Libertarians of any creed.
We’ve had how many decades of collectivist bollocks being rammed down our throat on this issue? Remember, I’m a child of the generation that grew up with Captain-effing-Planet indoctrinating me every saturday morning. Has any of it stuck? Has it my arse.
Why? Cause it’s not in my self interest. Until the data is right there for me to see, not couched in sophistry, not subject to the ridiculous panderings of hair-shirted hippies who in the same breath will insist on my buying fairtrade bananas and eschewing plastic bags. Until people stop saying they “Believe” in Global Warming and denouncing people who don’t (such bad science that I don’t even know where to BEGIN). Until I am watching reports that can’t be summed up with the simple appellation “weather” or more accurately “the same crap which the earth has been pulling for the past 3 MILLION YEARS” I will not change my patterns of behaviour.
I’m in favour of clean air initiatives – why? Because I’m an asthmatic.
I’m in favour of renewable energy – why? Because it means my bills will disappear and I’ll be able to run my favourite gadgets all day (oh and because I get to give the monopolistic utility providers the finger of competition, guess which one it is?).
I’m in favour of electric cars – why? Because they’re cool, cheaper and they make far more sense.
I’m not in favour of any of these things because some freaking college student has decided it’s his job to berate everyone for daring to live their lives for their own personal betterment.
I’m an individual, I make decisions based on what’s best for me because I know what’s best for me. I trust that others will and do. That’s how this issue will be dealt with.
The same people who dislike that argument are the same people who will continue to scream against capitalism and market forces despite hundreds of years of evidence. The beauty of it is that I don’t have to convince anyone of my viewpoint for it to exist and take hold. I’ll be right in the long term and I don’t even need to wear a T-Shirt ‘educating people’ to make it happen.
John, Moore’s Law doesn’t apply to solar panels. You can’t keep increasing their efficiency beyond 100%, and we’re already up to 40% or so at the bleeding edge.
Let’s go further. Let’s say that Stern is correct in each and every particular. That the future damages of one tonne of CO2 emitted now are indeed $85 at his 0.01% discount rate.
We simply put a tax of $85 per tonne on CO2 emissions and reduce other taxation by the same amount.
Simple, job done.
We might phase it in over a decade or more, give a bit of room for adjustment, but that is it, that’s all we have to do.
The libertarian (or classically liberal as I might prefer) argument is that yes, there are externalities, they should indeed be subject to Pigou Taxes, yes, we believe you and so here’s the solution.
Now, please bugger off, problem over.
One of my many, many issues with “Climate Change” is the easy to digest and therefore routinely trotted out figures for average global temperature. This matters not a jot to anyone. What I want to know is the details as specifically applying to me (that doesn’t just mean where I live). Then I can give an answer. I think the same applies to everyone from the New Zealand vineyard owner to the Finnish reindeer herder.
Individuals should do nothing specific except continue to get wealthier by accumulating capital and developing technology. Changes to the environment would be dealt with using engineering solutions or from withdrawing from the threat. Open borders would enable displaced peoples to relocate. People in low lying areas like New Orleans would who want to remain would have to pay for engineering works to offset risk and take insurance against climate events and rising sea levels. Land usage would naturally change as climate turns arable land infertile and transforms wasteland to arable.
Government interference in insurance, energy production, transportation, zoning, agriculture, in fact almost all aspects of human existence except defence & law and order should end, thus presenting individuals with real choices and real responsibility for their actions.
Global warming is not scary, we are adaptable. Our ancestors survived through warmer and colder periods than today, and we can adapt to future climate change, man-made or oterhwise.
Buried in my scenario is the assumption that statist approaches will actually not work and will not have very much impact. The timelines I presented pretty much presume that technological change will happen pretty much at the max the market allows and no faster. Things like Kyoto and banning incandescent bulbs in the EU are simply arse-covering so that politicians can say they did something. The case of incandescent bulbs is the purist case of ‘find a parade and march in front of it’ that I have ever seen. Technology and energy costs are driving the differential price down; but even if energy costs did not change, iCompact florescent is better value and an LED bulb even better value once some technical issues are settled and we are far enough the learning curve and production volume curve to make the prices attractive. We’ll be long past that point before the EU regs really kick in… thus one has to believe they are only so they can say they ‘forced’ capitalism to do ‘the right thing’ when no such thing actually happened at all.
My own beliefs are that there is going to be some hurt caused by climate change and that it is an inevitable outcome of the transition to a technological society. It is, however, only the transition that causes the problem. Measures which slow the pace of change will lengthen the transition time and result in more damage. Measures which let the market move us through that transition at maximum speed will tend to lessen the damage.
Note the hooker in my scenario: CO2 input starts falling around 2030 and what is unsaid is that the CO2 input thereafter plummets drastically due to technological change, so much so that by 2050 the total CO2 stops rising. Then by 2060 the population starts falling and by the end of the century we are in a high tech world with population pressure gone.
Any policies we propose to get us rapidly through the transition have to be rapidly reversible when we start leaving the old state of affairs behind.
As fighter pilots used to say: Speed is Lfe. We have to go through this as fast as possible.
That still leaves a potentially bad period and the fact that 99% of the population will not buy nor understand what I have just said. We still have to deal with policy as I would very much rather not live in a super-technological paradise that just happens to have become totalitarian because the left used the bad times to win the war of ideas.
How on earth does any of this this affect notions of liberty? You are “liberal’ because you have the time and opportunity to be so minded. It’s a statement of luxury because of the times we live in.
Building your own crude homes higher up in the hills – if sea level rises really came to pass – and trying to stay alive in a world denied the usual food sources would take so much of your time you wouldn’t give a flying doo-dah about such fancy notions. Stop being so dippy.
If you think the world’s going to end, okay, good for you… I expect it will one day or another. Nothing I can do about the sun going supernova or whatever it may do.
I expect carbon emissions add up to less than all the people and cows farting methane.
On the other hand, maybe I could do something as a libertarian about AGW: I can email my MP and demand the end of all space research as it clearly buggers up the atmosphere and costs billions. Duh…
No, you didn’t want that answer did you?
I am astonished by all of the ‘centrally planned’ solutions being proposed here. Pretty soon we’ll start hearing five and ten year plans. Sheesh.
We are talking about a problem where their are economic and other consequences to some future variable who’s value is unknown because it is driven by a chaotic system. There is no centrally planned system that can ever have the complexity to address this. What we need is a distributed chaotic system that brings the market economy and the future into controlled alignment. We could call it a ‘futures’ market. D’oh! We already have one. Well maybe it could trade in weather futures. D’oh! It already does!
Well maybe it can be expanded to include things like sea level and other climate related, economically significant factors.
That is the libertarian, free market, individual rights solution.
Gaia is pained John 🙂
Sure, but they’re probably going to get cheaper every year even if you can’t get more energy per m2.
The same way they would handle everything else. Everyone would try to figure out which approach will work best to advance his own individual interests. Then they’ll try that. Some will work. Some will fail spectacularly. Some will work better than others. And a few especially-clever people will learn from the experiences of others.
Farmers in the Yukon will plant wheat. People in New Orleans will move north or build on stilts the way that people do in parts of coastal Florida. Maybe ocean currents will shift, meaning nutrient upwelling sites will also shift, meaning that the commercial fishermen will need to find new sweet spots.
As long as everyone gets a crack at figuring out his own decentralized solution to his own problem, some of us have a chance. A centrally-planned solution to climate change will work about as well as a centrally-planned solution to a shortage of whatever in the USSR usually did.
As long as we don’t lose too much precipitation in the deal, my area should be all right. If it’s not, I’ll figure something else out. I’ve managed to stay upright for thirty-odd years so far, I’ll take my chances.
As mentioned the dramatic decrease in manufacturing costs and the advantages provided by nanotechnology will create a virtual Moore’s law effect for the consumer. We will see a doubling, not necessarily of the output of our solar cells but probably of the share of electricity generated by solar cells, every two years (technically Moore’s Law/2) simply because it will be more economical to do so.
From a consumer standpoint, instead of getting 2x processing power for their money every year, they’ll get 2x Energy production every two years as the compound gains from their earlier migrations begin to pay dividends.
I should have been more clear on that point.
Never make predictions based on hypothetical future technologies. You may as well say by 2050 genetic engineering will have cured all cancer. Maybe it will, maybe it won’t. You can’t say.
Moore’s Law works because (until certain limits are met) greater processing horsepower can be derived from the same raw materials. A silicon chip doesn’t get any bigger, but what it can do does so long as you can make the transistors smaller.
A solar panel is inherently limited by insolation for its surface area. It doesn’t matter how clever your technology is, you can only extract up to 100% of that energy. There is no way around that. There is no Moore’s Law for solar panels. The best you can do is try to find some cheaper materials to make them out of. Best of luck.
It’s much like trying to make a better electric motor. Since they’re already in the high 90s of efficiency, any potential gains are small. Maybe you can make them out of something cheaper; but since an industrial motor needs great strength and stiffness in its materials, there’s only so far you can go with that.
Like I said, there’s no apparent exponential law with solar panels.
“I would have thought that Devil’s Kitchen’s answer (let everyone be rich) is the obvious libertarian one.”
The advantage of my answer is that it uses the IPCC’s own figures so we can actually use the collectivists’ own materials against them (this is the approach that the UK Libertarian Party is taking).
And whilst I agree with Tim Worstall’s Piggou Tax route, I happen to think that CO2 is having little or no effect on climate. But, as Dale pointed out, we aren’t having that discussion and so I would be inclined to agree with Timmy on that issue if only for the sake of a quiet life…
DK
I’ve got to agree with that. The meta-context of this debate, a bloody useful concept this blog introduced me to, needs to be attacked, because if you debate within theirs, you can never win. Devil’s Kitchen(Link) summed up the correct response perfectly as well as the reason why the “trade” option is unpopular with the statists. Hell, I just changed my by-line link from UKIP to LPUK 🙂
Climate change is an externality, therefore markets are not going to emerge naturally to deal with it. Unfortunately it is going to need some state intervention. The thing is to minimise it.
Every climate change economist says that the correct way to deal with climate change is a Pigou Tax, so lets start there. This is actually pretty good since there is already an existing mechanism existing to collect taxes, this is just about the only thing that the state does that is efficient, and taxes in place that can be converted into the Climate Change Tax. One morning you are paying fuel duty then next its name has changed to the Climate Change Tax.
Some people will not want their money going into the states coffers so we had better give them a way of doing this while still dealing with climate change. There are already companies that offer offsetting carbon services so lets use them. Let them issue and sell certificates for the amount that they offset which the state will reimburse for cost of the Climate Change Tax at whatever its rate is at the time they are presented. Since it is now giving away our money for these certificates I do not think that is too much to say that it will only accept them when issued from companies that can provide an external auditers approval that they really are providing the offsets that they say they are.
N.B. If you find a company selling certificates for less than the price of the Climate Change Tax you can make a profit.
The only thing left to do is set the level of the Climate Change Tax itself. Since I don’t trust the state to do anything right I would rather the chancellor didn’t have a hand in this. Luckily we know the best way to value anything, with a market, and we have just created a large and fluid market for the price of getting carbon out of the atmosphere. Lets use that and set the cost of the Carbon Tax to be the yearly average price of carbon credits on the open market.
By adding this feedback loop you now have a system for finding the correct level of tax at any point given the current level of technology for the Climate Change Tax and a system for spurring on industry to invent better and better ways of dealing climate change. And all with the minimum level of state intervention, with everything safely shielded from direct interaction with the government by a market.
Interesting. Still this fascination with emissions by end users regardless of the source of the emitted carbon, and no interest in the carbon source, which is easily choked off without complex tax schemes, certificates and fake markets in a non-good.
Just think, if such forward-looking economic strategy had been available in the past, no World War II would have been needed. We could simply have issued everyone with a trading scheme for how many German troops they could allow into the country, then let them trade until the optimum invasion force level was found by the market. What a waste all that trying to stop Nazism at source was!
Personally I do not see any good way to stop things from happening other than to grow through them as quickly as possible. The issue that some have mentioned and that must be addressed is where the growth in CO2 output is going to come from. The ‘West’ is already near to the point where drastic CO2 drops will start occuring. The trouble is, what the USA and Europe does doesn’t mean squat. The real growth in CO2 output will come from China and India as they claw their way up the growth curve.
We’ll need some mechanism for amelioration. Perhaps a privately held and untaxed Climate Change Fund that people can donate to and that will invest in growth and then pay out its assets to help move Bangladeshi’s or whomever gets the short end of the stick. That would be a wholly private method and more to my taste.
I do not think taxes will work. We do not actually want to slow the Chinese growth down, we want them to ram their with through this development phase as fast as possible.
There is a rather astonishing level of misunderstanding of what Moore’s law is in these quarters.
Despite what the non-technical press keeps repeating, it is NOT ‘processing power will double every two years’.
The original concept was ‘the processing power you can get for a given price will double every two years’.
…aaaaaaand until I see this fabulous “space age” nanotechnology that is going to defy the laws of physics, I’m skeptical that any kind of Mooresque Law applies.
I base this partly on the terrible disappointment which mars my every day from being told as a child that “by the year 2000” I’d be taking the rocket to work, jetpacks would be routine, food would be in pill form and I’d be living on the Moon, in a silver suit.
Moore’s Law only works because of increased component density allowing greater information processing power. It has sod all to do with any other product.
That’s the crux of the matter.
You assume false premises or meta-context borrowed from the left as follows:
1. There is a problem
2. The lefties have a solution (that we don’t like)
3. Therefore what’s our solution ?
The answer is simple:
1. There is no problem.
2. The lefties have no solution (their plans will cripple our living standards without reducing carbon one iota).
So what is the libertarian “solution”: here it is: tell the truth. Try to make it heard. There can be no other solution than the truth. We may succeed in convincing people, or we may fail. But we cannot tell lies or adopt false plans.
Leave people alone. They will find solutions, they will adapt. Any attempt to “improve” on this natural course of things will result in a man-made catastrophe on top of the (dubious) Co2 caused one.
Why is this such a difficult question? Climate change is simply property damage, and although it probably isn’t possible to effect direct transfers of property from the offending to the offended party given the state of the science and our computational abilities, we should simply have the courts arbitrate, probably enforcing a “carbon tax” of sorts that would feed into reducing further emissions (as opposed to supplementing the general revenue).
The points about China polluting anyway, the impossibility of universal enforcement, etc. applies just as well to the present leftist solution that demand top down economic control. The debate about whether we should take any action at all or not is therefore essentially seperate.
Do Dale Amon wants a Versailles?
Can i sue Communist parties and former Communist Countries ? We dont have Cancer Cure because Communism didnt advanced one iota of science. Lets sue them!!! Actually they also polluted heavily so they would pay also to poor Bangladesh. Wonderful!
Retroativelly we put a tax in all technology exported to Bangladesh just in case our technological activities end up starting global warming. So we should start now asking Bangladeshis for money.
Or better we should return to Medieval times. Oops will not work, it was hotter than today.
Giacomo Leopardi – Il Pensiero Chapter XXXIX(Excerpt)
http://www.leopardi.it/pensieri.php
(…)La quale immaginazione è così fondata, che quel medesimo appunto che affermano i nostri vecchi a noi, affermavano i vecchi, per non dir più, giÁ un secolo e mezzo addietro, ai contemporanei del Magalotti, il quale nelle Lettere familiari scriveva: “egli è pur certo che l’ordine antico delle stagioni par che vada pervertendosi. Qui in Italia è voce e querela comune, che i mezzi tempi non vi son più; e in questo smarrimento di confini, non vi è dubbio che il freddo acquista terreno. Io ho udito dire a mio padre, che in sua gioventù, a Roma, la mattina di pasqua di resurrezione, ognuno si rivestiva da state. Adesso chi non ha bisogno d’impegnar la camiciuola, vi so dire che si guarda molto bene di non alleggerirsi della minima cosa di quelle ch’ei portava nel cuor dell’inverno”. Ouesto scriveva il Magalotti in data del 1683. L’Italia sarebbe più fredda oramai che la Groenlandia, se da quell’anno a questo, fosse venuta continuamente raffreddandosi a quella proporzione che si raccontava allora.(…)
Fair enough, Ian. I’ll alter my statement:
I think in the coming years, as Solar Panels become more widely manufactured and with improvements to the technology – as minor as it you may assert they’ll be – we’ll see the costs shrink rapidly year on year till they reach a stable, low value.
I asser that the Solar Panel WILL become a commodity. Just like the DVD player and the embedded microchip. The only thing standing in its way is the development required to bring it to that level of market-readiness and with the millions being spent by VC firms on the West Coast of America, I can’t see that holding up for long.
Dale –
Part of the problem is, I think, that too many questions have been conflated. The public discussion has never, to my knowledge, been broken down into its constituent parts.
I reckon we need to answer at least five questions (though I realise that others’ mileage may vary):
1) Is climate change happening?
2) If so, will there be negative consequences?
3) If so, can anything be done to mitigate them?
4) If so, should we do them?
5) If so, to what degree should we exert ourselves?
You’re quite right to say that science gives not a damn for “isms”. But of the five questions above, only the first three are questions for scientists. The last two – should we, and to what degree? – are questions, not for scientists, but for economists.
And for that sort of question there is already a long and honourable history of libertarian economics. Can we not consult them? Tim Worstall, as far as I’m concerned, has already nailed that question, above.
The trouble is, what the USA and Europe does doesn’t mean squat. The real growth in CO2 output will come from China and India as they claw their way up the growth curve.
We need to consider timescales here. How long is too long?
The SRES A1 is based on increased free trade and particularly trade in technological innovation. Let us say that the Bussard fusion yields industrial scale reactors within 20 years (which I believe to be a realistic timescale given how far along the process is) and we then trade with China and India (which have, in the meantime) become more stable.
The point is that they will skip some of the messier stages of development and thus this yields a net reduction in pollutants.
Further, there are pressing reasons — of supply, sure, but mainly of politics — for us to push ahead as swiftly as possible with these developments (the last thing that we want is a China in thrall, energy supply-wise, to a hostile Russia, Saudi or Iran) and to speed global implementation.
I asser that the Solar Panel WILL become a commodity. Just like the DVD player and the embedded microchip.
OK, but be careful here: by that time, will the area of solar panels lower the planet’s albedo and thus cause climate change themselves? Just for instance…
None of this can be considered in isolation, which is partly why it’s so dangerous to focus purely on CO2.
We know little about complex climate interactions that remedial action could have negative effects. Knowledge is what’s required…
Sorry, getting carried away!
DK
“…aaaaaaand until I see this fabulous “space age” nanotechnology that is going to defy the laws of physics…”
Nobody is talking about breaking the laws of physics. All we’re suggesting is that instead of having to make solar panels by tricky purification of crystalline silicon in sophisticated kilns and precise engineering of doped layers and electrical connections, that instead you get to mix the ingredients up in a tub and spray it on to sheets of plastic. When solar panels are as cheap and easy to make as plastic shopping bags, of which we currently make and distribute more than 500 billion a year (that’s quite a few thousand square kilometres, if you work it out, and we shift that amount every year), then it will simply be an issue of landscaping.
As people keep saying, there’s no need for the physical efficiency to go up for a Moore-like law to apply, only for the price to come down.
I live in Minnesota, and right now I’m not sure if it’s going to be global warming, or cooling. I’m in my sixties, so whatever happens will probably happen after I’m dead.
Then there’s the problem of herding cats. How are libertarians to get everybody on board their bandwagon, when Al Gore can’t manage it for his?
Go away until you have more data. Write it down, and slip it under my tombstone. I’ll get back to you.
Who can I sue because my frigid bit of tundra would have turned into a lovely piece of arable land if it hadn’t been for those meddlin’ kids and their pesky Kyoto Treaty?
I had a good price worked out with some far-sighted Bangladeshis who’d sold their productive, but low-lying, land to move here.
That sounds great! Have you actually got any of this stuff yet, or is it something you’re hoping somebody’s going to invent?
Yes indeed. You’re planning to make all the electrical wiring in your plastic nanotubs as well are you?
Ian B wrote:
LOL!
There’s a form of Godwin’s Law I haven’t seen before! 😉
I reckon we need to answer at least five questions (though I realise that others’ mileage may vary):
1) Is climate change happening?
2) If so, will there be negative consequences?
3) If so, can anything be done to mitigate them?
4) If so, should we do them?
5) If so, to what degree should we exert ourselves?
—–
Re 1), the climate on this planet has never been stable- it is constantly fluctuating, as the geologic record demonstrates. This planet goes from having periodic temperate periods to ice ages, which has been going on long before humans came along.
So 1) is answered in the affirmative.
Re 2) change is occurring, and as with all change, it will cause a certain amount of disruption, which will benefit some and harm others.
So 2) is also answered in the affirmative.
The discussion that needs to be had is about 3), 4) and 5). But the eco-types generally base their answers to those questions on what they believe is the correct answer to 1): yes, change is happening, and it is due to human activity, therefore the proper means to deal with it is to tax prosperous humans and restrict human activity. This makes it impossible to discuss 3), 4) and 5) without also talking about 1) and 2).
Where I depart from the eco-types is not in denying that climate change happens, but in being reluctant to attribute those changes to human activity without much stronger evidence than has been presented thus far (see earlier statement re pre-humanity climate shifts between ice ages and temperate periods).
If climate change is not being caused by human activity, their justification collapses, and it ceases to be a matter of “it’s your fault, so we’re going to make you pay for it” and becomes a case of “random natural disaster, please donate funds to reduce the suffering”.
As far as the appropriate libertarian solution to the problem is concerned, ‘encourage economic development to spur the invention of a better technology that does not have this problem’ is a perfectly valid answer. That it does not require much in the way of government action (removing obstructions to development is about it) is a bonus.
That sounds great! Have you actually got any of this stuff yet, or is it something you’re hoping somebody’s going to invent?
Ian- check this out-
http://www.nanosolar.com/
I’m reminded of the late Harry Browne, and how cold-blooded the big-L party got to looking as his seminars morphed from “How You Can Profit From the Coming Economic Collapse” to topics like “The Coming Cholera Epidemic”…
Anecdotes: I used to bump into old friends in a bar (said cultural institution now defunct due to avid enforcement of DUI and smoking laws). One old friend was raised in construction, and had spent several seasons in Florida in the early 80’s. He said “We don’t build subdivisions and additions anymore. I’m building towns. About three a year.” The feeling back then was that our Rust Belt was getting colder and fiercer, home heating fuel was prohibitively scarce and expensive, and moving to Florida was how to survive. That fellow’s firm did nobly and profitably in that pursuit, making temperate life affordable for thousands of displaced Ohioans. I was galled, of course, and, ironically, my friend was flying his ultra-light one day when an errant Florida zephyr, triggered no doubt by climate change, took his life.
A motorcycling pal hailed from northern Italy, where his family had been, for generations, contractors in the building of “Roman walls”–large block reinforcements for port waterfronts. He came here to work in glass, go to college part time, and enjoy US prosperity. The glass business wasn’t doing so well, and a series of storms on the Adriatic caused his father’s business to look up unexpectedly. So he packed up his motorcycle and what he’d learned of American management practice and went home to be a foreman in keeping the sea out.
Bangladesh was half under water the year it was founded. There’s the hell of a market there for entrepreneurs who know how to move people to new towns, and keep the sea out. It may be paid for with microfinancing, or a UN world tax, or by traffic in human souls; but there’s honest work in it and money to be made. Not to sound like ould Harry, but that right there is how this bloody race has always dealt with climate change: by profiting from it.
In 1815 there was no summer in New England. That’s how Ohio got populated. You can look it up.
RobtE posed 5 questions:
1) Is climate change happening?
2) If so, will there be negative consequences?
3) If so, can anything be done to mitigate them?
4) If so, should we do them?
5) If so, to what degree should we exert ourselves?
That’s a good start to attacking the question, but it misses several important steps (or sub-questions). Here’s my expanded list (this would be better depicted in a classic decision tree, but I don’t think that can be done here):
1) Is climate change happening?
2) If so, will there be any negative consequences?
3) If so, will there be any positive consequences?
4) Will the positive consequences outweigh the negative ones? If the answer to this is “yes”, the analysis stops here. If the answer is “no”, and we conclude there is in fact a net negative result to climate change, then continue on to Question 5.
5) If so, can anything be done to prevent these net negative consequences?
6) Is human activity a materially contributing factor to climate change? If not, skip to Question 9. If yes, then continue on to Question 7.
7) Can things be done to reduce or eliminate the offending human activity?
8) If so, should we do them? What are the likely side effects of such actions?
9) If there is a net negative result to climate change, can things be done to mitigate the harm?
10) If so, should we do them?
11) If so, to what degree should we exert ourselves? And who should do the exerting?
As has been noted before, it’s clear the climate change is occurring because it has always been occurring, ever since the beginning of the planet. The Earth warms and it cools, naturally. But it is by no means certain that having a slightly warmer average global temperature (and we’re talking fractions of a degree here) is a bad thing. More arable land, a generally more temperate climate: these are good things. And even if there is a slight rise in sea level (estimates of this have been revised downward), it will occur over a very long period of time; we’ll have time to adapt and protect ourselves. So maybe we should be celebrating a warming planet, not playing Chicken Little.
Nor is it clear that human activity is a materially contributing factor to the change (in fact, I consider it doubtful, and the height of hubris to give ourselves that much credit). I don’t know if it is even possible to have a definitive answer to that question, since (as has also been noted above) the atmosphere is a chaotic system and inherently unpredictable. (More hubris on the part of the forecasters with their inherently flawed and unreliable models.) We certainly don’t have enough valid data for the gloom-mongers to be as certain as they are; it’s only recently that we’ve begun to collect reasonably reliable data from enough places on the planet. Most older data is from populous areas, and amounts to little more than anecdotal information.
Finally, if we do try to alter the human activities which we have concluded are affecting the climate, the results almost certainly will not be what was expected or intended. I posit that the global economy itself is a chaotic system, and the ultimate result of any input is inherently unpredictable. This is the Law of Unintended Consequences in all its glory, and if it’s not quite as quantifiable as the Law of Gravity it’s every bit as real. Humans will adapt to changes in the economic environment as much as in the physical one, and we will not long suffer a government-imposed decline in our standard of living. Any human-devised system of carbon credits, Pigou taxes, climate futures, Kyoto protocols, etc., will contain loopholes which will be exploited by clever people.
And ultimately, therein lies the answer to the question: whatever the change, humans will adapt to it. We always have, and we’re very good at it. Just get the f***ing government out of the way!
In this discussion your 1 and 2 are a given. What we are trying to discern is how we win the debate against totalitarians on what to do about it if it is indeed true. If Bangladesh floods it will have nothing to do with whether it is helpful to our cause or not, but if we have not even been making noises about how to help all those poor drowning people then the ideas of individual liberty are screwed and we will be in for generations where Statism is unchallengeable.,
I am not interested in how you talk among yourselves but how you win the public debate. Do you want to be ‘right’ amongst a small group or do you want to still be free in 20 or 30 years?
We need alternatives to state action that controls what kind of car we drive, what kind of bulb we can use, huge taxes for state projects, and on and on and on…
So stick to the point of the debate.
Dale:
From your lists of talking points, I conclude that you are looking for solutions for the aftermath of the disaster, assuming it takes place (even if gradually), rather than for ways to prevent it? If so, I am afraid the statists have an advantage, since they offer a solution that will (in their view) prevent the disaster from happening in the first place, and most of the general public will tend to prefer such approach. That is unless they can be convinced that the statist solution is not a solution at all.
Dale,
I think it was inevitable with this subject that people would see the question as being invalid. In a free society people must first be convinced of its necessity before having to take action. If you force people to do stuff that they don’t think is necessary, they are by definition not free. So in bypassing that step by requiring that we assume that they’re right and action is necessary, and then asking how we can ensure action is taken despite people remaining unconvinced, you outlaw a free society by the terms of the debate.
I suggest you try another example that isn’t so current. About 30-40 years ago we were told in books like Limits to Growth and The Population Bomb that the world was overpopulated, we were about to run out of food, and there would be famines and wars and the collapse of civilisation before the millennium was out. (See the Ehrlich bet.) Julian Simon mentions in the preface to his book how he was taking part in discussions with the US government department that was actually planning how to bring about the mass sterilisation programmes in places like Africa and India, that would be needed to mitigate the disaster. That’s how seriously it was taken.
As it happens, they were totally and utterly wrong. But what if they had been right? How, in a free society, would we deal with overpopulation without illiberal measures like rationing, taxing children, forced sterilisation, wars for resources, and generally totalitarian centralised statist control?
That’s sufficiently out of date that you shouldn’t get distracted by people feeling the desperate need to point out why the hypothesis is wrong (which is obvious with hindsight), and yet raises essentially the same issues. Unrestricted capitalist development and consumption leads to global disaster, totalitarian control offered as a gentler alternative, what credible alternative would a libertarian have offered for the hypothetical case that the doomsters were right?
I’m not sure that we need to do anything. If you choose to live in an area subject to flooding like a flood plain or Bangladesh, you should not be surprised when you get a flood. If you choose to buy a house on top of a crumbling cliff, then your insurance won’t pay out when the cliff crumbles.
The Earth has been warmer than this before, and cooler. The only constant is change, as the MBAs say. And the best way to cope with it is to let people find their own solutions. Imposing one from the top is a sure-fire disaster. Humans are remarkably ingenious creatures.
Dale owns the main post and recently commented:
The actual totalitarianism here is, in my view at least, the over-riding of reasonable scientific scepticism. Though it is arguable that he is not, I actually think that Dale’s whole case (in narrowing the discussion to assuming the truth of Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming – CAGW) is actually either a case in support of the CAGW case or a dangerous distraction.
Dale originally wrote:
I hope Dale will allow me to comment in similar vein, without editorially smiting me away, that I am strongly sceptical of both a serious anthropogenic component and of a catastrophic component, though I see evidence of warming between 1970 and 1998, and though I accept a causal mechanism of warming through increased atmospheric CO2 (though I am sceptical of its magnitude being more than minor). I am pretty much with Jacob at at March 14, 2008 07:44 PM and with DK at March 14, 2008 03:26 AM. It is interesting, and worrying, that Dale and I disagree on this, especially seeing as we are both trained as scientists and continue that involvement with our work, though in different fields, neither of which is climate science.
The big point about being sceptical of the science is that one judges the evidence as insufficient to support the CAGW hypothesis.
In so far as we [the human race] should do anything, and what we should do, I would look to Bayesian Risk Analysis (enhanced with a bit of intergral calculus to cover the range of upside and downside ‘costs’ and their probabilities of occurrence). Sadly, on doing this (unless one has neo-religious conviction of the rightness of one’s partisan case) one realises that one should view oneself as is substantially too ignorant to decide firmly on any course different from carrying on burning the oil, coal and gas. I am reminded, from my university days in London, of the man wandering Oxford Street with sandwich boards stating (something along the lines of) “Repent, the end of the world is nigh!” Now, 30+ years on, I and my fellow students are mostly still here, though that man, most likely, is not. I hope he repented in time, though of what I really do not know.
If the sceptical stance on CAGW is not justified (as Dale wishes us to believe, or at least imagine for the purposes of this thread) and that there is a real and pressing danger, I must agree with Ian B at March 14, 2008 12:57 PM. This is that we should phase out burning of oil, coal and gas, even though that would slug the world economy and have all the consequences to human life and wellbeing arising therefrom. The reason I believe that is because concerted enforced action is the only way to ensure that the appropriate action is taken sufficiently quickly, given that the natural and entirely appropriate actions of each individual person would be to maximise their immediate economic wellbeing, and that of their children (in so far as they look ahead), by carrying on as we are.
If CAGW is total poppycock, we should obviously carry on as we are.
Given that the sceptical stance is well justified, what should we do?
Well, I think we should look to the problems of the world and society, in the short-, medium- and longer-term according to a model that is resouce constrained (in this case by human ingenuity and resources not essential for ‘survival’ – however we might judge that latter item). This could involve further analysis of the extent of global warming (including AGW) and such catastrophe as it might cause. This could also include further analysis of the timing, consequences and mitagation options of the next ice age; likewise for the erruption of the supervolcano in Yellowstone Park. Perhaps we could also include my biggest person worry for a world-shattering catastrophic natural event: big asteroid strike, for which we would only get a few years notice (if that) of a serious, predicable and extremely sudden downturn in the fortunes of humanity.
On the more prosaic side, we have the gradually approaching issues of human population and economic growth and their impacts on needs for water, food, energy and land. On these, suddenness is not really an issue (unless we choose to stick our heads in the sand). However, given human and societal nature, there is always the risk of escalation into wars over scarcity of these things.
As we are resource-constrained on human ingenuity and resources not essential for ‘survival’, getting the balance right for technological advance and societal planning is probably rather important. Despite Dale’s wishing to avoid discussion on this thread, we should be thinking whether the resources currently allocated to CAGW are in balance with our wider needs. This cannot be other than on the basis of how likely it is, including our scientific theories of causation and magnitude and our scientific and economic theories of consequences.
Also, if CAGW is either total poppycock or very seriously overstated, we need to consider why we have managed to make such a big mistake, and how future repeats are to be avoided. These questions go beyond a libertairian stance, to that good old Samizdata staple: rationality.
Best regards
If the public is wrong, or public perception of the coming catastrophes is wrong, you just tell them that they are wrong, and try to show them why.
They might believe you or might not, but you cannot and shouldn’t try to pander to them by accepting their false premise.
We must clearly distinguish between AGW, which is a hypothesis that has some plausibility, and between catastrophic predictions like Greenland melting, 30 feet of sea level rise, or the gulf current stopping.
Even the IPCC predicts 2-4 deg temp rise, and 2-3 feet of sea level rise in the next 100 years. That is far from catastrophic.
The catastrophic scenarios aren’t in any way scientific, they are simple old scare mongering, of the scifi type, totally baseless in fact or science.
Even if you believe AGW is a problem, you shouldn’t parrot these catastrophic scare mongering scenarios, at least not in a serious discussion.
The only correct thing to do is tell the truth.
Your hypothetical question didn’t help much.
Another remark about the notion of climate being a chaotic system. That is true as far as it goes, but is misunderstood in the popular mind and also in the mind of many “scientists” who should know better.
Climate is chaotic in the sense that is is extremely complex, to such a degree of complexity that we cannot fully understand it or model it. It is chaotic in a technical sense.
But on the other hand the climate of Earth is remarkably stable and invariable. Over the last billion years or so it hasn’t varied by more than a few degrees this way or the other. That’s not a chaotic system, that has been thrown out of balance by some minor nudge. It is stable and invariable beyond comprehension. That’s the historic record.
In the extraordinarily unlikely situation that Climate change is real and the world floods, here’s a great idea:
Move to higher ground.
The only answer that allows for freedom is no answer at all.
Bad things happen and (in this scenario) you can’t prevent them without doing equally bad or worse things. That’s not really an argument for any action, is it?
All the “prevent global-warming” nonsense is based on a fantasy that we can all stop burning fossil fuels and still lead lives similar to our current lives. In reality, the alternative to burning fossil fuels is cold, impoverished darkness, technological regression, and shortened, worsened lives for everyone for several generations to come.
No sale. I’ll take freedom and opportunity, even in crisis. Even if I were to lose my (imaginary) ocean-front land, in a free world with an opportunity society, I’d have a chance to use my abilities and make a reasonably good life for myself.
Freedom doesn’t solve every problem for everyone. It’s not supposed to. What it can do is provide you with the opportunity to make the most out of your life, even if problems befall you.
As much as I like the idea that we could put forth ideas that would allow us to move through this potential change the fix is already in. This is the key to establishing a world governing body, not about dealing with climate change. Already we are starting to see the science move and while it’s possible that yes indeed we are largely responsible for climate change that’s the prompt to be used for the greater good. You know what a slippery slope that is.
As to the ideas, free people with free markets would cope and move on. Technologies would bring changes, people would move. There would be winners and losers but overall we would survive. More than survive, advance. An overly regulated environment may not serve the masses very well though… it hasn’t thus far.
Jacob,
Ice ages.
The least horrifyingly expensive solution is probably to reduce the amount of solar radiation reaching Earth.
That may seem farfetched, but remember we have 100 years to do it. World GDP today is around $65T; in 100 years at 5% growth it would be $8,547T (and they would have the added intrinsic value of new and better technologies). That will be like having the resources of 650 USAs to work with, and consider how much better tech we have now versus 1908.
1) Climate change is happening and inevitable. See: Medieval Warm Period.
2) A massive push into nuclear energy – of the same extent as the current push into conservation – would be a tremendous piece of the puzzle regardless of whether global warming ends up being an issue.
Free market forces are not dominant in the nuclear energy field. The quickly shifting sands of regulations during the ’70s (in America) were specifically used to dampen and eventually cripple the entire industry. A comprehensive set of new regulations, or a twenty-year freeze on the current regulations is really all it would take to make nuclear feasible. It takes a long time to recoup the investment in a nuclear plant.
If we are overheating, then we’ll be in a position to convert to electricity for a lot of uses that don’t currently predominantly use electricity. (Cars.)
If we’re not overheating, we’ll still have a whole lot more energy, which will still drive the cost of oil down.
If we’re going into the next Maunder Minimum, having a whole lot of extra electrical capacity is still crucial.
So many logical fallacies in what you’re setting up here, starting with an appeal to ignorance.
At any rate, statists have answers to everything. What is the statist answer to end poverty? Does that mean that we have to have some thought out POLICY (a word intrinsically statist, it would seem to me). Somebody above answered “adapt.” Apparently you didn’t like that one. Apparently because it had no statist answer since that seems what you want to push us towards. Markets, etc. will adapt to climate change. Has this not happened in the past? Did not humanity adapt? At any rate, I’m about as interested in finding your kind of answers as you are about us “talking amongst ourselves.”
What Ben White said. Oh, and also Vercingetorix. And Pa Annoyed, too. But mostly what Ben said.
Since they are free people, how could we possibly know what they are going to do or what policy decisions would be best for them, even in such an artificially defined situation?
Everybody remembers Eisenhower’s warning about the, “military-industrial complex,” shoot, it has become the siren call of some.
Few if any recall — and it is never repeated — the second of the two specific warning he made in that very same speech(Link):
“The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present — and is gravely to be regarded.
Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.” (emphasis added)
The scientific-technological elite(Link), Eisenhower truly was prescient. Read the speech, it could have been written today.
DKK
Look, nobody has a right to a job doing what they want to do; they can only choose amongst the jobs available. And nobody has a right to work where they want; they can only work where jobs are available.
What the jobs are and where they are will change over time with the climate. The path is no different than it has been for generations. It happens over time. Deal with it.
Neither Bnagladesh nor the Netherlands has a special right to exist. Deal with it.
Meanwhile, anyone with a conscience and a sense of history and the future, will promote eduation as the necessary aid.
Naive people will go forward with some idea right now. Wisdom will realize that any mass government directed idea is not smart. Even if it was effective, it would only be so by accident. Chances are it will be detrimental and counter -productive.
The truth is that the science on climate change is in such an infantile state that we have no clear way to follow right now. The correct action for now is NO action. For those who argue that we need to act before it is too late, modern history is replete with the “shocking” results of how quickly nature recovers to stable points after the artificial means which held at some unstable point are removed.
If, sometime in the future, global warming really needs to be acted on, it will be obvious to enough of humanity that mass directed ( not mass governmentally enforced ) action of the populace will cure the problem.
I doubt this will really happen though.
So what should a smart person do now about global warming. Absolutely nothing.
I would like to point out alternative fuels. Once believed and promoted as a combatant to man made warming, they are now believed to be even worse than fossil fuels.
I can construe any other suggested fix to actually yield more problem than solution in the long term. So, in essence, I agree with those who believe the dynamic nature of the human is the best solution, not bureaucratic long term planning.
Let me part the trees to enable a view of the forest.
Leaving aside the fact that there is no proof of man-made warming, and only a weak case for measurable warming over the historically short duration of reliable temperature measurement records, virtually nobody disputes the theory that ice ages and ice-less ages have come and gone several times in earth’s history.
This tells the thinking person that adaptation has been and will continue to be the ONLY answer to climate change.
If sea-level change is inevitable, does it really matter whether it’s man-made, natural, or the result of space-aliens dropping in and unloading sixty-quadrillion acre-feet of “water” out of their holding tanks?
The obvious answer is no, you prepare and adapt for the change, regardless of the cause of the change, and regardless of whether the change is coming next year or 40 generations hence.
As for specifics, one doesn’t need to reinvent the wheel here, but rather, just look at how the free-market and only a limited involvement of government have prepared and adapted for “global geology change,” aka earthquakes.
Government’s only involvement in addressing this “global change” has been in the realm of zoning/building codes, research, and disaster aid in the few occurrences where the level of damage is truly “unexpected.”
Meanwhile, the free market has adapted with building materials/practices, insurance pricing/coverage, land pricing/demand, and many other aspects.
How silly would it seem to try and blame one’s own ancestors, or the ancestors of others for deciding to locate a major city along an earthquake fault, or to try using that as a basis for litigation?
Should we tax those who live on stable ground specifically for the purpose of subsidizing repairs/reconstruction for those who have chosen to live on unstable ground? Beyond providing a minimal level of disaster aid, no.
Common sense would dictate that one not build on unstable ground or too near a dynamic body of water, but guess what? A majority of the world’s population lives in cities that are on unstable ground and/or too near a dynamic body of water.
Wrong. A smart person needs to do his best to learn the truth and spread it so as to prevent the hysteric alarmist from imposing disastrous measures on us, like rationing energy use by decree.
PA An.
The chart in your link states that in the past 2 billion years average temperatures on earth have varied between 12 deg C and 22 Deg C. They have oscillated several times between these “extremes” – and that was precisely my point: they have been remarkably steady, and have not run to catastrophic levels that the alarmists try to frighten us with. The chaotic climate has been remarkably un-chaotic.
I am skeptical about the catastrophic global warming scenario, but I have another question. What if the warming is natural and it continues (or, rather starts again since it hasn’t been happening for the last six or eight years according to the data, regardless of what Al Gore and the IPCC say)? In such an event the actions being taken in much of the West now, which focus on eliminating the emissions of CO2, will destroy the economy of most of the world, resulting in higher death rates in the third world (similar to what happened after the ill-advised and unnecessary banning of DDT), but do nothing helpful. Why not focus on developing technology for reducing temperature. This could include removing CO2 from the atmosphere, but should also consider other approaches such as increasing albedo so that temperature can be reduced even if the source of the increase is natural rather than due to greenhouse gases. It would also be good to attempt to do some system engineering to determine what the optimal mean temperature is. I suspect that somewhat higher than the current mean temperature would be better. Perhaps we should also consider what we should do if temperatures decline in the future, as I expect to happen. We know from experience that cooler (ice ages,, little ice age) is worse for mankind than warmer.
Jacob,
In a sense, I agree with you. But my point was that, despite being only about 5-10 C different, ice ages are a significant climatic change that would require some considerable effort to adapt to. Generally, cooling is harder to adapt to than warming, but both require changes.
Of course, the problem is that the global average smooths over very much wider local swings. Trying to represent the climate with a single number is a fairly daft thing to do.
Climate change has and will continue to pose significant issues for civilisations. But not insurmountable ones.
I how about we give anyone who lives 3 miles off shore the freedom from some federal and state taxes? And have as a priority zoning laws that allows the infrastructure to be built that allows people living beyond 3 miles of shore to commute to the “mainland”. And generally encourage by removing various laws prevent people living on and in the ocean.
In same way one could look at NASA working towards a time where people could living in space. We could have policies that allow people to live, and work in the ocean environment.
If we are building cities or communities that float or are underwater it doesn’t make much difference if in a 100 years sea level rise whatever crazy amount you think is possible.
As for concern about rising CO2, we farm the ocean. In the open ocean there a lack of plant nutrients, therefore we could increase these levels and thereby increase quantity of sea life dependent upon this food source. If we could double or triple the amount plant life in the oceans we would probably have a CO2 shortage.
Dale,
Point out to them the following.
If global warming is real but is not caused by human activity, then the horrendous consequences of stopping or substantially reducing all activities that cause CO2, etc emissions will be vastly greater death tolls in places like Bangladesh. Vulnerable people in the third world will be hit with a double strike. They will be denied technology to get out of their poverty and fund their own survival. And they will be unable to get help dealing with the consequences of global warming because all of the first world’s resources will either be diverted to stopping first world emissions or the first world will completely lose even the means to fund third world relief as a consequence of stopping emissions.
In short, this is not a case of “better safe than sorry”. If the Greens are wrong, they will kill tens or hundreds of millions with the consequences of their mistake. And if there is continued global warming and it is anthropogenic, even the Kyoto protocol’s economically cataclysmic prescriptions will do little if any good. By their own numbers. Are they willing to gamble so many millions of lives on a token gesture? How many millions are they willing to sentence to death so they can feel good in the interim?
If we are going to help the huge number of people that will be effected by global warming, it will require a strong economy to do it. If feel-good token gestures deprive us (and the third world) of the means to help them then the resulting humanicide falls straight on the souls of the carbon crusaders.
They need to know this. I fear the stealth nihilists among them already do.
I don’t think it’s a big stretch to imagine the “climate change problem” being solved by libertarian, free-market means, if the problem actually exists and is also caused by mankind…and, actually, even if it isn’t. The public shaming, media mini-documentaries, and ritual indoctrination of children (speaking as a child who had environmental units in school at least once a year from 8 years old onward) going on now is slowly approaching a fever pitch – and that’s here in the Good Ol Gas Guzzlin, SUV Drivin USA. I can’t imagine what the noise level is like in Europe.
And right now, this public reaction is based on speculation, misread data, alarm over certain weather (as opposed to climate), and an in-flux field of science. God forbid we actually find out for certain, in a scientifically observable way, that the Earth is warming precipitously and artificial CO2 is the majority culprit. The outcry would rival the emissions themselves in affecting the sea level. Instead of making documentaries, Al Gore might be shamed into lowering his personal carbon footprint several orders of magnitude until it resembles that of an average citizen.
The free market measures are being lost in the statist measures, sometimes literally. Car manufacturers, for example, have been expanding their hybrid and flexifuel models based on nothing but consumer demand. This isn’t fast enough for the Green movement, who demand that the governments take whatever progress the corporations have achieved and demand they double it, by law. But the free market reaction is still there, and given enough time would do the work without increasing the power of the state. (Which is no small feat when you consider the natural conglomeration and status-quo tendencies of the auto industry.)
I’m with sunfish and comatus and Ben White and John Hansen on this, I think. People will adapt based upon the situation that they’re faced with.
According to some people (I’m not an expert), it was overgrazing that killed the savannah in Northern Africa and created the Sahara Desert. People moved to Europe and carried on.
Admittedly, having most of north Africa as desert instead of farmland is a really big “oops,” but the human race did get over it. Fortunately for them (and us, I guess) there was at the time no planned central action at the time to allocate the pristine forests of Europe to the most ecologically deserving neolithic farmers. I suspect everyone would have been even worse off if that happened.
Cowperthwaite said: “… in the long run the aggregate of decisions of individual businessmen, exercising individual judgment in a free economy, even if it is often mistaken, is less likely to do harm than the centralized decisions of a government; and certainly the harm is likely to be counteracted faster. ” And he was a lot smarter than me.
Try applying the concept of transitive solutions to any proposed action. That is, actions designed to reduce [say] carbon dioxide emissions to combat global warming should include the reverse action to increase carbon dioxide emissions as soon as global cooling is detected. If someone will not entertain a solution as transitive [working equally in reverse] then the problem is actually only a lever to pry up the taxes and controls. During the global cooling era, jet plane travel was bad because the contrails acted as clouds reflecting needed incoming energy; now the same jets are bad because of carbon dioxide emissions. So the climate concerns are only cudgels to control air travel…
The question as I understand it is about the rhetoric of libertarian solutions. How do we sell libertarian solutions to common Joe/Joline?
I know of only one sure fire solution to this problem.
Television.
Most people don’t understand even the basics of economics. As an example, look at ethanol. People think that we can grow gas from corn and eliminate fossil fuels.
We could propose any number of solutions or even predict how the problem will take care of itself, but when the public thinks you can replace one commodity for another, you have no chance.
The libertarians have the same problem today as always…nobody can sell. It’s not entirely our fault. The politicians are promising free money, gas from corn, universal health care, and justice for all.
The libertarian message? It’s difficult but I’ll start:
Government: Stay out of my life; Stay out of my business.
Save gas, save money, save the world.
Government doesn’t work: Only you can prevent global warming!
No blood for oil: Nuclear Now!
The critical non-rhetorical problem you propose is one of relocating people. The solution to that is open borders. How do you sell that?
Actually as a free individual I plan to become rich and deploy weather control satellites then charge the rest of the planet confiscatory rates to keep the climate how they like it. Otherwise …
We are to assume climate change in this discussion. When has man ever not assumed climate change? Even man-made change? Although I believe man-made global warming is more a religion than a science, whatever will or whatever has ever happened in the history of man on earth has caused and will cause man to adapt as necessary. Technology, both the shared and sold kinds, will eventually solve any problem. Personally, I find this topic the antithesis of libertarianism, given that the notion of discussing what we are supposed to do with a world full of victims arising from a cause both speculative as to its liklihood and speculative in its damage is antilibertarian to begin with. The answer is the individual, as always, will adapt. And he can do that better without political help, thank you very much.
Its an ill wind that doesn’t blow someone some good.
From a libertarian perspective, the people who own land in flooded areas made a mistake, and will have to change their behavior. Farmers who bought or inheirited land in areas which are covered with new ice lose their investment. Companies who offer flood insurance to people who own land in flood prone areas should increase their rates to cover probable losses.
On the other hand, those whose higher altitude land is beach front property gain, and their gain is not taxed. Those who moved away earlier, sold their devalued land, but didn’t take the entire fall themselves. New farmland which opens up in what is now north African desert gain, and their gains are not taxed.
It’s not clear to me whether I am supposed to posit global warming or disaster. One of the biggest problems with the AGW floggers is the blithe assumption they make that the consequences of global warming must be harmful. I would have thought that most of the effects would be beneficial, e.g. improved health, longer growing seasons, etc.
I expect that there will be some climate changes over the next century (aren’t there always?), but the human race has shown itself to be resourceful in the past, and I expect that they can do so again. Let’s take a really dire scenario. Suppose (contrary to all expectation) that we discover that the earth will soon be struck by a large asteroid. Unless we act to do something about it, not only humanity but all life on earth is likely to be wiped out. If this were to happen, I think we would quite likely find some way to divert the asteroid from its path. If not, well, none of us will be on hand to view our failure. However, if we succeed, then we will not only have saved ourselves, we will also have saved just about every species of life on earth, with the possible exception of the cockroaches.
I do not hold with the prescriptions of the fanatics. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. I saw the comparatively trivial Y2K hysteria, which I understood well, since I have been programming computers for almost 50 years. I was asked to advise a potential investor in a conference call with the promoters of software ostensibly intended to “fix” this non-problem, and when I had finished debunking the scare, the promoters threatened to sue me unless I shut up. Enough said.
This climate change stuff has happened before, people solved the problem, without even engines.
Those Siberian Tribes who didn’t like what was going in in Siberia walked to Alaska, then down through the northwesten North American continent.
Without engine powered vehicles, at that. Are those prehistoric “Indians” so much smarter than our children?
If it warms we’ll move north. If it cools, south. Geez. You act like you have no feet.
I consider myself somewhere between conservative and libertarian, but for the purposes of this discussion that’s moot. The question as I read it is: How do you encourage people that the free market and freedom of choice can save the day vs. massive regulation? I offer five arguments.
1) Look at how Europe has bungled carbon trading through typical political games. There’s no reason to believe any regulatory system anywhere will avoid this fate or something like it. The bullet question: “Do you trust politicians or bureaucrats to run this?”
2) Zubrin’s energy plan requiring new cars sold in the US to support flex-fuels, while it sounds anti-free-market, is an extremely cheap solution that will open up a huge alternative fuel market in the US and globally, spurring innovation to move us away from oil. Corn ethanol is a joke but cellulose ethanol has been making good strides.
3) Simplifying nuclear power regulations in the US and elsewhere would increase the number of plants brought online, converting a large portion of electricity generation from oil to a much cleaner fuel. Complex regulation is the #1 roadblock to nuclear energy. As for the anti-nuke folks, some are beginning to come around. Nuclear generation creates far less waste and will help provide the power needed to drive the economy.
4) Affluent nations are the most environmentally friendly. I don’t mean places like Saudi Arabia, but countries with a dynamic and robust economy. They also contribute the most to research in how to produce, store, and save energy more cheaply. Excessive regulation harms economies, tightens research budgets, and discourages innovation.
5) The push for carbon emissions regulation may well force us into the worst solution. Noted scientist Freeman Dyson has pointed out that our full understanding of the carbon cycle, especially as it is stored in soil, rests on very little actual data. He suggests that if we make an effort to collect real data on this we may discover the means to add or remove CO2 in the air in as much quantity as we need through controlling vegetation.
So the bullet points: The free market can give us good short-term solutions. The free market holds a strong possibility of good long-term solutions. Overregulated markets perform worse. Oversight of regulations cannot be trusted to the political class. New technologies on the horizon will mitigate, some perhaps eliminate, the problem altogether. Freedom good.
PA Annoyed,
Of course a 5 dec C shift in temperatures is a significant change, that requires effort to adapt.
The point is: it’s not catastrophic. It’s not the end of life on earth as the scare-mongers predict. Human beings have adapted over the last hundreds of thousands years to these changes, maybe not without effort, but have adapted and survived.
So there is no good reason to the great fear of the “chaotic” climate.
Let’s assume that human activity is causing (a) real and (b) reversible or at least slowdown-able climate change; and that such change looks likely to be more negative than positive for the human species over rthe next couple of centuries. So we all agree that Something Ought to be Done.
So we want to (a) identify that Something (or basket of somethings), and (b) market it credibly.
The advantage (and PR appeal) of collectivist government outcomes is that they cut through all the ambient uncertainty and actually lead to an outcome, for better or worse. Something is Done.
The disadvantage is the fact that those outcomes usually involve all sorts of tactical and essentially irrelevant short-term trade-offs among interest groups. Hence they may be either badly conceived or poorly implemented, or (worst) insufficiently flexible to be dropped if something much better is discovered along the way.
Plus there is the opportunity cost. Resources poured into those solutions are taken away by force from all sorts of people/organisations who might be able to use them to attack the problem quite differently.
So an intelligent and credible (because ‘realistic’) libertarian position and its marketing could be built around a different vocabulary.
It could stress in an intelligent “Yes, but…” way that there are many uncertainties in cause and effect, timescales, winners and losers etc. And that the very nature of this complexity points to mobilising a host of clever ideas for dealing with all the myriad ramifications and uncertainty of climate change.
This in turn points strongly against putting most of our eggs in very few government-sponsored ‘heavy’ technological baskets, and instead doing everything possible to use tax and other incentives creatively to set free our networked imaginations, including those of Bangladeshis.
We also could draw on Moore’s Law ideas of the compounding up of creativity. Ideas and outcomes which look impossible now may become far more credible as millions of people link up and tackle them informally with surging, cheaper computer power: plus countless new ideas and small and large technical fixes are emerging all the time.
In short, the language of spreading our bets.
These days people not the state own the ‘means of production of ideas’ and so should be the driving force for tackling – and taking responsibility for – such shared strategic problems with consequences far into the future.
Much more individual carrot. Far less one-size-fits-most state stick.
Perhaps when you finish this discussion, you can debate how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.
In the extremely unlikely event, that the climate should change dramatically, libertarians would advocate letting the free market develop the tools to adapt.
As the Marines say: “Improvise, Adapt and Overcome” or “Suck it up and drink some water!”
PA and Dale,
Moreover. The climate alarmists sense that the 2-3 deg and 2-3 feet of water predicted by “science” (a.k.a. IPCC) are not ctastrophic, and will not spur people to urgent self immolation.
So they invent the scare scenario, the “End of the World as we know it”, caused by a feedback loop or vicious circle. Warming causes more warming, and so on, like a geometric series.
The problem is: 1. there is no scientific indication for such a loop. and 2. it’s a regular, predictable loop, which isn’t compatible with the chaotic nature of climate. In a chaotic system you don’t have regular, predictable loops.
Dale,
Science isn’t a matter of having vague feelings. You’ve got enough of a scientific education and comprehension in order to be able to form an informed opinion. Read more scientific papers on climate (as contrasted with journalism).
I own land on a barrier island in Florida. It is 12′ above sea level. I plan to rebuild the old house. In the new house, I plan to design it in a way that will incorporate rising sea levels. I plan to have the lower floors sealed so that they can become an observatory. The upper floors will have decks that can be used to moor a boat. The neighborhood will be emptied of neighbors. I expect fishing to be great… Email me for an invitation.
If the sea rises, new opportunities will also arise. We will see changes in property values, changes in house design, changes in industries that service the infrastructure, changes in the communities of interest that form markets…
The whole discussion thus far has been about fear mongering and planning for the worst. Warmer climates will make areas presently unpleasant if not uninhabitable fertile and desireable. Longer growing seasons, more CO2 will increase the size and diversity of plants, the combination will make an explosion of new markets, new opportunities and new valuations.
Having lived in the SF Bay Area for almost 30 years I no longer fear the future, creative disruption, temporary shifts in the marketplace as values seek a new level.
Whatever changes occur, if we focus on new opportunities and trust in the markets things will work out. We all have skills and abilities. If we keep them sharp we will survive and thrive…
What our Thought Leaders consistently overlook, ignore or never knew is that we humans adapt faster than any other species. Those who would-be our Masters want to enslave us so that we need not adapt to changes or opportunities…
As a free man I relish my opportunities, welcome changes and weather adversity…
Jacob,
I agree. I’m a sceptic myself. All I was saying was that climate changes over the past billion years, like a wall of ice burying everything as far south as London, could not be written off as trivial. Civilisations can, and in the past did, collapse as a result of climate change.
One degree (the most likely outcome) isn’t even going to be noticeable, three degrees wouldn’t be difficult to adapt to. But much more than five would require major global shifts in population and agriculture, and over billions of years that sort of thing has happened. It would still be eminently survivable, and the odds of it happening are remote, but one doesn’t maintain credibility by pretending it wouldn’t be a major problem if it did.
But I’m nitpicking, and well off topic after Dale specifically asked us not to discuss the scientific merits. That’s enough from me.
Since all this conjecture is based on assumptive data, fed into a low-fidelity, low-granularity, model of the earth’s atmosphere, oceans, wind, clouds, solar activity, etc. ….Free men should only scoff at the global climate weather soothsayers. The models cannot tell you if it will be raining tomorrow much less the temperature 100 years from now.
The only consensus pronouncement from the UN and its experts, that will call me to action, would be:
“The giant asteroid will definitely slam into the earth in 20 years. We need to do something!”
Each year, millions move south to warmer climes because their desire to avoid living through another year of snow and ice had increased until it surpassed their desire to maintain the status quo. Human adaptation to climate change is built into our behavior–we just don’t think of it that way. The answer to the question is being answered every day, but so gradually and so within our expected behavior that nobody really notices it.
I suspect that the policy problem of how our respective governments should react to climate changes, or how we should attempt to influence those governments to react, is to keep them as immobile as possible so that they do not effectively interfere with the natural order of things. Like in so many other areas in policy, for climate change an impotent government is the best sort.
Let them eat cake. When the 50-100 years pass that allows big forests and especially grain-based farming to adjust to the over-sudden boost in CO2, and thus start growing twice as fast, especially faster growing species or artificially/naturally bred species take over, there will be more food. Fattening food. But by 50-100 years, we will have figured out how to alter our bodies in order to stop suffering obesity due to a severe change in our diet of processed, highly-refined, low magnesium, low omega-3 fats, etc. to be as healthy as can be. What does this have to do with “global warming” er I mean “climate change” or I guess “climate chaos” (ooooo noooo!)? That the one thing we *do* know is that CO2 is going to go up. That current science says that maybe, even most likely, this will not be enough to alter what the moody hydrogen bomb in the sky does to temperature or sea levels, upping them or in my mind more likely reducing them (which would be good, since non-polluting types of dust could easily be injected into the upper atmosphere to attenuate sunlight and give deeper, more relaxing sunsets), but along with CO2 fertilization of the entire biosphere (the ultimate trickle down theory), the grain-based “food pyramid” based diets that the government uses as propaganda in order to, conspiracy theories aside, makes us head to the doctors due to heart problems, diabetes, failed diets, etc. will either be exposed as a form of HIGHLY profitable genocide, or the pills will actually start working to make us thin and free of heart disease and cancer, which they do not yet do, and we will become $200/month customers of “Big Pharma” for life.
For now, what would a free man do about global warming? Realize that he will likely not live long enough to allow the science to do what Science does, which is figuring out what is really going on, not taking premature votes and feeding that to the scare-thirsty money-grubbing media. Worrying about global warming now is like the whole country getting whipped up about forests being cut down to make ships back in the 1700s before coal and steel replaced wooden ships.
A free man would also wonder, assuming he is becoming middle aged, how to stay healthy by adopting a diet that our bodies are actually adapted to, so we can avoid being a statistic in the massive and continuing fall since 1970 in the health of the population. Now *there* is a problem one man can deal with, one in which unlike climate science, does not rely on computer models except to show how, say the insulin molecule activates the insulin receptor that causes triglicerides to be stored as fat, whenever you eat refined carbohydrates.
hey climate is what,its just nothing.This is in our hand to make it or destroyed it.we can also see that, how the global warming debate raging in both the United States and Europe has become extremely contentious and it is also increase in the average measured temperature of the Earth’s near-surface air and oceans since the mid-twentieth century and it still on processing.
dorkey
Knox