"[W]hat the world’s scientists are telling us, with increasing confidence, is that the costs of doing nothing will be far greater than the costs of acting now," according to today's New York Times. This is a red herring. Carbon dioxide is a massive global sink with a half-life of 3-9 decades (which gives you an idea of the uncertainty in climate models) so that our 6 billion tons per year results in a steady state of US carbon dioxide of about 600 billion tons. If we cut carbon dioxide 1 billion tons/year immediately at a cost of $20 billion/year we end up with 580 billion tons in 20 years at a 60 year half life. If we have no cuts for ten years, then 2 billion/year for 10 years, we'll also have 580 billion ton. That suggests that 2 tons/year permanent reduction in ten years is worth about the same as a one ton per year permanent reduction today. That suggests immediate carbon abatement has about a 7% rate of return versus abating later. Not terrible, but not terribly immediate. Time to pick some low hanging fruit.

So how much is a ton of abatement worth? Doom sayers say priceless, but how do we attribute lives lost to carbon and lives saved to carbon abatement? Doom sayers predict desertification, hunger and hurricanes. I predict richer nations with moving crop patterns and moving populations. A degree or so a decade is small beer compared to the price of corn doubling. Who is dying and why is carbon abatement cheaper than shipping barges of wheat from Canada to Africa and Latin America?

14 bushels of wheat (350 kg) costs $63 or $6.3 billion to feed 100 million people. $6 billion in carbon dioxide offsets at $20/ton only would cut 1% of current world production. It might be a lot cheaper to fix the famine later than the climate now.

there are other costs though.

What is a Polar Bear Worth?

What is the cost of a Cat 5 hurricane into Miami?

What is the cost of a 12" rise in Sea Level in 10 years?

Leaving aside Mr. at's "But how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?" unanswerable inanities, there is a substantive point you've left out, Sam, in an otherwise pithy and useful essay.

The problem rational people see with climate change is not so much the change per se, but rather the speed of the change. Put it another way: Category 5 hurricanes are only a problem if they start appearing where they haven't before. They happen all the time in the open ocean, after all, but people know that and take appropriate precautions. It's only when they start appearing in new places that problems arise, and even then the problems go away as fast as people adapt to the new reality.

Unfortunately natural ecosystems have a finite speed of adaptability, and the fear is that if climate change occurs too rapidly, the results will be dire, the equivalent of a big meteor strike. It's not clear human civilization, even with its superb rapid-response abilities, can response fast enough and effectively enough to prevent disaster.

But on the whole, I agree with you that it's probably a lot more rational to think about adapting to climate change than to think about trying to stop it in its tracks. We're not even sure about the Earth's diagnosis, so to speak -- we're in no position to give treatment a whirl.

Nor am I suggesting it isn't sensible to pick some low-lying fruit. It's sensible to decrease CO2 emissions where it's reasonably cost-effective no matter what, to moderate whatever contribution we're making to climate change.

The sad part of this situation is that certain elements -- disaffected bitter ex-Presidential candidates, for example -- have taken a real but almost certainly soluble problem and demagogued it so badly that huge swathes of the population whose support is needed to make progress have been alienated. It's almost like the left's usual argument about the "War on Terror" -- that if the US proceeds in a heavy-handed way it will alienate the Islamic moderates necessary for ultimate success.

Well, that's how the left itself has behaved as far as climate change is concerned, which means they have, if anything, only delayed the date when any useful action can begin.

14 bushells of wheat will cost a lot more than $63 if it's all used to make ethanol. Already the dairy farmers are struggling.

Already the dairy farmers are struggling.

Ah, let 'em eat beef.

What is the reduced risk of polar bear extinction due to curbing one ton of carbon? What is the reduced risk of a hurricane hitting Miami due to curbing one ton of carbon? What is the probability of reducing the chances of a 12" sea level rise in ten years due to curbing one ton of carbon?

We routinely deal with storm surges measured in feet per day or hour so 12" per year would be expensive, but not prohibitive.

--

$4.50/day is today's price complete with an ethanol boom.

"China's coal fires, which consume an estimated 20 – 200 million tons of coal a year, make up as much as 1 percent of the global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels."
-from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mine_fire (the statement is further referenced on Wikipedia to a 2005 article in the Smithsonian Magazine)

"But to Western scientists, China's coal fires, some of which have been burning for decades, are one of the world's least known environmental catastrophes."
-from here (also referenced by the Wikipedia entry)

That's China's coal fires alone and we're not talking about coal plants here. These are coal fires smoldering in the wild and/or in conjunction with poor mining practices. With exception to the references I've never heard anyone advocate that this problem be solved in any way, probably because most people ("environmentalists" or not) are understandably completely unaware of it.

""We invest so much money to reduce car pollution by one or two per cent," she said. "It would cost a fraction of that to tackle China's coal fires.""
-by Dr Prakash, taken from the same Telegraph article

I think all the above ought to interest people no matter what their opinons.

As for me I don't think humanity should aim to keep Earth in stasis at any cost, polar bears or no polar bears, Miami or no Miami, but I do think that if we actually do want to do something (and I'm not arguing that we neccessarily do because I'm not convinced either way) then we should try to do it where it will be the most cost effective.

I am a staunch proponent of doing nothing about "climate change". It's a futile endeavor, given that nobody knows, with any certainty, how, if at all, the climate is changing, or to what degree. Given that, how can you even start to talk about solutions and their relative "cost effectiveness".

Then there is the law of unintended consequences. One can never be sure if the solution will make things worse than the problem it's supposed to solve.

If we look at the end of the last ice age, there was a pulse of activity in sea level about 11-13k BC (labeled "Meltwater Pulse 1A"). The slope of that line is roughly 3 meters per century which turns out to be rough 12 inches in ten years. However, in comparison, recent changes in sea level are 20 centimeters per century or about 1/15 of the above amount. So I don't see the dramatic sea level rise here.

Second, my take is that the cost of US hurricanes are greatly exaggerated by subsidized flood insurance. One needs to remove that subsidy first (IMHO it is a much greater contributor to costs of hurricanes on the US eastern seaboard than increased strength and higher sea level).

Last post was me.

Global warming abrogation is a self correcting process. When the public gets tired of the BS restrictions, massive energy tax increases and reductions in standard of living for virtually no change in warming, they will soon vote the b**tards out.

This is the reason that the Euros haven't met their Kyoto targets (except Britain, who closed their coal mines to use Arab/Russian oil instead. A one time deal at marginal sacrifice)

I will be interested in what Hillary will do when she gets in. On the one hand there's this "problem" with climate change and then there's the cure, which may well be political suicide. Something which the Clinton's are very adapt at avoiding.

I'm sure that any "cure" would occur while Clinton or whoever is safely out of office (counting optimistically a second term). My bet is that we won't see anything till after 2016.

Ice sheets melt at a delay, one can think that the RATE of melting is proportional to the temperature, hence it is not very representative to look at current rates of sea level rise and expect them to stay the same as temperatures rise.

I bet the nations that are suffering the effects don't like very much if they have to depend on food aid in the future - it is essentially making them reliant on the food providers - possibly for reasons that the same food providers are responsible of.

Of course Sam's musing was just a short sketch. (Btw currently CO2 costs about 6 euros per ton IIRC, not 20 dollars)

I think it is increasingly unlikely we will have to worry about a Hillary candidacy, much less an administration. Lets face it, outside of some liberal stronghold like NY, she is a lousy candidate.

I think she is the Republican's dream candidate myself, to the point of considering switching parties to supprot her in the primary if Fred looks safe.

Posted by Mike Puckett at April 9, 2007 07:33 AM

As a female friend of mine said about Hillary Clinton "Her candidacy is the biggest faked "O" in history"...

Robert

My theory on global warming....revive that old Bumper sticker (with some change)

"Drive 90 outrage an econut"

Robert

I don't think that the "half-life" is anywhere near 3-6 decades.

We know the mass of the atmosphere and the CO2 concentrations at various times, especially over the last 20 years. We also know the amount of atmospheric CO2 from human sources.

Yes, there is some uncertainty in all of those numbers, but comparing the CO2 added with the year to year change in atmospheric CO2 shows that the half-life is much shorter than 3-6 decades.

"The group, the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, also noted that the climate shifts would benefit some regions — leading to more rainfall and longer growing seasons in high latitudes, open Arctic seaways and fewer deaths from the cold." (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/07/science/earth/07climate.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin)

This raises a question: why should the regions which _benefit_ from the change try to reduce greenhouse emissions at all - in order to get _more_ deaths from cold, _shorter_ growing seasons, _closed_ seaways? (Open seaways actually benefit the whole world - as do other
benefits not mentioned here: opening up of the Arctic mineral riches; crop yield increase due to higher CO2 content).

The IPCC report also says: "The worst effects would be felt in regions that are mainly poor and already facing dangers from existing climate and coastal hazards." Sounds like (among others) China and India. Yet they are the ones supplying most CO2 emission increase, and the ones most reluctant to slow down. IMO, they act wisely: certain economic growth is far more important than _marginal_ reduction in _potential_ climatic change damage, offset by marginal reduction in potential climatic change benefits. But right or wrong, _they_ are the most interested parties, so why not leave the decision with them?

I don't think that the "half-life" is anywhere near 3-6 decades.

It's not. What's more, there is no 'half-life'. The removal of CO2 from the atmosphere is not a simple single exponential decay process. CO2 is being absorbed into reservoirs that are saturating, so on a short timescale the CO2 will relax back to a level above what it was initially, then only slowly decline further as slower processes (migration of CO2 to the deep ocean, partial buffering of oceans by carbonate dissolution, further buffering by weathering of silicates) take hold.

As I recall, the current CO2 injection, if nothing else is done, will substantially elevate atmospheric CO2 for thousands of years.