Tuesday, December 15, 2009

Climategate

Not-all-that-interesting-interview with Al Gore about climate-gate. There are two important points he makes in the interview though. Here's one:



"The physical relationship between CO2 molecules and the atmosphere and the trapping of heat is as well-established as gravity, for God's sakes. What do they think happens when we put 90 million tons up there every day? Is there some magic wand they can wave on it and presto!—physics is overturned and carbon dioxide doesn't trap heat anymore? And when we see all these things happening on the Earth itself, what in the hell do they think is causing it?"


Of course, I assume everyone reading this pretty much agrees with me already about climate change, so I won't say much, but I still think it's an important point. One can never prove the causal human activity and global warming, but only track the correlation between emissions and temperatuer, and assign a probability of causation cased on certain models. Even if the greenhouse effect isn't behind the warming trend, we know it's not helping. The climate change skeptics, on the other hand, have no plausible model and no explanation for rising temperatures.

What I don't understand about climate change skeptics is that despite the fact that they're almost certainly wrong, they don't even recognize that probability. Even if there were no consensus about the science and the cause of global warming, wouldn't it still be worth doing something about it? If there were only a 50%, instead of well over 95%, chance that climate change has athropogenic roots, wouldn't it still be worth sacrificing 5% of our wealth now for a good chance at avoiding environmental and economic catastrophe later? It seems to me that even the worst deniers, even if they're right about the science by some freakish accident, are wrong about policy.

5 comments:

  1. yes the insurance point is made thoroughly and elegantly with plenty of math by economist MArty Weitzman. The "cost" of reducing emissions by 50 percent by 2050 is estimated by another economist, Nick Stern, as about 1 percent of global GDP annually. The "cost" to U.S. taxpayers of the recent bank bailouts are still mounting but likely to exceed 5 percent of GDP --one-time of course.

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  2. "Even if the greenhouse effect isn't behind the warming trend, we know it's not helping."

    If the warming trend turns out to be natural (and precedented/periodic), then it's not inherently bad/scary, so "not helping" is the wrong criterion.

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  3. I'd couldn't disagree more with that assessment. The social/economic/environmental damage of the warming will be just as severe whatever the cause. (If it is "natural" then it might be periodic, but would still probably last thousands of generations.) You seem to have fallen prey to the naturalistic fallacy, that whatever is "natural" is "good." If there were another natural ice age on the horizon that was going to cover 3/4 of the earth's surface with glaciers, wouldn't you want to stop it?

    At any rate, the only real difference between natural and anthropogenic warming is whether we CAN stop it, which would obviously be desirable in any case, but only possibly in the latter.

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  4. > You seem to have fallen prey to the
    > naturalistic fallacy, that whatever is
    > "natural" is "good."

    Not at all - this is not the contrapositive
    of "natural not inherently bad".


    > The social/economic/environmental damage of
    > the warming will be just as severe whatever
    > the cause.

    There is plenty of technical disagreement about
    the severity of that hypothetical damage.

    But consider also the issue of whether it's
    more likely to help get countries wealthier,
    so they can better afford to adapt to whatever
    is about to happen, instead of making them
    poorer and weaker, to try to stop the weather.

    At least you must admit that the choice between
    those is not obvious. Where should the burden
    of proof lie?

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  5. sorry, i should have said, 'You seem to have fallen prey to the naturalistic fallacy, that whatever is "natural" is "necessarily not evil."' it's a fallacy all the same.

    i dont understand your second point. the damage is completely independent of whatever causes it.

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