Thought du Jour

Today, as negotiations on climate change begin, the Financial Times publishes a strongly-worded, lead editorial. The editorial begins and ends with the following two paragraphs.

As the biggest environmental meeting in history opens in Copenhagen, the scientific case for a global agreement to fight man-made climate change remains overwhelming. The furore over alleged data manipulation, following the theft of e-mails from the University of East Anglia , has stirred up the sceptics (and shaken some scientists) but Climategate does not alter the real issue – that, despite many uncertainties, the risks of catastrophic change justify decisive global action to cut carbon emissions. ….

The forces of negativity and scepticism, whether self-interested or naive, must not prevail if we are to reduce the threat to the planet’s future without sacrificing future economic growth.

“Copenhagen: we can’t risk failure”, Financial Times, 7 December 2009.

The middle paragraphs are equally sensible and well-written.

One of these climate sceptics the editorialist worries about is Regent University economist Doug Walker, a close friend and former colleague. He might be self-interested (Aren’t we all?), but is certainly not naive. Douglas is very articulate and writes, in part:

The United Nations Climate Change Conference is scheduled to begin tomorrow, 7 December, in Copenhagen, Denmark, for two weeks of talks aimed at concluding an agreement that would enter into force after the first phase of the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012.  The meeting will bring together 15,000 delegates and officials, 5,000 journalists and 98 world leaders, 1,200 limos and 140 private jets.  The extraordinary carbon footprint of the meeting (roughly, Morocco’s annual carbon emissions) is likely to be its most lasting legacy to the world.

In his most foolish promise, President Obama has said he will pledge the United States to lower its emissions of carbon to a level 85 per cent below those of 2005.  This would bring the level of American emissions to those of 1910, which, given the much higher expected level of population in 2050, means the per capita U.S. emissions would be about those of 1875.

Douglas O. Walker, “A fable for Copenhagen”, group email message circulated on 6 December 2009.

If Douglas posts the entire e-mail to his blog – as he often does – I will provide the link in an update. It is important to read all views, even those of sceptics.

Has Jared Diamond sold out, or has he become enlightened? You be the judge, after reading this essay, which begins

There is a widespread view, particularly among environmentalists and liberals, that big businesses are environmentally destructive, greedy, evil and driven by short-term profits. I know — because I used to share that view.

But today I have more nuanced feelings. Over the years I’ve joined the boards of two environmental groups, the World Wildlife Fund and Conservation International, serving alongside many business executives.

As part of my board work, I have been asked to assess the environments in oil fields, and have had frank discussions with oil company employees at all levels. I’ve also worked with executives of mining, retail, logging and financial services companies. I’ve discovered that while some businesses are indeed as destructive as many suspect, others are among the world’s strongest positive forces for environmental sustainability.

Jared Diamond, “Will Big Business Save the Earth?”, New York Times, 6 December 2009.

Professor Diamond goes on to cite positive examples from the work of Wal-Mart, Coca-Cola and Chevron – three companies “that many critics of business love to hate, in my opinion, unjustly”.

Jared Diamond is an environmental activist who teaches in UCLA’s geography department. He is author of Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies (W.W. Norton, 1997) and Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (Viking Books, 2005). For a critical review of these books, see the essay written by journalist Gregg Easterbrook and noted by Thought du Jour back in January, 2005:

They are magnificent books: extraordinary in erudition and originality, compelling in their ability to relate the digitized pandemonium of the present to the hushed agrarian sunrises of the far past. I read both thinking what literature might be like if every author knew so much, wrote so clearly and formed arguments with such care. All of which makes the two books exasperating, because both come to conclusions that are probably wrong.

Gregg Easterbrook, “‘Collapse’: How the World Ends”, New York Times, 30 Janaury 2005.

What is important is that Jared Diamond continues to think clearly about important issues, and is willing to change his mind when necessary. Jared Diamond’s words are always worth reading, regardless of whether we agree or disagree with the conclusions he reaches. Indeed, I find his work to be most valuable – because it causes me to question my own beliefs – when I disagree.

Martin Wolf explains why tackling climate change should not be delayed.

My view that decisive action is justified is contentious. Sceptics offer two counter-arguments: first, that the science underlying climate change is highly uncertain; second, that costs exceed benefits.

Yet it is not enough to argue that the science is uncertain. Given the risks, we have to be quite sure the science is wrong before following the sceptics. By the time we know it is not, it is likely to be too late to act effectively. We cannot repeat experiments with just one planet.

Fortunately, the evidence suggests that the costs of action should not be prohibitive.  ….

Either we act soon – or we finally discover whether the sceptics are right. If we fail to act, as seems likely, I hope they are. But I very much doubt it.

Martin Wolf, “Why Copenhagen must be the end of the beginning”, Financial Times, 2 December 2009.

There is much more of interest in the full column.

Update: Try this link (courtesy www.thebrowser.com) to the column if the direct link does not work.

World leaders are meeting in Copenhagen this December to forge a new pact to tackle global warming. Should they continue with plans to make carbon-cutting promises that are unlikely to be fulfilled? Should they instead delay reductions for 20 years? What could be achieved by planting more trees, cutting methane, or reducing black soot emissions? Is it sensible to focus on a technological solution to warming? Or should we just adapt to a warmer world?

Much of the current policy debate remains focused on cutting carbon, but there are many ways to go about repairing the global climate. ….

A groundbreaking paper by economists Eric Bickel and Lee Lane is one of the first – and certainly the most comprehensive – study of the costs and benefits of climate engineering. ….

Bickel and Lane offer compelling evidence that a tiny investment in climate engineering might be able to reduce as much of global warming’s effects as trillions of dollars spent on carbon emission reductions.

Bjørn Lomborg, “Global Warming’s Cheap, Effective Solution”, Project Syndicate, August 2009.

Danish statistician Bjørn Lomborg (1965-) is best-known for his controversial book The Skeptical Environmentalist. This climate change skeptic now concedes that global warming is a serious problem that requires immediate attention, and he actively supports the idea of forging a global agreement at this year’s meeting in Copenhagen.

The paper that Lomborg refers to is an un-refereed report, “An Analysis of Climate Engineering as a Response to Global Warming”, drafted by economists by J Eric Bickel (University of Texas) and Lee Lane (American Enterprise Institute) and recently released by his Copenhagen Consensus Center. The full report can be downloaded here. Bickel and Lane find large net benefits for three specific technologies: injection of aerosols (such as sulfur dioxide or soot) into the stratosphere, increase of marine cloud albedo (by spraying seawater droplets into marine clouds to make them reflect more sunlight), and deployment of a space sunshade (composed of trillions of tiny autonomous spacecraft). In reference to the space sunshade, the authors (p. 47) frankly admit that “the sheer scale of this project boggles the mind”. J.

Eric Bickel has a PhD in Engineering-Economic Systems from Stanford University. Lee Lane has a BA in European history from the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

Meteorologist Alan Robock of Rutgers University commented on the Bickel/Lane report. He concludes:

It may be that the benefits of geoengineering will outweigh the negative aspects, and that most of the problems can be dealt with, but the paper from Lomborg’s center ignores the real consensus among all responsible geoengineering researchers. The real consensus … is that mitigation needs to be our first and overwhelming response to global warming, and that whether geoengineering can even be considered as an emergency measure in the future should climate change become too dangerous is not now known. Policymakers will only be able to make such decisions after they see results from an intensive research program. Lomborg’s report should have stopped at the need for a research program, and not issued its flawed and premature conclusions.

In all fairness, the report’s authors would agree that more research is needed. Bickel and Lane stress that they provide only “a preliminary and exploratory assessment of the potential benefits and costs of climate engineering”.