Bishop Hill Climate change - not so important
Jun 10, 2012 Climate: WG3 Tim Worstall is definitely in something of a climate change groove at the moment. In his Forbes blog, he's writing about a new paper in Nature that suggests that climate change deserves less of our attention than previously thought (or at least that's Tim's interpretation).
We are being warned that it is not just climate change that might lead to catastrophe: population growth could do this as well. Fair enough, a reasonable enough assumption.
What does this mean for our discussions of climate change? Well, it means that Stern is wrong in his discount rate, that the currently assumed social cost of carbon emissions is too high, that we should almost certainly be doing less about climate change than is currently planned and finally, that we should, again almost certainly, aim for more economic growth even at the expense of carbon emissions and climate change than is currently thought optimal.
Feels like a Eureka moment to me. Read the whole thing.
Reader Comments (40)
Worstall has been told by many experts that the IPCC science is a busted flush so he's jumping on the new band wagon.
As time goes by and the global warming charge becomes less clear, less dangerous and less attributable to man, the underlying thesis of the death of Mother Earth come to the surface: there are too many of us.
Carson, Ehrlich, Hansen and Suzuki are fundamentally hung up with too many people doing too much stuff. It is impossible to stop people doing stuff without forcing entire cultures or classes back to a living off the land, with its attendant higher mortality rate and lower self-actualization (as the higher philosophies wish us to have in this life). So the only (acceptable) solution is to reduce the population.
In a different context, Stalin is quoted as saying, "Where there is a man, there is a problem. Where there is no man, there is no problem". The context may be different, but the end result is the same for the Eco-Greens: get rid of "the man".
Rwanda, Armenia, Germany and Greater Serbia, Biafra, Cambodia and the Ukraine: these are all places where population reduction by culture and class have been seen as effective solutions to the perceived man-problem. The only way that the Eco-Greens will truly succeed in their desire to "save" the planet is if they become the totalitarian, sterilizing professionals of the future. In prior times where colonial imposition was politically acceptable, a Liberia or a Jonestown could have been in their designs. Create the Paradise on Earth for the world's to emulate, complete with cottage-style industries in a population-reduced and stable land. We are lucky that such things are not possible today.
Or, we should be lucky if such things are not possible today. But of course they are.
The nut to break the Eco-Greens will be population control. If people will not de-industrialize, then the only way out of the alleged dilemma is to make the people smaller in number. I'd look for de-population polemics in the Western countries over the next few years. Proposed special taxes on couples with more than 1 child, and special tax exemptions on the childless. Big death duties for the progenitors, living special deals for those without descendants. A full "footprint" tax that includes the future demand on the environment breeders will create.
Wait for the day that the fanatical anti-human, pro-Gaia faction suggest nuclear war is, in the longer term, what will save the planet.
All organisms change the world in which they live, whether it be earthworms, elephants or humans. If you want a "pure" and "natural" world, you cannot accept that people have a place in it.
Already happening by stealth. One purpose of the windmills is to depopulate the countryside.
In the US, the inhabitants of a town in Nevada were instructed by local eco-bureaucrats that they would only be allowed to replace water pipes from hill catchment areas with hand tools, not even wheelbarrows,
I really become incadescently angry that another of the self appointed Lefty commentariat tell me what catastrophy to pay attention to and what I should think about it and I am prepared to be taxed for carbon or whatever when he deigns to make up his bien pensant mind and can advise me exactly what to do.
Thw priority is to get him and all his like out of academia and politics
MFG, omb
I noticed a book recommendation at Martin Durkin's blog a couple of days ago.
'Doom Merchants' by Robert Zubrin. I recommend you take a look if you have not already.
I am afraid that the one thing this is NOT is "Feels like a Eureka moment to me".
This is yet another person yearning to be the light that shows the way, even though he is blindfolded by ignorance. When I say ignorance I mean "of what the future holds".
A number of facts:
Even if population does grow uncontrollably fast and manages to outstrip human ingenuity, it is a threat neither to the planet nor to the human race. It might lead to nuclear war, mass starvation, disease etc, etc but both the human race and the planet would eventually be fine.
Even if the warmists are right and the planet heats up rapidly, a large number of people may have to move house but crop growth and yield would be better, your lawns would be greener and you might end up with a house that has a sea view.
The total and utter stupidity of the situation is people wanting to spend trillions on either problem when they have not a clue as to whether either situation will actually come to pass. There are far too many people claiming to know what the future holds.
There are no possible problems that I have ever heard about that pose a threat to the planet or to put it another way; You and I might not be here tomorrow but the earth will. Even when the sun goes cold, the earth will still loyally continue to orbit its dead mother.
However there are some threats to the human race and to most of the current life forms on Earth. An asteroid strike or a super volcano; both have the potential to wipe out most or all life on the planet.
There is only one way that these two threats can be countered; human ingenuity.
An optimistic, dynamic and wealthy human society can have the resources to deflect asteroids and discover ways to control vulcanism but a stone age society created in the name of environmentalism will perish at some point at the mercy of these threats.
Part of Worstall's argument is that economic prosperity will reduce human fertility, which is why it should be encouraged.
What a reason to encourage prosperity, eh?!
I would say let us have a lot of humans brought into the world, who, may live in varying degrees of poverty, but at least *live*.
Maximum people+maximum prosperity.
It would be Eureca for me if they got off of my cloud completely.
People in the West have already voluntarily reduced their fertility HUGELY since effective contraception became available from the turn of the last century. It has not been done by draconian measures. And it is probably the single most important factor in improving women's health and longevity. The same will happen in the rest of the world before too long especially as prosperity spreads round the world via electrification and education.
Those who think fertility control is a malthusian plot should think about the health hazards to developing and third world mothers due to excessive childbearing! When women have a real choice in contraception and an enhanced cash income they very rapidly reduce their family size without compulsion.
I don't know where the idea about population reaching 27 billion by 2100 comes from. T'ain't gonna happen!
Not sure I see what Tim Worstall is getting at unless he is subtly winding up the alarmist type people up at Nature - All I see in this report is
“OMG! Mankind is developing really fast and maybe something else Mankind effects, besides climate change, is going to cause some sort of tipping point but we don’t know which thing exactly! Here's a list of some we've thought of.”
They come to the conclusion that we probably have to think and be more efficient and have lower birth rates and use resources more efficiently, less fossil fuels and stuff – i.e. the usual set of solutions that come to mind for the early 21st century academic genius when faced with not knowing anything about the future and hardly likely to be responsible for anything in the real world.
Hardly revolutionary.
After sorting out all these problems (sarc) they sit back and admire their work and assure us:
The goal of science is highlighted and economics isn’t mentioned it seems they just wave their hands in a sciency way and we are supposed to be impressed.
Educational for me inasmuch I didn’t realise Nature printed such empty crap - unless you are pre-disposed to wallowing in speculative alarmism it’s not even thought provoking.
The U.N.'s population division has increased their world population projection, previously set to peak at mid-century at 9 billion. Now they say it will continue growing to reach 10.1 billion by 2100, with Africa tripling its numbers.
@Sparticusisfree: You say:
"In the US, the inhabitants of a town in Nevada were instructed by local eco-bureaucrats that they would only be allowed to replace water pipes from hill catchment areas with hand tools, not even wheelbarrows,"
Ditto Tombstone, Arizona. Do you suppose it might be time for another "Gunfight at the OK Corral"?
From his comment here it sounds like Hans Von Storch debunked this in 1999:
http://klimazwiebel.blogspot.co.uk/2012/06/expecting-unexpected.html
This is not original but it is worth repeating to get some perspective on this population debate.
If we take the current world population as 7 billion. Then we could shift EVERYONE to Australia we could give them each a 1/4 acre section ( remember those from the past !!!!) or approximately 1000 sq. meters and there would still be about 10% of the land area still available. NB. this just takes land area and not rivers , lakes etc into account.
Australia is only the 6th largest country by land area in the world ( about half the size of Russia according to Wikipedia)
When i was a child my mother used to always be telling me to "eat my green's" now this suddenly takes on a whole new meaning and to boot it could solve the population problem as well.
I would have joined in the general merriment had this post appeared a week ago. Since then, I've read Roger Pielke's book "The Climate Fix". I was expecting a similar condemnation of the Warmist cause but he's telling a different story, giving food for thought. Worth a read.
Fred
I don't know if you've seen this:
Powerpuff Girls - Beat your Greens
It is about the attack of the Brocolloid Empire! :)
Population is clearly a primary issue and probably the only 'catastrophe' we can control. Will it be done by dictat (China) or will it be be based on the diminution of poverty through economic growth as outlined by Mr Worstall but with the proviso that there will be a price to pay. The insertion of the Stern Report, based on co2 measurements as a basis of the price to pay is a gross leap in the current state of scientific certainty on this issue.More time, and honest, apolitical science is needed.
Or to make them smaller physically by seletctive breeding, which I believe has been mooted by some eco-socialists in a typical attempt to cut everyone down to their own size.....
I watched a guy on TV last night talking about the "obesity epidemic" and how it was all refined sugar's fault.
He felt it was his "moral duty" to campaign to get soft drinks banned.
Move over CO2, sugar's the new poison.
I basically said the same thing as Tim Worstall in a letter to the editor a while back, which I look forward to actually submitting, once I'm retired;
Which World Would You Rather Live In?
In Saturday’s (insert name of newspaper) David Suzuki tells us that “the need to provide food, fibre, fuels (etc.)…. to a growing global population is driving the wholesale conversion of forests, wetlands, grasslands, and other ecosystems. Farmland and pasture now rival natural forest cover in extent, covering 40% of Earth’s land surface... fertilizer use has grown by more than 700% over the past 40 years to sustain crop yields.”
Thursday’s (insert name of rival newspaper) contains an Op-Ed by Matt Ridley (There’s Plenty of Room for All) which states; “The world population doubled in the second half of the century, but the total forest area on the planet went up slightly, not down... In prosperous regions, already huge swaths are being released from farming and reforested.…In 60 years we have trebled the total harvest of the three biggest crops…. Yet the acreage devoted to growing these crops has barely changed. This is because fertilizer, irrigation, pesticides and new varieties have greatly increased yields.”
Suzuki tells us that human activity and population growth will destroy the planet if we don’t soon make radical changes. Presumably this includes using less fertilizer. However, if we followed his line of reasoning, less fertilizer use would lead less food production from a given area of farmland. We would have to carve more farmland out of nature to maintain current levels of food production, which would further degrade the environment. No one favours environmental degradation, so, either his reasoning is faulty, or he favours starvation and/or population control. This is not a positive message.
Ridley tells us that thanks to increased fertilizer use and other advances, we are more prosperous than ever before while at the same time we are having less of an impact on the environment in prosperous jurisdictions. New England, for example, is now 80 per cent woodland, whereas it was once 70 per cent farm land. People in developing nations are the source of most of the global population growth. When they are more prosperous and their food supply is more secure, they have fewer children. If current trends continue, by the middle of this century the global population may have stopped growing AND we will be more prosperous AND the environment will be in better shape.
Suzuki lectures us to live modestly (while himself doing nothing of the sort) and tells us to change our ways, “or the polar bear gets it.” His authoritarian “do as I say” approach and scarcity mentality gets top billing in our schools and the media. His world view is a real downer.
Ridley has a much more positive and rational viewpoint. He says that each of us in our own way can make the world more prosperous by being productive members of society. A fortunate by-product of greater prosperity is a thriving natural environment. If we use our resources wisely, this trend can continue indefinitely. That is a positive and productive world view that I think we should share with our children.
Which world would you rather live in?
Worstall is depressingly unoriginal, taking his population fears from Paul Ehrlich's "The Population Bomb", rather well discussed in Wikipedia's article of the same name.
Some excerpts:
Early editions of The Population Bomb began with the statement:
The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now. At this late date nothing can prevent a substantial increase in the world death rate..
In fact the death declined steadily from 14/1000 to 10/1000 in the next few decades.
Other excerpts from the article:
He mentions his support for government mandated sterilization of Indian males with three or more children.[11] Ehrlich writes: "I don't see how India could possibly feed two hundred million more people by 1980." As of 2010, India had almost 1.2 billion people, having nearly tripled its population from around 400 million in 1960. India's Total Fertility Rate in 2008 was calculated to be 2.6.[22] While the absolute numbers of malnourished children in India is high,[23] the rates of malnutrition and poverty in India have declined from approximately 90% at the time of India's independence, to less than 40% today.
Ehrlich admits no mistakes and has had enviable financial success from his alarmism.
"Worstall is depressingly unoriginal, taking his population fears from Paul Ehrlich's "The Population Bomb","
Err, they're not my population fears. They're the ones that the Nature paper refers to.
"Err, they're not my population fears. They're the ones that the Nature paper refers to."
Let me complete that:
"Err, they're not my population fears. They're the ones that the Nature paper refers to, which I used in my argument in the Forbes article."
A professed reliance in expertise ("IPCC", "Nature paper") is a convenient vehicle for avoiding discussion of the primaries. At least that is how Worstall's using it.
If I believe in the Mayan prophecies the world will come to an end this year. Don't ask me, I didn't make the predictions, I'm just someone who assuming them to be true.
From the Ecclesiastical Uncle, an old retired bureaucrat in a field only remotely related to climate with minimal qualifications and only half a mind.
So, rather sad really but hopefully a demonstration of a reality that will come to save us all.
Mr Worstall builds his not insubstantial edifice on a sadly false foundation: the IPCC’s conclusions are not sound science but are politically motivated advocacy. So to apply economic theory to them gives an unrealistic picture.
The reality that may save us is that nonsense like this rather than a properly argued case based on sound science may well get through to the politicians and the public and cause adoption of more rational policies.
In the context of a previous thread, Mr Worstall’s pieces are a telling testimony of the impossibility of communicating science to non-scientists.
Shub at 10.51pm comments on population growth and prosperity, maybe from the heart. As an ex-faceless bureaucrat I observe that the inverse relationship between population growth and prosperity is how it is out there and that Mr Worstall is surely right to develop his case using this fact rather than whatever he may think in his heart.
Why this inverse relationship? In the human species, sex serves both social and reproductive needs but prosperity enables us to upset of the natural linkage between the two. We can now have social sex without reproductive consequences. And prosperity provides cinemas, TV and the like that effectively reduce reliance on sex for entertainment. As a result people are freed of much drudgery and find that the quality of life is enhanced. So when prosperity gives people the tools, they reproduce less. By choice.
Really surprised to see so many comments here from people who (on this occasion, at least) don't do irony.
I suggest you go back and read Worstall's entertaining and subversive piece again. Great stuff!
Assume that Stern's tendentious nonsense is correct and point out the logical inconsistencies that come from it. I'll go with that!
And, incidentally, Zubrin's new book is "Merchants of Despair" (not "Doom Merchants"). But thanks for the heads up, anyway Robin. I just ordered a copy.
All the bs about population bombs is, with a high degree of confidence, very likely part of a PR campaign by Big Food to soften us up for the 'need' for GM crops, which Big Food needs to make lots more money than it presently does. "Its only on account of the teeming millions of hungry third worlders than we're popping a bit of pigs liver into your tomatoes....." which the third worlders perhaps will continue to not buy, but those tomatoes will crop more heavily, look better, last longer, less wastage etc on western supermarket shelves.....
There is nothing contradictory about alarmism over CO2-induced global warming leading to alarmism over population growth. If you believe in anthropogenic global warming then it should be obvious that reducing or limiting the growth of population will reduce the carbon footprint bequeathed to posterity far more effectively that any other measure.
But there is another rational reason for welcoming a reduction in population or the growth in population. We share the planet with other creatures whose welfare is diminished by mankind's heretofore ever increasing incursions into THEIR habitat.
While the logic of economic development means mankind is increasingly becoming an urban creature and more productive intensive agriculture is replacing inefficient subsistence farming, it would still be wise to look kindly on stabilising the human population in the interests of our fellow creatures. There is nothing in the least anti-humanity in this objective, nor anything that necessarily implies compulsion.
Persuasion, incentives and self interest have worked very well in the West to stabilise population growth. The draconian, Chinese one-child policy was a response to a famine ridden agrarian economy and, as part of the chinese development and industrialisation policy, it worked - in spades! However there are other ways of stabilising population growth without turning society inside out and upside down in the Maoist manner with all its unintended consequences, thank goodness!
"we’re all aware that a decent sized asteroid strike, an outburst of vulcanism like the Deccan, a nuclear war, these could mean more than just that the daffodils flower a little earlier each year"
Nicely put. I'd include a Carrington Event as a more likely hazard, too. A whole roomful of elephants, in fact!
An "extinction event" volcano or asteroid would cause so much climate change that it would not only wipe out the daffodils, but everything else as well. The only insurance policy for humanity is to spread off-planet. We (almost) have the technology to do this. Even then, a nearby supernova could bugger everything up!
Richard in Vancouver; I got the state wrong.
Gunfight will be replaced by Chucking Rocks' Fight..
Andrew, the original paper is like reading socialist worker. It is in short utter claptrap dressed up with long words which the authors clearly don't understand but use like wallpaper over a dodgy bit of building to pretend it won't all fall down as soon as they get paid.
It reminds me of Liverpool council in the days of Deric Hatton.
22 academics wrote this paper. It's like a communist manufesto, not a science paper ... or should I say "the longest suicide note in history".
22 academics who should never get another penny in public money.
JoNova has a brilliant Essay on how all this pseudo-scientific nonsense is driven by Agenda 21 and how individual states can opt out of its Marxist aims: http://joannenova.com.au/2012/06/agenda-21-alabama-may-have-outfoxed-it-why-you-should-care/
Remember, the aim is to outlaw private property and to use environmental laws to reverse industrialisation, back to an Amish level I suppose.
"Remember, the aim is to outlaw private property and to use environmental laws to reverse industrialisation, back to an Amish level I suppose."
Dude, sparty pants, mdgnn, you are a hell of crank and a major source of embarrassment to all self-respecting right-winger.
Martin,
Thanks for picking up my mistake on the name of Zubrin's new book, Merchants of Despair. I was on my iPhone working from memory, at smoko time at work. LOL.
Very seriously though - All,
This book is highly recommended reading, and very highly appropriate to this thread.
This is S Fred Singer's view copied from:
http://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/merchants-of-despair
“Merchants of Despair is an extraordinary and important book....This fascinating volume carefully traces developments of the Malthusian hypothesis right up to the present: through eugenics to population control and genocide; through the Club of Rome’s Limits to Growth and extreme environmentalism to climate change and the myth of global warming apocalypse. It is a shocking exposé of a movement whose deadly history has remained hidden far too long. Robert Zubrin has my nomination for a Pulitzer Prize.”
Robin
sHx: did you read JoNova's essay?
'Land…cannot be treated as an ordinary asset, controlled by individuals and subject to the pressures and inefficiencies of the market,” Agenda 21 says. “Private land ownership is also a principal instrument of accumulation and concentration of wealth and therefore contributes to social injustice; if unchecked, it may become a major obstacle in the planning and implementation of development schemes. The provision of decent dwellings and healthy conditions for the people can only be achieved if land is used in the interest of the society as a whole.'
The Tombstone Arizona case where environmental laws were used to prohibit mechanisation above hand tools for essential repairs to infrastructure is also documented: http://reason.com/blog/2012/05/18/judge-wont-open-the-water-tap-in-tombsto
A Judicial District became controlled by environmentalists and were setting case law to fulfil Agenda 21.
Sparty
As requested, I visited Jo Nova, read her 'essay' and still could not figure out what she was whining about. First she had to plug a certain book by James Delingpole. The title of the book alone makes Delingpole look so much like a cucumber that his publishers had to change the title for the Aussie edition. Together they whine about something called Agenda 21.
So off I go to Wikipedia to find out what the hell Agenda 21 is. It turns out it is just an idea of sorts for international cooperation, one out of a million others thrown around since 1945 to very good effect. No more World Wars, you see? Ain't that great?
Agenda 21 is about environment, is still up in the air, hasn't been on the agenda too often and it has a very poor Wikipage, an indication that even the Wikipedians aren't too excited about it.
According to whiners Nova and Delingpole "Agenda 21 is very much about property rights (ie. their right to your property)". Well, I guess, property is part of environment so they have every right to be fearful of environmentalists coming to snatch what has belonged to the environment from under their feet, eh!
Or perhaps not.
That would probably breach dozens of state and federal laws not to mention the state and federal Constitutions. It would also be in breach of a long cherished and widely upheld communist UN conspiracy document called Universal Declaration of Human Rights:
Now, if you have read Jo Nova's blog post ('essay' for you), can you please tell us where in that piece she's said anything that would back up your loopy, nutty, flaky and completely cranky statement:
"Remember, the aim is to outlaw private property and to use environmental laws to reverse industrialisation, back to an Amish level I suppose."
Over to you, sparty pants. And why did you change your moniker anyway? Was mdgnn getting a bit too hot even for you?
Predictable as the RS pre-Rio rehabilitation of Paul Ehrlich may be, it bespeaks considerable media savvy. Erhlich was Carl Sanan's coauthor in the 1984 drive for the Nobel Peace Prize on the 'nuclear winter ' ticket, and given how scientifically feckless his opposition seems this time round, he may be propelled to Oslo by the blowback from all the science denial you lot get up to.
Confronted with inconvenient science, Sagan served as an early role model for Bast and Monckton by stonewalling with singular diligence, but his antics and Ehrlich's took place so long ago that even Mordoch has forgotten them, and their errors were abstruse enough to get past the pop science gatekeepers of the time.
quote
Move over CO2, sugar's the new poison.
unquote
Google Cynthia Kenyon, she has a good lecture on YouTube.
BTW, the killer is modified corn starch used as a preservative in manufactured food.
JF
http://data.worldbank.org/news/developing-countries-child-mortality-declines
Speaking in tabloidese
So Global Warming is A NO SHOW . Despite all the talk
120 years of the Hockey Stick temparatures supposed to have shot up BUT the sea level has stayed constant . So no drowning puppies today then
They shout Climate Change. We shout well where is it ?
They shout cant risk the Uncertainty .We shout Uncertainty means you dont know So what we paying for ? You re suppoosed to be the Clever Climate Scientices
Climate Change people and the politicians have got bored of it
Dont grab the headlines anymore.Its no longer sexy
Another end of the world story thats had a fair run that hasnt come true
So the politicians and World Order now has the Banking Crisis and the Euro to keep them occupied
Nothing wrong having a World Order. Just want to have clue know what they suppoed to be doing
Eventually the Smug Arrogant Enviromentalist will realise rather than cariing about the planet start caring about the people who actually live on the planet
The trusty standby Overpopulation .
Why are so many babies born in the third world
Because so many Babies die in the third world
Give anyone a good standard of living a good life they start planning and using contraception
Full scale industrialization across the globe save everyone. Based on fossel fuel ( wind and solar LMBO ) until you get cheap reliable Fusion or Thorium reactors up on line
That isnt End of the World Climate Change come true .Its Brave New World Thunderbirds Space 1999 come true