I cant extend that to the point that we can claim we have a right to transform the planet into something upon which most other species will not survive.

How could we ever survive if that happened? Why do you make that assumption?

On that basis, even if it cost us (i.e., relatively strong and wealthy nations) more to mitigate than to adapt, there seems to me a fairly strong moral imperative to follow the course of mitigation. Especially because as wealthy nations we’ve generally contributed the most to the problem in the first place (though I accept from a moral point of view, we can only really take into account the actions of individuals that are still alive today).

Ah, I love SJ. Objectively, that approach would suggest that one starts with anyone possibly susceptible of supporting or facilitating or not opposing communism, since that is objectively the greatest calamity ever visited on humans.

The plots of human population over history (the one’s I’ve seen) have a clear notch caused by the “Black Death” hitting Europe, but communism can claim no similar notch in world population (despite larger total kills, there were more people available at the time). Our main protection against disease is antibiotics and Charles Darwin is about to be proven right once again as our antibiotics become ineffective. Thanks to the nature of positive feedback systems and the magic effect when a disease achieves a short-term loop gain bigger than 1, we will see the effect suddenly rather than gradually. I’m plugging for disease to be the next big nasty.

Of course, its a complete failure of economics if you think we can have an economy without an environment.

theres no failure in economics. Economics assumes that human welfare and the environment as locked in. Human welfare could never improve otherwise.

Economics assumes that each individual agent acts in a way that will optimise their own individual welfare. Many economists further presume that the nett sum of many small optimisations must collectively result in a global optimisation, despite a range of non-linear example systems being able to contradict this. So far I have not seen economists actually find a solution to the Tradgedy of the Commons other than cutting up the commons and advocating private ownership (creating an elite class of “owners”), or trying to build a system of regulations that ends up defeating the whole idea of a free market and descending into corruption (when you regulate buying and selling, the first things bought and sold are the regulators).

I don’t really see an effective mechanism for ownership of the atmosphere, so we will see how the regulation regime turns out. The best option from here seems to be presume that Climate Change is inevitable, and look for ways to adapt and survive.

People. Please stop conflating the profoundly unscientific rantings of a few global warming alarmists with genuine environmental concerns…which is basically the argument that Lomborg is making.

Of course, its a complete failure of economics if you think we can have an economy without an environment.

there’s no failure in economics. Economics assumes that human welfare and the environment as locked in. Human welfare could never improve otherwise.

this is why I maintain that it is wrong (impossible even) to assume a static GDP composition/tech change 30-100-200 years out while making dynamic climate change forecasts.

Google has a market cap of $150 billion while GM has a market cap of $8 billion.

Global GDP composition is changing and will be unrecognizable.

This is no fault of the climate models as they seem set on static economic assumptions.

This doesn’t take into account the vast non-utility losses of biodiversity. I’d prefer a world ten times as rich as now but with remnant biodiversity than a world twenty times as rich but where we all live underground.

Of course, it’s a complete failure of economics if you think we can have an economy without an environment. There’s a fair bit more ecosystem pricing to be done yet.

For anyone to say we should act now they need to quantify the cumulative cost of damage into the future (everyone seems to be using 2100 as the base year) and compare that to the benefits of unmolested GDP growth.

Stern is one guy who has tried that arguing ( from memory) that we would lose 20% of global GDP by 2100.

Let’s do the numbers>

Current world GDP is around $47 trillion. Assuming a 3.5% compound growth rate (which could be low as GDP really does seem to be accelerating) world GDP in today’s dollars will be around US$ 1,110 trillion.

Stern suggests that AGW problems would take away 20% of the figure in 2100 so according to him unmitigated GDP would be US$890 trillion after damages.

The cost of mitigation lowers the growth from 3.5 to 2.5% and global GDP becomes US$456 trillion by 2100.

Now I am only going from memory about what Stern said and these numbers aren’t finessed, but it doesn’t look to me that lopping 1% off the growth rate and putting it to mitigation helps us.

Again I want to repeat, this is nothing to do with the science as( although i think serious sceptics should be listened to) the science is pretty robust in this area at the moment.

Julian says that “Bjorn Lomborgs arguemnt is that its not worth spending on mitigation because its not worth the benefit. Well delay 2 years in 100 by current suggested, planned mitigation.”

In fact the mere 2 year delay point in my understanding relates to the current Kyoto targets, which just about everyone agrees were minimalist and mostly just symbolic starters. The reductions now being urged/negotiated (i.e. 60-80% reductions in carbon emissions by 2050) are hugely more substantial and will have hugely more beneficial effects than the piddling Kyoto targets. Most economic modelling shows, contrary to Julian’s assertions, that the mitigation costs of achieving those sorts of reduction are nevertheless considerably lower than the costs of doing nothing and “adapting” as Lomborg urges.

The next point worth making relates to Joe Cambria’s rhetorical question: Why act now and not say 50 years time? Because the carbon we’re emitting now gets largely sequestered in the ocean and released in 50 years time. There’s a 50 year lag between any mitigation measures we take and their beginning to have a significant measurable effect. The next 50 years of warming is already locked in and it’s too late to do anything about it. It’s the 50 years after that which we’re currently in a position to affect, and that will continue to be the case ad infinitum.

Next point: in advocating doing nothing but adapting, Lomborg’s advocacy also implicitly assumes that warming will somehow miraculously stop at the year 2100 even if we do nothing to stop it. Otherwise he couldn’t sensibly suggest that we can rationally pursue a mere adaptation strategy. But if we don’t take mitigation action, atmospheric CO2 levels will keep getting higher and higher and the earth will keep getting hotter and hotter and hotter. We might be able to adapt OK to the extent of warming that will have occurred by 2100 (though not on the worse case scenarios), but it will just keep getting hotter after that on an ongoing basis. Lomborg seems to want us to emulate a lobster in a cookpot. The lobster keeps getting gradually hotter and hotter but there’s never a moment when it gets a short sharp shock that signals to it that jumping out of the pot might be rather a good idea, until it eventually finds itself cooked and dead. It keeps adapting until it reaches its limit of adaptation. It might not happen by 2100, but it will surely happen if we follow Lomborg’s advice. Bjorn can cook in his own pot, thank you very much, on his very own planet.

I’ll shut up now.

We have two different world views at work here. They are both real, but I think that Lomborgs complaint is that the climate change view is distracting people from the Copenhagen Consensus view of helping people who are in desperate trouble now.

I’ll try a different allusion.

Some of those present were saying indignantly to one another, “Why this waste of perfume? It could have been sold for more than a year’s wages and the money given to the poor.” And they rebuked her harshly.

“Leave her alone,” said Jesus. “Why are you bothering her? She has done a beautiful thing to me. The poor you will always have with you, and you can help them any time you want. But you will not always have me.

It is not an either/or proposition. But he wants to know why initiatives with modest cost and well-quantified global benefits should be ignored in favour of the climate change glamour crusade.

Lomborg’s Copenhagen Consensus 2008 for instance has highlighted:

Over two years, more than 50 economists have worked to find the best solutions to ten of the worlds biggest challenges. During the last week of May, an expert panel of 8 top-economists, including 5 Nobel Laureates, sat down to assess the research.

The ranked list: A prioritized list highlighting the potential of 30 specific solutions to combat some of the biggest challenges facing the world.

Combating malnutrition in the 140 million children who are undernourished reached the number one spot, after economist Sue Horton of Wilfrid Laurier University in Canada made her case to the expert panel.

Providing micronutrients for 80% of the 140 million children who lack essential vitamins in the form of vitamin A capsules and a course of zinc supplements would cost just $60 million per year, according to the analysis. More importantly, this action holds yearly benefits of more than $1 billion.

In effect, this means that each dollar spent on this program creates benefits (in the form of better health, fewer deaths, increased future earnings, etc.) worth more than 17 dollars.

We have two different world views at work here. They are both real, but I think that Lomborg’s complaint is that the climate change view is distracting people from the Copenhagen Consensus view of helping people who are in desperate trouble now.

Like it or not, most governments are concerned only with the welfare of their own citizens.

Then there was Bjorn Lomborg. How disingenuous is that man?!! Spending time, effort and money on mitigating climate change input from humanity isn’t worth undertaking because benefits-per-dollar-spent don’t match with combating malaria, poverty and food shortages. He adroitly side-stepped the challenge from Tony Jones that perhaps spending on military technology and weapons systems ought to be re-directed on a benefit-per-dollar-spent basis. Back to malaria instead. Fools! I suppose when you’re being funded by private monies to tell people what dupes they are to spend their money on a non-profit, green-tainted pursuits, you keep right on doing so in order to salve self-interest.

Let’s not do squat about climate change. It’ll only cost everyone able to read this today money which could be better spent on plasma teles and flash cars while the oil lasts. Besides, everyone able to read this today will be long dead by the time impacts from climate change can be categorically nailed down by science. No-one will hear the “told-you-so’s” when they’re fifty years dead.

modest sacrifices to protect against low-probability catastrophes in the distantnear future

, so what hope of getting people to make such sacrifices against distant catastrophes?

Maybe I am barking up the wrong tree, or just plain barking mad?

It makes the case for spending a similar amount on preventing a global catastrophe pretty much a no-brainer.

That is good writing from Krugman, though. It is also quite convincing support for the argument that we are never going to do anything meaningful on climate change, because the preferences revealed in everyday life suggest that answer to his question is no.

Consider the last time you shared the roads with the people you are asking to make those modest sacrifices.