Tim Worstall — in his usual contemptuous style — had a go at Caroline Lucas’ promotion of a steady state, carbon neutral economy. Caroline, leader of the Green Party and a fellow author with me of the Green New Deal said in the Guardian:
But we must replace this with targeted investment in the energy efficiency and renewable energy infrastructure we so urgently need to enable us to make a swift transition to a steady-state, zero carbon economy.
I happen to agree with this.
Worstall (a climate change denier, or so it would appear — like so many of his type) said:
You might .. say that such a steady state economy is the only possible sustainable outcome in which case I would point out that you are sadly misinformed. For the scientific consensus is that the economy will grow between 5 and 11 times in this coming century. That scientific consensus telling us that as long as we can reduce CO2 output (which we clearly and obviously can, as the scientific consensus also tells us) everything is going to be just hunky dory.
What is it about Greens that they refuse to read or understand the scientific consensus? The IPCC reports themselves?
In response I said on his blog:
Where’s the evidence of consensus we can grow 11 times, contain CO2 and do this whilst running out of oil?
There is none - it’s your fantasy
Caroline is actually stating what is true - growth does not make people happier when they have achieved a certain standard of living (which 20% have) so we need to redistribute from those who have done that to those who have not and even you basic grasp of economics will then tell you this results in a net addition to welfare
Your version is just contributing to disaster
Which opened the floodgates (I seriously wonder if Worstall has a life) and he demanded an apology from me in a blog (which is interesting behaviour from a libertarian, but we’ll leave that aside).
But for all his “references”, the emails he has sent and the further emails from his friends setting timescales for my response after which I would be deemed an idiot (which is an interesting debating method) Worstall does have a real problem. The fact is that his work is based on the work of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (a UN body) which last reported in 2007. there’s a good summary of its work here.
Now I’m not claiming to be an expert on its work, because I’m not. But I can say that its analysis is based on four economic scenarios. These were published in 2000 — the dark ages in these terms — and have not been updated since. These do indeed suggest growth of the scale Worstall quotes. The scenarios look like this:
(Source: Wikipedia)
Now note that this is not the last word on the subject, although Worstall and his colleagues seem to think it is. There was a conference in Copenhagen in April this year that reviewed this data and produced a pretty comprehensive and authoritative update on the reports Wortsall likes. This is here. The home page is here. This is what the executive summary says:
Past societies have reacted when they understood that their own activities were causing deleterious environmental change by controlling or modifying the offending activities. The scientific evidence has now become overwhelming that human activities, especially the combustion of fossil fuels, are influencing the climate in ways that threaten the well-being and continued development of human society. If humanity is to learn from history and to limit these threats, the time has come for stronger control of the human activities that are changing the fundamental conditions for life on Earth.
To decide on effective control measures, an understanding of how human activities are changing the climate, and of the implications of unchecked climate change, needs to be widespread among world and national leaders, as well as in the public.
The purpose of this report is to provide, for a broad range of audiences, an update of the newest understanding of climate change caused by human activities, the social and environmental implications of this change, and the options available for society to respond to the challenges posed by climate change.
This understanding is communicated through six key messages:
Key Mesage 1: Climatic Trends
Recent observations show that greenhouse gas emissions and many aspects of the climate are changing near the upper boundary of the IPCC range of projections. Many key climate indicators are already moving beyond the patterns of natural variability within which contemporary society and economy have developed and thrived. These indicators include global mean surface temperature, sea-level rise, global ocean temperature, Arctic sea ice extent, ocean acidification, and extreme climatic events. With unabated emissions, many trends in climate will likely accelerate, leading to an increasing risk of abrupt or irreversible climatic shifts.
Key Mesage 2: Social and environmental disruption
The research community provides much information to support discussions on “dangerous climate change”. Recent observations show that societies and ecosystems are highly vulnerable to even modest levels of climate change, with poor nations and communities, ecosystem services and biodiversity particularly at risk. Temperature rises above 2oC will be difficult for contemporary societies to cope with, and are likely to cause major societal and environmental disruptions through the rest of the century and beyond.
Key Mesage 3: Long-term strategy : Global Targets and Timetables
Rapid, sustained, and effective mitigation based on coordinated global and regional action is required to avoid “dangerous climate change” regardless of how it is defined. Weaker targets for 2020 increase the risk of serious impacts, including the crossing of tipping points, and make the task of meeting 2050 targets more difficult and costly. Setting a credible long-term price for carbon and the adoption of policies that promote energy efficiency and low-carbon technologies are central to effective mitigation.
Key Mesage 4: Equity Dimensions
Climate change is having, and will have, strongly differential effects on people within and between countries and regions, on this generation and future generations, and on human societies and the natural world. An effective, well-funded adaptation safety net is required for those people least capable of coping with climate change impacts, and equitable mitigation strategies are needed to protect the poor and most vulnerable. Tackling climate change should be seen as integral to the broader goals of enhancing socioeconomic development and equity throughout the world.
Key Mesage 5: Inaction is inexcusable
Society already has many tools and approaches — economic, technological, behavioural, and managerial — to deal effectively with the climate change challenge. If these tools are not vigorously and widely implemented, adaptation to the unavoidable climate change and the societal transformation required to decarbonise economies will not be achieved. A wide range of benefits will flow from a concerted effort to achieve effective and rapid adaptation and mitigation. These include job growth in the sustainable energy sector; reductions in the health, social, economic and environmental costs of climate change; and the repair of ecosystems and revitalisation of ecosystem services.
Key Mesage 6: Meting the Challenge
If the societal transformation required to meet the climate change challenge is to be achieved, then a number of significant constraints must be overcome and critical opportunities seized. These include reducing inertia in social and economic systems; building on a growing public desire for governments to act on climate change; reducing activities that increase greenhouse gas emissions and reduce resilience (e.g. subsidies); and enabling the shifts from ineffective governance and weak institutions to innovative leadership in government, the private sector and civil society. Linking climate change with broader sustainable consumption and production concerns, human rights issues and democratic values is crucial for shifting societies towards more sustainable development pathways.
I added the highlights but they show:
a) That in all Worstall’s apparently feasible options the likely temperature rise is now above 2 degrees — which is unsustainable. This means that the option he promotes is not achievable — so justifying my comment that it is a fantasy to think that it is.
b) Appropriate targets for reduction have not been set — and the feasibility of meeting them has not been proven — so again his glib comments on this being possible are simply not appropriate — and the evidence of consensus is clearly not present, contrary to what Worstall says.
c) Changes in consumption are desirable — although, I agree, this is not the same as steady state.
The point of this is though that:
1) Worstall is wrong — his claim cannot be justified
2) The associated threats and demands for apologies are therefore misplaced — but are designed to intimidate — as is the language used
3) Most worryingly — many Conservatives agree with people like Worstall on this issue — indeed it is expected that many of the new Tory intake will be climate change deniers.
The consequence is that if they cannot kill the economy by spending cuts they’ll do it by over-heating the environment.
That’s why I’m worried.
Worstall says of me:
he does, sadly, have some influence and exposing his near lunacy is a way of attempting to reduce that influence. As PG Wodehouse made clear with Roderick Spode the English way to deal with fanatics is to mock them.
I won’t mock Worstall. I won’t demand an apology either — despite the fact that the evidence is clear that he’s plain wrong. But I do, unfortunately, also think he has some influence through peddling misinformation. Which is why it’s worth tackling it. he and those like him have no prospect of power — but they influence the Tories — and that’s very worrying indeed.
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I don’t think you have to be a right wing ideologue to harbour doubts about the global warming hypothesis. There are serious minded people on the other side of the argument.
I also think that when an issue gets so divided that people are quite happy to use the phrases like ‘deniers’ (with all its negative connotations) and ‘alarmists’, we are definitely in murky waters.
Several aspects leave me rather sceptical, and I say this as a firm believer in the limits of infinite compound growth within a finite system.
1. The hedging of the IPCC
2. The bold and rather desperate assertions of their supporters
3. Those measures that are implemented have no proven efficacy, yet are supported by the hypothesis’ proponents.
eg 1.
Tripp found a receptive audience among the 250 people attending the conference. He said there is so much of a natural variability in weather it makes it difficult to come to a scientifically valid conclusion that global warming is man made. “It well may be, but we’re not scientifically there yet.”
He also criticized modelling schemes to evaluate global warming, but stopped short of commenting on climate modelling used by the IPCC, saying “I don’t have the expertise.”
That’s fom Tom Tripp -“a member of the IPCC since 2004, is listed as one of 450 IPCC “lead authors” who reviewed reports from 800 contributing writers whose work in turn, was reviewed by more than 2,500 experts worldwide.”
eg 2.We hypothesize that the established pre-1998 trend is the true forced warming signal, and that the climate system effectively overshot this signal in response to the 1997/98 El Ni?±o. This overshoot is in the process of radiatively dissipating, and the climate will return to its earlier defined, greenhouse gas-forced warming signal. If this hypothesis is correct, the era of consistent record-breaking global mean temperatures will not resume until roughly 2020.
Tough they caveat this hypothesis (which puts the crisis back 11 years):
“However, this apparent impulsive behaviour explicitly highlights the fact that humanity is poking a complex, nonlinear system with GHG forcing — and that there are no guarantees to how the climate may respond.”
That’s from real climate – a member of the Guardian Environmental Network.
eg 3. The adoption of Carbon Trading Schemes which according to:
Kenneth Davidson:”There isn’t one cap-and-trade scheme in the world that has resulted in a reduction in carbon emissions. Instead, such schemes have made money for the biggest polluters and created a new branch of the derivatives industry that creates new wealth opportunities for brokers and financiers. Rudd’s cap and trade scheme benefits the worst polluters. But the Australian scheme is special. It has been rorted at the planning stage … The carbon scheme is not simply weak. It is fraudulent”.
and Joseph Stiglitz “The only principle that has some ethical basis is equal emission rights per capita (with some adjustments — for instance, the US has already used up its share of the global atmosphere, so it should have fewer emission allowances). But adopting this principle would entail such huge payments from developed countries to developing countries, that, regrettably, the former are unlikely to accept it … Of course, polluting industries like the cap-and-trade system. While it provides them an incentive not to pollute, emission allowances offset much of what they would have to pay under a [Carbon] tax system”.
That George Monbiot agrees that CTS is a waste of time (and designed byThe same Wall Street players that upended the economy are clamouring to open up a massive market to swap, chop, and bundle carbon derivatives. , yet supports it as ‘step in the right direction’ shows the knots people can get in.
Even with the best will in the world, when is supporting a massive misallocation of resources a good thing?
The BBC was on about the artic melting this morning.
Rather old news:
“It will without doubt have come to your Lordship’s knowledge that a considerable change of climate, inexplicable at present to us, must have taken place in the Circumpolar Regions, by which the severity of the cold that has for centuries past enclosed the seas in the high northern latitudes in an impenetrable barrier of ice has been during the last two years, greatly abated.
(This) affords ample proof that new sources of warmth have been opened and give us leave to hope that the Arctic Seas may at this time be more accessible than they have been for centuries past, and that discoveries may now be made in them not only interesting to the advancement of science but also to the future intercourse of mankind and the commerce of distant nations.”
President of the Royal Society, London, to the Admiralty, 20th November, 1817
The main problem with your position is that a) you think it is possible to predict how the climate will evolve, b) that you think it is possible for human behaviour to influence how climate will evolve.
Unfortunately, none of the soothsaying doommongers have been able to demonstrate that their models predict what is actually happening to the climate now, much less what impact such change has. Does not make their claims for the future particularly credible.
It would clearly be absurd to claim that climate does not change. Even in the short time that mankind has walked the Earth. Which makes your use of the term “climate change denier” no more than a playground taunt.
Personally I think your worries about the next Government are misplaced – there seem to be more than enough doommongers amisdst their ranks to allow this folly to continue, although it seems likely they will be able to make the right decisions about nuclear power in time to ensure that the lights don’t go out. Assuming the swine flu does not get us all first.
As climate change is without doubt a major issue, whether you disbelieve it or not, this site is worth a read.
The aspect of the orthodoxy for me is that it tends, in economic parlance, to crowd out all other environmental problems. Even if it is true, imposing somee notional ideal climate will count for little within a world, emptied of fish, desertified, deforested and dominated by a monocultural, industrial and GMO driven agriculture.
Paul, I think a little perspective is in order. Over its 5 bn years or so the Earth has experienced significant change beyond our wildest dreams. Even the small amount we are aware of would be catastrophic in our terms, and includes examples of whole species dying out. There is no reason to suspect that this will not continue, and no particular reason to suppose that human activities make the slightest difference.
Firstly, I’m a different Paul to the one above.
But can I make a point about climate change? I don’t think it is an issue.
By which I mean the debate about whether or not climate change is happening or not and whether or not it is man made misses the point.
The unarguable issue is that we are exploiting the resources of the earth at an unsustainable rate. That is simply wrong in itself, because it denies to our children what we take for grantd ourselves. To argue about global warming is to argue about the consequences of an action, when the action itself is clearly wrong.
It’s like arguing about whether or not you are likely to get caught for beating your wife or pimping your children, as if deciding whether to do those things is dependent upon the likelihood of bad consequences happening to you. If we diminish the earth, we diminish ourselves, as a race. And that should be enough to win the argument. It is a moral issue, not a scientific one.
The debate should not be about the science, it should be about whether it can ever be right to deplete natural resources beyond the rate at which they can be renewed. Let alone allow people to profit from it.
Paul 2, with respect, whether humanity is “exploiting the resources of the earth at an unsustainable rate” is very arguable, although i would accept that with you the argument might be more of the “oh no it isn’t” kind. Given how unspecific your statement is such an argument might well last for the full half hour!
alastair,
if you think there is no particular reason for believing that the near-extinction of cod off the grand banks is related to mankind’s activities then I would have thought you were, frankly, irrational.
Paul, at least a reference to “near-extinction of cod off the grand banks” is specific. But what is your point? It hardly portends the end of mankind. Sustainability is a much abused word of late – population control has been a doommongers staple for many years. Is this your angle?
alistair,
My perspective is fine.
I say climate change is a major issue as much public policy is being formed around its hypothesis, (we even have a cabinet post for it) not that it is an actual, physical problem.
I am with my namesake in believing that environmental degradation is the greater problem and have already said so.
The strange thing is that we are driven to concentrate on one big thing, climate, that we cannot control
Why is Human’s activity influencing global systems such a hard concept to understand?
Why are people so desperate for a race to the bottom?
It’s almost like the ideology that poisons human societies desires extinction to cathartise its guilt.
“Paul, at least a reference to “near-extinction of cod off the grand banks” is specific. But what is your point? It hardly portends the end of mankind.”
Are you sure? The destruction of a natural resource that formed a significant part of the diet of a large proportion of the population. For what? If you wanted a portent of the end of any species, I would have thought the collapse of a major food source would be a typical portent.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article6734078.ece
Hi Paul – this is an interesting article about fish stocks. It is a bit of a challenge to your “near-extinction” scenario. I guess doom-mongering is always fraught with danger!
alastair,
the thing about cod is that once it got “near extinct” off the grand banks they stopped fishing. ten years later and it hasn’t come back. bluefin tuna is also nearing extinction and we harvest fish commercially to make food for battery chickens, or, in the worst case scenario, to feed prawn in Indonesia for export to the west.
we catch fish and then throw away 90% of the catch because it doesn’t meet the quotas.
we trawl the sea using dredgers – think of that on land. Think of two lorries, twenty miles apart, gouging the land and destroying everything there in order to catch a specific species – say rabbits.
do you not feel, in some basic way, that is simply not right?