I came across an article by Madison Condon that I thought might be of interest to some of my regulars. It’s called Damage Functions (or why I’m mad at economists) and it’s a criticism of Nordhaus-like damage functions and IAMs. I thought it made some interesting points. However, when I posted it on Twitter there was some pushback. In particular, a suggestion that it’s the same old criticism that doesn’t really provide a viable alternative, and that it’s not unlike the criticism that climate scientists have faced. I wanted to present some arguments as to why I think these responses aren’t really all that reasonable.
Although I do agree that criticism by itself isn’t necessarily all the constructive, this doesn’t mean that there is no place for it, or that criticism without presenting a valid alternative somehow invalidates the criticism (or, validates the original argument). It’s also my understanding that there are indeed people working on alternatives to Nordhaus-like models, or updates to these models. For example, Weitzman’s suggestion that we should worry about fat tails, Jonathan Koomey’s suggestion that we should move beyond cost-benefit analyses and use normatively-defined targets, and even some who suggest that updates to William Nordhaus’s DICE model produce optimal pathways that are consistent with the UN climate targets.
So, it’s not clear that there really is some kind of consensus position that these criticisms are challenging. If anything, it seems that there are plenty of relevant experts who seem to regard these criticisms as having some validity (although, I will admit that it can sometimes be difficult to reliably assess this from the outside).
I also don’t think this is really all that comparable to what has been faced by climate scientists. Climate scientists have actually put a lot of effort into responding to criticism. The reason why we can now often dismiss some of the more vocal critics is that they’re repeating criticisms that have been addressed time and time again. As far as I’m aware, little effort has been put into addressing some of these criticisms of these economic models. I may, of course, have missed these responses, so do point them out if I have.
I also think that there is a fundamental difference between climate science and climate economics. If a climate science analysis concludes that most of the modern warming is due to anthropogenic emissions, then you can’t really just dismiss this because the result is inconvenient. It’s either scientifically correct (as it is), or it isn’t.
On the other hand, if an economic analysis suggests that the optimal pathway would be one that leads to ~3.5oC of warming, you don’t need to accept that this is indeed the pathway we should follow. There are clearly a lot of value judgements that go into such analyses, and there are potential consequences that some might regard as more important to avoid than others. People could also have different levels of risk aversion. You might argue that the model results is still “correct”, given the assumptions, but if it leads to a conclusion that some regard as objectionable, that would seem to still imply some kind of issue.
Anyway, that’s my 2 cents. If anyone has other views, and can constructively criticise :-), feel free to do so.
...and Then There's Physics 
lane
stay in it
Some critics of economic analyses of responses to climate change forget something important–and economists don’t help matters by not reminding them.
Not everything important is included in economic calculations. Economists know this, but they forget to put it in as a qualifying statement on every… single… paper they write.
Nordhaus might be 100% correct in saying that a 3.5C temperature rise provides the best economic outcome. I don’t know. But what is certain is that there are many parts of the human experience that are not captured in his analysis. He know that. He didn’t say it, or didn’t say it loudly and often enough.
Tom,
Indeed, and I think that is one of the issues. As you say, it may well be that 3.5C gives the “best” economic outcome, given the modelling that is currently possible, and the assumptions that are made. However, this doesn’t necessarily mean that it will be the best outcome in reality, given what these models are not able to capture. I would also argue that there is actually already quite a large uncertainy in the estimates, which doesn’t often seem to be highlighted. For the optimal model, the standard deviation is 0.71C.
https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/pol.20170046
Steven,
Why? Do you think we should simply dismiss things when they come from people who aren’t in their lane? Shouldn’t we do better than that?
I don’t think that the economics is really doing much to set targets, and 1.5C or 2C aren’t based on Nordhaus or anybody else running optimisation tools.
So then the question is what they can do that is actually useful. Unfortunately, I don’t think they are even that good at finding the cheapest way to meet a target. Once you have deep uncertainty then strategic thinking becomes a lot more useful than finding the best path. You don’t know what the best path is, but you want some nice tall playing pieces in promising locations on the board, where the next move might become clear.
For every 5 Solyndras, there is a Tesla.
Ben,
Indeed, but there are some who argue that we should be setting normative targets, rather than using cost-benefit analyses.
e.g., https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1748-9326/8/4/041005
Although, I did think that William Nordhaus was involved in setting the 2C target, even if it wasn’t based on a cost-benefit type analysis.
e.g.,
https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/why-did-ipcc-choose-2deg-c-goal-limiting-global-warming
he writes
I tweeted that economists had done damage beyond recommending poor policy instruments: they had significantly contributed to the downplaying of climate harms throughout my lifetime. I pledged that when I was less mad, I would write about it. I’m still mad, actually. Because this matters.
And here I was feeling guilty about stolen emails, when it was Nobel winning economists who are really to blame.
unintended consequences of simply doing your job
“she” writes, but that’s a fair point. I’m also not a huge fan of blaming individuals for our failure to adequately address this issue, especially those who are mostly just doing academic work. I certainly don’t think that the blame lies with economists, even if I do think that some of the criticism is worth considering.
I would also argue that much of the “criticism” of climate science has been worth considering, but I also think there can come a time when you can stop doing so if the criticisms have been more than adequately addressed.
Although, I did think that William Nordhaus was involved in setting the 2C target, even if it wasn’t based on a cost-benefit type analysis.
ya its much better to set targets based on what is acheivable
and then sub goals
Well, when he first suggested it, and even when it was adopted more broadly, it would have been considerably easier to achieve than it is today.
Once, as a teenager, I easily convinced a ‘city-dweller’ peer that chocolate milk comes from ‘brown cows.’ He didn’t know any better and actually believed me before I then corrected him.
This discussion brings back this feeling that those without personal, direct, daily experience can be similarly gullible, with an equal capacity for being misled into taking unconscionably blinkered viewpoints seriously.
I live in a heavily wooded area, with everything from mountain lions to coyote packs to woodpecker families to four species of squirrels (including the wonderful Northern flying squirrel) not just in daily experience but within just a few feet of me, continually. Just a few hours ago, I watched closely as a woodpecker took a bit of seeds and suet (I’d left out for various animals) and carefully placed it on a small branch so that her babies would learn how to find it, themselves. Most folks watching TV or some nature show won’t see this kind of event. Instead, they are shown a mother directly dropping food into their babies’ mouths. But I see much more because I live among these animals in the wild places here in Oregon.
Those who live in cities or who live surrounded by environments long, long since heavily developed and fragmented, miss out on much of life on this planet. Even I only see a tiny bit of it, that of the kind of boreal forest system that exists in the western and north-western part of the North American continent. But at least I see some of it.
This isn’t abstract to me. I’ve lived in the same area for almost 70 years now; luckily in my time still left at least partly as an area of heavily forested nature in a relatively wild state. Large parts of Oregon had managed to avoid much of human development, until the period of time I started living here. Oregon, then, had been almost only logging and lumber manufacturing to feed development back east or in the mid-western parts of the US. So, while much logging had taken place, there was still much in the way of pristine streams and rivers, filled to the brim with unaltered ecologies (other than soil erosion, anyway.)
Fish of every kind and size abounded in everything from small streams to one of the largest river systems in the world — the Columbia River. My neighbors were mountain lions and coyote packs, many species of woodpeckers and squirrels, including that Northern flying squirrel I mentioned.
And it’s personal another way, as well. I just killed and butchered a 14 month old lamb for meat. I understand the details of farm to table deep within my guts. It hurt me to make this choice for meat. As it should. Every time I take something, I feel a profound level of thanks mixed with a personal sharp pain for those animals I’ve learned enough about to also love like my own family. I don’t eat meat carelessly. I never use it as slabs, but only as spice and a source for some necessary food value.
I’ve seen what’s happened around me as the local human population literally (not figuratively) quintupled in a governed land fully as large as the entire United Kingdom itself.
Just reading this blog scares me because it tells me just how easy it is for otherwise intelligent people to engage such a narrow and blinkered idea of an optimal pathway involving 3.5°C of warming. I’m not talking about the number — 3.5. That alone is bad enough. But the fact that habitat loss, habitat fragmentation and quilting (see Dr. Lovejoy’s work in Brazil and his Q10 measure for a seminal study), ocean acification and warming, the continual introduction of adverse chemicals (new and old) into environments, the precipitous decline of species (euphemistically as ‘biodiversity decline’), both actual collapse of fisheries in addition to pushing others to the brink of collapse, soil erosion, soil degradation, mono-culture conversions that continue nearly unabated, and grossly excess and unsustainable consumption that rises ever faster…
I’m surrounded by the results. Dead streams with nothing much of life in them above microscopic size. Whole ecologies gone and others decimated while moving to new areas.
I just sit here watching this apparently ‘serious’ discussion of such a blinkered idea, not quite actually stunned into silence (obviously), but filled with a chilled, icy sense of horrible awe. It scares me.
I think Steve Keen is wrong; so anyone basing a large part of their analysis is likely wrong too. Do you have an opinion on SK?
I also find stuff like “Econometric calculations based on past behavior ignore not only the big scary tipping points like methane releases from the melting permafrost, but also the ones that are far easier to wrap one’s mind around, like the Great Salt Lake running dry” unconvincing: the methane stuff you know; the GSL seems just parochial.
“In a moving piece following Weitzman’s death in 2019, Eric Roston highlighted that his work on the economics of “fat-tails”…” just reads like churnalism: not really thinking, just throwing in topics.
“One reason why economic models perform so poorly… is because we don’t have data on what the economy looks like when all the ice melts”: again, this isn’t thinking: if we genuinely don’t know, we’re in no position to say that they’re wrong. But actually, at least in a hand-wavy way, people do think we know, or have some idea, They’re just really bad at articulating it.
“Moving beyond benefit–cost analysis of climate change” isn’t honest: it doesn’t move “beyond” it, it just throws up its hands and says “that’s too hard” and evades it.
OTOH, the Hansel et al paper you reference appears sane, and does the obvious: accepts a std econ framework but updates it, and arrives at an answer that isn’t obviously wrong. I’m kinda baffled that you don’t headline that instead.
Wondering if any economic model forecast this:
“Global solar PV manufacturing capacity is set to nearly double next year, reaching almost 1 TW, according to the IEA. This expansion would be sufficient to meet the agency’s annual net zero demand for 2050, which anticipates PV deployment of nearly 650 GW in 2030 and almost 310 GW in 2024. However, the industry is grappling with the challenge of oversupply.”
https://www.pv-magazine.com/2023/06/08/global-pv-manufacturing-capacity-to-reach-1-tw-by-2024/
“The Chinese Module Marker (CMM), OPIS’ benchmark assessment for modules from China, dived to $0.173 per W, falling for a fourth week running to its lowest value ever according to OPIS data. In the aftermath of Intersolar Europe, the market must reckon with clear signals that the region is oversupplied with modules, as well as how China polysilicon prices upstream are very close to their floor. The 11.73% week-on-week plunge is also record-breaking in being CMM’s largest percentage drop ever.”
https://www.pv-magazine.com/2023/06/23/china-solar-module-prices-keep-diving/
Solar is still getting cheaper as it reaches the scale needed to replace fossil fuels. 3.5C is looking less and less attractive the closer we get
Not a fan of his style, and I think he goes too far. Some of his criticism about how damage estimates are determined seems worth considering, though.
I thought the Hansel et al. paper was interesting, which is why I highlighted it. Not sure why you’re baffled that I didn’t write a different post to the one I did write, but okay.
I like Koomey’s ideas, and I feel like essentially the discussion has moved on to doing something much like what he was suggesting way back then. Mitigation cost estimates from that era have turned out to be nonsense, just like they were for Montreal protocol pollutants. Instead of the main work being done by a carbon price, we have piecemeal policy to try promising low-carbon options in key sectors, because we ultimately don’t know how much this stuff will cost until we seriously try it.
In some way, the breakthrough folk were right that technology development is the key, they were just weren’t serious about making that improvement and cost reduction happen. You have to deploy the tech, rather than using high price as an excuse to around twiddling your thumbs.
Ben,
You remind me of something that I may have commented on before. The general view today seems to be that we’re heading for ~2.7C (+- 1C), which seems to be due to a combination of some carbon pricing, but mostly probably because alternatives have turned out to be cheaper than expected. So, this would seem to suggest that Nordhaus’s estimate that the optimal pathway would lead to ~3.5C is either wrong, or we’ve already done too much and should do more to get the pathway way back to ~3.5C (which would seem unlikely). I suspect the issue is the choice of baseline, but might (IIRC) also be related to the carbon cycle model that he used (which might have been wrong).
“But Technofix” commits the same mistake as the luckwarm folks:
https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2012/04/26/climate-casino-exchange/
We cannot afford to wait until we get the techno-fix we need.
we could just do stupid thing
https://nypost.com/2023/06/25/nyc-rules-crack-down-on-coal-wood-fired-pizzerias-must-cut-carbon-emissions-up-to-75/
@-wc
“OTOH, the Hansel et al paper you reference appears sane”
I suppose it is inevitable you would favour an economist who advocates for a price of carbon.
A cursory look at his ‘optimal curves’ paper indicates that an optimal price for carbon would increase the price of fuel for the average moterist driving an ICE by between 500-1000 $/£/€ per year. To finance at scale carbon removal from 2050 the price of carbon would effectively double the price of fuel for the average moterist at 2500-3000 $/£/€ per year.
WE had all better have gone electric by then, as increasing the cost of fuel by that much is politically unacceptable. Look what a little inflation caused over the last 2 years in the USA.
Click to access WP82-Hansel-et-al_12.14.pdf
Why? Do you think we should simply dismiss things when they come from people who aren’t in their lane? Shouldn’t we do better than that?
yes,
if you dont like damage functions.
build a better one
if you dont like the granularity of models, add detail
if you want different assumptions tested GO HEAD, no one is stopping you
If you want economists to work for you, hire them.
in the end bad economic models will force you to think harder and do better in the physical models.
take sea level.
right now sea level modeling doesnt give you good regional or local predictions
good global predictions. but not good predictions for malibu california.
if you had good local predictions economic modelling would be be accounting,
assuming controversial things like addition and multiplication,
sea level goes up 2 meters in malibu, look at zillow to compute the value.
yes economic models use assumptions and general area based damage functions.
i blame the climate models. they need to do better
C’mon, Mosh. Imagine if we’d dismiss your output when it’s not from your lane. And the economic damage functions don’t suck because of the climate models. They suck because they’re very coarse, and they suck because they’re misused, mostly by your luckwarm fellowship.
A simpler reason why our Stoatness likes H22 is that it’s from Brookings, an extreme centrist outlet.
Steven,
I partly agree, and partly disagree. I think researchers should, ideally, respond to comments/criticism. I don’t think “do better” to their critics is a suitable response. I imagine you’d expect this from climate scientists, so why not also expect this from economists. On the other hand, there is a limit to how many times they can respond. If the criticisms have been adequately addressed, then you can start to ignore/dismiss them.
I’d also argue that some form of sanity checking is also reasonable. If an economic assessment suggests that the optimal pathway would lead to ~3.5C of warming, but other lines of evidence indicate that there are potentially serious risks associated with that pathway, it seems entirely reasonable to question that economic assessment and expect some kind of justification/clarification.
In a sense, economists are presenting analyses that have real world implications, more so than even climate science. I think it’s perfectly reasonable to question these, and to even disagree with what they imply/suggest. I think all researcher have some obligation to engage more broadly and to suggest that any criticism/commentary has to also involve doing some kind of “better” analysis seems to be a bit of a cop out.
What’s slightly bizarre is that if you read the William Nordhaus response to Cohen, Happer and Lindzen is that even he seems to be acknowledging the limitations of the models that he uses. So, why are some people so bothered by this criticism? It’s not clear to me that even those who use these models would necessarily completely disagree with their critics.
https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2012/04/26/climate-casino-exchange/
Lets take another example.
its pretty well known that “climate models” predict both more droughts and more floods.
problem is they cant Specify local areas subject to each.
now ask yourself, if you coulf predict the change with more local fidelity would
economic “modelling” even be necessary?
no planners would know. this area needs better drainage, this area needs more resevoirs.
again, its all the fault of climate models .
ask insurance companies how their planning would change with better forecasts.
Steven,
I don’t see why that’s a relevant example. If, for region, some climate models predicted more flooding and some predicted more drought, I would expect the researchers involved in such modelling to acknowledge this uncertainty, not dismiss anyone who pointed out that there might be some issues with this modelling.
I realise that the original article was “blaming” economists, which I don’t think is a reasonable conclusion, but that doesn’t mean that every “criticism” is intended to imply “blame”.
And the economic damage functions don’t suck because of the climate models. They suck because they’re very coarse
they are coarse because climate models are course
take sea level.
if a climate model could tell you malibu would see 2 meters, while central oregon
would only see 1 meter.
there would be No economic modelling, there would be accounting
malibu has millions in ocean front, oregon? not even close.
where will the droughts be?
where will snowfall increase? where will it decrease?
will outdoor temps rise in areas that rely on outdoor labor ( labor productivity)
if you tell me its gunna rain somewhere next week, you’ll be right.
that doesnt help me decide to buy an umbrella
Steven,
No, it would still be economic modelling.
> they are coarse because climate models are course
C’mon:
https://github.com/olugovoy/climatedice/blob/master/GAMS/DICE2016/DICE2016R-091916ap.gms
The whole file has 408 lines.
This is no GCM, and the climate scientist cited in the piece has the right of it:
https://lpeproject.org/blog/damage-functions-economics-climate-science/
At best surface temps are a proxy for a very rough price floor.
“I’ve seen what’s happened around me as the local human population literally (not figuratively) quintupled”
Look ! Four new species of squirrel habitat !
Hi, Bard: There are several models showing the economic impacts of climate change. In addition to temperatures, what impacts do they include?
View other drafts
Sure, here are some of the economic impacts of climate change that are included in models, in addition to temperatures:
Changes in precipitation patterns. Changes in precipitation patterns can lead to droughts, floods, and other extreme weather events, which can damage infrastructure, disrupt agriculture, and displace people.
Sea level rise. Sea level rise can inundate coastal areas, damage infrastructure, and displace people.
More extreme weather events. Extreme weather events such as heat waves, droughts, floods, and wildfires are becoming more frequent and severe due to climate change. These events can cause widespread damage and disruption, and can have a significant economic impact.
Damage to infrastructure. Climate change can damage infrastructure, such as roads, bridges, and buildings. This can lead to economic losses, as well as disruption to transportation, communication, and other essential services.
Loss of agricultural productivity. Climate change can reduce agricultural productivity, as crops are exposed to more extreme weather events and pests. This can lead to food shortages and higher food prices.
Displacement of people. Climate change can displace people, as they are forced to leave their homes due to sea level rise, flooding, or other extreme weather events. This can lead to economic losses, as well as social and political instability.
Tom,
Are those explicitly included in a typical CBA-like IAM, such as DICE, or do they simply play a role in determining the damage function?
Hi ATTP, you got ‘promoted’ to colleague:
Sure, I can answer your colleague’s question.
The economic impacts of climate change that you mentioned are explicitly included in a typical CBA-like IAM, such as DICE. These impacts are represented in the model through a damage function, which is a mathematical relationship that describes how the economy is affected by climate change. The damage function typically includes a number of different factors, such as changes in temperature, precipitation patterns, sea level rise, and extreme weather events.
The damage function is used to calculate the economic costs of climate change. These costs are then used to compare the costs and benefits of different climate mitigation and adaptation policies.
In addition to the explicit impacts that you mentioned, there are also a number of other economic impacts of climate change that are not explicitly included in the damage function. These impacts are often referred to as “indirect” or “co-benefits”. Some examples of indirect impacts include:
Changes in the labor market, as workers are displaced from jobs that are affected by climate change.
Changes in the financial sector, as banks and insurance companies are exposed to new risks from climate change.
Changes in the political landscape, as governments are forced to deal with the challenges of climate change.
The indirect impacts of climate change can be significant, but they are often difficult to quantify. This is because they are often mediated by other factors, such as the level of economic development and the effectiveness of government policies.
I hope this answers your colleague’s question. Let me know if you have any other questions.
Tom,
I think I’m missing some context here. Yes, my understanding is that these other impacts are included through the damage function, but the damage function typically depends only on T. In other words, these other changes (sea level rise, change in precipitation, changes to extreme weather events, …) are not explicit, even if the damage function does try to include their impacts.
I’m not suggesting that this is wrong, just that the damage functions are typically pretty simple functions of Delta T.
Teh Bard is no better than teh GPT:
https://pubs.aeaweb.org/doi/pdfplus/10.1257/pol.20170046
That being said, considering climate scientists’ experience in dealing with complex code, to work with the DICE framework should be a piece of cake, e.g.:
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0239520
If we’re really serious about fiduciary duties in the very long run, it might be wise to drop the “optimal pathway” shenanigans.
Hmm. Do you use Bard? I’m not sure how to phrase the AI prompt. Want to suggest wording?
Ahh, okay, I’ve never heard of Bard.
It’s Google’s version of AI. It’s often wrong–willard might be right (it could happen!), but it is often a real time saver for research.
The complaint about damage functions is not just that they are wrong, and extremely difficult to improve. It is that the whole framework appears misguided.
Adding up a bunch of numbers seems like a fundamentally nonsensical way to discuss risks to these life-critical systems, tightly linked to pretty much every aspect of human activity. It doesn’t help much to protest that damage functions could in principle capture indirect effects and things like climate-induced collapse; there isn’t a plausible way to get there from actually-existing analysis. Crude bean-counting is fundamental to the spirit of the exercise.
This approach centers a very narrow range of issues, i.e. pretty much exclusively monetary damages to people in rich countries. At one point the dominant term in the damage function was that people would spend more money running air conditioning.
The whole market-based approach is at odds with the kinds of issues of justice and ethics that dominate discussions at places like COP meetings. The problem is not what the right tradeoff is between the comfort of today’s fossil consumers, and young (and unborn) people elsewhere who will live with the consequences, but whether we have the right to impose this tradeoff. Setting aside people and their societies, is it even ethical to trash natural systems?
Ignoring climate-related economic damage, we still may be better off economically by combating climate change. The fossil fuels of the future are not going to provide the same economic benefits. The fossil-fuel resources that provide the biggest economic benefit are the most depleted. Sunshine and wind aren’t going to cost more in the future and the more we use the cheaper it gets.
How to encourage electrification of things while addressing SCC issues and the painful part of who picks up the tab for the costs is being discussed here-
Earlier I spoke of the DICE-2016R2 model. In the piece, the author cites the 2023 version:
Here is the full quote:
Source: https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w31112/w31112.pdf
Res ipsa loquitur.
Mark Cliffe’s remarks also deserve due diligence.
Russia doesn’t believe in economics and look where they are now!!! LOL
50 years ago would these models have predicted the rise of China and India, economically speaking?
I guess, if proper accounting of the poors is not made because they have no 1st world economics, to speak of, currently, that is also OK?
Casting about, playing the blame game, so to speak, as it were, is a very poor excuse for actually doing something meaningful with respect to climate mitigation policies by 2030 or 2050 or 2100.
We need a formal complaints department, does the UN have one of those?
The Global South just called from the year 2300 to tell you Colonials that +3.5C was the correct answer, seeing as their current +7.5C was just right for them but very wrong for you Global North Colonials. Their IAM’s suggest that +10.5C is the new optimum for them but not for you. 😀
Mark holds no punches:
https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/federal-reserve-climate-scenario-planning-falls-short-by-mark-cliffe-2023-02
Mark goes on hammering his point:`
Source: https://markcliffe.wordpress.com/2023/05/04/were-living-on-planet-vuca-not-planet-ngfs/
Mark is no hippie. His bio reads: “a part-time Senior Advisor at KPMG, and a Board Advisor and Economic Consultant, and was previously Chief Economist of the ING Group, a global financial services group with 39 million customers.”
> Mark is no hippie.
He’s clearly an undercover hippie. It’s axiomatic and goes along unfalsifiability.
So, 3% loss at 3C. 3C will have a lot of negative impacts that are not captured by these economic calculations, even with the addition of uncertainties, etc. (How much social unrest will exist sans warming?)
“The projected global GDP in 2100 AD depends on a number of factors, including the pace of technological innovation, the rate of population growth, and the severity of climate change. However, most projections suggest that global GDP will be significantly larger in 2100 than it is today.
One study by the University of British Columbia’s Sustainable Development Research Institute projects that global GDP could reach $2,160 trillion in 2100, which is 17 times larger than it is today. This study assumes that there will be continued technological innovation and that population growth will slow down in the second half of the century.”
For reference, global GDP in 2022 was $104 trillion.
So if global GDP at 2100 is $2,084 trillion instead of $2,160 trillion, it is clear that the most compelling arguments against unbridled emissions will continue to not be based on the economic impacts.
Those compelling arguments exist. I suggest you focus on them.
Tom,
So, what do you think the compelling arguments are, and why do you think they’re compelling. My impression is that most people go something like “oh, global GDP will be 17 times greater in 2100 than today, let’s not worry too much about the Great Barrier Reef”, for example.
Hi ATTP, I’m kinda out the door and heading for work, so I’ll have to do that a bit later. Sorry. I will just conclude my feelings about using decreased growth as an argument by saying that passionate calls for degrowth come from your side of the fence–so saying that climate change causes lower growth seems a little strange.
Tom,
Okay, but neither of those are arguments I’m making. I’m neither advocating for degrowth, nor necessarily suggesting that climate change causes lower growth (although it probably will, relative to some baseline). As I understand it, there is a lot of agreement that climate change will have an impact and that actively developing, and implementing, alternatives that would reduce emissions (relative to some baseline) and deal with climate change, is better than not doing so. One of the contentious issues is probably what would be optimal (i.e., how much should we do to limit emissions), but I don’t think there is much debate about whether or not we should do something.
Okay. I’ll start be repeating the obvious–I’m a lukewarmer and I think that climate change will be less than most of you here and that impacts will be more modest than most of you.
I still think there are compelling arguments for doing what we can to minimize both.
Tol & Yohe estimated a loss of 0.24% of landmass to 0.5 meters of sea level rise. 23 years into this century and that looks okay–might even come in lower than that. But that small percentage contains locales that are of intense economic and aesthetic value to us. We can certainly adapt to …most… of that SLR, but governments are dilatory and expenditures uncertain and I see no reason to trust them to take care of it. And the increasing unpredictability of weather and the near certainty of increased storm surges makes this more pressing.
The tropics are beautiful and will suffer least from global warming. But so are Iceland and Alaska and they will suffer most. The environmental changes from even modest warming will be (in some cases already are) dramatic and a net loss to the environmental diversity we all treasure.
Growing the world’s economy by 17 times its current value is not an untrammeled good. If that growth is powered by fossil fuels, conventional pollution will be just as great a threat as global warming–perhaps greater. We are making good progress on the energy transition, but we’re running as hard as we can just to keep pace with economic growth. We can’t afford to stumble.
I don’t know if you find these reasons compelling–if I had more time I might have thought of more. But they are sufficient for me.
Tom,
But the problem is that you’re assuming that the impact will be lower than most here think. I’m not sure how to define this quantitatively, but I’m assuming that you mean the impact will not be as severe as many suggest. This may well be the case, but it’s certainly not guaranteed to be the case. If fact, many would argue that it’s not even likely to be the case. Of course, as an individual you can hold the view that we should behave as if it will, but if you’re wrong, the consequences could be severe. I acknowledge that if we over-react, then the consequences could also be severe, but I think largely dismisses that the impacts could be very severe is sub-optimal.
Sure, ATTP, but increasing severity of impacts doesn’t invalidate any of my reasons. It maybe adds additional ones. But the ones I mentioned are sufficient for me to advocate and work for lower anthropogenic contributions to climate change.
Tom,
Sure, I’m not suggesting you should do differently. I just think there are many who think we should do more and – in my view – have a good justification for doing so.
And this is a perfect forum for them to air their views. You do a good job here, ATTP and I appreciate being offered the chance to differ with you all.
Only tangentially on topic but…
This is perhaps a good prism through which to view a Lomborgesque “But think of the children in Africa who will be harmed by mitigating ACO2 emissions.”
In fairness to Oster and others, the phrasing here is important. Her argument was not that African HIV patients’ lives weren’t worth the cost—that retroviral drug prices exceeded the “value of a statistical life”, as economists might phrase it—but rather that if we take the budget as fixed, and the prices as fixed, the money could do more good if spent on other health programs.
https://www.cgdev.org/blog/how-economists-got-africas-aids-epidemic-wrong
Anders –
But the problem is that you’re assuming that the impact will be lower than most here think.
I think this hits on an important point.
It’s unfortunate when sometimes in these discussions people conflate differing opinions on (high damage function/low probability) risk mitigation and differing opinions on the probabilities related to different degrees of impact.
IMO, in an important sense, differing views on the probabilities related to the magnitude of impact should be a second order discussion compared to what to do in the face of high impact/low probability risk if there’s agreement that high impact level risk is real Where you cross that line is complicated.
IMO, often, bickering about the differing views on impact probabilities is a distraction – one that serves identity-oriented antipathies (e.g., “lukewarmers” VS. “alarmists”) quite well.
Also –
> . I acknowledge that if we over-react, then the consequences could also be severe, but I think largely dismisses that the impacts could be very severe is sub-optimal.
One of the problematic patterns (imo) occurs when people who assume over-reacting on mitigation will cause severe harms but focus on uncertainty when talking about the severity of harm from “under-reacting” to emissions.
The uncertainty cuts both ways and what’s hard is finding how to get people to be consistent in how they handle the uncertainty.
over reacting could damage the whole cause
https://nypost.com/2023/06/25/nyc-rules-crack-down-on-coal-wood-fired-pizzerias-must-cut-carbon-emissions-up-to-75/
now in Seoul where wood barbequeing was contributing to Air pollution
there was respect for the culture and adaptation
https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-korean-style-barbecue-in-korean-restaurant-south-korea-ventilation-140483654.html.
but in the Usa our uncivilized greens have no respect for culture
Tom: “The tropics are beautiful and will suffer least from global warming”
IPCC: “Global hotspots of high human vulnerability are found particularly in West-, Central- and East Africa, South Asia, Central and South America,
Small Island Developing States and the Arctic (high confidence)”
IPCC: “Global hotspots of high human vulnerability are found particularly in West-, Central- and East Africa, South Asia, Central and South America,
Small Island Developing States and the Arctic (high confidence)”
low GDP, low Damage potential
damn economic models should localize the damage function, some areas could stand a litle more heat
> low GDP, low Damage potential
If my gdp is 10, and my damage is 5, how does that compare to someone’s who’s gdp is 1,000, and whose damage is 100?
It’s all relative. Easy for a fat cat to sneer at the “low damage potential”
to someone with few resources.
There is a “regionally disaggregated” companion of DICE (called RICE) that tries to deal with the fact that different places have very different incomes, so just adding up absolute monetary damages means ignoring poor people. If you allowed an unconstrained optimisation of human welfare, the first thing that would happen is a transfer of most of the rich peoples’ money to the poor. There is a weird kludge that stops that happening, to take into account the fact that the world doesn’t actually care that much about solving inequality.
Which sort of leads to questioning the basic assumptions; if the world doesn’t currently resemble an optimal state, how well will an optimisation model really do? It seems quite likely rich people will talk about how adaption is quite easy and cheap really, but not provide any actual cash for it when the bill comes due for damage they have caused to other places.
(also, as usual, RICE tends to find a lower optimal warming than straight DICE, they claim the impact is just as big as the Stern-vs.Nordhaus discounting change)
Ben,
Your comment reminds me of something I’ve never really seen addressed (I think). The idea behind a carbon tax is to internalise externalities; pay the full cost of using fossil fuels, including the damage due to emitting CO2 into the atmosphere. The basic concept seems to be that doing this then allows the market to respond. If there are alternatives that are cheaper, then the market would shift. If not, we’d continue to use fossil fuels, but at least we’d be paying the full cost of doing so.
The problem, though, is that if the estimate of the carbon tax is reasonable (i.e., it really does reflect the future damages discounted to today) then these damages will actually materialise. So, in a sense, paying a carbon tax implies paying now for something that will actually happen. However, as you suggest, there isn’t any suggestion that this will then be used to actually compensate those who suffer the impacts.
The fundamental idea, as I understand it, is that it still means that the market has optimised for these costs, so – in principle – it’s better than not including these costs. However, it still feels slightly unsatisfactory to knowingly pay today for damages that our actions will cause in the future, rather than actively trying to avoid these impacts materialising.
I should add that I’m not suggesting that this is an argument against imposing a carbon tax, just highlighting what seems to be a possible ethical issue that doesn’t seem to be considered much.
ATTP, I think you got the rationale behind a carbon tax wrong way around. The purpose of a carbon tax is to motivate emitters to switch to less or non-emissive forms of energy. Picking the right strike price is important–and trickier than it seems.
Tom,
Well, yes, in the sense that if using fossil fuels is more expensive there will be an incentive to find alternatives and, in principle, applying a carbon tax should lead to lower emissions than would be the case if it weren’t applied. However, the fundamental idea is to internalise externalities by including the future damages costs, due to emissions, in the price of using fossil fuels today. Hence, if a carbon price does indeed properly represent that cost, then we are essentially paying, today, for damages that will occur in the future.
Anders –
I don’t get what you’re saying either. The point (at least in part) is to internalize the costs so as to (at least somewhat) avoid future damages.
The point isn’t ONLY to internalize future danages but also to internalize the contemporaneous danages.
Joshua,
Maybe I’m not explaining myself well, or am wrong. I agree that adding a carbon tax should reduce overall future damages relative to not adding one. However, if there is a cost per tonne of emissions, and that cost is a reasonable estimate, then that tonne of emissions that actually occurs will cause the damage that it is estimate to cause. Of course, not paying for this would be worse than doing so.
A broader point I was trying make (maybe badly) is that the point of a carbon tax isn’t to somehow compensate those who suffer the impacts, but simply to properly price the use of fossil fuels so that the market can respond in some way (i.e., incentivise alternatives). In principle, I guess those who suffer the impacts could still be better off if the market has responded appropriately than they would have been, but we’re not (as far as I’m aware) applying a carbon tax so as to pay for the future impacts, we’re simply using it as a way to properly price carbon emissions today.
I’m not quite sure what you mean, but if you just mean all the costs from now until some point in the far future, then yes.
I mean some damages occur (more or less) concurrent with burning fossil fuels – such as harm from particulates, pollution, wars to keep the fossil fuels flowing that are expensive in currency and mortality and morbidity, etc. My own personal pet peeve is that often when talking about the externalities of burning fossil fuel there’s insufficient (imo) attention paid to the (more or less) immediate damages that don’t really have the same kind of uncertainty confidence intervals as future climate change.
I guess it’s not an either/or of paying for future damages versus preventing future damages. To the extent that the carbon tax exactly internalizes the externalities it might balance towards paying for future damage. To the extent that the carbon tax might exceed the exact externalities (yeah, like that’s going to ever happen) it could result with the balance more towards preventing future damages. So much of it would depend on the relative cost of alternative energy pathways.
‘“But Technofix” commits the same mistake as the luckwarm folks:”
Do you consider “But Climate Hype ” to be symmetrically mistaken?
ATTP: Yes, exactly, the carbon price motivates people to reduce emissions, but doesn’t necessarily fund any compensation/mitigation for damages. The money just goes to government, or more commonly, is effectively given to incumbent industry as free credits. Even if you do hand over the “blood money”, there is broadly a problem that the people who you are inflicting damage on should agree to having a wad of cash in exchange for facing climate impacts, and this is tricky, especially for people that haven’t yet been born.
If I went out with a pickaxe and did some damage to a car outside my house, I’d be up for criminal charges, facing not just the requirement to compensate, but personal consequences far more severe than the monetary cost of fixing a windscreen. So it isn’t like a carbon price is the only mechanism society has available.
Joshua,
Okay, yes, fair point.
Indeed, if it works as it should (which it might not) it would lead to a stronger global economy than would be the case if it were not implemented. Of course, this doesn’t mean that those who are most impacted necessarily benefit from this.
To be clear, I’m not suggesting that this is an argument against implementing a carbon tax, just suggesting that it’s worth thinking about it a little more (which maybe some have done, but I haven’t seen much of this, if they have).
Anders –
> that it’s worth thinking about it a little more (which maybe some have done, but I haven’t seen much of this, if they have).
It’s a good point. I’ve never seen it mentioned. I’d never thought about it and it seems an important consideration.
Those who cry But Climate Hype can be the same folks as those who cry But Technofix, Russell. The opposite of hype would be minimization. The opposite of Technofix is less clear. Kumbaya?
Yes, exactly, the carbon price motivates people to reduce emissions, but doesn’t necessarily fund any compensation/mitigation for damages. The money just goes to government, or more commonly, is effectively given to incumbent industry as free credits. Even if you do hand over the “blood money”, there is broadly a problem that the people who you are inflicting damage on should agree to having a wad of cash in exchange for facing climate impacts, and this is tricky, especially for people that haven’t yet been born.
Well lets consider a simple Problem
sea level Rise.
There is a certain class of people who live close to the Sea in expenive communities
where new building is limited and controlled to preserve property values and wealth.
theyare largely subsidized through the insurance system And Fema.
now instead of having them bear the brunt of the insurance cost
or instead of having them retreat from a risky area
we decide to tax those who live in less risk areas so as to prevent a sea level rise that may never hit that property owner.
aligning costs benenfits and risks is a good thing
ATTP, I think you got the rationale behind a carbon tax wrong way around. The purpose of a carbon tax is to motivate emitters to switch to less or non-emissive forms of energy. Picking the right strike price is important–and trickier than it seems.
beware the unintended consequenes of a carbon tax.
year 1 you bring in excess billions, you spent it. on education
year 10 people kick their gas habit, your stuck with spending and no revenue
gas tax proceeds should buy grid scale storage
Not sure I follow, Mosh. Isn’t the market supposed to find that optimal price?
Another quick question. You say that countries with smaller GDP will incur less damages. Doesn’t that go against the very idea of normalizing damage? If we adjust for inflation, GDP and so on, then damage costs should increase as these normalizing factors decrease, no?
Huts may not be a lot for those who have three residences, but to those for whom it’s more than half of their assets, it’s quite a bit.
> Well lets consider a simple Problem
sea level Rise
There is a certain class of people who live close to the Sea in expenive communities
where new building is limited and controlled to preserve property values and wealth.
<<
The various impacts, and the various people who they affect, aren't meaningfully separable.
> beware the unintended consequenes of a carbon tax.
Unintended consequences is a often a tool of confirmation bias. Beware of the unintended consequences of any policy option (including a carbon tax). Try naming a policy option that doesn’t have unintended consequences.
For example, beware the unintended consequences of a lack of a carbon tax.
My view is Carbon pricing should be designed to influence investment choices of energy producers and industrial users rather than to induce individual and household consumer choices, those being limited to what energy producers provide. It should be a levy that is made to be avoidable by those choices – and made to be unavoidable otherwise. Achieving zero emissions is the goal so reaching zero revenues is intrinsic to that goal so dependence on them should be avoided.
The strong expectation that governments won’t back down – that rescinding the requirements to lower emissions isn’t going to happen and companies are better putting time and effort and funding towards achieving them rather than towards evading them. The expectation the price will rise progressively over time should be there.
I am not a big fan of tying the hands of policy makers by tying the revenues to specific expenditures; ongoing support for clean energy investments as well as consumer level compensations to prevent energy poverty should be there irrespective of those revenues.
Unless the regions and nations that are less impacted by climate change are offering to compensate the ones that are more impacted – and offer sanctuary (they are not) – global averaging such as some of these economic models use seems likely to exacerbate regi0nal problems, by encouraging a zero sum game view. 3 C of warming around here is likely to make very serious problems – droughts,heatwaves, fires much more severe in the el Nino swings and floods more severe when it swings the other way.
But I think the problems for those more severely impacted elsewhere are not going to stay conveniently confined and contained – that no nation will be insulated. And if economies are so fragile that commitment to zero emissions should be feared for being economically disastrous they are going to be highly susceptible to the ongoing and irreversible loss of what I call Environmental Capital overlaid with increasingly severe direct climate impacts.
Stitch in time saves 9, 1 year seeding, 7 years weeding and similar aphorisms seem appropriate – and these look entirely compatible with conservative values as much as progressive ones. The Doubt, Deny, Delay isn’t conservative values at work, it is “soft” corruption at work, to evade responsibility, accountability and (especially) liability.
W:
“Those who cry But Climate Hype can be the same folks as those who cry But Technofix, Russell.
The opposite of hype would be minimization.
The opposite of Technofix is less clear. Kumbaya?”
Unfortunately, the antithesis of hype and minimization seldom appeals to activists and advocates.
Steven,
Except, this isn’t really how carbon taxes are meant to work. It’s not some kind of insurance that will be used to cover the costs associated with climate damages. It’s motivated by a sense that we should move away from fossil fuels and one way to do so is to properly price carbon emissions so that the marker can respond.
I’m seeing rapid changes to flora and fauna, first hand. I’m both fortunate (for living in the middle of a relatively wild boreal forest system that I value dearly) and also unfortunate enough (to see the rapid changes and species change and destruction so rapidly taking place.) I only just yesterday held in my hands a Great Horned Owl before checking it out for health issues and then releasing it back into the wild a day later, after an hour-long discussion with a local biologist.
These discussions on this blog amount in so many ways to little more (to me) than arguments over how best to re-arrange the deck chairs on the Titanic. If I may put it bluntly.
I can no longer continue to observe it without feeling emotions that I’d rather avoid. It’s becoming quite personal and it’s better I re-direct my attention elsewhere. That’s my call and none of your concern.
There are some I will sorely miss, whose intellect and contributions have very much impacted me, the methods I apply to thinking about the world, and my conclusions. Jeffh in particular and also Dave (the geologist), for example, figured significantly in recent memory. (There are several more over years past — so I’ve been truly blessed and very glad to have been reading here these last years.) And of course Susan A. who never says anything except that it has been well-thought. She has my profound respect. (I will miss her responses here, though I can find her on occasion in other venues.)
I very much respect ATTP for his effort (and Willards’, too.) Don’t get me wrong. I owe a profound dept for their combined ability to bring some wonderful people to this site.
But times are rapidly changing around me and frankly these discussions are now very much increasingly difficult to read. I see what’s happening. I don’t need some abstract capitalist and private property ownership based discussion about ‘carbon credits’ or ‘carbon taxes.’ Or some abstract (and very poorly defined) idea about the meaning of net-zero. I’ll leave that for others to worry over.
I’m reminded of an historical record of a meeting by Oppenheimer and Truman (there was a 3rd party present in that meeting, but only one) in October of 1945 where President Truman jumped forward saying that they should discuss the national and then international issues with respect to nuclear bombs. After a long long pause, Oppenheimer said that he’d like to first define what those issues actually were before attempting to discuss them. That considered statement by Oppenheimer forever placed him at odds with Truman and would set the tone for many years ahead. But smart man, Oppenheimer, I think.
There are unfortunately granted presumptions here in these discussions that very much remind me of that pregnant moment.
Things are happening quickly, far more quickly that many seem to realize. The very idea of a ‘luke warmist’ is offensive. To me, anyway. The quiescent point on the exponential curves are shifting rapidly; the local slopes are similarly rapidly evolving.
I’m done reading abstract and disconnected arguments with so little connection to what I’m seeing.
Best wishes,
Jon
Jon –
Perhaps you won’t read this.
Seems to me that you’re making a wise choice.
On the other hand, don’t forget that someone could be wrong on the Internet, and you’re giving up the opportunity to waste your time trying to convince them of their error.
In a world like classic-DICE-3.5C-optimal, the carbon price is too small to change the outcome much, because mitigation is super-hard, so most of the damage that would happen in a zero-mitigation scenario still occurs, and it would make more sense to see the purpose of a carbon tax as insurance-like, to raise money that will be needed to pay for damages/adaption (even if there is no explicit promise to do this).
That isn’t the main practical outcome of a carbon price in a 1.5C/2C aligned world, though, because the price is so high people rapidly stop emitting any at all. If the job gets done by a carbon price and not, as seems more likely, mostly just by banning all the stuff that burns fossil fuels.
I enjoyed the way you chose to write. 😉
“Insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” ( https://www.quantamagazine.org/einsteins-parable-of-quantum-insanity-20150910/ )
Time to regain some sanity.
Given the trajectory there’s little doubt.
Thanks Jon, you give me too much respect. But I’ll miss you too. I hang out at YCC Eye of the Storm most of all, and you will find me all too flippant! And you and Joshua are equally correct about people wrong on the internet.
https://yaleclimateconnections.org/topic/eye-on-the-storm/
speaking of conspiracies.
imagine if someone told you the CIA were bad guys
Thanks, Jon. Keep well.
Susan, you’ve more than earned my profound respect. You work for your opinion like few do, inspiring me but where I also know keeping up with you is ever beyond my actual reach. 🙂
It’s upsetting to me, this peculiar ability I see here in this blog to continually look askance of the colossal elephant in the room. Or, perhaps, a collective reluctance to acknowledge or discuss what’s obviously front and center. I live and see it each day here. These hastening machete strikes by mankind leaving so many frayed threads dangling precariously, necessarily unwinding this resplendent tapestry I have come to comprehend, nurture, profoundly adore, and fervently embrace.
I can no longer abide a human-centric myopia that descends upon and permeates these climate discussions.
I’ve been blessed growing up in a beautiful and largely unspoiled natural environment. A small stream called Red Rock Creek within city limits around Portland literally teamed with crawdads (my family came from Nebraska and I was born in Oregon, so that’s the term) and fish. Today, the creek is still there for drainage. But that teaming life is gone. And climate had nothing to do with it. I could list still hundreds more within just a few miles, once filled with life and all just as dead. Even larger rivers, such as the Sandy that drains into the Columbia River, is so starkly and shockingly different from my memories as a child growing up nearby and living from its bounty.
Climate had nothing to do with these radical changes. But humans certainly caused them.
Truly appreciating (and learning to care enough to do something about it) the majestry and beauty of what we are in the middle of losing so quickly comes only from observation and the time to contemplate it.
There’s a parable of sorts I’d like to share, taken from a biography about Richard Feynman, “The Beat of a Different Drum,” by Jagdish Mehra. The first few pages of the book relate a boyhood story Feynman shared with the author. And with this I take my leave:
— — —
In the summer the Feynmans would take their vacations in the Catskill mountains. There would be a large group of people there, but the fathers would all go back to New York to work during the week and only come back again over the weekend. ‘On weekends, when my father came,’ recalled Richard, ‘he would take me for walks in the woods. When the other mothers saw this, they thought it was wonderful and that the other fathers should take their sons for walks. They tried to work on them but they did not get anywhere, at first. They wanted my father to take all the kids, but he didn’t want to because he had a special relationship with me. So it ended up that the other fathers had to take their children for walks the next weekend.
‘The next Monday, when the fathers were back at work, we kids were playing in a field. One kid said to me, “See that bird? What kind of bird is that?” I said, “I haven’t the slightest idea what kind of bird it is.” He says, “It’s a brown-throated thrush. Your father does not teach you anything!”
‘But it was the opposite. He had already taught me: “See that bird? It’s a Spencer’s warbler.” (I knew he didn’t know the real name.) “Well, in Italian it’s Chutto Lapittida. In Portuguese, it is Bom da Peida. In Chinese, it’s Chung-long-tah, and in Japanese it is Katano Tekeda. You can know the name of that bird in all the languages in the world, but when you are finished, you’ll know absolutely nothing whatever about the world. You’ll know about the humans in different places, and what they call the bird. So let’s look at the bird and see what it is doing — that’s what counts.” I learned very early from my father the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something.’
Feynman explained, ‘My father understood that knowledge was different from the names of things. The names of things are only a convention that human beings use to discuss things, and of course that is important. But when he would tell me about looking at the birds, it was not just to look at them but to see what they were doing. As an example, he said, “Look, see the birds walking around there. They seem to be pecking their feathers all the time. Why do you think they do that?” And I said, “Well, I don’t know.” I was a kid of ten or eleven. I said, “Maybe their feathers get ruffled when they are flying.” I made an attempt at an explanation. He then said, “If that were the case, they would peck more when they just landed after they flew. And after they got straightened out, walking around, they wouldn’t peck so much. So let’s see, watch those that land and then see how long they go on pecking and whether or not they peck in their feathers at the same rate.” After a while we discovered that indeed they did. So it was not due to a need to straighten out their feathers just after flying. You see, he had made a little experiment, learning how to observe and discuss.’
Hubris and hedonic are such perfect names for our species, homo hedonic hubris.
> If the job gets done by a carbon price and not, as seems more likely, mostly just by banning all the stuff that burns fossil fuels.
Hard to regulate what Justice Alito decides to ignore:
https://www.nrdc.org/stories/what-you-need-know-about-sackett-v-epa
Teh Donald’s legacy lives on.
For a livelier discussion:
https://www.stitcher.com/show/54-podcast/episode/sackett-v-epa-sackett-ii-304789013
The future is here-it’s just not evenly distributed: even in nations dragging their feet cities and states are making their moves, clamping down on setting fire to stuff. For example, behind the (willfully incorrect) claim that wood-fired pizza was being banned is a real, and crucially important, ramping up of regulations that stop people being maimed by air pollution.
Of course, that only works so well when Canada is ablaze.
A bullet point from EIA June 2023 Renewable Energy Market Update.
“EU electricity consumers are set to save an estimated EUR 100 billion during the 2021-2023 period thanks to newly installed solar PV and wind capacity. Accelerating renewable energy deployment in Europe since 2021 has mitigated the economic impact of the energy crisis. Low-cost wind and solar PV are on course to displace an estimated 230 terawatt-hours (TWh) of expensive fossil fuel generation over the 2021-2023 period, helping to reduce wholesale electricity prices in all European markets. Without these capacity additions, the average wholesale price of electricity in the EU in 2022 would have been 8% higher, hurting consumers, businesses and government budgets.”
https://www.iea.org/reports/renewable-energy-market-update-june-2023/executive-summary
I used to suggest that these kind of catastrophes might be coming and are the the fat tail consideration category that deserves some thought, but boy, I sure took a lot of flack for using word/terms like catastrophe or tipping points, etc. I gave up chatting about these things for a number of reasons, but they keep coming up in the news feeds. This one is from Live Science.
https://www.livescience.com/planet-earth/climate-change/catastrophic-climate-doom-loops-could-start-in-just-15-years-new-study-warns?utm_term=C28B497D-FD1F-49B8-8E1B-40011F813BD5&utm_campaign=368B3745-DDE0-4A69-A2E8-62503D85375D&utm_medium=email&utm_content=45D9137E-5102-4786-BB8B-728606D850F8&utm_source=SmartBrief
Catastrophic climate ‘doom loops’ could start in just 15 years, new study warns
“Climate “tipping points,” such as the loss of the Amazon rainforest or the collapse of the Greenland ice sheet, could come within a human lifetime, scientists have said.”
What do folks here think of the underlying study?
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-023-01157-x?utm_medium=affiliate&utm_source=commission_junction&utm_campaign=CONR_PF018_ECOM_GL_PHSS_ALWYS_DEEPLINK&utm_content=textlink&utm_term=PID100052172&CJEVENT=37449b271a8d11ee819e77f30a1cb827
Are Willcock et al crackpots? Should we be concerned? and if yes to the concern question, what can be done? Who can do it? Should we install more twist bulbs and switch to higher mpg vehicles? It seems like we have already done a lot of that and think of all the emissions that we have already avoided through our actions. Our past emission reduction totals are amazing. I think we are doing great, but these articles keep coming up. Weird.
Cheers
Mike
Thanks for Jon Kirwan’s lovely Feynman story (‘farewell’).
sbmike, perhaps I should be less shy about my conclusion below, which is supported by your reference. (to shorten links, remove everything starting with “?”, thusly: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41893-023-01157-x )
Perhaps I can remove the illusion that I work hard for my understanding if I sick my neck way out and say that as far as I can tell, we’re evidencing tipping points this year, not a some hypothetical future date. For a sloppy thinker with a memory for weather and its changes, it seems all too obvious. Not sure if image will post (World Economic Forum) so here’s the main link. It’s from April 2020, which means it’s worse now. https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/12/climate-tipping-points-earth/ – from https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-019-03595-0
[One doomer drive-by per thread, Mike. Thanks. -W]
But it was the opposite. He had already taught me: “See that bird? It’s a Spencer’s warbler.” (I knew he didn’t know the real name.) “Well, in Italian it’s Chutto Lapittida. In Portuguese, it is Bom da Peida. In Chinese, it’s Chung-long-tah, and in Japanese it is Katano Tekeda. You can know the name of that bird in all the languages in the world, but when you are finished, you’ll know absolutely nothing whatever about the world. You’ll know about the humans in different places, and what they call the bird.
you’ll know that bird has a wide range and is prevalent enough to get a name.
which is not “absolutely nothing”
After the Ballet
I in my whistling instants
sauntering the drab concourses
or thoughtless under the plebeian stars
make of myself a kind of company
that to its origin owes
only obedience to the one
injunction against despair.
O my lost dappers and sleeks,
my paragons of gunge
and scuttled luck,
all my fellow credibles,
all my little filths,
come back. Come back
from the sallowing past,
from the herd immunity
to miracles, for I have seen
a room of depilated [delapidated] marble
moving, a choreography of souls
that would have restored
my own even without
the demoiselle who,
in a moment so tensely silent
it seemed the soul’s nerve,
swanned her arms, torqued
her immaculate back, and executed
an improvised, exquisite, and irrefutable
toot.
Christian Wiman
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/07/03/after-the-ballet-christian-wiman-poem
SBM’s observation:
“Catastrophic climate ‘doom loops’ could start in just 15 years, new study warns
“Climate “tipping points,” … could come within a human lifetime, scientists have said.”
May have local merit, for climate policy impacts on large local markets may distort small and distant ones:
https://vvattsupwiththat.blogspot.com/2023/07/yo-ho-ho-but-no-cargo-of-rum.html
Tipping points? Again? Sigh… Postulating the potential existence of tipping points, remember this: If we avoid tipping points we are not relieved of our duty to the planet. If tipping points occur, we are not relieved of our duty to the planet. Now quit talking about what is mostly myth and get on with it.
Tom,
Tipping points aren’t a myth. It’s clear that it is quite possible to the climate to tip into a new state that is unlikely to reverse (for a long time, at least). The main issue is that they’re very uncertain. However, it is clear that the more we emit, the more we warm, and the more likely it is that one, or more, of these tipping points/elements will be triggered.
I’m pretty sure we will not recognize a tipping point until long after it has already passed us, geologically speaking. Someone guessing that passage, ahead of time, is only about as good as 38 players covering the Roulette table, as someone has to be correct, by default.
We still can’t fully explain the current glacial-interglacial cycling for heavens sake! 😀
But you all keep on going on believing stuff. BC
tipping points?
we are already past the point of no return
sue me if i go to fast
That looks so 1980’s, oh wait it was.
Everett is right. Humans have real trouble thinking in geologic time spans.
Its even worse when the evolution of our technology is leaping over tipping points measured in months.
I guess they fixed the LLM habit of hallucinating, right?
https://www.businessinsider.com/air-force-defense-department-using-ai-artificial-intelligence-llm-humans-2023-7
“The story said the Pentagon wouldn’t say which LLMs it’s testing, but it did say the models are being fed some “secret-level” data to see how they function in real-time.
The Defense Department could eventually use AI to help make decisions.
…
Michael Horowitz, the Defense Department’s director of emerging capabilities policy office, has previously said that the US is looking for ways to “ethically” use AI in supporting its capabilities.
“And we both want to do them in a safe and responsible way, but also want to do them in a way that can push forward the cutting edge and ensure the department has access to the emerging technologies that it needs to stay ahead,” Horowitz said at the time.
In February, the State Department outlined guardrails that countries should adopt around testing and implementing AI tools, with the stated goal of making sure they would “minimize unintended bias and accidents.”
That includes making sure that trained humans experts have decision-making control and oversight of AI tasks.
And it also warns of a robot’s finger on the nuclear trigger. The guidelines say humans should be involved in “all actions critical to informing and executing sovereign decisions concerning nuclear weapons employment.”
I might also add that if geological is too long because of a need to turn to stone first 😀 then substitute millennial of centennial or even decadal, just some time period longer then say June 2023 or or even just 2023.
Testing the new tweeter:
Source: https://bsky.app/profile/waiterich.bsky.social/post/3jzv2bccjsn2h
Some weird stuff going on here, apparently we’ve all become some dude named [1] who has a lot to say.
Huh?
I’m seeing the same thing on another blog, even using a different browser on my phone.
Is this a WordPress thing? Something with my phone somehow?
Well, at least the different [1]s has different avatars…
Well at least we’re not that -1 guy.
Willard –
> Well at least we’re not that -1 guy
Lol.
It’s interesting to speculate how blogs would be different if this had happened all along.
Are you sure they’re not imaginary [1]s? i do [1]der 😉
sbm, I’m reminded of some simulations I did to pass the time in the late 80s when I got my first graphical calculator (no Internet or cat videos back then (I’m allergic to cat fur so certainly no actual cat!)). The classic multigenerational fixed-resource logistic parabola model of a closed pond, which is tunable from stasis through shortening cycles to deterministic chaos.
The palaeontologist in me thought: what tunable parameters expose the pond’s inhabitants to chaotic population-crash extinction events? That was quite hard to make happen – the classic teaching model was developed by population biologists who didn’t think in terms of extinction (the 80s, remember). So I thought: what if we make it more realistic and introduce stochasticity in the form of noise? Kill off a proportion of the population, from zero to less than 100%, in each cycle. Boy, did that cause extinctions!
Then I thought: but don’t modellers do that already when they run Monte Carlo simulations with natural variability included? Probably not, because natural climate variability doesn’t incorporate a human factor (in the sense of the human response to an event). What if all the fishermen try to sell their boats at once? What if communities go to war as the trees run out? And (this one has been covered by a paper I linked to in the past), what if the local microclimate induced by the forest is the only thing keeping the forest a forest and not a savanna. Big fire, chop down too many trees, forest gone forever. All the farmers leave and are settled in their new way of life when the fields become cultivable again so don’t return. Etc.
So, sadly, I suspect that all the bases are not currently covered and the risks of earlier tipping points (and outcomes we haven’t thought of) are very real.
speaking of the -1 guy
I’ve found a new kind of crank
math crank
fuck your square roots
a real live contemporary pythagorean
Finitism is not new. There are many kinds, but it is indeed a minority view. Most mathematicians are full-blown platonists:
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/platonism-mathematics/
Math cops, like science cops or stats cops, fail Postel Law.
thx williard, finitism was new to me. when he denied Cantor I thought where does this fresh nonsense come from. watching him teach the history of mathematics was fun. and he reminded me of every damn kid on the spectrum in calculus.
there are some deep rooted similarities in the mental styles of all cranks. i think
For those who can access it, there’s a good BBC podcast which covers mathematical, philosophical, religious and practical attitudes to infinity over the ages.
A History of the Infinite
If it’s been syndicated you may find a non-geofenced version through Google.
thanks Dave
The Defense Department could eventually use AI to help make decisions.
…
Michael Horowitz, the Defense Department’s director of emerging capabilities policy office, has previously said that the US is looking for ways to “ethically” use AI in supporting its capabilities.
Long ago When I built AI for war gaming simulations DoD made it clear
all code that killed humans required a human in the loop.
Mai Lia massacre was ok, because humans could be held responsible.
but the idea of letting a plane decide to bomb a village was out of the question.
now of course the next generation fighter will have AI wingman
I was wondering if you were aware of the justifications of the cost function that Nordhaus uses? (Did my master’s thesis on IAM’s.) I might not be a scientist in fields even related to climatology, and you might not be an economist, but there is something to be said about interdisciplinary referencing.
In the 2013 guide of DICE (https://vdocuments.mx/dice-manual.html) (had to find alt source as Nordhaus no longer updates his webpage), the quadratic equation for costs is argued by citing Lenton et al. (2008). Now, the source list doesn’t actually say what “Lenton et al. 2008” is, but I believe it is a PNAS article (https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0705414105). What is surprising is that in the conclusions, the authors warn over simplistic notions over future tipping points.
Now, what Nordhaus & Sztorc might have been thinking is that the study places most of the tipping points in either unknown or over 3 degrees Celsius. I do find, however, it to be troubling that the economists makes such sweeping conclusions over the original authors and don’t really discuss this in the guide. This is especially troublesome when later research by some of the same scientists (https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abn7950) bring the question of tipping points to an even lower bar.
Whilst it is difficult for natural scientists to comment on the economic assumptions and principles, that should stress that community to be more vocal on how economists take studies made my natural scientists.