Left In Lowell

The Trouble with Climate Change

by Lynne at 11:59 am.

We have the standard global warming naysayers in comments of my post about this year’s flood. And one of the chief arguments of these people (since they now cannot deny that the past 600,000 years of ice core data produced a picture of massive increases of CO2 from human industry) is that hey, the earth’s been here before, it’s been this hot before, whatever.

What I see is a total lack of imagination on the part of people denying that global climate crisis will be all that bad. Not because global climate change data needs imagination to understand, but what will happen if even the moderate predictions come true certainly does.

I have long been an avid reader of science fiction, practically since I was old enough to read. Many scifi writers tackle the sticky sociological and technological results of various apocalypses. These are obviously fictitious leaps of imagination; however, they are also intelligent thought experiments exploring the fragility of civilization after various catastrophic events.

I know, your house seems solid. Your computer seems solid. You drive down the solidly paved road in your solid metal car. Everything seems so permanent.

But some of you reading this blog remember one certain 1970s oil crisis. Long lines at gas stations. The cost of everything went up, because the cost of delivery of goods did.

Now ask the Iraqis if civilization can break down with one catastrophe. They once had the largest professional middle class societies in the Middle East. It was eroded by a decade of sanctions; but it was torn asunder by an invasion.

Remember Katrina? Imagine almost-yearly floods in Boston as storms grow worse (we ain’t seen nothing yet) and the sea levels rise. It may happen in my lifetime, so I should well be able to imagine it. How much damage will each storm bring? And in the aftermath, how much will rebuilding (or relocating) of city property cost? Multiply that by all the coastal cities in the US, and you can start to see the economic damage it will inflict. Then factor in that some areas of the US will go into drought. Mass migration from these places will displace whole populations. Famine will be widespread as crops fail in the nation’s heartland.

If you think the 1970s oil crisis caused price inflation, just wait until coastal docks are flooded and inaccessible, infrastructure that will entirely have to be rebuilt. If you think it was hard to get gas for your car, wait until delivery from overseas is curtailed by devastated oil refineries and oil wells are destroyed and sunk.

Now, ask an Iraqi how often they drive a car, or turn on a computer, or even watch TV. With intermittent electricity in their largest cities, ask them if life hasn’t completely been reduced to its basics - find food, protect the family. Now imagine this happening in the Western world, all over.

Our civilization is so fragile, and it only takes one generation to lose all the progress we have made. That’s something I’ve learned from my scifi books. Once life is diminished by devastation to the basest survival, who needs to pass on computer skills? Or how to fix a car? How to pave a road? Why would you even need a road?

That is the biggest danger we face: widespread technological setback. If global climate shifts are already happening faster than predicted, it’s very possible that the devastation will outstrip our ability to adapt to it. If you think it can’t happen, look at other countries who have experienced other types of catastrophic events…and then remember, they recovered with the world’s help. What if the whole world was just trying to survive? Who would help us then?

Rome wasn’t built in a day, but it was sacked in one. And a theory gaining ground is that it was climate change - regional cooling because of sunlight-blocking ash - which caused crop failure and prompted the barbarians to attack, thrusting Europe into the Dark Ages. It took hundreds of years to recover the technological advances of the Romans. Our climate change could be as devastating, or worse. And keep in mind if we change none of our behaviors, we’ll have used up most of the carbon-based fuels that took the industrial age from burning wood and using water wheels to airplanes and automobiles. It takes tens of millions of years to form oil deep in the ground. That’s a step in our civilization’s development that is crucial - carbon-based oil has the highest energy output of anything you can pull up out of the earth. If we fail over the next 100 years to retain the knowledge that can get us beyond carbon-based energy, we may not see this chance come again for a long time.

Our way of life, our democracy, our art, our technology, could be at stake. Some may call that overdramatic. I call it too serious a potential to ignore. Wouldn’t it be better to reorganize our energy infrastructure, create jobs, and have individual energy-independence now rather than wait until it is too late? Even if no climate crisis existed, carbon-based fuels are finite and running out. This is a hit to our economy we will have to endure sooner or later. It’s less painful to adjust now than when carbon-fuel prices are skyrocketing, don’t you think? There is absolutely no argument for retaining the status quo. There’s no good in waiting, only good in pushing forward as far and as fast as possible. To the world beyond carbon fuels, where our real future lies.

[Filed under Economics, Global Warming] [link]

28 Responses to “The Trouble with Climate Change”

waittilnextyr Says:
April 19th, 2007 at 12:44 pm
The denial syndrome

Faced with monumental change, we all tend to convince ourselves
that our lives will continue unscathed. But in the case of global warming that very basic human trait - the psychology of denial - may
bring about our downfall
Shawn Says:
April 19th, 2007 at 1:44 pm
It is the skyrocketing of fuel costs that will be the real impetus for change.

We expressed this best over 200 years ago when Jefferson wrote:

…all experience hath shewn that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.

The market has already responded with segways and hybrids. Solar panels are already 40X more powerful than 10 years ago. Hydrogen, biofuels.. all are in the process.

I think the market is doing the job fairly well.

“Overdramatic” overreaction would be an expensive mistake.
Jason Says:
April 19th, 2007 at 2:03 pm
Good Post Lynne,

Definitely more likely to go that way than not. If you don’t believe this stuff has happened read Guns, Germs and Steel and more importatly the follow up book Collapse by Jared Diamond. His examples and theories aren’t much different from you scenario.
Jacob Says:
April 19th, 2007 at 2:35 pm
Fight global solipsism
ArtisFun Says:
April 19th, 2007 at 6:03 pm
Solipsism isn’t that a synonym for liberal democrat?
Mr. Lynne Says:
April 19th, 2007 at 7:11 pm
The problem is that the cost of any particular item that contributes to climate change is that the cost of its contribution ends up as an externality and, as such, isn’t really addressed by the market.

The current thinking on the matter indicates that the cost of climate change is going to be enormous. Knowing that in a market system costs are supposed to exert price pressure, but when they are externalized they do not. As such, I would argue that the costs of climate change are not actually being addressed in the market. If they were I would expect that, for example, the market share of hybrids and high fuel efficiency cars would orders of magnitude higher than they are now (in the US at least). Consumer choice based on education of the issue (something separate, although perhaps supplemental to, a consumer price influence) probably accounts for more of the market shift than actual market mechanisms. If the market were taking care of it by itself, the advertisements would be all about costs and not about environmentalism. Take out the environmentalist message and the hybrid car doesn’t actually gain market share based on price competition.

This doesn’t mean things are hopeless with regard to the market. The cap and trade ideas about greenhouse gasses is an interesting way to bring real market forces into the system that can help in a very direct way. There are plenty of externalized costs in our system. For example, our country keeps a standing army to protect its interests. Many of those interests are actually private interests. A US company doesn’t pay out some kind of calculated share of the costs to keep an army up and running, although it surely benefits from it. Other obvious examples like this include roads, currency minting, emergency responders, etc. We pay for these things collectively with taxes. Given the near impossibility to calculate the direct and actual “owed share” of many of these externalized costs for individuals and corporate entities (or on a “per widget produced” basis), the collective tax system for handling these costs is probably better anyways. But unless you target these taxes, the costs they are designed to address will not have a market effect of price pressure. And without that pressure it can’t be said that market forces are helping that particular cost and therefore not helping that particular problem.

On the other hand we all know the rolling of the eyes we get when specific taxes on specific items are proposed… even though such a mechanism can actually help bring market forces to bear. Like most systems that depend on human judgment, the key is to define incentives that result in the behavior you want (or need). Given the massive costs of such externalities as climate change, and that because they are externalities the market doesn’t, by itself, adjust to those costs in the desirably ‘normal’ way that markets adjust to costs, government intervention in order to tweak incentives to create the desired adjustment is justified.
Josh Says:
April 19th, 2007 at 7:58 pm
I don’t have much time, but there are just so many mistakes here:

“We have the standard global warming naysayers in comments of my post about this year’s flood. And one of the chief arguments of these people (since they now cannot deny that the past 600,000 years of ice core data produced a picture of massive increases of CO2 from human industry) is that hey, the earth’s been here before, it’s been this hot before, whatever.”

Is it CO2 causing the warming or is warming causing CO2 to rise from the ocean. I would say the latter given that, historically, there has been a lag in the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gWRKApUV-aU
I recommend that you watch the whole movie. It’s called The Global Warming Swindle.

“But some of you reading this blog remember one certain 1970s oil crisis. Long lines at gas stations. The cost of everything went up, because the cost of delivery of goods did.”

And price controls set by the government had nothing to do with it. huh?

“Remember Katrina? Imagine almost-yearly floods in Boston as storms grow worse (we ain’t seen nothing yet) and the sea levels rise. It may happen in my lifetime, so I should well be able to imagine it. How much damage will each storm bring? And in the aftermath, how much will rebuilding (or relocating) of city property cost? Multiply that by all the coastal cities in the US, and you can start to see the economic damage it will inflict. Then factor in that some areas of the US will go into drought. Mass migration from these places will displace whole populations. Famine will be widespread as crops fail in the nation’s heartland.”

So George Bush is a fear-monger because he talks about the prospect of a terrorist attack on American soil to gain support for his massive government programs (war and intelligence), but you think you’re different because your boogie man is CO2? Get real.

“If you think the 1970s oil crisis caused price inflation, just wait until coastal docks are flooded and inaccessible, infrastructure that will entirely have to be rebuilt. If you think it was hard to get gas for your car, wait until delivery from overseas is curtailed by devastated oil refineries and oil wells are destroyed and sunk.”

Funny, I thought inflation was caused by the government printing too much money. Someone better tell Bernanke that its caused by oil shocks and global warming!
tim Says:
April 20th, 2007 at 10:50 am
Josh, if you don’t believe the many, many, many scientists who’s research supports the theory that man is contributing to global warming, why so much faith in the handful that were involved in that movie?

Furthermore, it has been shown that many of the graphs in The Global Warming Swindle were distorted, outdated or just wrong.

Take a look at this article: http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/climate_change/article2355956.ece
Mr. Lynne Says:
April 20th, 2007 at 11:47 am
“Funny, I thought inflation was caused by the government printing too much money. Someone better tell Bernanke that its caused by oil shocks and global warming!”

Are you saying that increased energy costs don’t cause consumer price increases?
Jacob Says:
April 20th, 2007 at 1:40 pm
They do in regards to energy costs, but they do not affect “core inflation” due to their volatility, that is why when the fed reacts to inflation they often disregard energy costs.
Mr. Lynne Says:
April 20th, 2007 at 2:57 pm
So when the energy costs of producers (production and transportation) goes up it doesn’t create price pressur for their produced goods?

Really?
waittilnextyr Says:
April 20th, 2007 at 3:03 pm
Jacob is right when considering the month-to-month variation, but eventually higher energy costs will find their way into the “core” economy.

When the Government posts the Consumer Price Index change, there is a lot of massaging of the data before giving out the bottom line. Technology usually holds down the number, as the Government index deflates the cost of technology based on the inherent increased capability of subsequent products. So it may cost the same amount for your new computer, but since you get more computer for the buck, they deflate the cost for CPI purposes. The result is the inflation you experience is usually greater than what they tell you it is.
Mr. Lynne Says:
April 20th, 2007 at 3:06 pm
If it’s true that energy prices don’t impact non-energy product consumer prices, maybe its ok to argue that increased taxes on producers wouldn’t create price pressure either.
-b Says:
April 21st, 2007 at 1:18 am
Generally, higher energy prices and taxes are a drag on the economy. They tend to slow growth. Thus they are not inflationary.

The core CPI has held very steady through the large year over year increases in Energy prices.
Mr. Lynne Says:
April 21st, 2007 at 8:04 am
but isn’t it the assumption that costs to production eventually hit the consumer in the form of price increases. Isn’t it the fact that energy and tax costs are borne by producers of economic growth the very reason they slow growth? Isn’t it the very impact of energy inflation on core CPI that everyone has been worrying about and why it is commented on with a collective sigh of relief whenever the numbers come out and show that energy didn’t seem to push CPI very much. Isn’t this the ‘other shoe’ that has people concerned.
waittilnextyr Says:
April 21st, 2007 at 9:37 am
Excerpts from today’s Globe points out another elephant in our financial world which cannot be ignored.

“The dollar’s decline has taken place over a period of years, but more recent pullbacks have tested historical benchmarks. The dollar, which began to weaken broadly in early 2002, has fallen more than 50 percent from its October 2000 trading peak against the euro. It has recently come close to hitting its record low against the 13-nation currency and is near a 26-year low against the British pound.

“Over the long term, having your currency fall 50 percent is another force for change in the economy and that will create social pain, ” Brown said.”

Although there may be some pluses to a weak dollar in that it may make the US more attractive for tourism and even manufacturing, the continual printing of money by our federal government to cover its debts has to be detrimental in the long run. And much of our debt is associated with oil, and the wars to keep it flowing.
Jacob Says:
April 21st, 2007 at 1:22 pm
Inflation doesn’t just measure the increases in price, it measures the increase in price in relation to the buyers’ ability to pay. I am not sure of the number but I think wages have increased more than inflation in the past year.
Lynne Says:
April 21st, 2007 at 3:05 pm
For the first time in years, maybe. Up til now, under Bush’s so-called “recovery,” that has not been the case.
-b Says:
April 21st, 2007 at 3:57 pm
The current unemployment rate (under Bush) is 4.4. Not bad if you ask me.
Mr. Lynne Says:
April 21st, 2007 at 5:18 pm
Are you saying that when it is reported that core CPI rose x% that the figure is not ‘raw’ but ‘adjusted’ for any change in in worker earnings?

I don’t think so.
Jacob Says:
April 22nd, 2007 at 3:04 pm
no, I am defining inflation.
Jacob Says:
April 22nd, 2007 at 3:09 pm
A problem with this conversation is that the CPI does not include energy prices to begin with - it is one of about a dozen measures of inflation.
Mr. Lynne Says:
April 22nd, 2007 at 4:03 pm
Consumer Price Inflation presumably includes any price inflation related to increased costs of production… say energy costs of production.
waittilnextyr Says:
April 22nd, 2007 at 5:28 pm
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/cpi.nr0.htm
Bob Says:
April 23rd, 2007 at 4:49 pm
Oh - headache! Reality check says that the sorts of basic measures of a just economy are out of wack. Foreclosures are escalating and causing major harm to working class families. Wealth is more and more consolidaitng at the top according to a wide range of economists. Energy costs are rising and these absolutely affect everything else we buy out over time. More people are more economically insecure right now in the Merrimack Valley than at any point in a long, long time and all of the costs associated with climate change will simply add to the burden, esp. for people who can least afford it.
Mr. Lynne Says:
April 23rd, 2007 at 7:20 pm
I’m just amazed by the denial.
moonlight Says:
April 26th, 2007 at 11:36 am
the only thing missing form last weeks city council

meeting was ‘ COURAGE’ very dispointed with the six cowards

who runs this city the council or the solicter ???
Mr. Lynne Says:
April 26th, 2007 at 3:15 pm
I think you meant to comment on the thread about the Lord’s Prayer.

But if you like, we’ll add the prayer… I’ll sue, and you can contribute cash to the city for the damages I’ll get.

A piece of advice… if you ever find yourself needing to talk to a lawyer,… listen.

April 19, 2007

The Trouble with Climate Change

28 Responses to “The Trouble with Climate Change”

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