That is a BIG if. Unfortunately, latest reports are telling us that it is likely that the IPCC was being too conservative.
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009-02/15/content_10822000.htm
But never mind that, what if it is just less than 2.5 degrees?
A tragedy of climate commons if nothing is done IMHO.
Of course your quote neglects to mention the benefits of, for example, Canada and Russia becoming more farmable, thus driving down the price of food and improving the lives of the very poor. I would be more sympathetic to environmental activists if they engaged in hard-headed cost-benefit analysis saying that action is cheaper than inaction, rather than pointing to the worst of worst-case scenarios and arguing that we must reverse as much as humanly possible. On the margin seems to be a foreign concept to most activists.
:rolleyes:
You are forgetting the calculations that include the **current **farms.
Gigobuster, if these debates are to have any use at all, we have to settle on a source. The IPCC is the one I’m using, and it’s generally the one policymakers use. You can find all kinds of papers with more dire warnings, and other papers predicting much less warming.
For example, I could post this recent paper, which casts doubt on our understanding of past warming events. Or to this paper which says that solar cycles play a greater role in global temperature than was previously known.
But you know what, these games of ‘research paper gotcha’ don’t solve anything, and are generally used when one side gets boxed into a corner they can’t get out of. Papers taking extreme positions are released all the time. Eventually, the science settles out. That’s why I prefer to use the IPCC data - it’s a survey of known science, not an instant snapshot of the news of the day.
Regarding the quote saying that a 2 degree rise in temperature would leave the earth hotter than it’s been for millions of years… That calls into question the objectivity of everything else the person said, because that statement is alarming and does not reflect current beliefs about interglacial temperatures. The Holocene Climatic Optimum 8,000 years ago may have had temperatures as much as six degrees higher than those today. The Vostok ice cores show multiple periods over the past several hundred thousand years where temperatures were more than 2 degrees higher than they are today.
Oh, come on! Rolleyes yourself. I’ve seen the projections for costs and benefits, and your list is more snark than reality. It’s a trivial exercise to produce a list that takes the exact opposite position. The consequences for the northern latitudes becoming warmer are not trivial. For example, Canada’s population is largely situated within 200 miles of the U.S. border, with vast northern regions of the country uninhabited because of climate. Warming that moves the populous zone even slightly northward could have major economic benefits for Canada. And Russia. And China. And Northern Europe.
Moderate global warming would increase growing seasons. It would move the permafrost northward, opening up vast new stretches of land to humans. It would require less heating energy for the populous northern countries. The northwest passage might thaw and open, which would make global shipping less energy intensive and less costly. There may be many new mineral resources available that were previously too costly to extract.
There are many, many potential benefits of moderate global warming.
But your posts are examples of the kind of posts that derail serious discussion. This happens all the time - just as you think maybe you’re able to carry on a real debate, someone dive-bombs the thread with tales of catastrophe, snarky comments, rolleye emoticons, and cherry-picked data. People on both sides of the debate do this. Then everyone goes off chasing the weak low hangers, tempers flare, and everyone goes away.
The first paper is dealing with the warming of 55 million years ago and as the front page of the site reports it “was accompanied by a massive injection of carbon into the ocean-atmosphere system, but the resulting climatic warming was much greater than expected from the modeled rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide alone.”
IMO it is evidence that it can be that indeed the current warming will be more serious than previously predicted.
AFAICR, regarding the second paper. The solar influence has already been taken into account, the paper just discusses how to make better predictions with the computer models. It does not say anything about causing doubt on global warming research.
Indeed.
That is fine. But I think many of the ones giving the warning were also involved in the IPCC report.
However, you failed to notice that even I consider that a warning that we could be headed for the higher limits reported by the IPCC rather than the lower limits.
I need a cite your last items here.
I was only replying to the naive idea that it is OK to ignore the effects in the lower latitudes. You are indeeed trying to pigeonhole me, but I have already said in the past that I agree with the IPCC report. And I already mentioned before that I think that there is a lot of research to be done on when and were the effects will take place.
However, nowhere on your post do you actually report why ignoring what could happen in other regions of the earth is OK.
The site you are complaining about BTW does agree with the good. Besides, if you follow the link you will find that the items reported are cited with research.
It was not cherry-picked. So :rolleyes: at you indeed.
Correction, that needs to say:
However, you failed to notice that I consider that we could be headed for the higher limits reported by the IPCC rather than the lower limits.
There is no way that the Holocene Climatic Optimum had 6 C higher global temperature than today. The depths of the last ice age were only about 5 to 7 C cooler globally than today.
As for the Vostok ice cores, you have to remember that the temperature excursions are about double the global temperature excursions. By the way, sea levels were several (3-5?) meters higher in the previous interglacial than in this one…And, I believe that the 2C rise would put us somewhere around the global temperatures then.
At no point did I say you could ignore the effects in the southern latitudes. You’re throwing out straw men.
I understand the costs and benefits involved. It looks like any amount of warming will damage the southern latitudes, since they are are already suffering from a hot environment.
At first, global warming has the effect of helping the richer, northern countries, and hurting the poorer, equatorial countries. As warming increases, the amount of damage to the equatorial regions starts to catch up to the benefit from the northern regions. Somewhere around 2.5 degrees, the net effect on the planet is negative, and it gets worse for everyone as the temperature continues to increase.
Fair enough? Can we agree on that? Let’s start slowly, and map out points of agreement. If everyone can agree with this statement, we can continue on. If not, let’s debate it. If we can eventually come to agreement, we can move on. If not, well, we’re doomed.
Actually, here’s what I think we should do. Let’s start with the most basic questions, and find some area of common agreement on the basics.
Then, I’ll open a second thread, with the parameters of debate specifically called out like this:
As we come to new areas of agreement, we can add them to the list.
We can also spell out the areas of disagreement that are up for debate in each thread.
Anyone who wants to start a new thread on global warming can choose to put the boilerplate disclaimer in it and shut off debate on those issues. We can identify any thread in the series with some indicator in the title.
I think this is the only way the debate will ever progress without it constantly being reset back to zero and having to rehash the same old arguments over, and over again.
If we agree that the IPCC figures are useful, then let’s just stick to them, okay? It’s a waste of time to post every new paper or debunking of one side or the other that comes out. There are new ones every day, and we could spend all our time on that stuff.
But if we want to debate policy options, we need a solid foundation to work with - one with numbers we can all agree on. That would be the IPCC.
I was using this graph.
On the other hand, the Holocene graph they show here has the Climatic Optimum varying by a much smaller amount. Was there a fairly recent revision of the interpretation of the temperature during that period? I have a other material which says it was much higher.
The Wikipedia page says:
Interesting. Looks like there were large variations in the temperature increase from region to region. I guess I’ll have to retract my statement about the Holocene climatic optimum.
You are just still confused, the main beef was with athelas
Fair enough, as mentioned before, I was dealing with the talking point that “Global warming is good” (again, not coming from you) as if only the benefits of the northern countries will count. It has been used so many times before that even the skeptical science site puts it at #13 in the classic 100 arguments used against AGW. Arguments from Global Warming Skeptics and what the science really says
If warming were to increase by say, 1.5 degrees, one possible policy solution would be to use the benefits the rich northern countries obtain to pay for the damages to the poorer southern countries.
There are a lot of people on the global warming side who are coming to the conclusion that they have to focus their efforts on mitigation, sequestration, and heavily investing in technology, because the political reality is that being able to get the kind of massive, 80% cuts in CO2 that would be needed to honestly change the curve is simply not going to happen. Wishing won’t make the problem go away. China is simply not going to play ball. And neither will other countries once the US unilaterally punishes itself and gives them all a competitive advantage so long as they don’t follow suit.
Pretty busy this weekend, but just throwing it out there - has anyone read much of the Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability section of the AR4 report:
I’ve read parts, and it might help inform further discussion.
I’m reading this. There’s a ton of information here, which looks really good. I’m glad to see that the report lists the many caveats and warnings about use of the data. For example, they recognize that one problem with research papers cataloging the effects of warming is that if a study is done and finds no significant effect, it’s unlikely to be published. So the catalog of published papers is probably biased. They then try to correct for that bias with some network analysis and other tools. But at least they acknowledged it.
One thing to remember is that this is not a catalog of ‘changes due to man made warming’. This is simply a record of the changes measured over a period of many decades due to warming in general. Don’t forgot that if man didn’t even exist, we should be seeing the typical warming of the interglacial period of about .1 degrees per decade.
So this isn’t really about showing the damage man has caused, but about collecting data regarding the effects of a warmer planet regardless of the cause. Useful for helping to determine the possible effects of future global warming.
But if someone says, “CO2 emissions by man has already caused the ice roads to close an extra 100 days a year!”, then they’re being disingenuous.
On the other hand, those people who claim that warming isn’t happening at all would need to explain the reams of data showing that the planet has in fact been warming, and to an extent that has already caused some significant changes in certain areas.
Reading this in depth is going to be a large task, though. It’s a huge amount of information.
Sam Stone,
Let’s say that the WTO sets out a framework for carbon taxes on imported goods and the US adopts a WTO-compliant tax on Chinese imports. What can China do about it? Walk out of the WTO? Start a trade war by imposing tariffs on US goods and presumably EU goods as well ? That would leave it hugely isolated and jeopardize its growth strategy which is fundamental to the political strategy of the Communist party as well. I just don’t see that as likely.
If the US takes serious action on global warming it will have both the EU and various multilateral institutions like the WTO and UN backing it. China doesn’t really have the power to take on that that kind of coalition without damaging its long-term growth propects. Which is why it will make sense from the Chinese pov to negotiate hard and get the best possible terms rather than stonewall and leave itself completely isolated. If the US and EU get together on global warming possibly along with other countries like Japan that is what I expect to see happen. Of course none of this is possible if the US doesn’t take strong action on global warming. In that event China will have the perfect excuse to continue doing nothing as well.
As for your point about cap-and-trade being subject to political pressures and distortions, consider the global trading system. It’s full of political pressures which cause distortions. Important parts of the world economy like agriculture are still unliberalized. You have a hodge-podge of regional agreements along with global agreements which creates further distortions. The WTO system itself introduces a new layer of bureaucracy. Yet the bottom line is that trade barriers have fallen steadily for decades all around the world bringing enormous benefits to the world economy.
Similarly today we have a gigantic distortion when it comes to carbon pricing. No system that tries to correct this distortion will be perfect; there will inevitably be political pressures for special treatment. However we don’t need perfection just an improvement. We don’t need a perfect carbon tax on every single widget in the world; just a roughly correct tax on the main products which are causing global warming. Since the production technologies used around the world are fairly well-known I don’t see why the WTO wouldn’t be able to come up with some system. Eventually there will be some global carbon emissions system and you will no longer need border taxes.
You’re putting the cart before the horse.
Yes, if some global trade tariff scheme could be created which every country except China adheres to, then China would be forced to play along.
So how about getting that agreement in place first? You know your economics, so I’m sure you can see the potentially perverse effect of the U.S. unilaterally adopting a carbon tax through cap and trade or other mechanism without other countries agreeing to do the same. Because once the U.S. does this, all other countries will have an additional advantage over American goods, and have a greater incentive to continue using carbon. Why in the world would they sign on to such a scheme?
My prediction is that you’ll get countries buying in under the following conditions:
Countries which already have low carbon intensity industry will sign on. They have a vested interest in seeing everyone else’s products taxed.
Other countries will use such an agreement to gain concessions elsewhere to offset the cost before they’ll sign on. Or they’ll demand so many exceptions that their signing of the agreement means very little. But it will be politically popular.
Countries which would actually be economically damaged might sign on, but only if the pain is deferred for a long time. That gives them the political cover to say they’re ‘doing something’, without having to actually made hard cuts during their administrations. The Obama plan is something like this - with the majority of hard cuts coming unsurprisingly right after the end of Obama’s second term.
When the time comes to make those hard cuts, the people will scream, the governments will lose their nerve, and the whole thing will fall apart.
This is not just fearmongering or making up negative scenarios - this is what has historically happened to pretty much every other international effort that would have imposed serious costs on various nations. Look at the various EU treaties which set debt caps - all violated.
The Kyoto treaty is a perfect case in point. It started off as a global carbon reduction scheme. But as the costs of implementing it sank in, country after country backed away from it. In response, the Kyoto treaty was repeatedly amended to benefit certain countries to get their signature. So countries will lots of forest were given carbon offsets that basically made signing cost-free. Exceptions were made for developing countries. Other various offsets were granted to get as many countries on board as possible. In the end, the treaty was so watered down that it would have had almost no effect on CO2 levels or temperature.
And even then, what actually happened? The CO2 output of the Kyoto signatories did not change one bit, and in fact many of them grew their CO2 output faster than did the U.S., which didn’t have any part in it.
Another example: The Nuclear non-proliferation treaty. The NPT was very popular among current nuclear countries. And why wouldn’t it be? Locking in their strategic advantage was a big feature. It was also popular with countries who had no hope of making their own nukes anyway, and wanted to limit the ability of their enemies to build nukes. The countries that were reticent, like Iran and North Korea, were bribed to get them on board. But once they decided it was in their national interest to build nukes, the NPT was swept away.
Think about how difficult it’s going to be to get compliance from a country like Russia. Russia actually stands to gain significantly from moderate global warming. It’s a very cold country. It makes a lot of money from the sale of fossil fuels. The opening of the Northwest Passage could mean a moom in Russian imports and exports. What is Russia’s interest in signing a global warming reduction treaty? Love of the planet? Good luck with that.
Countries act in their own self interest, and always have. I have a hard time seeing any benefit to Russia in minimizing global warming. So, all you’re left with is carrot and stick. You either buy them off, or you threaten them. That’s the only way it’s going to work.
This issue requires hard-headed realism from all sides. On the one hand, we can’t just bury our heads in the sand and pretend there’s no potential problem here. Clearly there is. But on the other, we can’t just deny the reality of global diplomacy and pass laws willy-nilly in the hope that some magical global consensus will form and take us to the promised land.
Hi Sam:
I’d like to participate in this thread, but I’m pretty busy finishing things up before a vacation that lasts until Aug. 2nd. Would you be alright with continuing the thread then?
Thanks,
