My comment on the comments on the comment on the comment on the comment got longer and longer and I repost it here as a more suitable forum for discussion:
Re 34, 35, 37, 39:
Even if one assumes the premise that we are "optimally adapted" to the present climate (which I think would be difficult to rationally defend), it does not follow that changes to the climate would result in net costs.
In fact, our adaptation to the current climate (eg in agriculture and infrastructure, as have been mentioned) is also a matter of economics, technology and politics, and we can guarantee that these will continue to change at quite a rate.
Of course we can all agree that a drought in an area that is already somewhat short of water is a bad thing that will likely cost money, compared to exactly the same situation without the extra drought. However, an increase in rainfall in such an area is likely to be beneficial (so long as it is not excessive and leads to flooding), even if society is well adapted to the status quo. The opening of the Northwest Passage is likely to bring significant economic benefits by reducing transport costs, even though (of course) we are currently adapted to its impassability. Warmer winters will reduce the winter death rate in the UK for sure, and this vastly outweighs any plausible estimate of heatwave deaths, at least for a range of modest warmings, even before we start to consider any adaptation to the summer heat. We could of course achieve a similar effect by insulating homes and reducing poverty, of course, but we are already "optimally adapted", right?
To boldly assert as axiomatic that "change = bad" is, I think, rather naive and simplistic. All sorts of (social, economic, technological) changes are inevitable, and the latter two at least have a strong record of bringing substantial (no, massive) benefits. Would anyone be silly enough to argue that these changes are bad because we are adapted to the status quo? While I am sure that some climate changes will increase pressure on some ecosystems and human societies, it seems to me to be a rather more nuanced situation than some of the comments above would indicate. Indeed, if the climate changes are slow and modest enough compared to the other changes, it might be hard to detect their overall effect at all (on human health, wealth and happiness, I mean - of course I'm sure it will be easy to measure environmental parameters that document the climate change itself, indeed this is already clear enough). I'm sure UK residents will have noticed the substantial northward march of maize as a crop in recent years (for cattle fodder). I'm not sure to what extent this is due to politics (subsidies), economics, climate change, breeding of better-adapted varieties, or even just farmers gradually realising that it grows better than they had thought possible. Even if climate change is the largest factor (which I doubt, but it's possible), it is not clear who lost out here, other than perhaps the bugs that prefer to live on kale (or whatever the displaced crop was).
Living as I do in a country where houses are expected to last about 30 years, I find it hard to take seriously any worry that they might not be optimally adapted to the climate 100 years hence (let alone the sea level a few centuries later). Note also that a change in fuel prices would change the optimal amount of insulation irrespective of climate change. Likewise, advances in building materials will likely render current designs somewhat redundant.
Extropians would assert that "change = good" and that we should encourage change unless it is proven harmful. Just to be clear on this, I do not endorse this point of view 100% but the difference in opinion seems as much philosophical as scientific. I think that understanding this POV goes a long way to explaining the differences between the environmentalists and the sceptics (even if it does not excuse the dishonesty of the denialist wing).
I hope this doesn't sound too much like a septic handwave, expecting techology to magically save the day. To the extent that climate change is rapid or substantial (which I will deliberately leave undefined here!), of course it's a threat that should be taken seriously. It is a little scary to think about how dominant the human influence can be, and perhaps a mental model of some hypothetical stasis is a comforting thought in which to ground our personal philosophies. But it would be a mistake to let one's comfort zone unduly colour one's perceptions of reality (or at least, such effects need to be openly considered and one should be prepared to see them challenged).
I've not noticed the 'onward march of Maize', here in Lancashire. However in view of the mild weather we've been having it seems reasonable that this could change the practicalities and economics of what crops to grow. This year really has been noticeably exceptional (damned awful I hate hot weather). And when it finally went back to seasonal norms a few weeks ago it was very noticeable. I couldn't get away with just a T-shirt when walking to work in the morning.
I have to agree with what you say, although I still think we don't know enough to blithely continue with what we're doing.
Whilst I accept the models' ability to hindcast gross global average temperature as being an incredible display that they work. My main concerns are that the models seem to have some issues with reproduction of fine scale changes, and the danger of feedbacks that we have not modelled. What current local variance from projections may signal the start of deviation from what we expect?
Furthermore, as we've not had the chance to model the process we're unwittingly (witlessly?) engaging in. And as the forcing changes from CO2 are so fast compared to our best analogy - glacial/interglacial, I keep thinking custard! To be precise the counterintuitive way that you can stir the custard powder/sugar mix: slowly it's a liquid, fast it's a solid. I undertsand that there are disparate physical process behind both custard and climate that lead to the observed behaviours. But I don't like the idea of radidly forcing something as critical as our climate
Whilst I appreciate and agree with the apparent stance of RealClimate against all this media hype about 'tipping points'. I just can't shake the concern that the pace of change is dangerous in a complex highly connected system like our atmosphere. And at 36% above pre-industrial CO2, considering the 'transient response lag', although it must be a blip on top of the overall trend. I still feel disquiet about our British summer being 2degC above average.
> In fact, our adaptation to the current climate (eg in agriculture and > infrastructure, as have been mentioned) is also a matter of economics, > technology and politics, and we can guarantee that these will continue > to change at quite a rate.
The climate-change impacts folk are busy trying to identify the winners and losers in the context of projected climate change over the next 50-100 years.
Some of this work factors in the resiliency and prospects for technological development of prospective winners and losers. For example, the impact of climate change on US agriculture is expected to be negative, but agricultural technology is so highly developed that we could end up economic winners (maybe we'll insert a camel gene into maize so it becomes drought tolerant, or something like that). Conversely, my recollection is that many of the losers are expected to be in parts of the world that already are stressed economically and politically.
Nowadays most any nation that wants nuclear weapons can get them within a few years. For this reason I rate the prospect of climate-induced political instability in the developing world as a greater concern than climate change itself.
> I've not noticed the 'onward march of Maize', here in Lancashire. > However in view of the mild weather we've been having it seems > reasonable that this could change the practicalities and economics of > what crops to grow.
First page I googled (just now, *not* prior to my previous post):
"Although stable in area throughout the 1980s, the area of forage maize roughly quadrupled through the 1990s. This large expansion is due to a combination of factors, including the introduction of new varieties which are better adapted to UK conditions, perceptions of a warming climate, recent experience of warmer weather and the introduction in 1993 of an arable payment scheme under the Common Agricultural Policy."
Pretty good guess huh? I think I'll award myself full marks for that! Lancashire may be a bit too grim for it to have caught on so far - it was common in Cheshire when I lived there >5 years ago (ok, so I was actually living on Wirral, which is Merseyside really, but we like to pretend we are posh).
> And as the forcing changes from
> CO2 are so fast compared to our best analogy - glacial/interglacial,
Note however the Dansgaard-Oeschger events, reckoned to be about 8C warming in 40 years (on a regional basis - but we live on a regional basis, as do ecosystems!). Indeed there is a research program (RAPID) largely predicated on the possibility of this sort of thing (THC shutdown/rapid cooling is the main focus), but it's believed (by most rational people) to be very unlikely irrespective of anthropogenic forcing, AIUI.
> I still feel disquiet about our > British summer being 2degC above average.
Think of all the CO2 savings with people no longer flying south for the summer :-) Living in Lancashire, I'd have thought you would welcome it more than most!
> Even if one assumes the premise that we are "optimally adapted" to the > present climate (which I think would be difficult to rationally defend), > it does not follow that changes to the climate would result in net costs.
When I made the remark that we were optimally adapted to the current climate, I did not think that I would have to "defend it." We live in a global free market economy, and Adam Smith's "invisible hand" ensures that the economy is maximised for the environment in which it acts. Of course the fit is not perfect. The Amazon jungle has not yet been felled and cleared, so that is an area where production for human consumption could be increased. Over-fishing in the North Atlantic has wiped out the most productive fish species - cod, so in that case we are also not in a maximal condition, but overall we grow rice in the areas most suited to it, and corn in areas mot suited to that.
However, your point is that climate change might not result in a net cost. My point is that there will be a cost. If vines become viable to grow in Scotland, then there will be the cost of planting them. Of course the farmer will not do that unless he sees a net saving, over his current crop. So for min there will be no net cost, otherwise he would not proceed, But what of the French farmer who now has to give up his centuries old family vineyard because the climate is now to hot and dry. That is a big cost that could be avoided if the climate remained unchanged. Note that in this case there is a net cost, because the Scot is switching production for marginal gain, but the Frenchman is going bust.
Of course that scenario depends on the desert regions of the world expanding. If they do, then there will obviously be a net cost. If we say that there is a 10% possibility this would happen, then we can calculate the net cost by multiplying the cost of the deserts expanding by 10%. This then yields a net cost, and so there will be a net cost to climate change.
Another way of looking at that is if the desert regions move towards the poles, then a five degree move north will remove far more land from agricultural production, than the five degree north movement of the taiga will release to production, because the circumference of the polar zones is much smaller than that in the sub-tropics.
As improvements from global warming you quote the opening of the Northwest Passage. Is the fact that New Yorkers will be able to get the gasoline for their SUVs from the North Slope of Alaska for a few cents less really a benefit? But perhaps you were thinking of the savings in the price of a Sony GameBoy in the UK, when the shipping costs from Japan will be reduced.
And is it really and improvement if Scots can no longer have porridge for their breakfasts, and have to eat cornflakes, because their native land can no longer grow oats :-? The point is that for every winner from change there is a loser. It is not axiomatic that the winners will outnumber the losers. Of course, that is true with technological change, which is driven by benefit, but it is not necessarily true for climate change which is driven by inanimate forces. Those forces have no consideration for the good of mankind, nor do they ever show mercy.
For instance when technological change meant that the British economy had to switch from coal to oil as the main source of energy, the government closed the mines, and the miners were thrown out of work. The net benefit was positive to the British economy. However, the government ensured that the miners received large redundancy payments. In this case mercy was shown. Climate change, unlike Maggie, does not have a human face.
> To boldly assert as axiomatic that "change = bad" is, I think, rather > naive and simplistic.
Agreed!
> Living as I do in a country where houses are expected to last about 30 > years, I find it hard to take seriously any worry that they might not be > optimally adapted to the climate 100 years hence (let alone the sea > level a few centuries later).
Living in an earthquake zone, in "temporary accommodation" is not typical of most of the world, and really rules out any general conclusions that you draw from that.
> Extropians would assert that "change = good" ...
Isn't that "rather naive and simplistic"?
> I do not endorse this point of view 100% but the difference in opinion > seems as much philosophical as scientific. I think that understanding > this POV goes a long way to explaining the differences between the > environmentalists and the sceptics (even if it does not excuse the > dishonesty of the denialist wing).
> I hope this doesn't sound too much like a septic handwave, expecting > technology to magically save the day.
I am afraid it does, and only goes to confirm my suspicions of your sceptic tendencies!
We do in fact differ on a philosophical POV. For me, Extropism is a linear philosophy, which believes in steady, perhaps sometimes unsteady, progress. For you, life is always improving, even if not monotonically. For me, a neo-catastrophist, life is not that simple. By life I mean, Life, the Universe, and Everything. They are all dynamical systems. There is no a priori reason why there should be steady progress. Extropism seems to view the world as system with a gentle positive feedback. But that is an unstable situation, and if the positive feedback increases, then there is a runaway situation - a catastrophe. Because it is runaway situation it cannot last long. On the other hand, when negative feedbacks dominate the system it is stable, and the system remains in that state for a long time. When you look at such a dynamical system passing in and out of positive and negative feedback, such as the climate, there is a very high probability that when you look it appears stable. Catastrophic events happen seldom, are very short lived, and so are seldom seen.
Extropism believes in a gentle positive feedback, and so you, as an Extropist believe in a gently warming world. But the real situation is that both positive and negative feedbacks exist. The positive feedbacks provide the chaos, or worse.
Broecker, is publishing a paper in Global and Planetary Change entitled "Abrupt climate change revisited" where he concludes that the D-O events were due to sea ice. I believe that the changes in albedo trigger positive feedback from water vapour. The Arctic sea ice is melting rapidly. If Broecker is correct, and I am sure he is, then we can expect another rapid climate change when next year's El Nino finishes off the remaining Arctic sea ice. I think I can guarantee that the net benefits from that will be negative! The world is not extropistic. It is catastrophic.
Alastair McDonald wrote: > The point is that for > every winner from change there is a loser.
Why so? Is there any reason to expect, a priori, that all persons who are positively affected by change must have an equal (or greater) number of counterparts who are negatively affected?
>Even if one assumes the premise that we are "optimally adapted" to the >present climate (which I think would be difficult to rationally defend), >it does not follow that changes to the climate would result in net costs.
Perhaps it would be useful to examine studies of potential effects of climate change such as the US National Assessment of the Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change. See:
Jim Torson wrote: > At 07:56 PM 11/7/2006, James Annan wrote:
>> Even if one assumes the premise that we are "optimally adapted" to the >> present climate (which I think would be difficult to rationally defend), >> it does not follow that changes to the climate would result in net costs.
> Perhaps it would be useful to examine studies of potential > effects of climate change such as the US National Assessment > of the Potential Consequences of Climate Variability > and Change. See:
First, I thought I made it clear that I was not advocating that a specific (large) climate change was necessarily a good thing, merely that "no change" cannot be automatically considered a optimum...but anyway:
That report (I've only glanced at the summary) is interesting in the way that substantial aspects are couched in terms of *risk* rather than *harm* per se. Even then, I note that it expects agricultural productivity will grow - even asserting that downward pressure on prices will be bad for farmers but good for consumers!
Being concerned about risk is in principle a rather different matter from being concerned about change. I think many people are confusing the two concepts, indeed they may jump freely to the former for support when pressed on the latter. It is also easy to show (there are many simple demonstrations) that attitudes to risk are often impossible to reconcile with any model of reasonably rational behaviour. While irrationality is something that we have to deal with in practical situations, I don't think that means it should be put on a pedestal as a foundation of our scientific and decision-making process. I'm also concerned that when people start out with the mind-set that change is a bad thing, they are likely to look harder for bad outcomes than good ones, thus skewing the scientific debate. I think the discussion (both scientific and public) of hot and cold weather deaths provides striking support for this hypothesis.
Although I generall am against change, especially change brought about by what seem to me to be chaotic and uncontrolled market forces, I think this post raises a good post. But when we ask whether change per se is good or bad, we're probably asking too big a question to get a very good answer.
I think the devil's in the details on this one. I also think there are certain conditions under which "change" occurs that are likely to make it negative overall -- even granting James Annan's point.
1. Change on a global level is almost certain to benefit some people and harm others. Is there likely to be any mechanism in place that ensures that the winners will compensate the losers? If not, "change" per se raises obvious distributional questions and ethical questions. It departs from what capitalist economists call "Pareto optimal exchange" conditions and starts to look a little like robbery, which in a sense is merely forced change in the ownership of property.
2. There's also a question whether human societies, on the whole, will be prepared to adapt to change constructively. If they're not prepared to take advantage of the good things that change offers, or to mitigate the bad things that change causes, then the net effect of change could be really costly.
An obvious example involves the possible and/or likely effects of global climate change on global agriculture. Possibly, a warmer climate and higher levels of atmospheric CO2 may benefit agriculture in some important parts of the world. But if climate change introduces uncertainties into agriculture that many farmers do not adapt to very skillfully - if growing seasons are longer, but people continue trying to grow wheat or maize or rice for many years in places that have become suitable for these crops, so that global food output suffers -- the negative effects of change could well outweigh the positive ones.
3. To the extent that global climate changes trigger increases in average sea levels around the planet, at the high end of what's been expected, so that oceans rise to the point that they flood large numbers of densely populated coastal cities, I think that's likely to have a strongely negative net effect. Do other people agree or disagree?
I spotted an interesting comment on RC, in the thread following the recent post "How much CO2 emission is too much?":
especially
and a few subsequent replies to me
My comment on the comments on the comment on the comment on the comment got longer and longer and I repost it here as a more suitable forum for discussion:
Re 34, 35, 37, 39:
Even if one assumes the premise that we are "optimally adapted" to the present climate (which I think would be difficult to rationally defend), it does not follow that changes to the climate would result in net costs.
In fact, our adaptation to the current climate (eg in agriculture and infrastructure, as have been mentioned) is also a matter of economics, technology and politics, and we can guarantee that these will continue to change at quite a rate.
Of course we can all agree that a drought in an area that is already somewhat short of water is a bad thing that will likely cost money, compared to exactly the same situation without the extra drought. However, an increase in rainfall in such an area is likely to be beneficial (so long as it is not excessive and leads to flooding), even if society is well adapted to the status quo. The opening of the Northwest Passage is likely to bring significant economic benefits by reducing transport costs, even though (of course) we are currently adapted to its impassability. Warmer winters will reduce the winter death rate in the UK for sure, and this vastly outweighs any plausible estimate of heatwave deaths, at least for a range of modest warmings, even before we start to consider any adaptation to the summer heat. We could of course achieve a similar effect by insulating homes and reducing poverty, of course, but we are already "optimally adapted", right?
To boldly assert as axiomatic that "change = bad" is, I think, rather naive and simplistic. All sorts of (social, economic, technological) changes are inevitable, and the latter two at least have a strong record of bringing substantial (no, massive) benefits. Would anyone be silly enough to argue that these changes are bad because we are adapted to the status quo? While I am sure that some climate changes will increase pressure on some ecosystems and human societies, it seems to me to be a rather more nuanced situation than some of the comments above would indicate. Indeed, if the climate changes are slow and modest enough compared to the other changes, it might be hard to detect their overall effect at all (on human health, wealth and happiness, I mean - of course I'm sure it will be easy to measure environmental parameters that document the climate change itself, indeed this is already clear enough). I'm sure UK residents will have noticed the substantial northward march of maize as a crop in recent years (for cattle fodder). I'm not sure to what extent this is due to politics (subsidies), economics, climate change, breeding of better-adapted varieties, or even just farmers gradually realising that it grows better than they had thought possible. Even if climate change is the largest factor (which I doubt, but it's possible), it is not clear who lost out here, other than perhaps the bugs that prefer to live on kale (or whatever the displaced crop was).
Living as I do in a country where houses are expected to last about 30 years, I find it hard to take seriously any worry that they might not be optimally adapted to the climate 100 years hence (let alone the sea level a few centuries later). Note also that a change in fuel prices would change the optimal amount of insulation irrespective of climate change. Likewise, advances in building materials will likely render current designs somewhat redundant.
Extropians would assert that "change = good" and that we should encourage change unless it is proven harmful. Just to be clear on this, I do not endorse this point of view 100% but the difference in opinion seems as much philosophical as scientific. I think that understanding this POV goes a long way to explaining the differences between the environmentalists and the sceptics (even if it does not excuse the dishonesty of the denialist wing).
I hope this doesn't sound too much like a septic handwave, expecting techology to magically save the day. To the extent that climate change is rapid or substantial (which I will deliberately leave undefined here!), of course it's a threat that should be taken seriously. It is a little scary to think about how dominant the human influence can be, and perhaps a mental model of some hypothetical stasis is a comforting thought in which to ground our personal philosophies. But it would be a mistake to let one's comfort zone unduly colour one's perceptions of reality (or at least, such effects need to be openly considered and one should be prepared to see them challenged).
James
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Let me start by emphasizing where I think I agree with James. We must begin by thinking rationally, and in order to think rationally we must ultimately think quantitatively. Costs must be reduced to some sort of numerical quantity (although I am not happy with how this is normally done), and must be risk-weighted to the best of our abilities.
Nevertheless, and despite my admiration for James, I find the question he is raising quite shockingly wrongheaded.
The main reason the greenhouse issue is not trivial is because of the enormous benefits of cheap energy. This is obvious and I am not one to minimize its complexity.
However, that isn't the question asked. James asked what the optimum change is.
All else equal (essentially, ignoring the benefits of cheap energy) it seems to me almost certain that the optimum rate of change of climate is zero or near enough zero as not to matter for practical purposes.
Historical and prehistoric civilization collapses have often been triggered by climate change. (See Jared Diamond's book _Collapse_ for a remarkable exposition on this and related points.) One never hears about abrupt declines caused by excessive climate stability or about abrupt improvements in fortune caused by climate change.
This is not accidental. If, under global warming, the fortunes of Canada improve and the fortunes of India decline, the net effect area-weighted might be for increased biomass, but the net effect on human well-being will be highly negative. To a very significant extent, this is because India is more hospitable than Canada. This is at least one reason why the former is overcrowded and the latter largely uninhabited.
Similar arguments apply to ecological risk.
Consider that it would not take a huge change to make the planet essentially uninhabitable; say 20 C in either direction would do the trick. That we are talking in terms of a significant fraction of 20 C seems to me, therefore, completely and utterly beyond the remotest justification.
It is conceivable that our troubles are smaller than many of us suspect, but it is also possible that they are as large or larger. In the former case, we may be missing out on a lovely opportunity to increase the distribution of fine vineyards and pineapple plantations. In the latter case, it is possible that, early in our mad trajectory to devastation and absurd tragedy, we may briefly pass by a climate that is slightly more benign than the one provided by nature. It is the latter case that dominates the risks. I would rather make every possible effort not to tempt the fates in that way.
James' question seems to me oddly disproportionate to our actual circumstances.
> > The point is that for > > every winner from change there is a loser.
> Why so? Is there any reason to expect, a priori, that all persons who > are positively affected by change must have an equal (or greater) number > of counterparts who are negatively affected?
This seems like a good place to insert a point I might have made in a reply to the OP if not coming so late.
There is a danger of talking at cross purposes here. James seems to be talking about "change" as impacts to human habits, society, infrastructure etc. As such I would agree with him that change is not necessarily bad at all, it could even be a great oppurtunity. But when I hear people bemoaning the catastrophic consequences of climate change (often my own voice echoing back to me!) I always take it to mean damage and destruction of ecosystems, loss of biodiversity, droughts and floods.
I think it is kind of shallow to take reassurance in the adaptability of humans to all kinds of climates. After all, humans live all over the globe, from the Kalihari Desert to Greenland to Amazonian jungles. So, cleary no matter what happens to the climate, humans could in theory adapt and live. And I don't mean that as returning to a life style of the Bushman or Inuit, we can keep our technology.
But the danger to humans is not a direct one, it comes indirectly from our reliance, often hidden between so many layers of infrastructure or manufacture, on the very same biosphere that definately is in direct danger. Even here, change is indeed a part of natural evolution but it is not simply a change that is cause for worry, it is the fact the the change we are setting in motion is potentially very large and more critically very rapid. If the biosphere suffers greatly human kind will be changed, and it will be a change that can only be a struggle to adapt to, there are no winners to compensate for the thousands of extinctions.
I often hear people say that all we need are the few dozen species of plants we eat, some cattle and pigs, maybe a few species of flowers just for fun, the rest of the biosphere be damned. My strongest negative reaction to that vision of the future is an emotional and personal one and I have trouble knowing for sure whether or not I have any particular right to force my love, fascination and respect for the natural world on others. But the next reaction is a more practical one, in that I think this would be a truly difficult feat of bioengineering technology to create and live in such a world. I just think the unforeseen difficulties and consequences would be enormous.
Back to does "change = bad". I think "rapid change = bad for biosphere" is unarguble. Now, how exactly that effects people is a bit more murky, but I see no reason to think it will be anything but hard to extremely difficult.
It was James who wrote "change = bad" but I never wrote that. He raised that point because it is the antipathy of his Extropic philosophy, which believes change = good. See http://www.extropy.org/principles.htm
What I did try to explain was that we have adapted our environment to suit the way we want to live, and so any change would be moving it away from that optimized state. Thus I argue that "climate change = bad".
Of course it is not all bad, and there would be advantages to certain people and disadvantages for others. This produces the Utilitarian problem of how to balance the advantages to one group (perhaps the 25% living in the developed world) with the disadvantages to the other group (75% poor now, and poorer or even dead after climate change.) I don't see how you can argue that is certain that "climate change = good".
Let's take a subset of climate change - sea level change. As in climate change where these arguments are really about a rise in temperature, so in sea level change here I am only considering sea level rise. In that case I believe I can say without fear of contradiction "sea level change = bad". Not only will it reduce the amount of arable land available to a rising global population, it will also destroy much of the infrastructure which represents the wealth which we and our children inherit.
James, can you see a net advantage from rising sea levels?
> Nevertheless, and despite my admiration for James, I find the question > he is raising quite shockingly wrongheaded.
Well, I feel there's a risk I'm getting pushed into defending a devil's advocacy position more strongly than I believe, but I'l play along for a bit.
> Historical and prehistoric civilization collapses have often been > triggered by climate change. (See Jared Diamond's book _Collapse_ for > a remarkable exposition on this and related points.) One never hears > about abrupt declines caused by excessive climate stability or about > abrupt improvements in fortune caused by climate change.
> This is not accidental.
No, it is arguably because scientists and the press alike prefer a scare story to a happy outcome, and they love to pin simplistic blame on a complex series of events. If all you do is subsist on what happens to be around, then a change in what happens to be around may be a great threat. Is that the fault of the climate change, or of the lack of a more resilient society that has not learnt how to cope with challenges? Of couse the flip-side is that if we exploit resources at an unsustainable rate, things will have to change at any rate. But Ehrlich was spectacularly wrong on this in his bet with Simon, as was the person (I forget who) who I saw recently asserting that Ehrlich was right, just a few years early. Don't people ever learn?
FWIW, last summer was (I understand) a remarkably good one for strawberry-growers in the UK, and I'll mention again the winter deaths issue. Good-luck stories aren't news and it often seems that they aren't considered worthwhile science either.
AIUI, extropians argue that human ingenuity is our greatest resource and that challenges bring out the best in us. War has motivated a lot of development, even though it primarily consists of people destroying lives and property. I'm not advocating war, but have they actually cost us untold billions, compared to where we would be without them?
If increased awareness (discussion) of climate change and sea level rise leads to a better defence plan for New Orleanes, then have no doubt that this will be described as a "cost of climate change", but the net result may be better (in economic, environmental and human terms) than the previous status quo. Climate doesn't just do things to us - we manage its impact.
> Similar arguments apply to ecological risk.
> Consider that it would not take a huge change to make the planet > essentially uninhabitable; say 20 C in either direction would do the > trick. That we are talking in terms of a significant fraction of 20 C > seems to me, therefore, completely and utterly beyond the remotest > justification.
I think you should be able to do beter than this sort of handwave. The therapeutic dose of paracetamol is a substantial fraction of the dangerous one, too. It is, no doubt, mostly a matter of luck that we do not face 20C of warming, at least unless humans for many generations hence do everything in their power to bring such changes about (OTOH, if the climate was that sensitive or CO2 that potent, the Earth's history would be rather different).
> It is conceivable that our troubles are smaller than many of us > suspect, but it is also possible that they are as large or larger.
Yes, it's all possible, and nothing can ever be "ruled out", to use the soon-to-be-infamous phrase. I'm just observing (and objecting to) the fact that some (perhaps many) people are asimply asserting as axiomatic a particular solution to a question that I believe is in principle open. Worse, they seem to think that their belief is in some sense a scientific truth rather than a moral judgement or perhaps practical heuristic.
Do you actually think the extopian POV is in principle invalid or defeasible?
Michael Tobis wrote: > This is not accidental. If, under global warming, the fortunes of > Canada improve and the fortunes of India decline, the net effect > area-weighted might be for increased biomass, but the net effect on > human well-being will be highly negative. To a very significant > extent, this is because India is more hospitable than Canada. This is > at least one reason why the former is overcrowded and the latter > largely uninhabited.
This, I think, allows be to introduce an egregious (but all too typical) bit of cherry picking - or should I call it rotten apple picking - in the news today.
The UNDP's new "Human Development Report" is out, and on the BBC:
you can see the reproduced graphic which paints a picture of reduced crop yields in Africa, along with the title "Projected impact of climate change on cereal productivity in Africa." Substantial areas show large drops of 25% or more "by 2080".
Going back to the UNDP report, this map is found to be based on a paper in which some researchers took climates from a range of models under all the main SRES marker scenarios, which give quite a range of results when fed into their crop model.
I guess I don't need to tell you which set of model results (both from least to most alarming model, and least to most alarming scenario) are used for the graphic which the UNDP selected, and from which they quote results.
The authors of the paper even clearly emphasise (at least twice) that the A2 scenario is now considered very much an outlier in terms of what is actually plausible. There wasn't room to mention that minor detail in the 424 pages of the UNDP report, of course.
So far, so standard. But on top of that, the authors of the paper also point out that none of these potential yield losses in any region actually approach the amount by which the current yield actually undershoots the potential. That presumably means that take-up of normal farming practice would mean increased yields even in the worst affected areas and under the hypothesis of extremely high emissions and the worst set of model results. There's not even a need to appeal to out-of-thin-air technological miracles here, although technological advances would hardly be unexpected over this time scale. Surely the appropriate response here is for these societies to develop and modernise, which will bring rapid and substantial benefits across a broad swathe of problems, rather than "climate-proof" themselves against something that might in extremis have a modest effect many decades hence if they haven't moved on in the meantime.
Incidentally, according to the paper, the reduction in yield and accompanying increase in hunger should be roughly linear with time/CO2 concentration, which suggests that it should perhaps be visible by now if it is a real effect (I don't know about interannual variability or quality of data collection though). Anyone know if there are data supporting this?
> Do you actually think the extopian POV is in principle invalid or > defeasible?
The extopian POV is DANGEROUS optimism. It is based on the misconception of infinite resources and so it IS invalid. When those resources run out, and since they are finite they will, then extopianism wll be defeased. But not before. It will only be proved wrong when it is too late. Until then it will be very successful, and that success will help gather it new recruits.
This probably deserves a separate thread. However, I can't seem to find the report. The BBC article you referenced has a boldfaced header called "READ THE REPORT" but it isn't itself a link in the version I see, nor did I find another link. Link please?
I think vulnerability to rainfall and moisture shifts is a real issue, and is a component of vulnerability to fresh water supplies in general. I think the sensible approach to this question is a global one, especially from what you (James) are calling the extopian/extropian point of view. Etymology please?
Clearly the local solution in the water stressed parts of Africa, assuming we disallow or dislike free human migration, is to develop a local economic base that could import either water or food. This is easy enough to say, I suppose, and arguably very difficult to do, but that raises yet another topic.
All that said, as you describe matters there is clearly a problem in the way this is addressed if the emphasis is on climate change. Without the report I can't allocate the errors effectively among the BBC's description, the actual report, and your summary.
In my opinion, while there are relationships between the water problem and the climate problem, they are not effectively treated as the same problem.
> I think vulnerability to rainfall and moisture shifts is a real issue, > and is a component of vulnerability to fresh water supplies in > general. I think the sensible approach to this question is a global > one, especially from what you (James) are calling the > extopian/extropian point of view. Etymology please?
Michael,
Sorry if I have confused you by mis-spelling this new word that I have just learnt :-(
It is 'extropian' which a Google search will confirm. I think it is derived from 'extrovert', and it seems to be a branch of (another new term for me) 'transhumanism' (see Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transhumanism What is interesting for me is that I am not the only one to desribe it as dangerous. Wikipedia says that "Transhumanism has been described by a proponent as the "movement that epitomizes the most daring, courageous, imaginative, and idealistic aspirations of humanity,"[2] while according to a prominent critic, it is THE WORLD'S MOST DANGEROUS IDEA.[3] [My emphasis]"
References 1.. Bostrom, Nick (2005). "A history of transhumanist thought". Retrieved on 2006-02-21. 2.. Bailey, Ronald (2004). "Transhumanism: the most dangerous idea?". URL accessed on February 20, 2006 3.. Fukuyama, Francis (2004). "The world's most dangerous ideas: transhumanism". Retrieved on 2006-05-01. Cheers, Alastair.
Michael Tobis wrote: > This probably deserves a separate thread. However, I can't seem to > find the report.
I went to the UNDP page and found the report and waded through it to find the graphic and then looked up the ref it claimed to use and found that one-line and looked through it...I wonder how many people will do that, versus assuming that the news report (and UNDP report) is fair and balanced?
> I think vulnerability to rainfall and moisture shifts is a real issue, > and is a component of vulnerability to fresh water supplies in > general. I think the sensible approach to this question is a global > one, especially from what you (James) are calling the > extopian/extropian point of view. Etymology please?
TBH it looks like a bit of a kooky sect. But I think you can take the interesting parts of their POV without the full-on loopiness.
There seems to be quite a link with the "Ideas Futures" crowd, which I think is where I first encountered this lot.
> In my opinion, while there are relationships between the water problem > and the climate problem, they are not effectively treated as the same > problem.
I suspect that there may be a link to the UNFCCC definitional stuff that Roger Pielke is often banging on about - if threats are attributed to *anthropogenic climate change*, then there's a funding stream for adaptation - but if it's just natural climate change, or even just a lack of adequate adaptation to the existing climate, that's no-one's responsibility.
for a contrary argument that takes the possible dangers of autonomous artifacts seriously.
For historical reasons, Minsky is often mentioned in the same breath as John McCarthy (a disservice to McCarthy in my opinion). Still, I think McCarthy's cross-that-bridge-when-we-get-to-it optimistic futurism is to be distingushed from the Minskyite lunacy that our purpose in the world is to replace ourselves with more reliable inorganic mechanisms.
That's an important context for the "proactionary principle"
that the extropians advocate in opposition to the "precautionary principle". It's important to watch out for loopholes into which "transhumanism" might try to slip in without proper consideration by us run-of-the-mill humans.
It's the "according to available science" part that seems to me spectacularly fraught with peril; artificial intelligence people think AI is a science, and economists think economics is a science. I think both are to a consderable extent ideologies rather than sciences.
I think climatology is a science. Others believe that it is to a considerable extent an ideology.
And then there is string theory.
This is really a big issue. Everyone wants to defer to science but nobody has a general methodology for distinguishing between science and ideology.
That all said, I think the proactionary principle is worth looking at.
This quote bugs me: "Because industrialised nations have focused their climate change initiatives on reducing the amount of greenhouse gases being pumped into the atmosphere, support for adaptation in developing countries has been "piecemeal and fragmented", the report says."
It buys in to Lomborg's fallacy that we are faced with an either-or choice. It is not "because" of climate change mitigation that adaption is under-addressed, it is simply that adaption needs more attention.
> you can see the reproduced graphic which paints a picture of reduced > crop yields in Africa, along with the title "Projected impact of climate > change on cereal productivity in Africa." Substantial areas show large > drops of 25% or more "by 2080".
> Going back to the UNDP report, this map is found to be based on a paper > in which some researchers took climates from a range of models under all > the main SRES marker scenarios, which give quite a range of results when > fed into their crop model.
> I guess I don't need to tell you which set of model results (both from > least to most alarming model, and least to most alarming scenario) are > used for the graphic which the UNDP selected, and from which they quote > results.
> The authors of the paper even clearly emphasise (at least twice) that > the A2 scenario is now considered very much an outlier in terms of what > is actually plausible. There wasn't room to mention that minor detail in > the 424 pages of the UNDP report, of course.
I agree, that is not a very forthcoming way to do such a report.
> So far, so standard. But on top of that, the authors of the paper also > point out that none of these potential yield losses in any region > actually approach the amount by which the current yield actually > undershoots the potential. That presumably means that take-up of normal > farming practice would mean increased yields even in the worst affected > areas and under the hypothesis of extremely high emissions and the worst > set of model results. There's not even a need to appeal to > out-of-thin-air technological miracles here, although technological > advances would hardly be unexpected over this time scale. Surely the > appropriate response here is for these societies to develop and > modernise, which will bring rapid and substantial benefits across a > broad swathe of problems, rather than "climate-proof" themselves against > something that might in extremis have a modest effect many decades hence > if they haven't moved on in the meantime.
I don't think this is a fair criticism, it is simply noting that part of the solution should be quite straightforward. This report surely can not make assessments based on all kinds of possible realities exist today, it must assume that all else is equal and then apply a climate change to the situation.
I didn't read it, but it would be the right thing to point out in the report what you are pointing out here, that many options for ameliorating the hardships that may be coming are all within the realm of current possibilities.
> Incidentally, according to the paper, the reduction in yield and > accompanying increase in hunger should be roughly linear with time/CO2 > concentration, which suggests that it should perhaps be visible by now > if it is a real effect (I don't know about interannual variability or > quality of data collection though). Anyone know if there are data > supporting this?
I would think that the Green Revolution would hide any such effect over the half century at least.
Coby Beck wrote: > I don't think this is a fair criticism, it is simply noting that part of the > solution should be quite straightforward. This report surely can not make > assessments based on all kinds of possible realities exist today, it must > assume that all else is equal and then apply a climate change to the > situation.
No, if an assumption is made that "all else is equal" in a situation where all, in fact, is not equal and moreover where the unaccounted-for changes are likely to hugely outweigh the effect under consideration, then the outputs can hardly be considered as a useful prediction. It may be possible sometimes to dress up the extra effects as some uncertainty, but if they are likely to dominate the final result then the initial calculation seems rather futile (again, in terms of predictions - I've no beef with people trying to understand components of complex systems via standard reductionist techniques).
Time for another example: ocean acidification. There have been a few papers (maybe several - here is the first I found http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v407/n6802/full/407364a0.html ) where people basically put organisms into an acid bath (equivalent to 2 or 3x CO2 levels, in this case) to see how they like it.
Not surprisingly, the answer is "not very much at all, especially if they have a carbonate skeleton (which is eroded by acid)".
However, I think one might reasonably expect that 100 years of selective pressure (increasing at ~1% per year) would result in a substantial adaptation. Indeed it would be truly remarkable if this did not occur (and would strongly indicate that the effect did not actually represent a selective pressure at all). I know for sure that if someone suggested wiping out a pest or disease by gradually ramping up the ambient concentration of some antibiotic or pesticide by 1% per year, they would be laughed off stage - and rightly so.
Of course, that Nature paper itself is couched in suitably moderate terms - lots of "could" and "might". But the scary picture of deformed coccolithophorids has been printed far and wide...
My attention was also caught by an article in NewScientist some time ago about the rapidity of adaptation in respnse to human pressures. The point of interest seemed to be that this adaptation was much faster than people had previously thought:
>> Incidentally, according to the paper, the reduction in yield and >> accompanying increase in hunger should be roughly linear with time/CO2 >> concentration, which suggests that it should perhaps be visible by now >> if it is a real effect (I don't know about interannual variability or >> quality of data collection though). Anyone know if there are data >> supporting this?
> I would think that the Green Revolution would hide any such effect over the > half century at least.
And what are the implications of this for the "millions" who are "facing starvation"? Are they actual people, or merely an abstract mathematical artefact arising from a particular calculation? Is it unreasonable to expect that the "green revolution" would be (marginally) accelerated by the hint of rising food prices in the event of (barely detectable) climate changes? Remember, the cherry-picked results from the UNDP report were still only of the order of 0.5% pa reduction in potential yields in the *worst affected* areas.
> I often hear people say that all we need are the few dozen species of plants > we eat, some cattle and pigs, maybe a few species of flowers just for fun, > the rest of the biosphere be damned. My strongest negative reaction to that > vision of the future is an emotional and personal one and I have trouble > knowing for sure whether or not I have any particular right to force my > love, fascination and respect for the natural world on others. But the next > reaction is a more practical one, in that I think this would be a truly > difficult feat of bioengineering technology to create and live in such a > world. I just think the unforeseen difficulties and consequences would be > enormous.
You probably heard me say something similar. Biodiversity is valuable, but
1. I just don't see how the planet would become unlivable because mosses in Iceland or lice in Brazil die out. Something like 99.9% of all species that have ever lived, have died out. More importantly, what's the mechanism for the planet becoming unlivable?
2. Biodiversity is definitely not very productive: The oceans may be very biodiverse, but as far as photosynthetic activity is concerned, most of it is as barren as the Sahara, and total fish take from 3/4 of the world's surface is 100 million tonnes (and falling due to overfishing), while grain production from a fraction of the Earth's land surface is 2 billion tonnes. For high productivity we invariably rely on just a few species, that's what fish farming, tree farming, agriculture are all about. In the case of many fermentations, most of the effort is in keeping undesired natural species out of the fermentation tank.
> 1. I just don't see how the planet would become unlivable because > mosses in Iceland or lice in Brazil die out. Something like 99.9% of > all species that have ever lived, have died out. More importantly, > what's the mechanism for the planet becoming unlivable?
> For high productivity we invariably rely on just a few species, that's > what fish farming, tree farming, agriculture are all about. In the case > of many fermentations, most of the effort is in keeping undesired > natural species out of the fermentation tank.
Gerhaus, I just love your pespective. I never had a true appreciation for zoos and museums of natural history until you reminded me that we need only rely upon just a few species. Why share the natural world with things we do not need.
> > 1. I just don't see how the planet would become unlivable because > > mosses in Iceland or lice in Brazil die out. Something like 99.9% of > > all species that have ever lived, have died out. More importantly, > > what's the mechanism for the planet becoming unlivable?
> > For high productivity we invariably rely on just a few species, that's > > what fish farming, tree farming, agriculture are all about. In the case > > of many fermentations, most of the effort is in keeping undesired > > natural species out of the fermentation tank.
> Gerhaus, I just love your pespective. I never had a true appreciation > for zoos and museums of natural history until you reminded me that we > need only rely upon just a few species. Why share the natural world > with things we do not need.
John, I have no doubt that you and I feel the same way about the intrinsic value and beauty of the natural world. But even though I understand the sarcasm directed at Gerhaus and the resentment you have of the attitude he is expressing, I am always careful with him because he is not a "slash and burn, who gives a f**k" anti-environmentalist despite this position on biodiversity.
I think he is thoughtful and rational and because of that I think he provides a necessary challenge to those of us who do value preservation of the natural environment highly. And I confess that I am often at a loss as to how to construct a clear and rational defense of the necessity of a thriving ocean and lush rain forest.
I think it is just as fair to question this belief as it is to question an economist about what good is more and more money.
Make no mistake, there is very little doubt in my mind that a lush, thriving natural world is hugely beneficial and important, and is so for just as many practical reasons as emotional ones, but I can't seem to formulate the right arguments or come up with the right information to support it without an appeal to personal values.
Why do others believe that a coral reef is better than a fish farm?
Coby, your response to my admitted sarcastic remark to Gerhaus amplifies the sentiment beneath that comment.
You said:
[And I confess that I am often at a loss as to how to construct a clear and rational defense of the necessity of a thriving ocean and lush rain forest. ]
For me it comes down to the most basic of parental instincts: we do all in our power to leave to our offspring a world in better shape than was left to us by our parents. Isn' that an intrinsic duty and moral responsibility we have towards the next generation.
Gerhaus, in one of his submittals, described himself as a parent and desires a large family of children. That is even more reason for him to abandon the thought that biodiversity is a fungible -- maybe negotiable -- commodity he and we can use, manipulate or lose.
I argue most strongly: we do not own natural things, ecosystems, biomes.......add your own terms here. They are the common goods that make life possible. Can he or anyone decide a specie or a coral reef is expendable? Of course not.
It is said the Amazon rainforest holds the components, elements, extracts, etc. which might present the biochemical and pharmeceutical industry with cures and supplements to heal the sick and add health to invalids. Maybe yes? I do not have a reason to doubt that. My and his children will never have the chance to do the research if our generation squaders the feedstock by writing off biodiversity as a commodity.
