Fwd: NERC Geoengineering dialogue report published today
Emily
Emily.
Dear Colleague,
NERC has published the final report of Experiment Earth? , our public
dialogue on geoengineering. It can be found at:
http://www.nerc.ac.uk/about/consult/geoengineering.asp together with a
short leaflet summarising the findings and recommendations from the report.
The latest issue of NERC's Planet Earth magazine also contains an
article about the public dialogue, which can be found here:
http://planetearth.nerc.ac.uk/features/story.aspx?id=744
Regards,
Peter
Peter Hurrell
Stakeholder Liaison Officer | Policy and Partnerships Team
Natural Environment Research Council (NERC)
Putting NERC science to use: find out more through NERC�s Science
Impacts Database <http://sid.nerc.ac.uk/>
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Josh Horton
argument against geoengineering, that is, people will embrace
geoengineering as an excuse to avoid emissions reductions, and current
levels of fossil fuel consumption will persist if not increase. Moral
hazard has emerged as one of the principal arguments against climate
engineering, despite the fact that geoengineering advocates generally
support aggressive mitigation as the preferred option, and are quick
to note the limitations of specific strategies, such as continued
ocean acidification and the so-called "termination problem" in the
case of stratospheric aerosol injections.
Evidence from the public dialogue summarized in the NERC report
indicates that participants viewed mitigation and geoengineering as
complementary policies, not as mutually exclusive alternatives.
Stakeholders saw a link between geoengineering and emissions controls,
and preferred a suite of mitigation and geoengineering measures to
reliance on any single approach. "This evidence is contrary to the
'moral hazard' argument that geoengineering would undermine popular
support for mitigation or adaptation," notes the report. While this
study represents only one set of empirical data gathered in one
particular sociocultural context, it is to my knowledge the first time
the moral hazard argument has been tested, and demonstrates little
support for this proposition.
Josh Horton
joshuah...@gmail.com
http://geoengineeringpolitics.blogspot.com/
On Sep 9, 10:45 am, Emily <em...@lewis-brown.net> wrote:
> best wishes,
> Emily.
>
> Dear Colleague,
>
> NERC has published the final report of Experiment Earth? , our public
>
> The latest issue of NERC's Planet Earth magazine also contains an
> article about the public dialogue, which can be found here:http://planetearth.nerc.ac.uk/features/story.aspx?id=744
>
> Regards,
>
> Peter
>
> Peter Hurrell
>
> Stakeholder Liaison Officer | Policy and Partnerships Team
>
> Natural Environment Research Council (NERC)
>
oli...@nmt.edu
Because GE can at best only delay global warming, I suggested at
Asilomar that a condition for the implementation of GE be that
satisfactory mitigation steps must have already been achieved.
Sincerely,
Oliver Wingenter
--
Oliver Wingenter
Assoc. Prof. Chemistry
Research Scientist
Geophysical Research Center
New Mexico Tech
801 Leroy Place
Socorro, NM 87801
Lane, Lee O.
Dear Josh,
I would suggest that in the future we would all be better off without the term "moral hazard". Moral hazard, as I suspect you know, is a kind of market failure. The concept is perfectly useful for describing a class of problems that arise in insurance markets and other kinds of risk-spreading contracts. It does not, I would argue, fit the case of climate engineering (CE) at all well.
The relative priority of climate engineering and GHG control is a matter of public policy. It does not involve insurance markets or contracting. The asymmetric knowledge, so typical of moral hazards, does not obtain.
In fact, if CE works and does not cause unacceptable side effects, it would lower the expected damage from an adding a ton of CO2 to the atmosphere. As a result, optimal carbon tax rates or emission allowance prices would fall, and the optimal pace of controls would slow.
True, even if CE works well, it may exhibit diminishing marginal returns, and it does not combat ocean acidification. Thus, controls retain some value; so does adaptation. The three approaches, as Scott Barrett has often noted, are imperfect substitutes. (Doing more of one implies doing less of the others, but there is a limit to how far that substitution can stretch.) Each of the three is likely to encounter rising marginal costs; hence, relying over-much on any one of them will lower over-all cost effectiveness.
In this context, the term moral hazard adds nothing but confusion. Its misuse can be taken to imply that sole reliance on GHG control is somehow the correct response. Indeed the naïve may take it that controls are the only “moral” response. The more we think, speak, and write in these evocative but misleading terms the harder it becomes to see that climate policy should entail finding the most cost beneficial mix of strategies for dealing with a compound challenge in the face of uncertainty.
Josh, I suspect that you know all of this; indeed, you could probably write it more articulately than I have. My guess is that you use the term merely as a convenience. Its misuse has seemed to take root in the debate about CE. Maybe it is too late to expunge it. Still, I would urge that we at least avoid sowing further confusion—even if it involves taking a little extra trouble to explain.
Best regards,
Lee Lane
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Ken Caldeira
It would help in this discussion to provide a clear definition of "moral hazard" and then say why or why not that definition is relevant in this context.
If you look on the web, you can get quite a range of definitions: http://www.google.com/search?q=define%3A+moral+hazard
The first definition that comes up is:
Moral Hazard (economics) the lack of any incentive to guard against a risk when you are protected against it (as by insurance)
The UN Capital Development Fund defines it as follows:
Moral Hazard arises from the incentive of an agent holding an asset belonging to another person to endanger the value of that asset because the agent bears less than the full consequences of any loss.
So, the question is "Why are these definitions not relevant to climate intervention?"
By the way, most but not all definitions of "moral hazard" do not imply that "moral hazard" has anything to do with morality.
Climate intervention seeks to diminish risk and not simply transfer risk, which is one distinguishing factor.
Here is a little parable:
Let's say that people think you should change farming practices to slow runoff to decrease flooding downstream. Let's further say that people downstream build dikes to prevent flooding despite poor upstream land use practices. Would we say that a moral hazard of building dikes is that it will relieve pressure on people living upstream to improve their land use practices (which could have other co-benefits, such as limiting nutrient runoff)?
[The analogy is that CO2 emission reduction gets at fundamental cause of problem, has other co-benefits (e.g. w.r.t. ocean acidification) but that climate intervention may really reduce risk and not just transfer risk.]
Anyway, Lee, it would be nice if you would provide what you think is a good definition for "moral hazard" and then clearly explain why you think it does not apply in this case.
Best,
Ken
PS. David Keith may want to chime in, as I think he was one of the first to use "moral hazard" in this context and now wishes he had been more precise with his language.
___________________________________________________
Ken Caldeira
Carnegie Institution Dept of Global Ecology
260 Panama Street, Stanford, CA 94305 USA
+1 650 704 7212 kcal...@carnegie.stanford.edu
http://dge.stanford.edu/labs/caldeiralab @kencaldeira
Lane, Lee O.
From: kcal...@gmail.com on behalf of Ken Caldeira
Sent: Sat 9/18/2010 12:23 PM
To: Lane, Lee O.
Cc: joshuah...@gmail.com; geoengineering; David Keith
Subject: Re: [geo] Re: Fwd: NERC Geoengineering dialogue report published today
Joshua Horton
Let me give this a try. Moral hazard, yes, is a kind of market failture, but one rooted in psychology. We desperately want there to be low-cost solutions to climate change. So, each time a "solution" arrives that looks like it is low cost, we embrace it and are not adequately critical. That's just how we're wired. Moral hazard captures the tendency to self-deception. If we assessed low-cost proposals with appropriate skepticism, there would be no problem. The arrrival of each new "solutions: should lower our level of effort on what we are already getting ready to do, but we allow these "solutions" to distract us -- we systematically overvalue them -- and thus we lower our level of effort more than we should. We know thjis is one of our own weaknesses, and we are trying to warn ourselves.We need cognitive psychologists here to frame these issues better than I have.Rob
From: geoengi...@googlegroups.com [mailto:geoengi...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Lane, Lee O.
Sent: Saturday, September 18, 2010 2:39 PM
To: Ken Caldeira
Subject: RE: [geo] Re: Fwd: NERC Geoengineering dialogue report published today
Robert Socolow
Sent: Saturday, September 18, 2010 2:39 PM
To: Ken Caldeira
Martin Bunzl
In the context of public policy as opposed to economics, ‘moral hazard’ is used informally to refer to the degree to which the implementation of a policy intended to offset a state of affairs will also have an unintended effect of also exacerbating that state of affairs. The classic case is an amnesty for illegal immigrants (or tax evaders). From the point of views of policy (as opposed to morality), the crucial question is the relative balance of gain over loss from the implementation of such a policy.
Martin Bunzl
Emily
as a very keen advocate of serious and swift efforts to reduce ghg
emissions, I am also keen for the development of some regulation and
international agreement on some GE. Despite this, I would be worried
about conditionality applied to all technologies / methodologies which
might be considered by some to fall into the GE bracket as proposed, due
to, for eg:
a. GE. Some parts of the changes in the Earth system are too progressed
for emissions reductions to have adequate effect soon enough - eg Arctic
sea ice may not be stabilised by emissions reductions now - it will take
more than this to prevent the feedbacks from the Arctic from further
accelerating cc, with seriously damaging implications globally.
b. some GE can be initiated now, which offer emissions reductions,
adaptation and active mitigation (draw down of CO2), for eg. biochar,
which can also help us deliver on our food production needs and our need
for diverse, local, cheap and reliable energy supplies. There is no
reason to prevent this, and perhpaps a small selection of other
technologies, from being utilised now (I think it already is). I suspect
that imposing the conditionality would be impossible to police for some
technologies.
The proposal of conditionality can relate to the discussion on the
perception or not of 'moral hazard' or whichever phrase is used to
describe a perceived concern that deploying GE could detract focus and
funds away from emission reduction strategies. I am so relieved to hear
that the NERC study found this argument not to be as prevalent as assumed.
It can be viewed like this : I need both food and water to live.
Drinking water doesn't mean I don't need to eat.
I hope this perspective helps,
very best wishes,
Emily.
Ning Zeng
this:
After rosy claims of such solutions being shown not very practical or
with limited effect but insurmountable obstacles, one after another,
years pass by. The public as well as people who have worked on them
become totally wary of such solutions and give up. A small number of
proposals, new or old that may actually work in a broad cost-benefit
sense as partial contributors, are also ignored. The climate problem
continues to worsen, until a threshold in the public's perception and
in the political system is reached. Because the workable solutions
take a long time to ramp up, a small number of countries/entities
decided to use drastic 'cheap and quick' counter measures anyway, ....
Regards!
-Ning Zeng
John Nissen
Hi Emily,
Well said! If we need geoengineering for what is not covered by
emissions reductions, like saving the Arctic sea ice, then having
emissions reductions as a condition for such geoengineering is absurd.
Cheers,
John
---
Veli Albert Kallio
The same principle would apply for geoengineering, and would be widely called after if it were a private project, but only because it is going to be a public government project rather than a fun venture for the most conspicuous and wealthy consumers with noisy PR machine. (Please note that each space tourist flies to the International Space Station on throw-away spacecraft plus each Soyuz departure produces hundreds of tonnes of CO2 pollution from kerosene).
All those people in the governments, politics and economy who support the UK being developed into a prime centre of space tourism should certainly embrace the lowered standards for errors and failings for the emerging geoengineering companies that will, hopefully, supply their services to the public purse and the government regulators of the earth climate. It is ethically totally unacceptable, given the general circumstances expect geoengineering industries to be intensely regulated before any ground actions have been even taken.
The governments can move very swiftly to stamp out undesirable activities of this nature which requires large scale capital equipment and is in no way comparable to the illegal drug trade (unless someone invents a new 'anti-CFC perspirant' that is actually designed to change our climate). As per the principle of nurturing nascent industries and early stage developments of new technologies, no constraint must be made prior to their commencement (although the governments must be prepared to act swiftly if "waste dumping" is put as 'geoengineering'). The purpose is for the geoengineering to become a fulfilling excercise, and not a concept car for academic debaters.
There is a greater damage being done by inhibiting the growth and development of nascent technologies when the emission load increases the heat caption each year. May be, the climatic forcing of geoengineering could be initially capped to amount of GHG forcing, and then claw-back introduced. The responsibility should remain with the undertaking government with some insurance schemes to cover the possible risks so that any possible risk from geoengineering effort is reasonably covered to the governments and their tax payers.
The ethical - economic dimension for geoengineering to nurture nascent technologies and provision for insurance protection for failures to deliver or side effects are vital before the industry takes off. The increasing annual GHG load forms the basis for the ethical case for the antidote SRM and CDR which should have a licence equivalent to the opposite forcing from GHG pollutants.
With kind regards,
Veli Albert Kallio
> Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2010 17:59:01 +0100
> From: j...@cloudworld.co.uk
> To: em...@lewis-brown.net
> CC: geoengi...@googlegroups.com
> Subject: Re: [geo] condition proposed on CE
Lane, Lee O.
The posts by Professors Bunzl and Socolow convince us more than ever that injecting the term ‘moral hazard’ into the debate about climate engineering (CE) is a mistake. Professor Bunzl defends the term’s use. He writes that moral hazard results when “…a policy intended to offset a state of affairs will also have an unintended effect of also exacerbating that state of affairs.” Yet if we had analyzed CE correctly and found it to be viable, it would lower the risk of harm from climate change -- not ‘exacerbate’ it. Thus, although Professor Bunzl’s terminology seems quite vague to us, it still does not stretch ‘moral hazard’ wide enough to subsume the case of CE.
An analogy might help to draw out some important distinctions. Consider highway accident risks. Auto collision insurance can create a moral hazard. There is a dispute about how big the effect is, and the advantages of insurance may outweigh the harm from moral hazard, but collision insurance does have the features that can lead to moral hazard -- risk shifting and asymmetric information. Thus, it is easy to see how insurance might cause accident costs to exceed optimal levels.
In contrast to the insurance example, an effective auto collision avoidance system would not cause moral hazard. It would simply lower the risks of driving. To be sure, drivers may well take some of the welfare gains in the form of more trips, faster trip speeds, and less mental effort applied to the task of driving. This has been the common result of past improvements, but the efficiency gains are no less real for taking forms other than fewer accidents.
CE presents a close analogue to collision avoidance. If it works and if it does not produce unacceptable side effects, it would allow society:
- to lower the future harm from GHG emissions, or
- to keep the same level of harm with lower abatement costs, or
- to do some of both.
How much of the hypothetical CE efficiency gain should take one form rather than another depends on the shapes of the GHG marginal abatement cost and marginal damage curves.
Some people, though, like some extremist highway safety advocates, want all of the hypothetical efficiency gains from CE to be used to lower risk. They fear, rightly we suspect, that society, if offered a choice, would select a level of climate risk that might be lower than that which would prevail without CE but one that would also be higher than that which would obtain if all of the gains from CE were used to reduce risk. Somehow this chance that society might treat CE in an economically quasi-optimal way has been conflated with moral hazard.
Josh Horton may well be right that this misuse of the term ‘moral hazard’ and the opprobrium that it conveys springs from some kind of “land ethic”. Or perhaps we are right, and the misuse merely arises from a failure to take proper care in drawing analogies among concepts. The two notions are not mutually exclusive.
Either way, the CE debate would be far better off without the resulting confusion. First, the term as a description of the pros and cons of CE is simply inaccurate. Second, its use biases the discussion. ‘Moral hazard’, by definition, implies a loss in welfare, and there is nothing in the concept of CE that entails any such result. Third, the term ‘imperfect substitutes’ offers an accurate and value-neutral framework for discussing the choices among GHG control, CE, and adaptation; so there is no need to use inaccurate and biased language.
Lee Lane and David Montgomery
From: Martin Bunzl on behalf of Martin Bunzl
Sent: Sun 9/19/2010 8:35 PM
To: soc...@Princeton.EDU; Lane, Lee O.; 'Ken Caldeira'
Martin Bunzl
use in policy discourse.
MB
From: Lane, Lee O. [mailto:leo...@crai.com]
Sent: Thursday, September 23, 2010 12:38 PM
To: bu...@rutgers.edu; soc...@Princeton.EDU; Ken Caldeira
Cc: joshuah...@gmail.com; geoengineering; David Keith; Montgomery,
David
Subject: RE: moral hazard
The posts by Professors Bunzl and Socolow convince us more than ever that
injecting the term 'moral hazard' into the debate about climate engineering
(CE) is a mistake. Professor Bunzl defends the term's use. He writes that
moral hazard results when "...a policy intended to offset a state of affairs
will also have an unintended effect of also exacerbating that state of
affairs." Yet if we had analyzed CE correctly and found it to be viable, it
would lower the risk of harm from climate change -- not 'exacerbate' it.
Thus, although Professor Bunzl's terminology seems quite vague to us, it
still does not stretch 'moral hazard' wide enough to subsume the case of CE.
An analogy might help to draw out some important distinctions. Consider
highway accident risks. Auto collision insurance can create a moral hazard.
There is a dispute about how big the effect is, and the advantages of
insurance may outweigh the harm from moral hazard, but collision insurance
does have the features that can lead to moral hazard -- risk shifting and
asymmetric information. Thus, it is easy to see how insurance might cause
accident costs to exceed optimal levels.
In contrast to the insurance example, an effective auto collision avoidance
system would not cause moral hazard. It would simply lower the risks of
driving. To be sure, drivers may well take some of the welfare gains in the
form of more trips, faster trip speeds, and less mental effort applied to
the task of driving. This has been the common result of past improvements,
but the efficiency gains are no less real for taking forms other than fewer
accidents.
CE presents a close analogue to collision avoidance. If it works and if it
does not produce unacceptable side effects, it would allow society:
* to lower the future harm from GHG emissions, or
* to keep the same level of harm with lower abatement costs, or
* to do some of both.
_____
From: Martin Bunzl on behalf of Martin Bunzl
Martin Bunzl
Rob
_____
From: geoengi...@googlegroups.com
Dear Ken,
Lee
_____
From: kcal...@gmail.com on behalf of Ken Caldeira
Lee,
Best,
Ken
___________________________________________________
Ken Caldeira
Dear Josh,
avoid sowing further confusion-even if it involves taking a little extra
trouble to explain.
Best regards,
Lee Lane
<mailto:geoengineering%2Bunsu...@googlegroups.com> .
For more options, visit this group at
http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering?hl=en.
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Joshua Horton
Andrew Lockley
Juan Moreno-Cruz
each time a "solution" arrives that looks like it is low cost, we
problem is not moral hazard; I would argue it is Time Inconsistency.
Time inconsistency is a term first introduced to talk about the
inability of the federal bank to be consistent across time with their
monetary policies, and it is now widely used by behavioral economists
to represent a situation in which a presentself cannot negotiate with
a futureself to ensure the actions decided today are still taken in
the future. For example, you can always say you will stop smoking in
one week, or start running tomorrow, or dieting in the new year.
However when the next week, the next day or the new year arrive, your
promises are gone. Several mechanisms give rise to this situation,
hyperbolic discounting being the most standard way of thinking about
the problem nowadays. Other mechanisms such as the overestimation of
the gains from the introduction of a technology, after the technology
has been introduced, will also give rise to this type of behavior.
The problem with situations exhibiting time inconsistent behavior, in
very general terms, is that it is impossible to generate a contract in
which the two parties agree on doing or not doing something. The
reason this contract do not exist is because ...well, the futureself
or is not there to sign it. The solution is then to generate path
dependent outcomes. That is, create policies that will stick in and
that are very difficult to override. IN the case of the diet this
implies registering to a (expensive) program, in the case of running
the next day committing to run with another person (hopefully someone
you respect a lot) and in the case of smoking, I am not sure, I
haven’t figure that one out yet.
Assuming this framework is the right one, one could identify two
problems with arguing climate engineering induces moral hazard
behavior. First, it obscures our understanding of the problem.
Second, it complicates the finding of a solution. I should say here
that the fact that the problem is not correctly framed doesn’t mean it
doesn’t exists, as it was very subtly suggested before in this e-mail
exchange. The fact that it obscures our understanding of the problem
is evident from this discussion and I shall not go there.
The real problem is when it interferes with finding a solution. A way
to deal with moral hazard is by splitting the benefits of loses
between the principal and the agent (pardon my economics): In the
insurance industry this is due by means of deductibles; that is,
making the agent share on the damages. In the labour market by
sharing on the benefits of the successful job. It should be clear
these solutions are not available for the case of climate
engineering. Precisely because the current generation cannot credibly
commit to split the gains or losses of a successful or unsuccessful
Climate Engineering adventure. Why? Well, the current generation will
not exist once the benefits or losses are weighted in. IN this sense,
there isn’t a Principal-Agent framework to deal with.
On the contrary, the current generation can create policies today that
will stick in the future. One such policy has been previously
suggested in the literature and consists on a ban on CE research. If
there is no research, the technology will not be available and the
possibility of time inconsistent behavior is eliminated at its root.
This solution, however, seems to be inappropriate because the inertia
and uncertainty of the climate system my force the future generation
to use CE, even if it hasn’t been research on it.
A second solution, that is described on one of my papers jointly
written with Timo Goeschl and Daniel Heyen, is to increase our levels
of mitigation today. By doing so, we decrease the risk for the future
generation; hence, decreasing the need for the use of climate
engineering technologies. This is solution is path dependent and will
seclude the use of CE only for extreme climate sensitivity cases. In
this case, a policy in which both, research on CE and higher levels of
mitigation seems to be adequate to deal with the problem. Notice that
this solution can only be suggested and defended once we are aware of
the problem and we have frame it appropriately.
In general, I believe when David Keith make the parallel with Moral
Hazard he was thinking of suboptimal behavior induced by the
possibility of CE. Time inconsistency is one of many other sources of
suboptimal behavior. However, we need to quantify these suboptimal
behaviors and put them in context with the benefits from CE. But
again, we can only do that once the suboptimal behavior is properly
addressed.
Best,
Juan Moreno-Cruz
John Gorman
I am afraid I believe that the use of the term "moral hazard" with regard to geoengineering is totally inappropriate.
The recent discussion has been interesting in explaining where the strange phrase came from: namely the insurance industry. I say strange because even in the case of car insurance for instance there is obviously nothing moral or immoral about our normal behaviour. (Excluding fraud of course.)
This is the theme of the paper by Ben Hale(post of 24th Sept) "I argue that there is nothing inherently moral about the moral hazard" and also " the problem of moral hazard in insurance has in fact little to do with morality but can be analysed with conventonal economic tools" quoting Mark Paulty . Though obvious to me, this point is clearly not obvious to all philosophers or economists. (Is anything?)
I have always believed that the term with the word "moral" was brought into the debate by those opposed to geoengineering to try to suggest that geoengineering is in some way immoral. They wish to use global warming as a weapon to turn the world back to a natural green state. Obviously again I don't see a moral/immoral aspect to this, just a (big) practical problem to be solved.
One of the first quotes that I recorded when first becoming involved three years ago was by economist Robert Samuelson (I think it was in Oliver Morton's Nature article). "The trouble with the global warming debate is that it has become a moral crusade when it's really an engineering problem. The inconvenient truth is that if we don't solve the engineering problem, we're helpless." Exactly!
I was pleased to see that the survey by NERC showed no sign of this "moral hazard" among ordinary people. I have always believed that serious research into geoengineering would have exactly the opposite effect of proving to everyone how serious the problem was and showing that we can develop practical solutions to this very large worldwide problem. (Which of course must include a total change of the worlds energy systems at the fastest possible speed. ie by about 2100)
John Gorman
Ben Hale
While I agree with John Gorman that the problem with deploying the moral hazard in discussions of geoengineering is that it smuggles in a moral dimension, I disagree that there is no moral dimension to the matter of geoengineering, and I strongly disagree that this is simply a practical matter in need of a solution. Robert Samuelson is dead wrong about this.
If a group of people decide to affect, dramatically or even minimally, the world in which you live, there is ineluctably a moral component to this decision. Even if they ask you, “May I cut your hair?” or “May I paint strawberries on your sidewalk?” the acquisition of your consent is itself a morally complicated act. Your simple “Yes you may” bespeaks your competence to judge, your jurisdiction over the area in question, your relevance to the issue, their reasonable and rational interest in pursuing their ends, and so on.
Compare: “May I slice you open?” That’s a complicated question. Even with a “yes,” it’s not clear that I’m permitted to do this.
With geoengineering, we’re talking about affecting the earth’s climate. This is far more serious and life-altering than hair cutting or sidewalk painting, arguably more akin to “may I slice you open.” If implemented, geoengineering will affect everyone, including those who are not in a position to make, assert, or enforce claims with regard to their interests or the interests of their proxies.
Geoengineering is a very, very serious moral conundrum; and a very, very complicated one at that. It just confuses the matter to lean too heavily on the moral hazard—which I take to be a relatively specific policy concern—as a reason to or not to engineer the climate.
Best,
Ben
Benjamin Hale
Assistant Professor
Philosophy and Environmental Studies
University of Colorado, Boulder
Tel: 303 735-3624; Fax: 303 735-1576
Gregory Benford
Gregory Benford
Mike MacCracken
Mike MacCracken
On 9/26/10 11:37 AM, "Ben Hale" <bh...@colorado.edu> wrote:
While I agree with John Gorman that the problem with deploying the moral hazard in discussions of geoengineering is that it smuggles in a moral dimension, I disagree that there is no moral dimension to the matter of geoengineering, and I strongly disagree that this is simply a practical matter in need of a solution. Robert Samuelson is dead wrong about this.
If a group of people decide to affect, dramatically or even minimally, the world in which you live, there is ineluctably a moral component to this decision. Even if they ask you, “May I cut your hair?” or “May I paint strawberries on your sidewalk?” the acquisition of your consent is itself a morally complicated act. Your simple “Yes you may” bespeaks your competence to judge, your jurisdiction over the area in question, your relevance to the issue, their reasonable and rational interest in pursuing their ends, and so on.
Compare: “May I slice you open?” That’s a complicated question. Even with a “yes,” it’s not clear that I’m permitted to do this.
With geoengineering, we’re talking about affecting the earth’s climate. This is far more serious and life-altering than hair cutting or sidewalk painting, arguably more akin to “may I slice you open.” If implemented, geoengineering will affect everyone, including those who are not in a position to make, assert, or enforce claims with regard to their interests or the interests of their proxies.
Geoengineering is a very, very serious moral conundrum; and a very, very complicated one at that. It just confuses the matter to lean too heavily on the moral hazard—which I take to be a relatively specific policy concern—as a reason to or not to engineer the climate.
Best,
Ben
Benjamin Hale
Assistant Professor
Philosophy <http://www.colorado.edu/philosophy> and Environmental Studies <http://envs.colorado.edu/>
University of Colorado, Boulder
Tel: 303 735-3624; Fax: 303 735-1576
http://www.practicalreason.com <http://www.practicalreason.com/>
http://cruelmistress.wordpress.com <http://cruelmistress.wordpress.com/>
From: John Gorman [mailto:gor...@waitrose.com]
Sent: Sunday, September 26, 2010 3:11 AM
To: Ben Hale; geoengineering; Lane, Lee O.; andrew....@gmail.com
Subject: Re: [geo] RE: moral hazard
I am afraid I believe that the use of the term "moral hazard" with regard to geoengineering is totally inappropriate.
The recent discussion has been interesting in explaining where the strange phrase came from: namely the insurance industry. I say strange because even in the case of car insurance for instance there is obviously nothing moral or immoral about our normal behaviour. (Excluding fraud of course.)
This is the theme of the paper by Ben Hale(post of 24th Sept) "I argue that there is nothing inherently moral about the moral hazard" and also " the problem of moral hazard in insurance has in fact little to do with morality but can be analysed with conventonal economic tools" quoting Mark Paulty . Though obvious to me, this point is clearly not obvious to all philosophers or economists. (Is anything?)
I have always believed that the term with the word "moral" was brought into the debate by those opposed to geoengineering to try to suggest that geoengineering is in some way immoral. They wish to use global warming as a weapon to turn the world back to a natural green state. Obviously again I don't see a moral/immoral aspect to this, just a (big) practical problem to be solved.
One of the first quotes that I recorded when first becoming involved three years ago was by economist Robert Samuelson (I think it was in Oliver Morton's Nature article). "The trouble with the global warming debate is that it has become a moral crusade when it's really an engineering problem. The inconvenient truth is that if we don't solve the engineering problem, we're helpless." Exactly!
I was pleased to see that the survey by NERC showed no sign of this "moral hazard" among ordinary people. I have always believed that serious research into geoengineering would have exactly the opposite effect of proving to everyone how serious the problem was and showing that we can develop practical solutions to this very large worldwide problem. (Which of course must include a total change of the worlds energy systems at the fastest possible speed. ie by about 2100)
John Gorman
----- Original Message -----
From: Andrew Lockley <mailto:and...@andrewlockley.com>
To: leo...@crai.com ; geoengineering <mailto:geoengi...@googlegroups.com>
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to geoengineerin...@googlegroups.com <mailto:geoengineering%2Bunsu...@googlegroups.com> .
Ben Hale
Most ethicists don’t make a distinction between ethical and moral concerns, but if you’d care to illuminate, I’d be happy to entertain the alleged difference.
Benjamin Hale
Assistant Professor
Philosophy and Environmental Studies
University of Colorado, Boulder
Tel: 303 735-3624; Fax: 303 735-1576
http://www.practicalreason.com
http://cruelmistress.wordpress.com
Ben Hale
Certainly our consumption of fossil fuels, and their relationship to the changing climate, is an important moral issue. Is it the “overriding moral issue”? Hard to say. What’s it riding over? Cost concerns? Concerns about harms? Concerns about rights? I doubt that it unilaterally overrides those concerns, but there are certainly places where it may make considerable sense to incur some costs, cause some harms, or even abrogate some rights. At least one central moral question is whether and to what extent we can (or ought to) accept or permit these considerations to override other longstanding moral principles. The other moral questions you raise below are also critically important, of course.
Incidentally, I apologize for not being more active in this group. I hadn’t realized that I was receiving the “digest” version of the e-mails, and therefore was receiving only one e-mail a day.
To unsubscribe from this group, send email to geoengineerin...@googlegroups.com.
Lane, Lee O.
Having just read your earlier post to John Gorman, I would agree that there is an ethical dimension to climate policy. Samuelson overstates when he seems to reduce the matter solely to engineering. That said, Samuelson’s statement highlights a crucial facet of the climate policy debate. The issue has fallen under the sway of people engaged in a moral crusade; indeed, the crusade has called forth an almost equally fanatic Jihad to combat it. “Truth,” as they say, “may be the first casualty.”
One can accept without demur the presence of an ethical aspect of the issue and still regard with dismay the spirit of holy war. This, I think, was Samuelson’s main point (and John Gorman's too), and the insight is valid and important. Nowhere has the crusading spirit been more evident than in the dispute about ‘moral hazard’. (CE is the currently at the center of things, but many of the same issues are also implicit in adaptation.
As a term of art in economics 'moral hazard' has a clear enough meaning. The choice of words to be sure is unfortunate, and the term rightly pertains to a market failure not a moral failure. In any case, ‘moral hazard’, even properly defined, was always a poor analogy to the task of trading-off spending on CE and spending on GHG control. Even so, for me, the analogy seemed at first to be plausible, and only further thought exposed its falseness. So I have no grounds for complaint about the initial analogy.
Now, though, the two words’ evocative nature has led some ‘crusaders’ to seize upon them as a recruiting slogan for their holy war. They feel strongly that slowing the pace of GHG control in response to a successful CE system would be both immoral and hazardous. The problem is that claiming that a choice is immoral and hazardous is not at all the same thing as claiming that it involves moral hazard. To this distinction some apparently choose to remain deaf.
Is the dispute only about words? Maybe it is, but words matter. Using a term in so heterodox a way, without even warning the reader that the usage is at odds with the meaning that he may reasonably expect, falls short of the basic standard for clear discourse. That standard should concern all scholars engaged in policy debate. It is more vital still in climate policy. There, the discourse is multi-disciplinary, and we are all obliged to try to be good translators across disciplines. Crusaders, though, may march to a different drummer.
Lee Lane
From: Ben Hale [mailto:bh...@colorado.edu]
Sent: Sun 9/26/2010 11:37 AM
To: 'John Gorman'; 'geoengineering'; Lane, Lee O.; andrew....@gmail.com
Subject: RE: [geo] RE: moral hazard
oli...@nmt.edu
There is no need to preform GE unless we can control GHG emissions. As a hedge, research should proceed as quickly as possible.
Oliver Wingenter
-- Oliver Wingenter Assoc. Prof. of Chemistry Research Scientist Geophysical Research Center New Mexico Tech 801 Leroy Place Socorro, NM 87801
John Gorman
WG III has repeatedly stated that we
have the technologies to stabilize atmospheric concentration at almost any
desired level and at modest, or even very low, cost. What is lacking according
to IPCC WG III is "political will". The WG III statements re available
technologies are unsupported by the evidence (see papers by Hoffert et al Nature
1998, Science, 2002, papers for which Tom Wigley was a co-author). These papers
were wholly (Nature 1998) or largely (Science, 2002) ignored by IPCC WG III.
----if you are looking
for unsound analysis the main place you will find it is in IPCC WG III---an
analysis that arguably has had the biggest impact on climate policy and advocacy
of any of the IPCC WGs. --- the flawed analysis of IPCC WG III - makes climate
stabilization technologically much easier and economically less costly
than it will be.
(The IPCC dismissed Geoengineering with 17 words in 20.000 pages in 2007.)
----- Original Message -----From: Ben HaleSent: Sunday, September 26, 2010 4:37 PMSubject: RE: [geo] RE: moral hazard
John Nissen
Hi Mike,
You wrote:
"It sure seems to me that one should be much more concerned about GHG changes going on into unchartered territory more than for GHG plus geoengineering aiming to keep the climate within bounds of what has recently been experienced, and so is likely much better understood.
So the moral dimension to this is to do the best thing for humanity, which must surely be to try to keep the climate within the bounds set by recent experience.� With the Arctic, we can see the changes taking us into unchartered territory, and opening up the possibility of massive methane release from permafrost and massive ice discharge from the Greenland ice sheet.� These in turn are liable to lead to thermal runaway and metres of sea level rise respectively.
As John Gorman wrote, IPCC has embarked on an unrealistic path of emissions cuts, and dismissed geoengineering with 17 words.� In their 2007 report, they also were guilty of using a simple linear extrapolation of 20th century sea ice data, to give a date for seasonal sea ice free Arctic beyond the end of this century.� However, positive feedback invalidates linear extrapolation, and� observations since the 90s indicate the real possibility of a near-ice-free ocean within this decade [1].� This must surely be treated as an emergency situation.� And the only way to reduce the risk of disaster is through solar radiation management.� Thus I suggest that the greatest moral hazard is to dismiss the possibility of deploying such geoengineering, when it is needed to deal with an emergency in which the future of humanity is at stake.
Cheers,
John
[1] http://climateprogress.org/2010/09/22/nsidc-serreze-arctic-sea-ice-volume-record-low-death-spiral/
especially see Maslowski projection.
---
John Gorman wrote:
�Ben�The questions you raise seem to be about decision making. The ethics of� making decisions which affect large numbers of people tell you nothing about the morality or immorality of geoengineerig --or surgery.(to take your example)�
To me it is obvious that climate change and geoengineering decisions must be taken at UN level. At the moment this means the body set up to deal with Climate Change, the IPCC.
Unfortunately the IPCC, despite its good analysis of the past and present seems to have its head in the sand about the seriousness of the problem in the future, (Arctic sea ice, methane, sea level, Greenland etc)while simultaneously having its head in the clouds on the rate at which emissions can be reduced. Chris Green, Professor of Economics in the Global Environment and Climate Change Centre at McGill University described this�side of the IPCC�recently in the following way:�
WG III has repeatedly stated that we have the technologies to stabilize atmospheric concentration at almost any desired level and at modest, or even very low, cost. What is lacking according to IPCC WG III is "political will".�The WG III statements re available technologies are unsupported by the evidence (see papers by Hoffert et al Nature 1998, Science, 2002, papers for which Tom Wigley was a co-author). These papers were wholly (Nature 1998) or largely (Science, 2002) ignored by IPCC WG III.
----if you are looking for unsound analysis the main place you will find it is in IPCC WG III---an analysis that arguably has had the biggest impact on climate policy and advocacy of any of the IPCC WGs. --- the flawed analysis of IPCC WG III - makes climate stabilization technologically� much easier and economically less costly than it will be.�
(The IPCC dismissed Geoengineering��with 17 words in 20.000 pages in 2007.)�The UN system convened to try to achieve these completely impossible rates of emissions reduction, UNEP Copenhagen etc. was a�total farce. How can 19,000 delegates and their governments turn a blind eye to complete fudges like "emissions intensity"?( it means in comparison with GDP in case anyone didnt realise) and produce press releases that are out in total emissions by maybe 40%. Lane Lee calls this behavoir Organized Hypocrisy in his�article at http://www.aei.org/outlook/100095� . I call it�--- well laughable if it werent so serious.�The decisions to be made to control global warming will require a level of cooperation and relism that has never existed in� international diplomacy. Even previous worldwide agreements like nuclear weapons reduction and the elimination of CFCs to save the ozone layer were easy in comparison.�John Gorman�ps its nice that people�sign with�their University or organisation. It helps to know who they are.�I dont have either so I will sign with my profile on this group which is at http://groups.google.com/groups/profile?enc_user=DWQ8dRQAAAAmAe2DtKtSwR1ynkksDOuxOPANdqfI6prRsqjc7uCt1A�
----- Original Message -----From: Ben HaleSent: Sunday, September 26, 2010 4:37 PMSubject: RE: [geo] RE: moral hazard
While I agree with John Gorman that the problem with deploying the moral hazard in discussions of geoengineering is that it smuggles in a moral dimension, I disagree that there is no moral dimension to the matter of geoengineering, and I strongly disagree that this is simply a practical matter in need of a solution. Robert Samuelson is dead wrong about this.
�
If a group of people decide to affect, dramatically or even minimally, the world in which you live, there is ineluctably a moral component to this decision. Even if they ask you, �May I cut your hair?� or �May I paint strawberries on your sidewalk?� the acquisition of your consent is itself a morally complicated act. Your simple �Yes you may� bespeaks your competence to judge, your jurisdiction over the area in question, your relevance to the issue, their reasonable and rational interest in pursuing their ends, and so on.
�
Compare: �May I slice you open?� That�s a complicated question. Even with a �yes,� it�s not clear that I�m permitted to do this.
�
With geoengineering, we�re talking about affecting the earth�s climate. This is far more serious and life-altering than hair cutting or sidewalk painting, arguably more akin to �may I slice you open.� If implemented, geoengineering will affect everyone, including those who are not in a position to make, assert, or enforce claims with regard to their interests or the interests of their proxies.
�
Geoengineering is a very, very serious moral conundrum; and a very, very complicated one at that. It just confuses the matter to lean too heavily on the moral hazard�which I take to be a relatively specific policy concern�as a reason to or not to engineer the climate.
�
Best,
Ben
�
�
Benjamin Hale
Assistant Professor
Philosophy and Environmental Studies
University of Colorado, Boulder
Tel: 303 735-3624; Fax: 303 735-1576
�
From: John Gorman [mailto:gor...@waitrose.com]
Sent: Sunday, September 26, 2010 3:11 AM
To: Ben Hale; geoengineering; Lane, Lee O.; andrew....@gmail.com
Subject: Re: [geo] RE: moral hazard
�
I am afraid I believe that the use of the term "moral hazard" with regard to geoengineering is totally inappropriate.
The recent discussion has been interesting in explaining where the strange phrase came from: namely the insurance industry. I say strange because even in the case of car insurance for instance there is obviously nothing moral or immoral about our normal behaviour. (Excluding fraud of course.)
This is the theme of the paper by Ben Hale(post of 24th Sept) "I argue that there is nothing inherently moral about the moral hazard" and also " the problem of moral hazard in insurance has in fact little to do with morality but can be analysed with conventonal economic tools" quoting Mark Paulty . Though obvious to me, this point is clearly not obvious to all philosophers or economists. (Is anything?)
I have always believed that the term with the word "moral" was brought into the debate by those opposed to geoengineering to try to suggest that geoengineering is in some way immoral. They wish to use global warming as a weapon to turn the world back to a natural green state. Obviously again I don't see a moral/immoral aspect to this, just a (big) practical problem to be solved.
One of the first quotes that I recorded when first becoming involved three years ago was by economist Robert Samuelson (I think it was in Oliver Morton's� Nature article).�"The trouble with the global warming debate is that it has become a moral crusade when it's really an engineering problem. The inconvenient truth is that if we don't solve the engineering problem, we're helpless." Exactly!
I was pleased to see that the survey by NERC showed no sign of this "moral hazard" among ordinary people. I have always believed that serious research into geoengineering would have exactly the opposite effect of proving to everyone how serious the problem was and showing that we can develop practical solutions to this very large worldwide problem. (Which of course must include a total change of the worlds energy systems at the fastest possible speed. ie by about 2100)
John Gorman
----- Original Message -----
From: Andrew Lockley
Sent: Friday, September 24, 2010 10:04 AM
Subject: Re: [geo] RE: moral hazard
�
I believe the term 'moral hazard' is appropriate. �
�
A brief definition, from Wikipedia: "Moral hazard�occurs when a party insulated from risk behaves differently than it would behave if it were fully exposed to the risk."
�
The arguments are similar to that in the banking crisis, in which the term was widely (and I believe correctly) used. What we have is a case where polluters are privatising profits, and socialising risks of climate harm. �This is obvious for climate change in general, as the oil-rig owner and car driver does not pay the costs of the farmer's failed crop. �The question we need to ask is: "Does geoengineering increase moral hazard".
�
What we have is, in effect, a version of the prisoner's dilemma. �Everyone agrees that action is needed, but everyone has an opportunity to break the socially-desirable convention for short-term private gain. This is also true generally for climate change. �However, geoengineering alters this situation. �Without geoengineering, a clear 'tragedy of the commons' argument exists to force the prisoners to act collectively. �However, the prospect of geoengineering, provides a perceived "get out of jail free" card, which alters the behaviour of the 'prisoners'.
�
By reducing the total level of perceived risk in the system, the technology alters the balance of argument facing each prisoner (country, company, individual). �If the balance of reward and punishment for cooperating or otherwise are adjusted, then the prisoners' odds are changed, making behaviour in a "morally hazardous" way more likely.�
�
If society acted as one, governed by a single, rational, omnipotent and permanent mind, then geoengineering would be a logical economic choice - at least as a fall-back plan. �However, in a situation where moral hazard already exists in the system, the net effect of geoengineering is to dramatically increase that moral hazard, by reducing the immediate incentive for polluters to sacrifice short term private profits for long-term collective gains.
�
Regardless of my own faith in the necessity of the technology, I am not blinded to the fact that, where countries are fighting like Tweedledum and Tweedledee for economic supremacy, the prospect of delaying the crow's arrival simply encourages them to battle for longer over the rattle.
�
Geoengineering increases moral hazard. �We must not ignore this fact and focus solely on the scientific arguments at the expense of a consideration of the social arguments. �The best economic solution would be the secret development of geoengineering technology - so that decision makers were unaware of its benefits when considering whether to cooperate or not, but yet were able to benefit when needed. �However, the idea of scientists forming secret societies to manipulate the world's climate without external scrutiny has its own problems!
�
A�
�
On 23 September 2010 20:37, Lane, Lee O. <leo...@crai.com> wrote:
The posts by Professors Bunzl and Socolow convince us more than ever that injecting the term �moral hazard� into the debate about climate engineering (CE) is a mistake. Professor Bunzl defends the term�s use. He writes that moral hazard results when ��a policy intended to offset a state of affairs will also have an unintended effect of also exacerbating that state of affairs.� Yet if we had analyzed CE correctly and found it to be viable, it would lower the risk of harm from climate change -- not �exacerbate� it. Thus, although Professor Bunzl�s terminology seems quite vague to us, it still does not stretch �moral hazard� wide enough to subsume the case of CE.
An analogy might help to draw out some important distinctions. Consider highway accident risks. Auto collision insurance can create a moral hazard. There is a dispute about how big the effect is, and the advantages of insurance may outweigh the harm from�moral hazard, but collision insurance does have the features that can lead to moral hazard -- risk shifting and asymmetric information. Thus, it is easy to see how insurance might cause accident costs to exceed optimal levels.
In contrast to the insurance example, an effective auto collision avoidance system would not cause moral hazard. It would simply lower the risks of driving. To be sure, drivers may well take some of the welfare gains in the form of more trips, faster trip speeds, and less mental effort applied to the task of driving. This has been the common result of past improvements, but the efficiency gains are no less real for taking forms other than fewer accidents.
CE presents a close analogue to collision avoidance. If it works and if it does not produce unacceptable side effects, it would allow society:
- to lower the future harm from GHG emissions, or
- to keep the same level of harm with lower abatement costs, or
- to do some of both.
How much of the hypothetical CE efficiency gain should take one form rather than another depends on the shapes of the�GHG marginal abatement cost and marginal damage curves.
Some people, though, like some extremist highway safety advocates, want all of the hypothetical efficiency gains from CE to be used to lower risk. They fear, rightly we suspect, that society, if offered a choice, would select a level of climate risk that might be lower than that which would prevail without CE but one that would also be higher than that which would obtain if all of the gains from CE were used to reduce risk. Somehow this chance that society might treat CE in an economically quasi-optimal way has been conflated with moral hazard.
Josh Horton may well be right that this misuse of the term �moral hazard� and the opprobrium that it conveys springs from some kind of �land ethic�. Or perhaps we are right, and the misuse merely arises from a failure to take proper care in drawing analogies among concepts. The two notions are not mutually exclusive.
Either way, the CE debate would be far better off without the resulting confusion. First, the term as a description of the pros and cons of CE is simply inaccurate. Second, its use biases the discussion. �Moral hazard�, by definition, implies a loss in welfare, and there is nothing in the concept of CE that entails any such result. Third, the term �imperfect substitutes� offers an accurate and value-neutral framework for discussing the choices among GHG control, CE, and adaptation; so there is no need to use inaccurate and biased language.
Lee Lane and David Montgomery
�
�
�
�
From: Martin Bunzl on behalf of Martin Bunzl
Sent: Sun 9/19/2010 8:35 PM
To: soc...@Princeton.EDU; Lane, Lee O.; 'Ken Caldeira'
Cc: joshuah...@gmail.com; 'geoengineering'; 'David Keith'
Subject: RE: [geo] Re: Fwd: NERC Geoengineering dialogue report published today
In the context of public policy as opposed to economics, �moral hazard� is used informally to refer to the degree to which the implementation of a policy intended to offset a state of affairs will also have an unintended effect of also exacerbating that state of affairs. The classic case is an amnesty for illegal immigrants (or tax evaders). From the point of views of policy (as opposed to morality), the crucial question is the relative balance of gain over loss �from �the implementation of such a policy.
�
Martin Bunzl
�
From: geoengi...@googlegroups.com [mailto:geoengi...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Robert Socolow
Sent: Sunday, September 19, 2010 1:37 PM
To: leo...@crai.com; 'Ken Caldeira'
Cc: joshuah...@gmail.com; 'geoengineering'; 'David Keith'
Subject: RE: [geo] Re: Fwd: NERC Geoengineering dialogue report published today
�
Let me give this a try. Moral hazard, yes, is a kind of market failture, but one rooted in psychology. We desperately want there to be low-cost solutions to climate change. So, each time a "solution" arrives that looks like it is low cost, we embrace it and are not adequately critical. That's just how we're wired. Moral hazard captures the tendency to self-deception. If we assessed low-cost proposals with appropriate skepticism, there would be no problem. The arrrival of each new "solutions: should lower our level of effort on what we are already getting ready to do, but we allow these "solutions" to distract us -- we systematically overvalue them -- and thus we lower our level of effort more than we should. We know thjis is one of our own weaknesses, and we are trying to warn ourselves.
�
We need cognitive psychologists here to frame these issues better than I have.
�
Rob
�
From: geoengi...@googlegroups.com [mailto:geoengi...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Lane, Lee O.
Sent: Saturday, September 18, 2010 2:39 PM
To: Ken Caldeira
Cc: joshuah...@gmail.com; geoengineering; David Keith
Subject: RE: [geo] Re: Fwd: NERC Geoengineering dialogue report published today
Dear Ken,
�
A good suggestion. The list that you provide is a reasonable one. I would add that my understanding is that moral hazard refers to�a specific kind�of market failure. It is not just risky behavior. A simple definition that I think corresponds quite well to the way that�the term is commonly used Is:
�
"The risk�that the existence of a contract will change the behavior of one or both parties to the contract, e.g. an insured firm will take fewer fire precautions. " Asymmetric information between the contracting parties is a typical feature�moral hazard problems.�The insurer or principal�knows less than the insured or agent about the latter's behavior or state.�
�
Climate engineering is not such a case.�It's a policy choice by government. There is no contract. There is no information asymmetry. True, risk is involved, but�GHG control also implies accepting some risks in order to curb others.�Nobody argues that emission limits entail moral hazard, and no one should. People can agree or disagree about the prudence of either or both approaches. As you know, I would buy some of both,�but neither�of the policies has much in common with�insurers' or�share owners'�options as they try to align the incentives of the insured or their firm managers'�with their�own interests.�
�
These just seem to me to�present issues that are quite different�from the optimization problems�under uncertainty entailed by climate change. And as my previous post suggested, trying to force�climate policy�into this mold seems to me to invite misunderstanding of the issues at hand.�
�
Lee�����
�
From: kcal...@gmail.com on behalf of Ken Caldeira
Sent: Sat 9/18/2010 12:23 PM
To: Lane, Lee O.
Cc: joshuah...@gmail.com; geoengineering; David Keith
Subject: Re: [geo] Re: Fwd: NERC Geoengineering dialogue report published today
Lee,
It would help in this discussion to provide a clear definition of "moral hazard" and then say why or why not that definition is relevant in this context.
If you look on the web, you can get quite a range of definitions:� http://www.google.com/search?q=define%3A+moral+hazard
The first definition that comes up is:
Moral Hazard (economics) the lack of any incentive to guard against a risk when you are protected against it (as by insurance)
The UN Capital Development Fund defines it as follows:
Moral Hazard arises from the incentive of an agent holding an asset belonging to another person to endanger the value of that asset because the agent bears less than the full consequences of any loss.
So, the question is "Why are these definitions not relevant to climate intervention?"
By the way, most but not all definitions of "moral hazard" do not imply that "moral hazard" has anything to do with morality.
Climate intervention seeks to diminish risk and not simply transfer risk, which is one distinguishing factor.
Here is a little parable:
Let's say that people think you should change farming practices to slow runoff to decrease flooding downstream. Let's further say that people downstream build dikes to prevent flooding despite poor upstream land use practices. Would we say that a moral hazard of building dikes is that it will relieve pressure on people living upstream to improve their land use practices (which could have other co-benefits, such as limiting nutrient runoff)?
[The analogy is that CO2 emission reduction gets at fundamental cause of problem, has other co-benefits (e.g. w.r.t. ocean acidification) but that climate intervention may really reduce risk and not just transfer risk.]
Anyway, Lee, it would be nice if you would provide what you think is a good definition for "moral hazard" and then clearly explain why you think it does not apply in this case.
Best,
Ken
PS. David Keith may want to chime in, as I think he was one of the first to use "moral hazard" in this context and now wishes he had been more precise with his language.
___________________________________________________
Ken Caldeira
Carnegie Institution Dept of Global Ecology
260 Panama Street, Stanford, CA 94305 USA
+1 650 704 7212 kcal...@carnegie.stanford.edu
http://dge.stanford.edu/labs/caldeiralab� @kencaldeira
On Sat, Sep 18, 2010 at 8:56 AM, Lane, Lee O. <leo...@crai.com> wrote:
Dear Josh,
�
I would suggest that in the future we would all be better off without the term "moral hazard". Moral hazard, as I suspect you know,�is a kind of market failure. The concept is perfectly useful for describing a class of problems that arise in insurance markets and other kinds of risk-spreading contracts. It does not, I would argue, fit the case of climate engineering (CE) at all well.
�
The relative priority of�climate engineering and GHG control is a matter of public policy. It does not involve insurance markets or contracting. The asymmetric knowledge, so typical of moral hazards, does not obtain. ��
�
In fact, if CE works and does not cause unacceptable side effects, it would lower the expected damage from an adding a ton of CO2 to the atmosphere. As a result, optimal carbon tax rates or emission allowance prices would fall, and the optimal pace of controls would slow.
�
True, even if CE works well, it may exhibit diminishing marginal returns, and it�does not combat�ocean acidification. Thus, controls retain some value; so does adaptation. The three approaches, as Scott Barrett has often noted, are imperfect substitutes. (Doing more of one implies doing less of the others, but there is a limit to how far that substitution can stretch.) Each of the three is likely to encounter rising marginal costs; hence, relying over-much on any one of them will lower over-all cost effectiveness.
�
In this context, the term moral hazard adds nothing but confusion. Its misuse can be taken to imply that sole reliance on GHG control is somehow the correct response. Indeed the na�ve may take it that controls are the only �moral� response. The more we think, speak, and write in these evocative but misleading terms the harder it becomes to see that climate policy should entail finding the most cost beneficial mix of strategies for dealing with a compound challenge in the face of uncertainty.
�
Josh, I suspect that you know all of this; indeed, you could probably write it more articulately than I have. My guess is that you use the term merely as a convenience. Its misuse has seemed to take root in the debate about CE. Maybe it is too late to expunge it. Still, I would urge that we at least avoid sowing further confusion�even if it involves taking a little extra trouble to explain.
�
Best regards,
�
Lee Lane ��
�
�
�
�
On Sep 9, 10:45�am, Emily <em...@lewis-brown.net> wrote:
> � best wishes,
�
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Josh Horton
It is not at all obvious to me that decisions about geoengineering
should be made at "UN level." Given your description of the failures
of the UNFCCC process, treating geoengineering in the same forum does
not exactly inspire confidence. Climate engineering could be taken up
by many other multilateral groupings with applicable jurisdictions -
Major Economies Forum, Arctic Council, etc. I think we need to be
more creative about institutional and governance solutions.
> Hi Mike,
> You wrote:"It sure seems to me that one should be much more concerned about GHG changes going on into unchartered territory more than for GHG plus geoengineering aiming to keep the climate within bounds of what has recently been experienced, and so is likely much better understood."
> As John Gorman wrote, IPCC has embarked on an unrealistic path of emissions cuts, and dismissed geoengineering with 17 words. In their 2007 report, they also were guilty of using a simple linear extrapolation of 20th century sea ice data, to give a date for seasonal sea ice free Arctic beyond the end of this century. However, positive feedback invalidates linear extrapolation, and observations since the 90s indicate the real possibility of a near-ice-free ocean within this decade [1]. This must surely be treated as an emergency situation. And the only way to reduce the risk of disaster is through solar radiation management. Thus I suggest that the greatest moral hazard is to dismiss the possibility of deploying such geoengineering, when it is needed to deal with an emergency in which the future of humanity is at stake.
> John
> [1]http://climateprogress.org/2010/09/22/nsidc-serreze-arctic-sea-ice-volume-record-low-death-spiral/
> especially see Maslowski projection.
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> The questions you raise seem to be about decision making. The ethics of making decisions which affect large numbers of people tell you nothing about the morality or immorality of geoengineerig --or surgery.(to take your example)
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> To me it is obvious that climate change and geoengineering decisions must be taken at UN level. At the moment this means the body set up to deal with Climate Change, the IPCC.
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> WG III has repeatedly stated that we have the technologies to stabilize atmospheric concentration at almost any desired level and at modest, or even very low, cost. What is lacking according to IPCC WG III is "political will". The WG III statements re available technologies are unsupported by the evidence (see papers by Hoffert et al Nature 1998, Science, 2002, papers for which Tom Wigley was a co-author). These papers were wholly (Nature 1998) or largely (Science, 2002) ignored by IPCC WG III.----if you are looking for unsound analysis the main place you will find it is in IPCC WG III---an analysis that arguably has had the biggest impact on climate policy and advocacy of any of the IPCC WGs. --- the flawed analysis of IPCC WG III - makes climate stabilization technologically much easier and economically less costly than it will be.
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> (The IPCC dismissedGeoengineering with 17 words in 20.000 pages in 2007.)
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> The UN system convened to try to achieve these completely impossible rates of emissions reduction, UNEP Copenhagen etc. was a total farce. How can 19,000 delegates and their governments turn a blind eye to complete fudges like "emissions intensity"?( it means in comparison with GDP in case anyone didnt realise) and produce press releases that are out in total emissions by maybe 40%. Lane Lee calls this behavoirOrganized Hypocrisy in hisarticle athttp://www.aei.org/outlook/100095. I call it --- well laughable if it werent so serious.
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> The decisions to be made to control global warming will require a level of cooperation and relism that has never existed in international diplomacy. Even previous worldwide agreements like nuclear weapons reduction and the elimination of CFCs to save the ozone layer were easy in comparison.
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> John Gorman
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> ps its nice that people sign with their University or organisation. It helps to know who they are. I dont have either so I will sign with my profile on this group which is athttp://groups.google.com/groups/profile?enc_user=DWQ8dRQAAAAmAe2DtKtSwR1ynkksDOuxOPANdqfI6prRsqjc7uCt1A
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