Tackling Global Warming Cheaper Than Ignoring It

Coryoth writes, "In a report commissioned by the UK government, respected economist Sir Nicholas Stern concludes that mitigating global warming could cost around 1% of global GDP if spent immediately, but ignoring the problem could cost between 5% and 20% of global GDP. The 700-page study represents the first major report on climate change from an economist rather than a scientist. The report calls for the introduction of green taxes and carbon trading schemes as soon as possible, and calls on the international community to sign a new pact on greenhouse emissions by next year rather than in 2010/11. At the very least the UK government is taking the report seriously; both major parties are proposing new green taxes. Stern points out, however, that any action will only be effective if truly global."

Comments

The American Way

[Salvance]

Ignoring problems is the new American Way. We're doing the same thing with budget deficits, social security, medicare, and solving the root cause of global terrorism. Since a politician's time in office is typcially short (2-8 years), it's always far less costly during their tenure (politically and economically) to push off problems than to tackle the issue and risk losing voter support.

Unfortunately, global warming is a problem who's impact is even less tangible to Americans than problems like future social security shortfalls. As such, I doubt the government will support action until we're in the midst of cataclysmic environmental impact at a nationwide level.

Re:Tony needs to talk to George first

[BasilBrush]

Not necessarily. The reason that the UK is fairly temperate is because of the gulf stream bringing warm water from the Gulf of Mexico. Global warming may cause the gulf stream to fail, causing the UK to become far colder. This kind of unpredictability of whether localities will get warmer or colder is why a lot of times people talk about climate change rather than global warming.

Re:Cheaper for you, still

[Coryoth]

For reference the report's outlook is to 2050. That is to say the report concludes that it would cost 1% of the expected global GDP in 2050 to mitigate problems, while doing nothing is expected to result in global GDP being 5% to 20% lower in 2050. Anyone expecting to be alive for the next 44 years is going to be paying the costs according to this report - and we'll be paying costs sooner than that, just not at the 5% to 20% level. In essence doing nothing will mean the world will potentially be 1/5th less productive and wealthy in 2050 as it could otherwise have been.

Re:Long term solution

[FooAtWFU]

...and make the problem much, much worse. Increased albedo is a huge problem, from the light-gray scars that mark the existence of cities

Are these worse than the dark black scars that mark them presently?

to the reduced dark green of the world's forests due to logging.

Well, this really has nothing to do with the proposed urban lightening.

Increasing the Earth's albedo leads to increased desertification--and the worst part is, this is a positive feedback cycle because increased desertification leads to increased albedo.

Increased desertification may be a problem in plant life applications, forests, grasslands, et cetera, but a city is not a grassland. It's already clobbering the environment around it, it's an urban heat island - an increased urban albedo is not going to cause desertification, but rather bring things back in line with the surrounding countryside.

The central problem with global warming is not the temperature in itself; it's the mechanism that is raising the temperature, which is primarily an increase in certain atmospheric gases.

This is ridiculous. The central problem with global warming is the the results of an increased temperature - glaciers melt, sea levels rise, ocean flows alter their direction wreaking havoc with weather patterns, et cetera et cetera. The mechanism responsible for it is relatively harmless: are there any problems inherent with an atmosphere with increased carbon dioxide levels aside from this warming? (Well, actually, there are a few secondary effects from this, but you're not identifying them, and they have to do with higher concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide allowing some sort of alternate version of carbon processing in plants to occur more efficiently, potentially rendering certain plant species more competitive relative to others, and aside from that, increased carbon concentrations generally leads to slightly lusher vegetation worldwide, which isn't a terrible thing). Moreover this scheme decreases carbon dioxide production, thus addressing the mechanism itself as well, because less electricity is used in air conditioning.

We don't need half-baked ideas

It's actually been fairly well baked. You can find a very large number of papers on geoengineering or climate change mitigation via albedo amplification, in a variety of forms.

involving producing millions of gallons of toxic paint

So use non-toxic paint, or use light colored shingles, or white vinyl siding, or use concrete pavement instead of asphalt where you can and mix in glass to make the asphalt more reflective when you can't (a measure already in reasonably common use). Besides, it's not like there isn't plenty of paint and such being produced to this and similar ends already.

Public planning based on hype is ill-founded

[Morgaine]

>> global warming is very real, however we simply don't have good enough models yet

You are right on both counts. I am a scientist and an engineer, and I work enough with climate modelling to understand the problems and limitations in this area. And from this background, I judge that the esteemed economist is paying more attention to hype than fact.

Global warming is very real. Without natural global warming, this planet would be about 33 C colder than it currently is, so it's an extremely important effect that keeps this planet liveable. The most important greenhouse gas that creates 95% of the greenhouse effect is water vapour (not CO2), and we have no control over the water vapour whatsoever, but we're damn glad it's there.

What's more, there has been a gradual (though erratic) increase of temperature throughout the current interglacial period (18,000 years), which cannot be attributed to "advanced" civilization emissions, and this should be viewed against the backdrop of the longer current glaciation cycle (100,000 years) --- ie. we're at a perfectly normal peak in temperature, and it's not even a high one within the current interglacial.

That's the background. Now let's see where current observations put us.

Man's huge outpouring of CO2 has very significantly increased the CO2 ppm in the atmosphere, to levels unprecedented in recent glacial periods. While CO2 is not a primary controller of global temperature (the long-term paleoclimate record shows almost no correlation whatsoever, the record through the last several glaciations shows a strong correlation between the two.

Of course, graphing CO2 and temperature from the fossil record doesn't tell us which is cause and which is effect, and we are not currently able to model the very complex biosphere nor the chaotic cloud formation processes well enough to make any sound judgements about this. However, that doesn't mean that we can ignore it.

Two things we do know with total certainty:

• Man-made CO2 *does* cause a tiny initial rise in the greenhouse effect (that's just simple physics), even if it turns out that its final effect is not the obvious one expected.

• The climate is in the process of abrupt change, as noted from the extremely rapid melting of Greenland ice flows and polar ice cover, and the very dramatic observed slowdown in the Atlantic overturning that drives the Gulf Stream. And these processes are unstoppable, period, no matter what we do.

So, what do we make of this, in respect of economics and public planning?

Firstly, this is what we DON'T do: we don't conclude that the temperature is going to go through the roof. Not only is there no significant temperature excess in the record (the +0.6 C of recent times would be regarded as entirely within natural climate variation if it weren't for the hype), but more importantly, the trend cannot be stopped in the ways suggested because CO2 has a very long lifetime, and all the industrial age CO2 will continue having its effect for a good 800+ years.

Secondly, this is what we DO do: we accept that the North Atlantic and polar melting cannot be stopped and that therefore the sea level will rise enormously in coming decades and centuries. This will have a collosal effect on Man, and we should plan for it, basically through gradual retreat from the shorelines.

That would be economic planning based on scientific facts, rather than hype.

Of course, reducing CO2 while we're at it is a great idea --- we should not polute the planet, FULL STOP, as it's the only one we've got, currently. But to believe that this is going to solve climate change is a complete fiction.

Re:Public planning based on hype is ill-founded

[Coryoth]

There are, definitely, some facts in there, but you've put them together in a weird pastiche with some old data, and some outright false statements.

The most important greenhouse gas that creates 95% of the greenhouse effect is water vapour (not CO2)

This just isn't true. I've heard this claim a lot, and I am yet to be provided with one reputable source that actually uses this figure. Water vapour accounts for around 80% of greenhouse gases by mass, or 90% by volume. But even that's somewhat deceptive because what really counts is how effectively it acts as a greenhouse gas to trap heat. In terms of percentage input to the warming effect of greenhouse gases, water vapour is somewhere between 36% and 70%, though most studies tend to find it to be around 65%.

Still, 65% is a very significant portion, the difference is that water vapour, unlike carbon dioxide or methane, has a very short residence time in the atmosphere (around 10 days). This means that water vapour will very quickly find an equilibrium point and can only act as a feedback rather than a forcing with regard to climate change. None the less water vapour represents an important feedback and you'll find no shortage of scientific papers detailing its effects on climate change. You'll also find that tropospheric water vapour is a vital component in IPCC climate models, while stratospheric water vapour is treated specifically in IPCC reports.

What's more, there has been a gradual (though erratic) increase of temperature throughout the current interglacial period (18,000 years)

You link to a very rough chart (looking at the plot style it is a qualitative rather than hard quantitative) that shows - well not a gradual and erratic rise, but a certain amount of erraticness and variation with current temperatures being plotted as a momentary low. The chart is old, over 16 years old, however, and we have many more recent studies that compile together many sources of proxy data. Here is a chart showing several such proxy data reconstructions, which sompiels together the different methods. Note that the general trend is far more down than up, and that the recent rise is completely obscured due to the scale of the chart (as with the chart you provided). The author of this chart, however, conveniently denotes the 2004 temperature level, and provides a subchart of recent proxy data. All of a sudden the recent rise is more clear, and far from natural looking.

To stem off the the claims that the individual lines in that plot (as opposed to the averaging over all of them) show much greater natural variation - most of those represent data from a single location such as an ice core from Greenland, and ice core from Kilamanjaro etc. There is plenty of variation in local climate, and no one denies this, however it is global warming that is the issue and the average global temperature, which is far better expressed by the averaging over the various local data sources spread around the globe, is far less given to such dramatic fluctuation (and we know this - compare instrumental temperature data for local sources versus averaged globally: in the global average there is much less dramatic variation).

and this should be viewed against the backdrop of the longer current glaciation cycle (100,000 years) --- ie. we're at a perfectly normal peak in temperature, and it's not even a high one within the current interglacial.

We are, indeed, currently in an interglacial. We have, however, been in one for the past 11,000 years or so, and via most modern temperature reconstruction we reached the temeperature peak for that interglacial near the beginning, and shouldn't be expecting further rises within this interglacial. The current sudden upsurge of temperature really isn't a normal peak - it is anomolous within this interglacial. Moreover, it actua