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

Side Note:

[Ceribia]

Also of some note is the fact that we are all going to die. ...but yeah, 5 percent, lets do something about that...

Taxes: is there anything they can't do?

[rufusdufus]

The primary method of fighting global warming suggested in this article is to increase taxes! Globally! It staggers my mind to think how many people might think this is a good idea. Giving politicians more money will save no one.

Re:Taxes: is there anything they can't do?

[neonleonb]

Let's look at it from an economics perspective: A person's choice affects other people. These effects are called "externalities." The first person does not tend to take the other people into account. By using a tax to add the cost of the externalities into the cost of the product, then the Great Big Magical Hand of the Market will cause the consumer to make the efficient choice including the externalities.

So yes, people are punished for making choices that are bad for other people. However, the principles of freedom don't say that everyone should be free from the ill consequences of their decisions, just that they should get to make decisions. So this does not really remove people's freedoms; it just makes people take a broader view when exercising them.

Re:Taxes: is there anything they can't do?

[nido]

Public education is underfunded.

Public schools do not educate, according to reformed schoolteachers like John Gatto and John Holt. If they did, the populace wouldn't take the crap that 'we' do - teh masses would know how to recognize tyranny when it happened, and find a way to circumvent it.

The government is in debt because of the tax "cuts" Bush pushed through.

The government has been in debt for a very long time - Johnson started printing money to pay for Vietnam, and there was no turning back. Clinton only balanced the budget by borrowing money from social security. If the government had to abide by the same accounting standards as corporations, there would have never been a 'surplus', and the current deficits would be much, much worse than the numbers they currently put out.

Our medical and college education costs are out of reach because ... because the government subsidizes college, and has sent all the low-skill jobs (that used to pay well) to Mexico and Asia, and has looked the other way while corporations imported Mexicans for the jobs that couldn't be moved. College has, therefore, become the new highschool diploma, not that the original ever meant anything in the first place...

we're spending our money on things like the War on Drugs(which just makes illegal drugs more expensive)

If not for the war on drugs driving up prices, how could the various black-op agencies finance their nefarious operations? Read something about Clinton being in on cocaine smuggling through Arkansas - seems like a possibility to me...

and the War on Terror(abject failure due to our inability to concentrate on the nation that actually caused the terror).

You are refering to the traitors in the whitehouse, right?

The United States has the lowest tax levels of the Western world. We also have the highest debt and the worst healthcare. There is a connection.

'Highest debt' is because our Feral Government has had free reign to "print" money for its various programs for 35+ years, and no one's had the ability to call them on it. See Ron Paul's The End of Dollar Hegemony.

'Worst healthcare' is because a certain kind of doctor lobbied themselves a monopoly, and the government set the rules such that employers paid their employees' healthcare bills (wage ceilings during WWII led companies to pick up their workers' doctor bills). Medicare was created to pay for retired workers who'd gotten accustomed to the 'health insurance' paradigm, and that program's costs have been spiraling out of control ever since. See 100 Years of Medical Robbery and Real Medical Freedom.

Re:Taxes: is there anything they can't do?

[killjoe]

"public education - the species got along fine without government schooling just fine for thousands of years"

No it didn't. Some people were educated but there was massive illiteracy. People clamored for public education precisely because so much of the country was filled with uneducated people.

"social security and medicare programs - how to punish people for getting old. My poor grandfather would've expired, were it not for Medicare paying for his defibrillator... I have three grandparents left, aged 86 to 91, and they're all sitting around watching T.V. and waiting to die."

Sure people live longer these days. Most people seem to like it that way. If there was no medicare or ssn then you would have had to support your parents in their old age (or kill them whatever). At one time there was no Social Security or medicare but that didn't work so well. That's why the system was invented you know. Because not having them didn't work so well. People clamored for it and got it.

"war on drugs - if not for the war on drugs, we'd still have access to safe whole-plant drugs (coca leaf, marijuana, mushrooms, etc)."

I am with you on that one. The war on drugs was basically a corporate welfare program.

"medical and college education costs "

Same as SSN. There was a time when only the rich were educated. Now most people are. That's the way the people seem to prefer things.

"war - simply a case of fueding governments"

How else are you going to ensure cheap oil? Oddly enough in retrospect Clinton looks pretty good for attacking al-quada. Funny that.

"Why should the bureaucrats care, when they're speding someone else's money?"

Their money too.

"The Libertarian party is for the elimination of 90+% of the government. That'd eliminate a lot of taxes..."

No they are not and no it would not.

In actuality the liberterian party are a bunch of fantasists. They yearn for a society that has never existed in the history of mankind, that can not exist, that will never exist that nobody wants. They are the 1% of the society that wishes for something and can't understand why nobody shares in their delusion.

I guess every society has it's windmill tilters huh? Liberterians are the Don Quiotes of the modern world.

Twofer against

[Varitek]

This needs extensive scientific research and international co-operation. Unfortunately, the Bush administration is openly hostile to both.

Cheaper for whom?

[EmbeddedJanitor]

Sure it might be goverall cheaper to deal with global warming now than try to fix it later, but the problem is this: The people that would have to pay for it now, are not the people that would have to pay for it later. I can save five bucks now, why should I care about saving five hundred bucks for someone later? That is the mindset you're up against with anything like this. Greed is part of human nature (well at least the consumer driven parts of the human race).

The only way to correct for something like this is through taxation etc, where the law can be applied and force better behaviour.

Re:The American Way

[cperciva]

Ignoring problems is the new American Way. We're doing the same thing with [...] solving the root cause of global terrorism.

Nonsense. George Bush was very clear after 9/11 in saying that "terrorists hate the USA because it is a land of freedom".

Assuming that George Bush was correct in this assessment, he has done far more to combat terrorism than any other US President in recent history.

Re:Stephen Hawking

[cperciva]

I remember Stephen Hawking saying something about global warming [...] can somebody find the direct quote for me?

It was probably something along the lines of "Why are you asking me about global warming? I'm a physicist. If you have questions about global warming, go ask an atmospheric scientist."

Note: "smart guy" != "expert in everything".

Re:Let's get one thing straight first

[Dun Malg]

Before someone brings up the citations in Michael Crichton's State of Fear , which inevitably happens in global warming discussions here, let's remember that Crichton is not a scientist, he's not competent to judge the strength of the material he was relying on, and you shouldn't be forming your opinion about grave issues from airport paperbacks.

In the world of debate, the above would be classified an ad hominem argument. Someone not being an expert in the field is not proof that they're wrong. Debate the man's arguments, if you care so much. Or link to someone who does. There are plenty such sites on the web.

Re:Offtopic Bush Bashing

[ClamIAm]

Didn't you know that Bush is the cause of all things good, even when he's not? The sad thing is it takes away any shred of credibility that his supporters have.

Re:Better off coping with a warmer planet

[Coryoth]

Our money is far, far better spent learning to cope with a warmer planet, assuming again that things are getting warmer and staying warmer.

That's an interesting assertion. The point of the report is that this precise question was studied in great depth by a well respected economist (Stern was a former chief economist for the World Bank), and that the results of all that detailed anaylsis is that, in fact, it is far more expensive to learn to cope with a warmer planet. I fail to see how you dismiss that result quite so easily - especially given that you have not read the report (it is not officially released till tomorrow).

Cheaper for you, still

[BeeBeard]

It makes sense because you will be paying for this, in your lifetime. It used to be easy to dismiss this as a "children and children's children" problem, but the fact is that the rate at which these changes are taking place as drastically increased, making this no longer the exclusive concern of those who have not been born yet. Sadly, ten years from now, "I told you so" will not be nearly as financially telling as the changes we put into place now.

This is from the article:

However the review says failure to act early could end up costing between 5% and 20% of global GDP and render large parts of the planet uninhabitable with poor nations hit first and hardest.

The article does not say when that is supposed to happen, and like everybody else here I haven't read the 700-page report that the article refers to, only the article itself. What I do know is that if the current world response to climate change doesn't change for the better soon, then you will start to see real consequences in the next several decades. If you don't plan on being alive 10-30 years from now (depending on the data you're relying on), then, well--I hope your life was successful and fulfilling. For the rest of us, we have a very real global problem on our hands that will become at least partially realized within our lifetimes. And you better believe we will be picking up the tab for it.

Re:Let's get one thing straight first

[kfg]

Yet he has no training in climatology.

This is also false. Climatology is also actually a multidisciplanarian field; relying in part on the disciplines of anthropology and biology for gathering its evidence.

It is also false argument that scientists from one field cannot criticise the work of scientist in another field. Sciences overlap and math is math. I've always found it interesting that many climatologists reject critcism of their statistical methods by statisticians, because the statisticians are not climatologists.

Any high school student has the right challange my assertions that gravity is an accelerative force. In fact, I demand that my students make every attempt to gather data on their own in order to disprove the allegation.

There is no authority in science. Only data.

People who have no training in a subject, and refuse to submit their work to peer review (instead publishing cheap paperbacks) should be ignored.

Well, there ya go. You have eliminated almost the entire field of climatology in one swell foop.

KFG

Re:Long term solution

[B.D.Mills]

It would be terribly inefficient to plant another billion trees

In what way is it so terribly inefficient?

Startup costs? Well, all one does is dig a hole and drop the seedling tree in. It's possible for one person to plant more than 300 trees an hour with the right equipment. How much does that cost, maybe 20 cents per tree? The land needs to be acquired as well. There's plenty of waste land that can be used, like the land near freeways. It will require a lot of land, but that's the only major resource that would be required. When compared to the billions of dollars of farm subsidies that the US already pays to agriculture producers, a subsidy for growing trees would be small by comparison.

There won't be maintenance costs, except for possible subsidies to private growers. The costs when the tree needs to be replaced won't be great either.

So let's make our own carbon converters. 2CO2 + energy -> C2 + 2O2.. it's really not complicated.

Such conversion is what trees are good at. Why invent useless technology when natural means are already available that can do what is required for less cost? The big cost in the conversion will be the energy. The energy input in your equation has to come from somewhere, and when noncarbon energy is in short supply that is an important consideration. Trees capture the energy for free.

Re:Long term solution

[geobeck]

...my favored techniques involve providing tax incentives in cities to paint rooftops white. This results in an increased albedo, reflecting more sunlight (and heat) - not only reducing global warming directly, but indirectly in the form of reduced energy consumption for air conditioning and the like (the urban "heat island" effect). It's a simple, low-impact way to Do Something.

...and make the problem much, much worse. Increased albedo is a huge problem, from the light-gray scars that mark the existence of cities to the reduced dark green of the world's forests due to logging. 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.

The best solution for roofs is not painting them white, but turning them green. Cover as many flat roofs as possible with plant cover, and increase evapotranspiration. Stop paying farmers not to farm, and pay them to grow hemp instead. Use hemp to replace all wood pulp and wood fiber applications, especially paper, and save millions of acres of trees, not in tropical rainforests, but in temperate rainforests, where the problem is just as dire.

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. We don't need half-baked ideas involving producing millions of gallons of toxic paint, which will worsen the problem at every stage from the production of the paint, to its effect on albedo, to the contamination that will inevitably result from improper application and cleanup. We need to focus on reducing greenhouse gases. Period.

For the record, IANAEE (Environmental Engineer), but I will be in nine months.

Re:Long term solution

[floateyedumpi]

Trees are not permanent carbon sinks. On timescales of several decades, they release the carbon they have stored right back into the atmosphere, as they decompose, or are burned in clear cutting or natural fires. At best they buy us 20-50 year to figure out how to deal with the problem, and at worst they accelerate global warming by reducing the albedo at crucial latitudes. There are many other good reasons to plant trees, but as a panacea to global warming, nothing can match simply not releasing the excess carbon in the first place.

Re:If we're serious about Global Warming

[WilliamSChips]

...Plant more trees?
(I hope that's what you're really suggesting here, it seems that way)

Re:Bristish politics positively ablaze!

[clickclickdrone]

>uncertain climate science
Actually, no. As An Inconvenient truth points out, out of 900+ reports on global warming, the number of scientists that disagree with the issue and the number of reports that find their are uncertainties is 0%. On the other hand, it goes on to show that the number of news articles in the media that claim doubt is well over 50% (63% from memory but don't quote me on that). It then moves on to a US govt official (now resigned) who had deliberately edited documents to add uncertainty to help confuse the public and help them continue to avoid the issue. It compares and contrasts with 1950's smoking adverts "most doctors smoke Camel brand' and the Tobacco industry leaked documents where they state they are deliberatly trying to add uncertainty to the mix to stop people giving up smoking. Basically, the politicos have no apatite for stopping people doing what they like to do i.e. waste energy, drive big cars etc. and they're trying to sow doubt to put off them having to force the issue during their tenure.

Re:Let's get one thing straight first

[Capsaicin]

>Yet he has no training in climatology. This is also false. Climatology is also actually a multidisciplanarian field; relying in part on the disciplines of anthropology and biology for gathering its evidence.

From which it does not follow that anyone trained in biology or anthropology can automatically claim to "have training in climatology." OP is quite correct in stating that Crighton has no training in climatology.

There is no authority in science. Only data.

That is naive on two levels, firstly intepretation of data is not either uncontroversial or a matter of individual preference. Authority in Science consists mainly of the outcomes of debates conducted in scholarly journals, and unlike debates conducted in other fields (such as politics) these debates do yield definitive outcomes. Unless you can bring some original work as a conference or journal paper challenging that authority, you are in no position (scientifically) to disagree.

Secondly, data does not exist in isolation from scientific authority. What is measured, or what measurement even means are themselves subject to the scientific authority of the day.

The sad fact is, much as we like to think we can be knowledgible about absolutely everything, in reality we are not expert scientists, jurists, philosophers or whatever, and most of what we (as non-experts) have to say is just so much junk. This is why I no longer argue the science of GW with anyone, I tell them to go find a good scientific abstracting service.

Any high school student has the right challange my assertions that gravity is an accelerative force. In fact, I demand that my students make every attempt to gather data on their own in order to disprove the allegation.

Call me old-fashioned (I am), but I think you are doing your students a disservice by importing this kind of liberalism into science. This kind of attitude is the reason so many people have a difficulty with scientific authority. This is why people think they are entitled to draw their own conclusions in regard to topics like GW. But in assuming they have the wherewithall to draw any sensible conclusion, they are deceiving themselves. I know this is a big call, but the only conclusions the lay public should entertain are conclusions drawn by experts in the field, who have both the knowledge and the analytical ability to do so.

When I did my science degree I was basically told to shut up and learn, anything I could say while I was still an undergraduate not conducting original work, would simply be impertinent. Tough, illiberal, but basically true.

You have eliminated almost the entire field of climatology in one swell foop

Now this is the point where I tell you to find a good scientific abstracting service ...