Bishop Hill Wolfsbane
May 15, 2013 Climate: WG3 Martin Wolf in the FT says that we're doomed. He says nobody seems to believe him (or anyone else) when they say we're going to fry. He concludes that we need a change of direction:
My view is, increasingly, that there is no point in making moral demands. People will not do something on this scale because they care about others, even including their own more remote descendants. They mostly care rather too much about themselves for that.
[It's surprising that an economist like Wolf doesn't seem to have read Adam Smith on bakers, don't you think?]
Most people believe today that a low-carbon economy would be one of universal privation. They will never accept such a situation. This is true both of the people of high-income countries, who want to retain what they have, and the people of the rest of the world, who want to enjoy what the people of high-income countries now have. A necessary, albeit not sufficient condition, then, is a politically sellable vision of a prosperous low-carbon economy. That is not what people now see. Substantial resources must be invested in the technologies that would credibly deliver such a future.
A technological fix to the problem eh? Let's dump all the windfarms and biofuels and feed-in tariffs, and all the corruption that goes with them? Let's shut down the biomass plants and dump all the climate advisers and recycling watchdogs? Let's bring back the incandescent lightbulb too?
OK, I'm interested.
Bishop Hill
The London Review of Books (H/T Leo H) has a long set of reviews of climate books. It starts with a general (and pretty ill-informed) discussion of the science before really focussing itself on tech fixes - both in terms of energy provision and geoengineering.
Reader Comments (53)
The Wolf who cried: "Boy!"
It is precisely because huge resources continue to be needed in technologies designed to "deliver" a low-carbon future that such a future could never be prosperous.
Nicholas - exactly.
In other words: an impossibility at present.
Nice post. Of course, FT is behind a paywall, so can only read the excerpt. It is good to see people seeing through the problem.
"prosperous low-carbon economy"
Now there is a non sequitur!!
Shub
I'm completely bemused by the FT paywall. It blocked me all morning but then let me in.
If you have lived all your life in the comfort of the Western city you probably sincerely have really no diea what is involved in maintaining your lifestyle. Like the passengers of a luxury liner who inhabit the top decks really have no idea what goes on on the lower decks, let alone the engine room.
Few people in the Western world have much idea what powers their electricity of provides their food.
If you have ever worked in agriculture you will have learnt that Food = Diesel.
People seem to think that the world we have today is the result of all the fossil fuels we have burnt and so we can stop burning them now.
I would suggest that they need to consider the first derivative and that the world we have today is the result of the rate at which we burn them and that if we stop we go backwards.
I gather prosperous low carbon economy would include shale gas? A world where Germany would turn off its ban on fracs and consider building Nuclear instead of Coal-fired plants?
Wolf jumps the shark!
I think he means all his investments are doomed.
To get round the paywall:
1. Google the title
Why the world faces climate chaos
2. Click on the google link.
You then are faced with a question (I got something about whether I worried about climate change!)
3. Answer the question and then you get the whole article (even if you answered no).
Don
I think he means a "preposterous low-carbon economy"...
I managed to get in. Apparently I had a FT free acount.
Wolf, it looks like, though a free market supporter has jumped on to the climate bandwagon (97% experts believe, CO2 is a greenhouse gas blah blah).
Wolf seems to be buddies with Brian Hoskins (whom he quotes). He has given the Grantham annual lecture in 2011 (video available), on climate change, on invitation from Hoskins. The material in the video is in a paper with the detestable Taylor and Francis from whom one cannot get a single pdf, to read.
Paul Matthews
"You then are faced with a question"
They wanted to know if we had a dog? Could only answer "yes" or "no" which scuppered any comment about 21st century wolves becoming paranoid.
'Low carbon' - and all that goes with it, will go down in history as the single greatest failure of a supposedly free-market, that instead was rigged by idealogically-driven vested interests and corrupted governments to create a wholly bogus solution to a problem that, quite simply, didn't exist.
In due course it will be regarded as THE unchallenged benchmark for government-led fraud, high-level corruption and multi-population mass-delusional brainwashing. For many, the embarrassment will be extremely acute.
The climate policy of Underpant Gnomes:
1. Substantial resources must be invested in the technologies that would credibly deliver such a future.
2. ???
3. Profit.
How do we discover what technologies can credibly deliver a low carbon future? Letting the state throw our money at arbitrary 'winners' is not it, and never will be. Shoving money into a bottomless pit will never fill it up.
If you have ever worked in agriculture you will have learnt that Food = Diesel.
People seem to think that the world we have today is the result of all the fossil fuels we have burnt and so we can stop burning them now.
I would suggest that they need to consider the first derivative and that the world we have today is the result of the rate at which we burn them and that if we stop we go backwards.
May 15, 2013 at 12:49 PM | Keith L
What happens when the diesel runs short?
Based on the IPCC WG1, WG2, WG3 model, then.
" What happens when the diesel runs short?"
less CO2 will be emitted not burning it.
" What happens when the diesel runs short"
You said that the most likely scenario was for exponential increase of CO2 emissions this century. We have to be burning something to achieve this so I guess we could replace the diesel with a had or coal derivative that you predict we will be burning more of.
"What happens when the diesel runs short?"
EM spot on, what does happen? Well the cost off food production goes up, and with it the cost of food. That makes sense doesn't it? So why would you want to act as though the deisel is short before it is actually short? It's a form of flagellation reserved for the poor and delivered by the environmentalists.
@Bishophill says "The London Review of Books (H/T Leo H)"
- jeez the worm is turning if you are getting tips from Leo Hickman of the Guardian
"What happens when the diesel runs short"
Despite your glib answers, this is not an easy question. There are tradeoffs between CO2 production, climate change, the availability of fossil fuels, the availability of alternatives, food prices, population, starvation and political stability. One of the major concerns of those planning for the long term is the problem of feeding a growing population from a shrinking resource base.
This may have already started. Analysts studying the Arab Spring are looking at the strong possibility that the trigger was food cost rises as governments were unable to sustain artificially low subsidised bread prices.
Remember the old adage that we are "nine meals from anarchy".
Carried today in the Irish Times, not behind paywall: Wolf article
Entropic Man- tell me more about this "shrinking resource base"?
Oil?
Gas?
Coal?
Agricultural produce?
If you do some reading, proper reading that is, you will find out, to your profound dismay, I expect, that the answer to all these questions is "no"
"trade-offs between food and climate change"
There is no trade off there. One of the two things is made up.
EM You have made an eloquent case for fracking to proceed full steam ahead. Well done.
As you say shub, food or no climate change, tough choice that....
"What happens when the diesel runs short"
There are hydrocarbon reserves sufficient for at least a thousand years at current rates of consumption - (almost 3000 years worth in Russian tar sands, though economically recoverable portion smaller) though they will steadily increase in cost. But long before they start to run out we will have cheaper alternatives, many of which will be viable in next few decades.
Molten Salt Reactors (initially just uranium burners, but eventually breeders) will produce very cheap safe power that can be used to thermochemically make fuels, or charge batteries.
Electric Vehicles are already viable for personal transport (even if a bit more expensive than petroleum).
Ships can go nuclear. Aircraft, trucks and heavy vehicles can run on nuclear hydrogen, ammonia or methane or may possibly use batteries and accept limited range with battery swapping. Big aircraft may be able to go nuclear.
The only problem that exists is a lack of investment in developing petroleum replacement tech - because petroleum is still so cheap we don't have to bother.
May 15, 2013 at 3:14 PM | Entropic Man
I agree there are lots of important factors. From your posts though I would you think that climate change is more important than food price though. Is that correct? your anarchy quote might mean you value food higher though?or can you arrange the list in some kind of order of importance.
When even James Hansen is publishing papers saying that the anthropogenic fraction of airborne CO2 is falling, it makes me wonder where such journalists are getting their facts from.
Food prices, population, starvation. Those are the most immediate problems. But how do you balance short term benefit against long term damage? For policians it is easy. Descendants dont vote! I'm less happy with the idea of choosing an easier life now and making life harder for those to come.
My own long term view of world events is a triple ropadope of overpopulation, resource depletion and climate change.
Overpopulation I define as having more people than you can feed. That means finding enough enrgy to drive the tractors and make the fertiliser and transport the food for 10billion people in 2050 and then sustain that level..RobL is on the right track here.since I doubt fossil fuels would last long under such consumption pressure.
Then climate change kicks in and the problem becomes one of continuing food production as sea levels rise and temperature and rainfall patterns shift. There's also a political problem If a country's land becomes unproductive, where does its population go? If the neighbours are unwelcoming does war ensue?
When even James Hansen is publishing papers saying that the anthropogenic fraction of airborne CO2 is falling, it makes me wonder where such journalists are getting their facts from.
May 15, 2013 at 4:06 PM | michael hart
Missed that. Do you have a link?
"What happens when the diesel runs short"
Shouldn't we cross that bridge when we get to it? Who knows what the future holds? Deal with each problem as it arises. The military men say that no battle plan survives first contact with the enemy the same will hold true for planning for running out of diesel or whatever. Currently running out of oil/gas is not a problem, nor is the earth falling foul of positive feedback. The UK running out of electricity during winter is however something sensible people should plan for.
Lidl in France are selling 2KW petrol generators @ 200€ and here-abouts no one is buying.
Entropic,
The UN predicts world population will be 6.2 billion in 2100, and will continue to fall after that.
Wow! In EM we have 3 Ehrlichs for the price of one. Their lack of predictive skill since the time of Malthus does not deter these people.
Bruce Cunningham --
The figure of 6.2 billion doesn't seem right. I remember values between 9 and 10 billion.
If not through depletion, then through suppression.
Either way, as Entropic Man sees it, universal privation must ensue.
EM (4:18 PM) -
I believe the reference is to this. See figure 3.
Would this be your reference?
http://www.thegwpf.org/looming-population-implosion/
If it is, they've taken the low growth option of the three given by the UN. Good news if they are right.
HaroldW
Thanks for the link. Hanson suggests that fertilisation by aerosols due to increased coal burning is increasing plant growth, and boosting biomass carbon dioxide uptake. This is reducing the airborne CO2 fraction and reducing the rate of CO2 increase.
A useful short term negative feedback, though I cant see it going on indefimnately. What happens when all that extra biomass dies and the extra CO2 is released back into the atmosphere?
Either way, as Entropic Man sees it, universal privation must ensue.
May 15, 2013 at 5:40 PM | JunkPsychology
Right old pessimist, me. However, I do get the odd pleasant surprise. All the optimists get is disappointment :-)
EM (5:54 PM) -
My, you *are* in a pessimistic mood today.
a) Why do you think that Hansen's speculation is at all correct? I speculate that extra carbon is being sequestered at the bottom of the oceans, due to increased growth of coccolithophores.
b) "What happens when all that extra biomass dies and the extra CO2 is released back into the atmosphere?" -- It already has been. Most plants do not retain significant mass from one year to the next. [Long-lived trees being an exception.] Not much of e.g. last year's wheat remains.
Harold,
I believe the 9 to 10 billion figure is the peak population somewhere around 2050 or so. Due to the falling fertility rate as countries become more prosperous, if the present trend continues (which it won't if alarmists prevail and energy is reduced) it will then begin falling. I remember the figure from an article by Marilyn vos Savant a few years ago. I will try and locate it.
I meant to say,... that I also saw a similar number from Marilyn.
overpopulation, - aka having (more) people living on the planet - a good thing
resource depletion - aka resource use. Any thing is a 'resource only if you know how to use it. LOL.
climate change - made up. Good for fun.
Over-population is a myth. We could give every person living on earth today ¼-acre of land in Australia and there would still be space.
There is more than sufficient potentially (if we don't continue to f*** up the poor parts of the world like we do) arable land to feed a population twice the present one.
Resource depletion is a myth. As was pointed out up-thread there are enough oil reserves to last 1000 years at the current rate of consumption.
"The Stone Age didn't end because we ran out of stones.What might be called the 'oil age' will end before ever we run out of oil".
Again, provided we don't let the eco-idiots screw everything up we will find new technologies and techniques as and when we need them like mankind has done for millennia. (And in case nobody has noticed, we've already done windmills and moved on because they weren't reliable enough. If we'd carried on using windmills there never would have been an Industrial Revolution).
Global warming (as defined by the eco-luddites and grant-seeking pseudo-scientists) is a myth. The climate is doing what it always has done over the last few tens of thousands of years and no-one had yet produced any empirical evidence that mankind's influence over the last 30 years has been any greater than over the last 3,000 years. X-Box™ science doesn't hack it, I'm afraid.
@EM
"My own long term view of world events is a triple ropadope of overpopulation, resource depletion and climate change."
What, you finally got around to reading the Club of Rome's 'The Limits to Growth' ?
That's a mighty fine 41-year-old hamster wheel you're on there, Ent. (May I call you Ent?)