The wit and wisdom of Dr Glikson
Aug 17, 2015
Bishop Hill in Climate: WG2, Climate: WG3

A few days ago, there was a rather good article in the Conversation about fossil fuels and development. Written by Jonathan Symons, it covered themes that are favourites at BH, most notably that there is a trade-off between expanding access to electricity in the developing world and emissions targets:

...if the US Overseas Private Investment Corporation were allowed to invest in natural gas projects (not just renewables) it could roughly triple the number of people who gained electricity access from a US$10 billion investment. Whereas a renewables-only portfolio could supply 30 million people, natural gas could reach 90 million and generate around ten times as much electricity.

The comments thread featured a series of critical responses from Andrew Glikson, an Australian geologist who has caught the eye before, most notably when he protested the willingness of an Australian theatre to put on a performance of Richard Bean's The Heretic. This earlier thread also bears looking at. The thrust of his comments can be summarised as "But climate", but they are worth looking at in more detail because Dr Glikson has some truly astonishing views:

A very large part of the poor populations referred to in the article live in low river valleys and delta prone to flooding extreme rainfall, torrents originating from mountain regions and sea level rise, as is the case of mega-floods in Pakistan, Bangladesh and low-lying islands, associated with climate change. The “option” of developing higher standards of living based on fossil fuels is therefore short sighted and no more than a Faustian bargain....

One can take issue with the moral framework that finds it acceptable to let people die now in order that their wealthier grandchildren don't suffer, but for the moment let us note that Glikson seems unaware that the land area of Bangladesh and many coral atolls are currently growing. Pakistan has experienced floods for ever and a day.

Many comments in this blog do not appear to appreciate the catastrophic consequences of runaway global warming. Solar, wind and tide energy-generating technologies, including modern battery storage, have reached a level of sophistication, as well as becoming increasingly economic, so that no justification can be made for the continuing destruction of the climate and thereby of agriculture and the essential conditions for survival of humans, not least in poor regions of the world.

Glikson is therefore also unaware that the IPCC has ruled out the possibility of "runaway global warming" being caused by mankind. His grasp of economics seems equally shaky, since the idea of something being "increasingly economic" is a concept akin to someone being "increasingly pregnant". Either it's cheaper/uses fewer resources or it is not (and of course in the case of wind and solar they are not even close to being cheaper).

A further note: The common argument as if the use of coal and oil would serve the well being of poor populations is to be doubted. More likely the export of fossil fuels would serve the profits of the wealthy, fossil fuel corporations and their share holders. The common argument as if solar, wind and tide utilities are “not economic” is false as the decentralized nature of these utilities ideally serves poor populations in terms of employment and energy production.

Ensconsed in his mashed potato mound of Marxist wishful thinking, Dr Glikson has no doubt been unaware that there is a subject called "economics", the earliest adherents of which noted the connection between the profit motive and societal benefits. From a Glikson standpoint it is no doubt also easy to ignore the state of countries that have tried to eschew the profit motive - Venezuela and North Korea spring to mind. It is also presumably equally simple for him to ignore tricky questions such as what is motivating the solar, wind and tide utilities if not their profits, or how the poor are going to afford to pay for wind and solar power as well as conventional backup. But this is a man who can blank out the millions who are dying from indoor air pollution in the developing world, so compartmentalisation of knowledge seems to come naturally.

Still, there is one area on which Dr Glikson's thoughts seem unassailable:

In the absence of close adherence to the scientific evidence, pontifications regarding solutions resemble recommendations made to medical specialists by those unacquainted with medical science. 

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