There is, it would appear, an outbreak of “extreme silliness” about climate change. The most recent being the Frans Cronje contribution. It is unclear how the Institute of Race Relations (IRR) Policy Paper contributes anything. Simply getting Andrew Kenny, an engineer, whose views are well known to rehash his same old arguments under an IRR banner adds very little. It is a mystery why the IRR would want to damage its “brand” by venturing into areas for which it has little competence. Perhaps Cronje thinks it needs to show “houding” and does so by simply asserting that that there is some grand conspiracy going on. Ludicrous really.
One benefit might be to expose Kenny’s lamentably poor grasp of the science behind climate change. Perhaps a training in engineering might get one further in understanding the enormously complex area of climate science, but not much further. The views of those working in the field across a range of disciplines are better able to provide some guidance to us and policy makers. If we are to enter into a debate about the science of climate change, then it is important that we understand a little about how science is undertaken, and how it evaluate the claims scientist make. At the same time, scientists have to convey the outcome of their work to policy makers (and the rest of us) in a world where economics and politics trump science
The basic premise behind climate change is set out rather nicely by James Hanson, the former director of NASA’s Goddard Institute in a 2008 paper of just 35 pages. What Hansen tries to do is to determine what level of atmospheric CO2 we should aim for we wish “to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted.” His climate models showed that exceeding 350 parts per million CO2 in the atmosphere would likely have catastrophic effects. We are well past that level having breached 400 ppm, and it is not just CO2, other gasses are also contributing to a warming climate.
Debating the science with everyone, tinkers, tailors, soldiers, sailors, engineers is probably pointless. Social science might be more helpful. There is considerable groupthink (on all sides) unrelated to the actual science. People’s beliefs about climate change are determined by feelings of identification with cultural and political groups. As climate change has become associated with left-wing urbanites, conservatives tend to oppose it irrespective of actual knowledge about the issue. It doesn’t even matter how much evidence one presents. Due to something called the blowback effect. We like to believe that generally when one’s beliefs are challenged with facts, we alter our opinions and incorporate the new information into our thinking. Actually, when our deepest convictions are challenged by contradictory evidence, our beliefs actually get stronger. A fascinating paper by David McRaney explains how this works, and how kooky beliefs resist science, and reason. McRaney writes that “when your beliefs are challenged, you pore over the data, picking it apart, searching for weakness. The cognitive dissonance locks up the gears of your mind until you deal with it. In the process you form more neural connections, build new memories and put out effort – once you finally move on, your original convictions are stronger than ever.” Our cognitive biases are part of who we are, it is just that the internet unchained its potential. There are now countless opportunities to pick and choose the kind of information which gets into your head along with the kinds of outlets that give us the information we want.
The scientific consensus, or as some would put it, the conspiracy is summarised here. Even if one is a skeptical about anthropomorphic climate change, it is worth reading what this consensus says even if just to sharpen your arguments and make them more interesting. How to get around the blowback problem is tricky. Clearly more scientific evidence is not going to do it. There are, however, good reasons why, even if you are a skeptic, you should still support efforts to curb CO2 emissions. We start from what we all agreed about. Broadly, there are two starting positions. On one side, there are those who are convinced that the existing climate models accurately predict the outcomes if we do not take active steps to stem the damaging effects of ever increasing CO2 emissions. On the other side, there are those who doubt the accuracy of these models cite a lack of reliable evidence of harm that might warrant policy action. That is uncontroversial.
In a short paper entitled “Climate models and Precautionary Measures” by Joseph Norman, Rupert Read, Yaneer Bar-Yam and Nicholas Taleb, the authors ask "what would the correct policy be if we had no reliable models?" They then proceed by mentioning the obvious point that we have only one planet, and it is this fact alone that limits the kinds of risks that are appropriate to take at a large scale. They go on to explain that even a risk with a very low probability becomes unacceptable when it affects all of us. You don’t even need precise models to know that altering our environment significantly could put us in uncharted territory. We don’t have a statistical track record. We have always had to make decisions in the absence of evidence when the consequences of action (or rather lack of action) can be large. Standard textbook decision theory states that policy should depend at least as much on uncertainty concerning adverse consequences as it does on known consequences. Uncertainty does not undermine the case for taking climate change seriously, instead, the opposite is true. It makes the case for precaution. Uncertainty in a system and the asymmetric effect of changing a complex system should drive the precautionary measures.
Once the scale of the effects of climate change is large enough to have a dramatic impact, no matter how inconclusively, the burden of proof of absence of harm is on those who deny it. As has been previously pointed out, one does not need to calculate risks upfront, one only has to understand that proceeding as before has a risk (however small) of a catastrophic outcome to do something about it.
Think about it like this. Banks insist on insuring the house over which they have a bond. It is not that they expect to call upon the insurance company, it is just that they know that for most homeowners, having the debt obligation if the underlying asset is destroyed would be impossible. One takes insurance out against low probability risks, if these risks entail dramatic costs. It is easier to put measures in place that prevent runaway greenhouse gasses now than to wait until a catastrophic outcome is upon us.
Still, we may still be stuck between a choice of either imposing huge economic costs that skeptics believe serve no purpose or risking a planetary catastrophe. One of the measures being put in place is the forthcoming carbon tax. There is quite a bit of misinformation about it. The National Treasury’s press release on the carbon tax is worth reading. During the first phase to 2020, the tax’s overall impact (when taking into account revenue recycling measures) will be revenue neutral, and also neutral on the price of electricity.
Ross McKitrick, a Canadian economist has come up with a scheme for a carbon tax which is designed to satisfy both activists and skeptics. It is interesting because it puts skin in the game, something clearly lacking at present. He suggests that we clear the decks of all other regulations or incentives for reducing carbon emissions. If greenhouse gases like CO2 are driving climate change, there will be a unique fingerprint in the form of a strong warming trend in the tropical troposphere, the region of the atmosphere up to 15 kilometres in altitude, over the tropics, from 20 degrees north to 20 degrees south. This provides a strong signal of anthropogenic warming. Climate changes due to solar variability or other natural factors will not yield this pattern: only sustained greenhouse warming will do it.
McKitrick suggests then that we start with a low-ish, even nominal carbon tax, than can be supported by everyone, but then tie its subsequent evolution to a suitable measure of atmospheric temperatures. If temperatures go up, so does the tax. If they do not, the tax does not change. In this way everybody will expect to get the policy they think best. Sceptics will not expect the tax to go up, and might even expect it to go down and those convinced we are in for rapid warming will expect the tax to rise quickly in the years ahead. The market will have to figure out who is right because huge tax liabilities will depend on what is going to happen. A futures market in which firms could buy contracts to cover the per tonne costs of the emissions tax, 30 years ahead would see market participants creating the world’s most accurate climate model by bringing all the world’s knowledge to bear on the future path of the climate. If you are convinced that there is no heating of the atmosphere, go-ahead and buy companies involved in fossil fuels, convinced otherwise, bet on carbon stranded assets instead.
Of course there are flaws to the proposal. If the scientific consensus is right, failing fossil fuel firms might not be able to meet their obligations derived from their poor decisions. It has to work across the globe. But it is a worthwhile discussion and just has to be better than the IRR’s “everyone’s entitled to their opinion” and the trafficking of all sorts of wild conspiracy theories. DM