The futility of climate change denialism
Will is making sense here:
Straightforward denialism allows those who favor aggressive emissions controls to shape the public’s perception of climate science. Instead of sober cost-benefit analysis, people who basically accept the existence of global warming (read: most of the voting public) are now more likely to think that climate change is catastrophic rather than incremental. The longer the right’s response to anthropogenic warming is dominated by the likes of Inhofe and Santorum, the longer this perception will linger, which doesn’t bode well for efforts to stop monstrously expensive cap-and-trade legislation.
Also see Jim Manzi on the costs of bad climate change legislation. If you care to read anyone who opposes cap and trade while accepting anthropogenic climate change you should read Manzi. He concludes:
In the face of massive uncertainty on multiple fronts the best strategy is almost always to hedge your bets and keep your options open. Wealth and technology are raw materials for options. The loss of economic and technological development that would be required to eliminate literally all theorized climate change risk would cripple our ability to deal with virtually every other foreseeable and unforeseeable risk, not to mention our ability to lead productive and interesting lives in the meantime. The Precautionary Principle is a bottomless well of anxieties, but our resources are finite — to extend Friedman’s metaphor, it’s possible to buy so much flood insurance that you can’t afford fire insurance.
Hedging against the risk to future generations of potential unanticipated impacts from global warming is a legitimate job for the U.S. government. Ideally, it would be tackled by the governments of the small number of countries with a sophisticated technology development capability acting in some kind of coordinated fashion. A massive carbon tax, a cap-and-trade rationing system, and the attempt to use the government to control the evolution of the energy sector of the economy are all billed as prudent reactions to this risk, but each is the opposite: an impractical, panicky reaction unworthy of a serious government.
Exactly right.
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If we were dealing with an outright free market in energy, there might be some merit to Manzi’s argument. But there is massive government support to the fossil fuel producers. Our government props them up more than it props up emerging renewable energy technologies. The fossil fuel guys ought to pay for the transition. If they put their money in the right places, they may even be able to pay themselves.
If they put their money in the right places, they may even be able to pay themselves.
Agreed, Michael. I think that the worry for me comes largely from my skepticism on the potential for capture.
In response to another comment. See in context »Although I find Jim Manzi’s economic arguments about climate change to be pretty convincing, a somewhat under discussed (at least as far as I’ve seen) part of climate change is its potential to cause geopolitical conflict over resources in the future. There are somewhat large uncertainties about how increasing global temperature might affect, say, water resources or arable land. A disappearance of fresh water resources from the melting glaciers in the Himalayas (see here for example http://www.tnr.com/blog/the-vine/why-are-the-himalayas-melting-blame-soot ) could spark (even more) conflict between India and Pakistan. These uncertainties around conflict over resources wouldn’t necessarily be contained in estimates of GDP or the world economy.