Tuesday, May 12, 2009

 

Benefits/Costs of Waxman-Markey

At MasterResource I summarize the latest goings-on in the climate wars. An excerpt:
[S]ome of the most credentialed and respected supporters of cap & trade...agree with the numbers: Waxman-Markey would cost households $3,100 in higher prices per year (possibly offset through truly productive government spending and/or tax relief), in exchange for a world which warms 9/100ths of a degree less by 2050 than it otherwise would.

To be clear, that figure of 9/100ths of a degree assumes the rest of the world continues with "business as usual," while the US obeys the (eventually harsh) emissions reductions in Waxman-Markey. (You will not be surprised to learn that the really harsh limits kick in down the road, not when the thing is first signed into law.)

Chip Knappenberger, MasterResource's climate scientist, has also run the numbers assuming other countries participate in comparable emissions cuts. Here is his post on this scenario, but I haven't followed this debate closely so I don't know if the critics at RealClimate agree to his numbers here. Of course, Chip finds that if other industrialized countries participate, then we get better results (i.e. more avoided warming), but even so it's not great:
If the U.S., Canada, Australia, Japan, Europe, and former Soviet countries all limited their emissions of greenhouse gases according to the schedule laid out under Waxman-Markey—a monumental, unexpected development—it would, at most, avoid only a bit more than one-half of a °C of projected global warming (out of 4.5°C—or only about 10%). And this is under worst-case emissions assumptions; middle-of-the-road scenarios and less sensitive climate models produce even less overall impact.

I stand open to correction, but I think the big thing here is that unless you get China on board, at best you are merely postponing (what some consider to be) dangerous warming by a few years.

I think it is incredibly wishful thinking to assume that the leaders of China would seriously hamper their economic growth because of the warnings of climate scientists. It's not as if the world will literally end anytime soon; in the worst case scenarios millions of people around the world might get flooded out of their homes, etc.

So if world leaders (such as the Chinese) continue to build nuclear weapons in order to keep the US at bay--even though this collectively runs the risk of the true destruction of civilization as we know it--are they really going to hesitate to achieve higher economic growth because it might kill some poor people on the coasts?

I realize I will be accused of not caring for these people. That's not my point here. My point is, the rulers of China do not care for these people, at least not enough to cripple how quickly their economy catches up to the Americans'. And I'm not saying the Chinese leaders are particularly vicious in this respect; I'm singling them out because they are the crucial ones who need to limit emissions if these plans are to have any success.

Sooo, if you really do think that (say) 5 degrees C of warming could threaten millions of people, I think it's very foolish to pin your hopes on a plan that requires all major governments around the world to lower their own economies' economic growth for many decades. Does that sound like a realistic plan?



Comments:
Congrats, Bob! You figured out why "unilateral disarmament" doesn't work on this issue! (You'll forget it as soon as you revert back to your spiel about "don't worry, we can just use social pressure to get people to do economic calculation on the efficiency of their carbon emissions in the absence of market prices", but hey, gotta give credit where it's due.)

Of course, instead of suggesting ways to get around the problem of defectors, you felt content to point to how one plan doesn't do it, shrug your soldiers, and resign yourself to that terrible, terrible fate where coastal dwellers get displaced from their land so that your gas will stay nice and cheap.

Just out of curiosity, though, do you think you could come up with a way that an international agreement could handle the problem of defectors, if you really put your mind to it? I know I did, and it only took a few seconds.

But I guess I had a head start in that I didn't feel obligated to prove why evicting others from land they own is morally acceptable as long as it keeps gasoline cheap. Needless to say, you don't enjoy such a luxury.
 
Silas,

I am genuinely curious: Do you hang out at RealClimate, Env-Econ, etc. and tell them how to amend their views (which are obviously naive from our point of view)? If you are really trying to save millions of people from dying / being forced to evacuate, why are you wasting so much time on me? Am I really the most influential person when it comes to cap and trade?

(I'm not being sarcastic. If you point out the flaws at Romm's site etc. I will be pleasantly surprised.)
 
Short answer: You're not the most influential, Bob. Just the most hypocritical, and the most blinded by your preordained conclusions.

Long answer: While I may disagree with the policies and philosophies of those on the other sites, they at least understand the issue: how to frame it, what rights come into conflict, what the tradeoffs are, etc. There was an Yglesias post back in December where he analyzed the global warming issue, and it could have been written by me.

In contrast, I'm still having to explain to you what scarcity means! Please show me where one of them has matched, in sheer stupidity, any of these remarks, which you actually made:

-There's no scarcity in the atmosphere.
-A market solution would be when I charge people to put their CO2 in my portion of the atmosphere.
-It's not a market solution because I disagree with it.
-A calculation problem arises when setting an emissions cap, but not when leaving emissions rights completely undefined.
-And so much more.

Furthermore, none of them has matched your hypocrisy of, "X is an atrocity. Now I'm going to advocate X to avoid a trivial inconvenience."

As bad as they get, the other sites simply can't match the howlers you've given us.
Does that answer your question?
 
Silas,

In your first post you alluded to a solution to the global warming problem that you had come up with in mere seconds. You didn't spell it out, I guess to see if I would ask, and then (when I didn't) it would be more confirmation for you that I can't be bothered with saving millions of Bengals from destruction.

So I'm asking, for example, have you shared your idea with people who would appreciate its significance? Can you point me to a thread where you patiently explain it to people who are framing the issues correctly, and yet are foolishly supporting Waxman-Markey when you are here agreeing with me that it (alone) won't work?
 
Could we not just move these coastal dwellers when they actually come to be flooded(if that actually occurs)? With the UN, NATO, IMF, World Bank, Peace Corp, etc. I think we have the international disaster thing covered.

Why I am being asked to subsidize someone's coastal lifestyle, while at the same time cripling the only true engine of economic growth, capitalism?

Furthermore, if this planet truly is doomed, then why aren't we turning our efforts to the heavens and looking for a new planet to rape, pillage, and burn?
 
In your first post you alluded to a solution to the global warming problem that you had come up with in mere seconds. You didn't spell it out, I guess to see if I would ask, and then (when I didn't) it would be more confirmation for you that I can't be bothered with saving millions of Bengals from destruction.[can't put a line break]

Read my comment again. I believe that you can come up with a solution without my hand-holding. My point was about your prioritization, not whether you can show sufficient curiosity for my (obvious) ideas.

So I'm asking, for example, have you shared your idea with people who would appreciate its significance? Can you point me to a thread where you patiently explain it to people who are framing the issues correctly, and yet are foolishly supporting Waxman-Markey when you are here agreeing with me that it (alone) won't work?[can't put a line break]

What? Why do I need to explain the additional steps needed to make W/M work, when nobody advocates W/M alone?

In any case, here's where I explain how to get around the problem of defectors, to someone who has a clue, although again, I can't find an example of anyone, anywhere, who supports W/M alone; such people only exist in your mind.

And I almost forgot to add: I do explain the economics of the issue on sites where many people are smart but misinformed and advocating inefficient policies. For example, slashdot. I'll tell you my handle and give you some links via email.
 
@DiabolicalMechanism: wow, an actual good-faith question!

Anyway, I agree that evacuating the displaced is a solution worth of consideration. However:

-I believe, at a minimum, such relocated people should be compensated by those who made them have to relocate.

-I don't think it's fair to characterize them as free-riding off others. Most of this coastal land was settled long before one could have resonably believed it would be flooded. And while the settlers and their heirs should bear the cost of *natural* disasters befalling their land, they should not have to bear the cost of *other people's* actions against their land. That's the whole point of property rights, remember?
 
As one who believes the Bible to be inerrant, wouldn't one be compelled to take God at His word that He wouldn't flood the world again?
 
I honestly agree with that answer Silas. I guess I was being a bit rude with the "why should I be forced to subsidize..." comment.

I am of the opinion that nature's value derives from its ability to be used in a productive fashion. Basically, I am not too concerned with preserving wildlife and land just to preserve it. So, the real question is: Could it be cheaper to keep on as we are now and compensate those that have to move when or if the time comes?

However, if this flooding event eventually takes place it will not be a 'flash' flood. So, the affected individuals potentially may have years to pack up and move, which is plenty long enough for most people to successfully start a new life. So, what obligation do we have to save these people if they do not want to pack up and save themselves from destruction that is years away?
...........
My real problem with all this discussion is that we are again placing our faith in and potentially spending our paychecks on climate models that claim to be able to predict the future. However, weather.com often leads me a stray with its predictions for the coming days, so why should we trust climatoligists predictions for the next 40-50 years? Secondly, all environmentalists and politicians seem to look at the world in a "here and now" type of way and honestly have no understanding of how things might be different in the future. Meaning, the market could very easily solve this climate problem when it became apparent that there was one and only if the benefits of doing so outweighed the costs of doing so.
 
So that possible 5 degrees Celsius mentioned in the article.

I assume that projection was made by a computer algorithm, correct? Does that projection take into account anything which has actually been proven to be pertinent to global climate activity, (ie. SOLAR ACTIVITY)or is it based solely from historical data making temperature correlations with the amount of various gas chemistry distributions throughout the atmosphere?
 
I will take this opportunity to point out that the calculated warming from CO2 emissions will be a whopping +0.3 C (with the usual "doubling from pre-industrial levels" measurement)

Apart from that, the whole argument relies on unproven "feedback effects", that have been ran into a mode of hysteria. For instance, a recent worry about methane releases as the polar ice cap melts away somewhat has been refuted, because scientists figured out that the previous historical methane dissapations that this argument is based on was by all probability not due to melting ice.

I would like (as always) to ask anyone who is scared of global warming to present any proof that it will be more than +0.3C.

(although we may see a slight increase in global temperatures due to the number of sun-spots increasing the next few years, but this is hardly related to, or affected by, CO2 emissions)
 
Hehe, there goes that crazy kook SB again, claiming he's calmly explained how to implement a global carbon-emissions cost accounting system that everyone could and would follow, and then when you're so ignorant as to ask what this system is and could he please explain it, he accuses you of being lazy for not originating the idea yourself without him "holding your hand."

There was an Yglesias post back in December where he analyzed the global warming issue, and it could have been written by me.How to know you're a kook, a simple test: when you read something Yglesias wrote and think "Wow, that sounds like something I could've written," you've arrived in Kookland, where you own a palatial estate in the midst of a lordly manor.

How many requests for an explanation does it take to get to the center of an SB carbon cost-accounting system? Ah-one! Ah-two! Ah-three-- "Oh come on! I'm not going to hold your hand, you can easily figure it out yourself you lazy and dishonest hypocrite."

The world may never know... (not that that bothers anyone too much).

PS. People who live on the coasts of the globe AND burn fossil fuels are highly irrational. Don't they realize they're committing suicide?
 
Bob, further to my comments to you about why Joe Romm dismissed you out of hand for talking on behalf of IER, don`t you find it a bit strange that (1) IER NEVER criticizes rent-seeking from coal (and much is now being thrown its way by Obama) and (2) libertarian-leaning commenters like me who point these things out are banned from the site?

Is IER only interested in critizing rent-seeking when somebody besides coal and other fossil fuel firms do it?

FWIW, your own post at IER is imbalanced, for the reasons I pointed out by email.

You ask a few good questions in this post, but do you care to actually make any productive suggestions, or is your job just to criticize?

How do we productively engage China? And when are people going to realize that "growth" that destroys public capita is a mirage?
 
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