MIT op/ed says do “very little, if anything at all” on global warming

Global warming is real. It is predominantly anthropogenic. Left unchecked, it will likely warm the earth by 3-7 C by the end of the century. What should the United States do about it?

Very little, if anything at all (snip)

Countless man-hours of scientists and economists have gone into trying to estimate the costs and benefits of climate change mitigation. Yet the real question is not whether y is greater than x, but rather whether it is greater than x + z, where z is the cost of enforcing an agreed upon reduction in carbon emissions. This is the minimum threshold that must be passed before any action is possible, and the chances of passing it in the near future are slim: not in least part because we lack the technology to monitor the emissions of other countries. But even if we did have the technology, the nature of the problem makes the challenge nearly impossible. Suppose two nations Alpha and Beta, agree to limit their emissions, and suppose further that it is cheaper for Alpha to reduce its emissions in the present while it is cheaper for Beta to limit its emissions in the future. What prevents Beta from reneging on its agreement after Alpha has already committed to a reduction? The act of punishing a defector, whether it comes in the form of a trade sanction or other action, is itself a public good that carries some cost to the punisher.

The sound and the fury that has characterized the public discourse on global warming often obscures a basic economic fact: we are in the situation we are in because it requires fewer resources to generate electricity with coal or propel automobiles with petroleum than it does to accomplish those same goals with solar cells and biofuels. The “green economy” our politicians have placed on a pedestal is not an improvement over our existing one — there is no gain to be had in producing with the effort of three men what we previously accomplished with two. We should tolerate this inefficiency only insofar as it helps us avoid some other, greater harm.

More here.

I think it is hard to argue with this. I still plan to do what I can for my own reasons, but I don't expect much change.

James50

"there is no gain to be had in producing with the effort of three men what we previously accomplished with two. We should tolerate this inefficiency only insofar as it helps us avoid some other, greater harm."

Ah, there's the rub. The "greater harm" is obvious.

We can't leave it to the market, if we wish to change in a timely way. It looks like we won't, but that's only because of politics, not economics. Some government investment would level the playing field earlier than it will level anyway, given peak oil. Why not do what is needed now? Well, because America is too conservative, that's why. And too deluded by the trickle-down theory that everything must be decided by the free market.

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

"there is no gain to be had in producing with the effort of three men what we previously accomplished with two. We should tolerate this inefficiency only insofar as it helps us avoid some other, greater harm."

Ah, there's the rub. The "greater harm" is obvious.

We can't leave it to the market, if we wish to change in a timely way. It looks like we won't, but that's only because of politics, not economics. Some government investment would level the playing field earlier than it will level anyway, given peak oil. Why not do what is needed now? Well, because America is too conservative, that's why. And too deluded by the trickle-down theory that everything must be decided by the free market.

A more likely scenario for change is gasoline above 2 or 3 times what it is today. (I am not sure why seemingly your every post has to contain the words "trickle down". Except for you, I haven't heard anyone use those words in years.)

The market (however defined) has been at the source of all human material progress since the beginning of time. However hard to defend in particular, it is like a law of nature. The most practical attitude is not to condemn the market because of its excesses, but to work to create the conditions which ameliorate those excesses. You cannot get rid of the market.

James50

Originally Posted by James50

A more likely scenario for change is gasoline above 2 or 3 times what it is today. (I am not sure why seemingly your every post has to contain the words "trickle down". Except for you, I haven't heard anyone use those words in years.)

You should get out more, dude.

If it is less commonly used right now, that does not change the fact that it is more appropriate than ever to describe prevailing conservative and even moderate opinion.

The market (however defined) has been at the source of all human material progress since the beginning of time. However hard to defend in particular, it is like a law of nature. The most practical attitude is not to condemn the market because of its excesses, but to work to create the conditions which ameliorate those excesses. You cannot get rid of the market.

James50

That's not what I want to get rid of. I want to get rid of the mistaken idea that all solutions to economic and social problems should be left to the market. That gets in the way of what is conceived as "possible." The government is also like a law of nature, and the source of as much progress as the market. Not to mention social, political, religious movements as sources of change. All these are needed to jump start any meaningful change. And, we need to respond to the realities of the biosphere as well as those of the market. Economy and ecology are not separate, even a little bit.

I say, "whatever works to create the best conditions possible for all."

The New York Times reviews the rising oceans. As Glaciers Melt, Scientists Seek New Data on Rising Seas

For discussion purposes...

As a result of recent calculations that take the changes into account, many scientists now say that sea level is likely to rise perhaps three feet by 2100 — an increase that, should it come to pass, would pose a threat to coastal regions the world over.

It's a fairly lengthy article, reviewing the current view of the situation.

It seems like with every new batch of climate data we get the usual refrain is "things are happening faster than expected". At this rate the arctic will be ice-free in summer within the next 10 years, several times faster than predictions just a few years ago. I know for a fact that around here that the weather has been really whacked out for the past about 4 years, starting in the Christmas With No Snow in 2006. Winters don't get as cold as then did when I was little, no more -40 lows in January, we only broke -30 once in the last 4 years. This last summer was unbearably humid, it felt more like Florida than Fargo.

Finally.

A comparison of local and aggregated climate models with observed data

(From the Hydrological Sciences Journal)

From the abstract

We compare the output of various climate models to temperature and precipitation observations at 55 points around the globe. We also spatially aggregate model output and observations over the contiguous USA using data from 70 stations, and we perform comparison at several temporal scales, including a climatic (30-year) scale...

From the conclusions

It is claimed that GCMs provide credible quantitative estimates of future climate change, particularly at continental scales and above. Examining the local performance of the models at 55 points, we found that local projections do not correlate well with observed measurements. Furthermore, we found that the correlation at a large spatial scale, i.e. the contiguous USA, is worse than at the local scale.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101206/...earing_nations

CANCUN, Mexico – Encroaching seas in the far Pacific are raising the salt level in the wells of the Marshall Islands. Waves threaten to cut one sliver of an island in two. "It's getting worse," says Kaminaga Kaminaga, the tiny nation's climate change coordinator.
The rising ocean raises questions, too: What happens if the 61,000 Marshallese must abandon their low-lying atolls? Would they still be a nation? With a U.N. seat? With control of their old fisheries and their undersea minerals? Where would they live, and how would they make a living? Who, precisely, would they and their children become?
For years global negotiations to act on climate change have dragged on, with little to show. Parties to the 193-nation U.N. climate treaty are meeting again in this Caribbean resort, but no one expects decisive action to roll back the industrial, agricultural and transport emissions blamed for global warming — and consequently for swelling seas.
From 7,000 miles (11,000 kilometers) away, the people of the Marshalls — and of Kiribati, Tuvalu and other atoll nations beyond — can only wonder how many more years they'll be able to cope.
"People who built their homes close to shore, all they can do is get more rocks to rebuild the seawall in front day by day," said Kaminaga, who is in Cancun with the Marshallese delegation to the U.N. talks.
The Marshallese government is looking beyond today, however, to those ultimate questions of nationhood, displacement and rights.
"We're facing a set of issues unique in the history of the system of nation-states," Dean Bialek, a New York-based adviser to the Republic of the Marshall Islands who is also in Cancun, told The Associated Press. "We're confronting existential issues associated with climate impacts that are not adequately addressed in the international legal framework."
The Marshallese government took a first step to confront these issues by asking for advice from the Center for Climate Change Law at New York's Columbia University. The center's director, Michael B. Gerrard, in turn has asked legal scholars worldwide to assemble at Columbia next May to begin to piece together answers.
Nations have faded into history through secession — recently with the breakup of the former Yugoslavia, for example — or through conquest or ceding their territory to other countries.
But "no country has ever physically disappeared, and it's a real void in the law," Gerrard said during an interview in New York.
The U.N. network of climate scientists projects that seas, expanding from heat and from the runoff of melting land ice, may rise by up to 1.94 feet (0.59 meters) by 2100, swamping much of the scarce land of coral atolls.
But the islands may become uninhabitable long before waves wash over them, because of the saline contamination of water supplies and ruining of crops, and because warming is expected to produce more threatening tropical storms.
"If a country like Tuvalu or Kiribati were to become uninhabitable, would the people be stateless? What's their position in international law?" asked Australian legal scholar Jane McAdam. "The short answer is, it depends. It's complicated."
McAdam, of the University of New South Wales, has traveled in the atoll nations and studied the legal history.
As far as islanders keeping their citizenship and sovereignty if they abandon their homelands, she said by telephone from Sydney, "it's unclear when a state would end because of climate change. It would come down to what the international community was prepared to tolerate" — that is, whether the U.N. General Assembly would move to take a seat away from a displaced people.
The 1951 global treaty on refugees, mandating that nations shelter those fleeing because of persecution, does not cover the looming situation of those displaced by climate change. Some advocate negotiating a new international pact obliging similar treatment for environmental refugees.
In the case of the Marshallese, the picture is murkier. Under a compact with Washington, citizens of the former U.S. trusteeship territory have the right to freely enter the U.S. for study or work, but their right to permanent residency must be clarified, government advisers say.
The islanders worry, too, about their long-term economic rights. The wide scattering of the Marshalls' 29 atolls, 2,300 miles (3,700 kilometers) southwest of Hawaii, give them an exclusive economic zone of 800,000 square miles (2 million square kilometers) of ocean, an area the size of Mexico.
The tuna coursing through those waters are the Marshalls' chief resource, exploited by selling licenses to foreign fishing fleets. "If their islands go underwater, what becomes of their fishing rights?" Gerrard asked. Potentially just as important: revenues from magnesium and other sea-floor minerals that geologists have been exploring in recent years.
While lawyers at next May's New York conference begin to sort out the puzzle of disappeared nations, the Marshallese will grapple with the growing problems.
The "top priority," Kaminaga said, is to save the isthmus linking the Marshalls' Jaluit island to its airport, a link now swept by high tides.
Meantime, a lingering drought this year led islanders to tap deeper into their wells, finding salty water requiring them to deploy emergency desalination units. And "parts of the islands are eroding away," Kaminaga said, as undermined lines of coconut palms topple into the sea.
This week in Cancun and in the months to come, the Marshalls' representatives will seek international aid for climate adaptation. They envision such projects as a Jaluit causeway, replanting of protective vegetation on shorelines, and a 3-mile-long (5-kilometer-long) seawall protecting their capital, Majuro, from the Pacific's rising tides.
Islanders' hopes are fading, however, for quick, decisive action to slash global emissions and save their remote spits of land for the next century.
"If all these financial and diplomatic tools don't work, I think some countries are looking at some kind of legal measures," said Dessima Williams, Grenada's U.N. ambassador and chair of a group of small island-nations. Those measures might include appeals to the International Court of Justice or other forums for compensation, a difficult route at best.
In the end, islanders wonder, too, what will happen to their culture, their history, their identity with a homeland — even to their ancestors — if they must leave.
"Cemeteries along the coastline are being eroded. Gravesites are falling into the sea," Kaminaga said. "Even in death we're affected."

The NY Times reports Climate Talks End With Modest Deal on Emissions For discussion purposes...

Although the steps were fairly modest and do not require the broad changes that scientists say are needed to avoid dangerous climate change, the result was a major step forward for a process that has stumbled badly in recent years.

Not.

In terms of values shift, it seems fairly clear that this crisis is not going to instill a commitment where ecological values can trump the economic commitment to the life style to which we have become accustomed. If it doesn't happen in the crisis, it isn't likely to happen in the high, which would be the normal time one would expect transforming infrastructure to be built.

But at the rate the climate science is developing and new data is coming in, the awakening will see long hot summers, both figuratively and literally. If boomers are unpopular now, if the GIs weren't though of well in the last awakening, the Millenials are not going to be popular in the eyes of their grandchildren.

Isolated incedents are weather, not climate. I generally dismiss articles such as the NY Times The weather outside is frightful almost everywhere. However, in this case, do we finally have an extraordinary enough an incedent to prompt people to re-evaluate their world views?

For discussion purposes...

Perhaps worst of all, Lady Gaga had to postpone her Sunday night concert in Paris because her 28 trucks could not get into the city under a snow ban.

Apparently the freak weather lately has been from an unusually strong negative phase of the Arctic Oscillation (AO). During the negative phase the cold arctic air does not build up, instead it is pushed southward. The result is colder weather in the mid-latitudes and milder weather in the Arctic.

The interesting part is that it is thought that the strong negative phase lately may have something to do with the shrinkage of the ice cap.

Originally Posted by Odin

Apparently the freak weather lately has been from an unusually strong negative phase of the Arctic Oscillation (AO). During the negative phase the cold arctic air does not build up, instead it is pushed southward. The result is colder weather in the mid-latitudes and milder weather in the Arctic.

The interesting part is that it is thought that the strong negative phase lately may have something to do with the shrinkage of the ice cap.

Daily Arctic Oscillation Index I've been watching this page casually for the last few years. Here in New England, you do see flakier weather as the graph goes strongly negative.

From Realclimate, Cold winter in a world of warming? As Odin says, shrinking ice caps can bring cold air into Europe. For discussion purposes...

Last June, during the International Polar Year conference, James Overland suggested that there are more cold and snowy winters to come. He argued that the exceptionally cold snowy 2009-2010 winter in Europe had a connection with the loss of sea-ice in the Arctic. The cold winters were associated with a persistent ‘blocking event’, bringing in cold air over Europe from the north and the east.

As I understand it, there is a double edge in this blocking event. It is colder than normal in human occupied areas like Europe, while it is warmer than usual way up north where the ice cap is shrinking... thus resulting in more ice cap shrinkage.

The New York Times shows Figures on Global Climate Show 2010 Tied 2005 as the Hottest Year on Record For discussion purposes...

It was the 34th year running that global temperatures have been above the 20th-century average; the last below-average year was 1976. The new figures show that 9 of the 10 warmest years on record have occurred since the beginning of 2001.

CNN reports... Forecaster: Two phenomena responsible for world's bizarre weather

This is likely more weather than climate. There are some allegations that global warming is apt to produce extreme weather. The 'negative' phase of the North Atlantic Oscillation is tentatively linked to global warming, and results in cold snowy weather in Europe and the North American northeast.

But both El Nina and negative NAO happen, and have been happening well before any warming trend started. Any linkage is tentative, not well understood.

Originally Posted by Bob Butler 54

CNN reports... Forecaster: Two phenomena responsible for world's bizarre weather

This is likely more weather than climate. There are some allegations that global warming is apt to produce extreme weather. The 'negative' phase of the North Atlantic Oscillation is tentatively linked to global warming, and results in cold snowy weather in Europe and the North American northeast.

But both El Nina and negative NAO happen, and have been happening well before any warming trend started. Any linkage is tentative, not well understood.

The Earth has to balance it's heat budget somehow, and greater oscillations/volatility make sense.

Originally Posted by Poodle

The Earth has to balance it's heat budget somehow, and greater oscillations/volatility make sense.

The NY Times says much the same thing in Too Little, and Then Too Much, in Australia. For discussion purposes...

Mr. Cocklin warned that it was impossible to easily blame the latest floods on climate change. Rather, the immediate culprit is La Niña, a Pacific weather pattern that has caused havoc from Brazil to Sri Lanka. But he said it was indisputable that, as a result of climate change, “these extremes are becoming more intensified” — meaning more severe, and longer, droughts.

As a result, Australia must consider a less water-intensive agricultural future, Mr. Cocklin said. “People have to accept that the game’s changed,” he said, particularly in the case of water-hogging crops like rice and cotton.

“They’re literally flooding the continent; you know, they’re trying to copy monsoon Asia. You’d have to wonder if that’s really a smart thing to be doing,” he said.

In response to the long drought, the government authority responsible for the Murray-Darling released a proposal in October to drastically reduce water consumption by irrigators; some outraged farmers burned copies of the plan in protest.

Amid heavy floods at the start of this year, the National Farmers Federation called on the center-left minority Labor government of Prime Minister Julia Gillard to delay its water reform process. The government has rejected the calls.

From Hidaya Fdn:

Heavy rains have caused terrible flooding affecting over one million people in Sri Lanka.
Hidaya Foundation has received reports from Sri Lanka that the current weather change in the past few days has been so drastic from the normal tropical weather that it is the first time in their lives that they ever remember needing warm clothing. The heavy rains are expected to continue in the coming days adding to the state of the emergency on the ground.

Well, it never stops. Austrailia, Brazil, Sri Lanka. When will the climate change deniers wake up?

Originally Posted by Eric the Green

Austrailia, Brazil, Sri Lanka. When will the climate change deniers wake up?

Hmm. Queensland went through flooding much like this back in the 60s. And again a cpl decades before that. And so on. I'm pretty sure the high-water marks in Brisbane were set in the 1880s.

Brazil gets heavy rains quite a bit, too. As does Sri Lanka.

For that matter, heat waves and fires are hardly unknown in Russia (remember this last summer?). I saw a great page on one of the russian blogs I read with a whole bunch of diary entries people made back in the 1800s and 1700s about the "choking smoke, and unbearable heat" of previous summer fire seasons.

Weather comes and goes, and there's not much in the way of weather that we haven't already seen before.

As they say, "weather isn't climate".

Originally Posted by Odin

It seems like with every new batch of climate data we get the usual refrain is "things are happening faster than expected". At this rate the arctic will be ice-free in summer within the next 10 years, several times faster than predictions just a few years ago. I know for a fact that around here that the weather has been really whacked out for the past about 4 years, starting in the Christmas With No Snow in 2006. Winters don't get as cold as then did when I was little, no more -40 lows in January, we only broke -30 once in the last 4 years. This last summer was unbearably humid, it felt more like Florida than Fargo.

For PA that was true until the last few years where all of a sudden we started to get heavy winters and really bad summers.

~Chas'88

Originally Posted by Chas'88

For PA that was true until the last few years where all of a sudden we started to get heavy winters and really bad summers.

~Chas'88

I would say the same for NC. Growing up, I didn't even know it snowed here but it has been for the past couple of years.

The NY Times reports that For Many Species, No Escape as Temperature Rises. For discussion purposes...

Over the past two decades, an increasing number of settlers who have moved here to farm have impinged on bird habitats and reduced bird populations by cutting down forests and turning grasslands into fields. Now the early effects of global warming and other climate changes have helped send the populations of many local mountain species into a steep downward spiral, from which many experts say they will never recover.

Over the next 100 years, many scientists predict, 20 percent to 30 percent of species could be lost if the temperature rises 3.6 degrees to 5.4 degrees Fahrenheit. If the most extreme warming predictions are realized, the loss could be over 50 percent, according to the United Nations climate change panel.

From the NY Times, another article on Topsy-Turvy Weather: U.S. Is Frigid, Arctic Balmy. This is the pattern we've noted earlier, but is continuing. For discussion purposes...

The immediate cause of the topsy-turvy weather is clear enough. A pattern of atmospheric circulation that tends to keep frigid air penned in the Arctic has weakened during the past two winters, allowing big tongues of cold air to descend far to the south, while masses of warmer air have moved north.

The deeper issue is whether this pattern is linked to the rapid changes that global warming is causing in the Arctic, particularly the drastic loss of sea ice. At least two prominent climate scientists have offered theories suggesting that it is. But many others are doubtful, saying the recent events are unexceptional, or that more evidence over a longer period would be needed to establish a link.

Turns out climate change has nothing to do with glaciers but is related to debris levels. BTW, this is not weather.

Himalayan glaciers not melting because of climate change, report finds.

Himalayan glaciers are actually advancing rather than retreating, claims the first major study since a controversial UN report said they would be melted within quarter of a century.

And near the end, I thought this was sorta funny.

Dr Pachauri, head of the Nobel prize-winning UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, has remained silent on the matter since he was forced to admit his report's claim that the Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035 was an error and had not been sourced from a peer-reviewed scientific journal. It came from a World Wildlife Fund report.

He angered India's environment minister and the country's leading glaciologist when he attacked those who questioned his claim as purveyors of "voodoo science".

More here.

Good ol' Dr Pachauri. He's got his money out of climate change by now.

James50

Most of northern hemisphere covered in snow. Neat picture.

Here.

James50

I'm not trying to get into a debate whether or not we are experiencing global warming or not. And if we are, if it is all caused by human activities. I don't have the answer to that question. There are too many conflicting reports by different scientist to really know what to believe. However, I do think it's probably pretty normal for us to get into certain weather patterns or cycles that do seem to last for a period of time.

My grandmother use to talk about how hot it was back in the 30's when they experienced several summers of extremely hot temperatures. She told me that since many people didn't have air-conditioners back then and it was too hot to sleep inside their houses at night, lots of families went out to the town park and slept there. I believe it turned into a sort of party atmosphere for those in the community. I'm sure these summers in Illinois were the same years people in Kansas were experiencing the dust bowl.

When I was young girl in the 1970's I can remember trudging through deep snow for severals winters on my way to school each morning. And I don't think it was because I was just shorter back then and the snow seemed deeper. This would have been around the same time as the famous blizzards of 1977 & 1979.

During the mid 1990's to the late 1990's there were winters where we experienced very little snow fall and extreme heat waves and drought in the summer in Illinois.

These past few winters have been rather brutal. I seem to recall the northeast and mid Atlantic states getting record snowfalls last year too. The past two winters have been unusually cold for Texas. I have a feeling we may just be in another of those cycles that may last another few years or so. But that doesn't mean we won't return to more normal conditions in the next coming years.