| Sending me back to think again |
 |
 |
| Written by Tim Worstall | |
| Monday, 05 May 2008 | |
|
Jim Manzi has managed to get me to at least rethink one of my long held beliefs about climate chaange and what we should do about it. Rethink still, not quite change my mind. My basic position has always been that climate change is indeed happening and that we now need to look at the economics of the situation: it's not, as many insist, either an immediate or catastrophic problem, rather a low level and chronic one. Thus I reject the Gore and other catastrophists (including the Stern Review) thoughts that we need swinging carbon taxes (or cap and trade agreements) now: I'm rather more inclined to the Nordhaus view that low carbon taxes now, with a road map for their gradual rise over the decades, will provide the incentives for the necessary changes. Such taxation being, of course, revenue neutral, so that other taxes should fall as they are imposed. One thing that rather underlies my complacency about such taxation is that on things like air travel and oil we already have the necessary levels of green taxation recommended: not just by Nordhaus, but by Stern. So we've already done what we needed to do, we just need to wait the time that such changes in relative prices will take to influence behaviour as the stock of cars, heating systems and the like is replaced. I'm also aware of the Hayek point: that we can't actually know what, exactly, the correct level of such taxation should be, but again, low and gradually rising taxation doesn't worry me all that much, not over decades. However, Manzi goes further and makes me think that quite possibly I'm wrong in all of the above. That is, that the political system is so disfunctional, so appallingly corrupted by special interest pleading, that it will never be possible to roll out such carbon taxation across the economy without the price soaring above any possible benefits. If he's right, and he is indeed very convincing, then that leaves only one path we can possibly logically follow. Technological development and whatever adaptation we need to do to fill in the gaps. I can't say that that worries me either really: my day job is on the fringes of said technological development and the one thing we really do know about human beings is that we adapt pretty well. All of that said, I do urge you to read Manzi's post. Perhaps this is another of these problems which is simply too important to be left to politics? Comments (3)
...
written by Steevo, May 05, 2008
It presumes man is the cause. We've been cooling since the latter nineties yet China, Russia, India, South America etc. are pumping more into the atmosphere than ever before. There was a consensus in the mid seventies having the opposite conclusion, only, they didn't have the funding, political and ideological machine. Worldwide we've just had one of the coldest winters on record. Antarctica has been growing in mass. If this weren't a religion of sorts on high we would have a much different discussion trickle down to the common citizen. So for me, the reasonable approach does not accept the popular.
Its all a Scam written by Oli, May 06, 2008
Carbon Taxes are just a scam. They are alarmist in nature which suggests that if you don't react as alarmist, then you strike the right balance. However, in this case, its all about red herrings. The politicians want the carbon taxes to be acceptable, and to dismiss the alarmist scenario would seem to be a compromise they can offer.
Its like the VAT on heating a few years ago. Politicians demanded a full 17.5%, debate knocked it down to 8% and everyone was happy - except the taxpayer who was now paying 8% more then the day before! We don't need a carbon tax because carbon is not bad for anyone. This is just an excuse for politicians to justify their positions. Climate change seems to have become the religion of our times. Write comment
This content has been locked. You can no longer post any comment.
|
Subscribe to this comment's feed
About the ASI
The Adam Smith Institute is the UK's leading innovator of free-market economic and social policies. Politically independent and non-profit, the Institute promotes its ideas through reports, briefings, events, media appearances, and its website and blog. For further information, click here.Join our email list
Keep up-to-date with the latest events, reports and information from the Adam Smith Institute by joining our fortnightly email list. It's free and you can unsubscribe at any point. Just enter your email address here:
(I mean the chain that goes dsomething like 1. there is a trend of global warming, 2. it will be severe enough to cause problems overall, 3. it is caused mainly by anthropogenic CO2, 4. reducing CO2 production etc. would reverse climate change, 5. humans can achieve this reduction ad control climate via political means or indeed by any other means such as technological, 6, this reduction will make a difference quickly enough to be worth doing, 7, the reduction in C02 needs to be done now and cannot be delayed, 8. The reduction in CO2 will help more than it will harm - and so on...)
I fall off this chain quite early becuase I have near-zero faith in climate modelling, since none of the models have been validated - none. I mean validated prospectively - not retrospectively.
So I was not surprised that this week's climate story was that 'natural' changes in the climate have somehow reversed (for a few years at least, this week's models predict) the supposedly overwhelming effect of anthropogenic CO2 increases...
But mainly I feel that there is no reason to suppose human action of any conceivable sort can control the global climate. Be nice if it could, but this is pure wishful thinking. Very very probably humans can't control the planetary climate, just as we can't control the weather.
What we can do is science and technology and technical capability - to deal with whatever climate change happens - deal with it like the US rather than Bangladesh.
So - I'd say forget about daydreams of planetary climate control, and get prepared to deal with it - whatever 'it' turns out to be.