Below is a discussion I had with my friend and fellow social commentator Tim Reeves over a period of a few weeks on the subject of climate change. The discussion is based on some of the blogs I've written on the subject. Some of you might find it interesting - it should certainly make a refreshing change from the kind of climate discussions we've become used to in the media and political spheres of society.
James: When we trade with efficiently allocated resources using the price system, we are already partaking in a kind of environmentalism. Nature is our sister, and everything major we do has an effect on nature, and is changing nature. During our industrial activity, we are working alongside the environment to make it more amenable to human life. If we are doing the following three things - 1), using resources optimally in accordance with the price system, 2) becoming more economically and scientifically efficient in doing so, and 3) not wasting resources with gross inefficiency - then by being agents in the market, we are simultaneously being agents of environmental efficiency too (think of the fairly natural transitions from animal-transportation to engine-driven vehicles, from coal to electricity, and from paper to digital as three fairly organic transitions driven by market-based progressions).
Tim: I agree as far as it goes: But for me the caveats start coming in thick and fast. I can think of scenarios where market forces are insufficient to sufficiently drive down inefficiencies: Viz: Imagine that capital resources like oil are cheap as a result of them being easily accessed and appearing to be all-but inexhaustible. They may then be so cheap that the market does not perceive the need for the added costs of stringently optimising efficiency, let alone the eventual need for sustainable energy sources. Therefore the market may not only promote a less than optimally efficient use of energy and - more to the point - also be unaware that it is slowly digging itself into an environmental hole. So if the market is causing unperceived environmental changes for which our economies may one day have to pay dearly, it will not necessarily convey the incentivising pricing “pain signals” that this will one day be the case. But this is completely understandable as the market, naturally enough, has tunnel vision. We shouldn’t expect of the market capabilities outside its natural domain: The market has a tendency to only respond to immediately perceived incentives.
James: I’d say ‘short-to-medium-term’ incentives is more accurate. Capital investors are wise to make projections in their investments that factor in short-to-medium-term projections that will have a bearing on the growth and stability of the business and the industry. The human adaptability, even in the short-to-medium-term, is often fecund enough to change behaviour and incentives in accordance with the changing climate. Furthermore, remember that politicians have even more of a short-term mindset that markets, because the principal aim of a politician is to make decisions that increase their chances of being elected. The average tenure of a politician is a lot shorter than the average duration of a private sector company, and politicians do not tend to invest their thinking into projects that won’t bear their fruits until after they have gone. Moreover, if politicians artificially engender a reduction in oil consumption by, say, 15%, then the price of oil has to rise by the equivalent amount whereby consumers willingly cut their consumption by 15%. If the price rise is less than the target, then demand will be greater than supply, which will bid up the price further. The marginal rate of oil is therefore determined by the reduced consumption, whichever way the government artificially reduces the consumption.
Tim: The decentralized market has natural blind spots unless there are centralized processors looking ahead as far as possible and feeding the information back into the market. Let's face it: The market's ability to solve longer term problems has its limits. As a species we have powers of foresight greater than a successfully operating market needs.
James: We do, but here we must remember two key elements of my argument; firstly, that I think our questionable ‘look far ahead’ model is inadequate to the task of justifying all those billions of pounds of costs in the here and now. And secondly, that one of my main beefs with environmentalism is the corruption, bribes, lobbying and special pleading attached to the cronyist deals being struck. We mustn’t forget that a high proportion of the climate industry is in bed with the political establishment, using underhand bargaining tactics to get their money in ways they wouldn’t in a fairer competitive process.
Tim: If we consider the human environmental effects from the days of animal power, through early inefficient coal powered engines, to the fuel efficient machines of today, then in spite of enhancements in efficiency today’s economies are delivering a greater rate of accumulation of environmental CO2 simply because of their greatly increased size. Size as well as efficiency is a relevant variable.
James: Agreed. The environmentalists have created a false dichotomy between economic growth and environmental efficiency, because they fail to understand that the planet becomes cleaner and greener with economic development and scientific progression are constrained by short-termism and not the big picture, which becomes less predictable and fraught with greater margins of error the further out into the future we forecast. However, we humans grossly over estimate our predictive power and abilities in most of these matters anyway, and are, therefore, generally wise to focus more on short-term goals that we do understand than long term speculations that we understand less well.
Tim: That paragraph
suggests to me that you are actually taking a surreptitious look at the big picture, by extrapolating the tendency of the
market to enhance efficiency and then making an evaluation as to what the best
course of action should be! Our science revolutionaries like
James: I wouldn’t say my big picture look is ‘surreptitious’ – I’d say it is conspicuous but with caution.
Tim: Although on the whole progress driven by the market may entail cleaner greener use of resources per unit GDP, per unit time, the total environmental effect is found by summing the resource usage per unit time, over time. Here’s an example: I drive my car as economically as I can so that I get the best possible mpg out of it. But the total environmental effect of my car is an increasing function of both the length of time I drive and the size of the car. That total effect can be calculated using a modern digital “differential analyser” to mathematically “integrate” the rate of fuel usage over time in order to accumulate the total usage. Viz: The modern trip computer is, of course, capable of accumulating this total fuel usage if it is given access to the varying rate of fuel consumption over the entire journey. It is the total resource consumption, and not the rate of usage, that is the relevant environmental variable. So although the economy may operate at optimal efficiency, if the economy is that much bigger its CO2 accumulation effect per unit time will be greater. The totalised CO2 accumulation will be an increasing function of time no matter how efficient the economy is.
James: I agree, but we should remember too that the bigger the population and the economy, the more people and resources there are to solve problems (see my blog on why the world is not overpopulated).
Tim: You can be sure that if you and I understand the issues of environmental chaos and unpredictability then so does the academic establishment and they no doubt have taken it into account in their thinking. (Although academic authorities claim that climate change isn't a future prediction - it's been happening imperceptibly since the industrial revolution). But of course, it is well known that in weather prediction, the further you predict into the future the greater the width of the error bars. We then have a cut-off question: At what point do we feel those error bars are so separated that it is unrealistic to cater for specific events that have a small probability of coming about? But from the noises I’m hearing, the academic establishment have assigned a sufficiently high probability to unchecked climate extremes for it to demand that our adaptive responses start now: e.g.: defensive responses (like sea & flood walls) premised on higher temperatures along with more proactive measures like atmospheric CO2 scrubbing. But as I’m sure you’d concede, set against this is the chance that exorbitant investment to cut fossil fuel and/or pricing fossils out of the market too suddenly could lead to economic recession and perhaps even the runaway self-reinforcing feedback of economic collapse. Alternatively, doing nothing may mean that the costs of unchecked climate change destabilises a market which itself is subject to unpredictable chaotic swings that could also lead to collapse. How we balance the risks here is not an easy question to answer and therefore choices are readily influenced by a combination of personal interests, personal stakes, tribal identification and the ideological a-priori-ism one finds among Gaia and libertarian radicals.
James: Yes, that’s right. My risk calculus follows, to the greatest extent, the same kind of heuristics that have been employed in the past, and have consistently been more reliable that longer term speculative approaches that fail to factor in the future advancements that render the immediate term equations sub-standard.
Tim: Given that the market is also subject to nonlinear swings and actually looks to be a lot more volatile and unpredictable than the glacial rate of climate change I see the market as a lot less comprehensible than the climate. Also the market works on local & short term perceptions and therefore can’t be trusted as the untouchable custodian to lead us into the future. After all, if you are going to sign up to the belief that we should “focus more on short-term goals that we do understand” that in itself is a (covert) big-picture environmental policy based on an extrapolation about the market naturally promoting efficiency. I’m not necessarily disputing this, but it looks like an implicit yet suppressed prediction that this is the best course of action to go forward with. But why is that? What is it about a live--and-let-live market policy that makes it any more robust a response than an attempt to adapt to extrapolated climate predictions?
James: Because there is nothing that’s ever been created that comes close to the market’s ability to solve problems under a trial and error basis. It’s not perfect, but nothing else we do comes close to the efficiency of a market-based local decision-making system.
Tim: Many Marxist left wingers will use that kind of response to bolster their theories about class warfare and tell us that the propertied classes (& their stooges) simply want to defend the status quo because they have deep stakes in unregulated market dynamics. There was a time when there was no point in troubling one’s head about the chances of a meteor strike, although potentially devastating; one could neither predict such events nor do anything about them. But of course we now have a much greater ability to predict, within known error bars, the path, of meteors and moreover we have a developing & transitional technology to deal with them. We are now in a similar transitional position with climate change. So to declare any climate effort as absolutely taboo on the basis that it is a future that is absolutely unknowable doesn’t take into account that our predictive probabilistic headlights don’t suddenly cut off beyond market activity but fade out slowly as we look into the future. Once again to impose such an artificial information cut-off beyond the natural limitations of market foresight plays right into the hands of Marxists, radical leftists & radical environmentalists, giving credence to their contentions about the owners of the means of production protecting their class interests by suppressing any thoughts that might lead to a cut in their profits.
James: Yes, but I’m not “declaring any climate effort as absolutely taboo on the basis that it is a future that is absolutely unknowable” – so my position isn’t properly reflected in that comment. We can't do much better than use fossil fuels efficiently. In the future, we will probably be able to use other types of energy more efficiently than fossil fuels, but right now, we don't have much of a clue about how we can do better than use fossil fuels efficiently, because using them efficiently means its use is superior to the next best alternative (ditto when we use nuclear, renewables efficiently).
Tim: Obviously the "just stop fossils" alarmists are unrealistic and their protests a huge economic and social nuisance. The continued but efficient use of fossils is one part of a strategy to cope with the climate change we are currently observing and have observed since industrialisation started. But I don’t understand your statement that “We don't have much of a clue about how we can do better than use fossil fuels efficiently” because clearly we do have lots of techno-scientific clues about how we can do better than use a capital resource for which the atmosphere acts as an analogue differential analyser (just as we now have lots of clues about how to defend against large meteor strikes). So within tolerable spending limits there is no reason to put a halt to research & development into renewables where big advances are being made. I sense your accountant’s alarmism here, but I don’t see any reason why you can’t defend fossils and at the same time promote R&D into renewables within sensible spending limits. I believe that at least some companies, egged on by a market that now has “climate change” as very much part of its cultural consciousness, are using their riches to R&D renewables e.g. JCB who are researching hydrogen to power their machines. Thinking that is only constrained by immediate economic realities is arid, bland, unrewarding and lacking in the speculator’s flair.
James: I think you’re misunderstanding what I mean here. When I say “We don't have much of a clue about how we can do better than use fossil fuels efficiently”, I don’t mean at the expense of accompanying techno-scientific advancements – it’s not an either/or equation – what I mean is that while we are using fossil fuels efficiently, we can’t do any better than use them efficiently within the parameters of fossil fuel usage. When techno-scientific advancements that work within and alongside fossil fuel usage provide even more efficient usage, then each time that happens or has happened, we’ve made further incremental steps of progression on our journey. If we follow my three maxims, then we will naturally become richer, more technically astute and greener. There isn't a good reason I can see that favours most of the sloppy green expenditure over the natural progression that comes from using resources most efficiently in the here and now, with some gentle political incentives when it cannot be steered so well locally.
Tim: As I've said, efficient use of resources driven by the market is part of the solution but it can't be the whole solution if the atmosphere is acting as an analogue differential analyser integrating our positive rate of CO2 output (unless the damping effects of increased precipitation come to our rescue – see end note). But if the increasing CO2 concentration results in dangerously higher temperatures that will likely have its own costs and may so retard the world economy that it causes severe economic recession. Therefore I don’t see the three maxims inevitably entailing that we naturally become richer. So in the face of this possible outcome and while we are still relatively rich and before the potential economic stress kicks in, let renewable R&D continue. (Within accountancy limits of course) Is that what you are thinking of when you refer to gentle political incentives? If so, I agree. But my general feeling is that you should talk this up a bit more to prevent you becoming too identified with a-priorist denialism and get interpreted as a “capitalist-running-dog” apologist by Marxists and the radical left. On the other hand “sloppy green expenditure” that exploits alarmism to sign blank cheques also needs critical appraisal.
James: Yes, the gentle political incentives are fine by me – especially the best one of all, which is rewarding companies with tax breaks alongside green innovation. Just like nature's physical laws, the natural flow of the economy, when it is operating efficiently, tends towards the path of least effort. Although there are exceptional cases, generally there are already huge incentives in market transactions to be as parsimonious as possible with energy and resources. The entire nexus of the global economy is a physical system which is all the time tending towards the principle of maximum efficiency - or it would be without all the extremist environmentalist interference retarding it. Businesses are already looking for the most efficient means of supplying customers using as little energy as possible, because in a highly competitive market, it is in their interest to do so to remain profitable.
Tim: My reaction to the above paragraph is mixed. Making a comparison between the “leastaction” principle of physics and economic heuristics which are guide lines rather than tramlines isstrained. As I’ve already said, large quantities of easily accessed capital resources will keep prices low reducing the incentive for efficiency and, more relevantly, reducing the incentive to shift to other forms of resource that are renewable. A market which tends to make computations based on short term goals will be blind to more distant adverse consequences that exploitation of cheap resources may bring. So although there is a heuristic connection between the market and efficiency there isn’t a necessary connection between the market and high efficiency. To me those “exceptional cases” don’t look all that exceptional and should be included in our thinking. We are not talking physics here.
In algorithmics, the path of least resistance
(which tends to be selected by blinkered market choices) is not necessarily the
path that solves a problem. In software these are called “greedy algorithms”:
Greedy algorithms don't look far enough ahead to see that another route,
perhaps requiring longer and harder work will get us to a better solution. So,
the quest for desirable goals may benefit from a further look-ahead than the
market naturally sees. After all as I've said we are now within look-ahead
distance on climate; unlike previous eras we have the understanding, the tools
and the wealth to give us a chance of anticipating and fending off what the
capricious & chaotic green-man of nature may throw at us. This attempt at manipulating
the natural world, whether that natural world be mother-earth or mother-market
is typical of post agricultural revolution humanity. It is certainly not obvious
to me that either mother-earth or mother- market always have humanity’s best
interests at heart. I’m sure visionary businesses are R&Ding the
sustainable energy question and I’m also sure that the really clued up
businesses aren’t just thinking of efficient use of fossil fuels which even
under the best possible scenarios accumulate CO2 in the atmosphere. Thanks to
information dissemination from those central processors I’ve spoken of, market
buyers & venders are aware of the CO2 accumulation hazard and therefore
those markets will be looking at sustainable and green energy sources. In a
highly competitive market it is in their interest to remain profitable by
getting in tune with and satisfying demand in a culture where climate alarmism
is part of the culture and effects purchasing choices.
James: You said that making a comparison between the “least action” principle of physics and economic heuristics which are guide lines rather than tramlines is strained, and that there isn’t a necessary connection – but again, this is not my position. I said “the natural flow of the economy, when it is operating efficiently, tends towards the path of least effort.” There are two key emphases here – the first is ‘tends’ – that is, it happens often but not always, and the second is ‘when it is operating efficiently’ – that is, assuming resources are being allocated efficiently and prices are in near-equilibrium state. Given the foregoing criteria, it is certainly fruitful to make the comparison. Regarding your concern that in algorithmics the path of least resistance is not necessarily the path that solves a problem, and that greedy algorithms don't look far enough ahead to see that another route, perhaps requiring longer and harder work will get us to a better solution – well, this is a matter of a trade-off. A greedy algorithm isn’t likely to fairly represent the human incentives of billions of people making local-decisions, but local decisions made optimally can approximate a global solution of sorts, if played out close to my 3 maxims. Besides, the solutions are unlikely to be best of all, because we don’t have the time or resources to make them – we have to make them in accordance with beneficial trade-offs. For example, suppose I want to find my ideal house in Pimlico. To find the absolute best house might well involve a search that has costs that make it not worth my effort. So I will trade off maximal effort for a house I like that may not be my ideal house, but an approximation to my ideal. In market-terms, searching for ways to be more efficient – lower overheads, fewer resources used, more efficient allocation of resources, etc - over a longer-term strategy is looking ahead
The goal to reduce energy output can, and has, come in various ways: replacement of human energy for machines, replacement of metal-based technology for higher intensity resources or carbon-based materials, replacement of paper for digital devices, and so forth - and these are improvements in production that naturally improve business's cost-effectiveness. The transition from the paper revolution to the digital one required lots of burning of fossil fuels, equivalent to energy being driven into the system from outside, but all the time that external energy is helping the global economy tend towards a path to least resistance very similar to how thermodynamics operates in the natural world. As the old saying goes, you can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs – and the eggs we've cracked since the Industrial Revolution, while not without some externalities, have done more to improve global standards of living than anything else in human history.
Tim: Let’s give them some credit though: The green-man and the “market-man”, although they both have a capricious streak, have often worked for the good of humanity. But there is no natural law that says this will always be the case. Humanity has to negotiate carefully and intelligently with these two entities if they are to bear fruit; both the green-man and the market-man can be capricious and unpredictable in their behaviour. But the fact is that since the agricultural revolution of 10,000 years ago humanity’s (limited) ability to look-ahead has meant that they often have got the upper hand on the environment. What I would disagree with is that neither mother-nature nor mother-market are both so sacred and holy that we influence their natural behaviour at our peril. There is no inherent immorality or spiritual taboo in influencing these systems: they are not sentient entities like humans and animals but rather insentient mechanisms.
James: Yes, I’d go along with that, but as in my above comments, I’m not saying the market is sacred and holy in terms of a panacea.
Tim: However, they are mechanisms we must treat with respect & intelligence in the face of creeping Marxist thought (re Capitalism) and creeping Gaia thoughts (re mother earth doctrines). Yes we may have to break some ideological eggs and that could sometimes mean challenging extreme libertarian doctrines about the sacredness of mother-market and extreme Gaiaism that seeks to take us back to primitive times under the rubric of “harmony with nature”. The reason why we have made the huge advancements you mention above is because we’ve the audacity to negotiate with the systems around us in order to turn them to our advantage. And we can do that because we have (limited) look-ahead abilities. So either we leave these systems to act out their anarchic & chaotic behaviour and just accept what they throw at us or we eye them up with a mind to influencing them in an intelligent way to human advantage. On the road to riches the market, where decisions tend to be made on the basis of relative immediacy, can be a mechanism that is utterly ruthless; after all it isn’t a sentient mechanism with powers of empathy: For example, the great estates of the 18th century, on the basis of profit, enclosed & farmed common land, making farming more efficient and laid the agricultural foundation for supplying the cities of the industrial revolution with enough food. But the enclosure of common land by the great estates brought poverty to subsistence farmers; Broken eggs! The squalor of the industrial cities entailed suffering among the industrial proletariat: Broken eggs! The suffering of the rural Irish during the potato famine was exacerbated by those who, interpreting Adam Smith too religiously, did nothing because they were sure the invisible hand would eventually bring wealth to all via a “trickle down” effect: Broken eggs!. In this instance the broken eggs were all sentient. The market algorithm was the path of least resistance for some, but for others it was a path of squalor and suffering. The ground work for the onset of Marxism was laid by proletarian poverty and a lack of perceived need to support the poor with some of the profits made and bring them along for the ride rather than letting them break like eggs. Today blinkered marketism is helping to fuel the ire of the “just stop fossils” climate extremists & Marxists.
James: The trouble is, there are a lot of extremist perceptions of the market, that don’t advance the argument well enough, and end up increasing the misperceptions. Regarding the 18th century, where the farming industry was revolutionised; was it perfect? No. Did every human act as efficiently as maximally possible? No. But it’s highly likely that, given their knowledge, capacity and resources of the time, they did about as well as they could have under the conditions. The broken eggs of laying the agricultural foundation for supplying the cities of the industrial revolution with enough food, was probably undertaken fairly well compared with countless alternative horrific outcomes – it was Schumpeter’s gale in action. Not perfect, but perhaps good enough.
On top of how vastly over-exaggerated the government's ability to 'tackle' climate change is, the other issue that needs addressing is the one where climate change alarmists peddle the narrative that the world's poorest people are being drastically hurt by what a thriving global economy is doing to our planet. As I said, where the world's poorest people are in any kind of crisis by climate change, we should be pulling out all the stops to help them. However, the reality is deeper. The world's poorest people's main plights of life are not caused by climate change; they are caused by an inability to participate in a thriving global economy (for all sorts of complex reasons). Most of the things negatively affecting the world's poorest people now - labour hardship, inadequate access to clean drinking water, low life expectancy, children having to be sent to work, subjugation of women, lack of literacy and numeracy, and conflict over hard to acquire resources - were affecting the vast majority of people before the progression-explosion that began about 200 hundred years ago, and has exponentiated ever since. Before the Industrial Revolution, those states of hardships were the natural state of most humans, and had been ever since the evolution of homo sapiens - they are not for the most part plights that have suddenly been caused by climate change.
Tim: I'm sympathetic with that line of reasoning, but with two caveats: 1. As missionary Jim Harries would point out these cultures suffering from climate change are often resistant to the wealth creating methods of the West. Africa in particular suffers from this cultural incommensurability with the West. For example, they may see the green-man as an animistic sentient entity to be appeased and not a mechanism that can be manipulated for human benefit. And as for those market advantages which lead to an overall increase in national wealth but which usually result in a natural differential spreading of this wealth, this can provoke strong jealousies among Africans which in turn leads to the use of witch-craft and/or accusations of witchcraft. These cultural responses have the effect of suppressing those Western go-getting mores. Harries believes that the way out is for these societies to embrace the Christian ethos, an ethos that eventually (but it took time) freed the West from authoritarianism and from binding superstitions. The latter prevented the natural world being thought of in mechanical terms and used to enrich humanity. The individualism unleashed by Luther challenged authoritarianism and paved the way for speculators who had no conscience about manipulating nature and creating profitable businesses. In the meantime it may be necessary for the rich north to carry the poor south until their thinking becomes more “Western”.
James: Yes, I agree with that.
Tim: Here’s the other caveat: Climate change around the equator could be so severe that even with industrial wealth the cost of adapting to a changed equatorial climate is too great. We can see here why some extreme libertarians are motivated to deny anthropogenic climate change theories as they don’t want it to trouble their optimistic belief that the laissez faire market is the best we can do. Once again; this plays into the hands of Marxist and Gaia revolutionaries.
James: Agreed, although as I stated in the article, I myself do not deny the anthropogenic effects on the climate, nor most of the science that forewarns of future problems we’ll need to solve. If you take the overall picture into consideration, those human plights only began to be eradicated precisely when we started to break a few environmental eggs of industry to create the progression explosion that has brought about the diminution of most of those plights for over six eighths of the world's people. That is why the climate alarmists are so misjudged - they've been brought up in a society that has greatly improved its material living standards and well-being from carbon-based innovation - and from the comfort of their own luxury, they are inadvertently doing everything they can to make energy prohibitively expensive for the rest of the developing world still reliant on fossil fuels. The great human progression we've enjoyed couldn't have happened without fossil fuels, and it can't happen for the developing people in the world without fossil fuels because, at this stage of our journey, just about all of our industrial and technological growth and advancements directly or indirectly depends on them.
Tim: Yes, fossil fuel based energy has made us rich but I believe that the other necessary preconditions were the individualism provoked by the protestant revolution and the paradigm that nature is a machine which can be interfered with to the prosperity of humanity; these were quite revolutionary thoughts at the time. The “free-market in thought” takes time to its work. So perhaps, as I’ve said above, the developing world my need carrying for a while. But there is an impasse here: If accumulated CO2 is creating environmental economic stress and yet the only way the developing world can get rich is to use more fossil fuels which entail the accumulation of more atmospheric CO2 there looks to be a self-damping feedback effect at work here which will not necessarily lead to a richer developing world. If this logic is correct, then for me now is the time to use the foothold that fossil fuels have given us to tide us over into a realm of new technology & sustainably generated riches. Let's be ambitious in our vision and not allow the creative urge to be stultified at a time that climatologists tell us is our hour of need. Mother- earth and mother-market are not so sacred that they are beyond human interference.
James: Yes, no problem there. There is still a long way to go, sure - but I hope that will at least offer a slightly broader perspective that factors in the benefits as well for a more balanced view, and gives some exhibition as to why the picture is much bigger than it simply being the case that politicians can 'tackle' climate change with some grand-slam panacea.
Tim: To my mind neither the decentralised processors of the markets nor these big climate talk-ins offer sure fire solutions to those putative climate problems. But given the kind of position I have outlined above then it is clear that I cannot take a principled anti-COP27 position or declare in advance that all government decisions to incentivise R&D into sustainable sources of energy are wrong without exception. Such decisions have each to be judged on their merits and demerits. And let’s recall again that evolution has generated entities that make use of both local and central processing. Those “look-ahead” central processors, such as government funded academia have given is a little more look-ahead time than the average market interlocutor has. So let's use it. In the meantime the atmospheric “differential analyser” tells us that CO2 continues to be accumulated. I personally live in hope that the wild card of increased atmospheric precipitation might damp this process via negative feedback and give us more time (See end note). Perhaps then mother-earth does have some kind of self–regulating mechanism that keeps temperature changes within safe levels. But after looking at some of the climate changes over the last millions of years or so that looks unlikely. Life, however, seems to have adapted and pulled through, but not without a lot of eggs being broken.
END NOTE on Atmospheric precipitation. It’s undoubtedly known from experiment that increasing the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere requires the atmosphere to raise its temperature in order to maintain the radiation output to space at the level required to balance against the heat input from the Sun. So if on this model the atmosphere is a kind of analogue “differential analyser” which accumulates the total CO2 usage, temperature will inevitably go up, although exactly by how much (and with what environmental effect) is subject to uncertainty. Increasing CO2 is in fact a simple additive linear process (like using fuel as you drive) and therefore the increase in C02 isn’t a question of “if” but “by how much?” and “to what effect?” But having said that there is one non-linearity that one hopes might come to the rescue. Increased temperatures entail more ocean evaporation and therefore more precipitation and therefore in turn more atmospheric CO2 scrubbing caused by rainfall through the atmosphere. However, because precipitation is affected by local geography, modelling this effect requires a lot of complex set-up information. So one hopes that the modellers might just have got it wrong and that precipitation has the effect of damping the rise of CO2 via negative feedback; at least to the extent that it give us more time to R&D renewables. But if I, as a non-climatologist, have thought of this one you can be sure the climatologists would have thought about it too and thought about it a lot more and at least tried to model it.
James: I think the upshot of all this is that the complete decarbonisation of society that the climate alarmists demand is a deranged insistence, totally detached from sensible reality – yet it is accepted by politicians as a realistic goal. The world still generates approximately 93% of its energy from CO2-emitting combustion (coal, oil, gas and wood) – yet Net Zero ideology has been blindly adopted by the British establishment, and has even had elements of it enshrined in law, with not a flicker of thought about whether these arbitrary dates are justifiable. What’s more, the even more extreme lunatics who are blocking the roads, vandalising private property and foretelling that climate change will have us all raping and pillaging like some kind of apocalyptic doomsday movie are being handled softly and sympathetically by the mainstream authorities (the police, home office and judges). This is a disgrace.
Tim: In the 1960s and perhaps the 1970s there were worries that fossil fuels would run out and therefore sustainable sources were needed. I think this worry got shelved because new fossil fuel sources were found and/or it was realised that some fossil fuel sources were so big they would take many years to exhaust (coal in particular I think). There was also the early 1970s Club of Rome “Limits of Growth” simulation which set alarm bells ringing. Although the simulation was rather crude by today’s standards it got people thinking about environmental impact of human action. The concern intensified during the 1980s. The book “Earth” by the Ehrlichs is an example (I have a copy). The thinking behind all this is very simple: The exponentials and power laws of human development outstrip the limited resource of the globe.
Human society cannot continue on an indefinitely long period of growth without hitting limits of capital resources and/or environmental saturation. But there are at least four unknowns here causing contention. Unfortunately the desire for certainty abhors a “fact vacuum” and there are any number leftists and rightists who are convinced they’ve got it right. But unknowns are:
1. The rate of growth of human society
2. The limits of the global resources
3. Technological wild cards.
4. Cultural wild cards.
But whatever the uncertainties we now know that there are environmental buffers out there somewhere on the time line if simple extrapolation is carried out.
The “net zero” goal adopted by British politics, whether down to either their good or bad judgement, is all part of our “sustainable growth culture” which is now feeding into current market consciousness and affecting innovators, suppliers and consumers. But I’d agree, at least on the basis of my review of current sustainable energy sources, the 2030 dead line looks unrealistic. But the deadline could work for good in acting as a spur to market developments. The Gaia fanatics and the right-wing climate conspiracy theorists will always be with us. But hopefully they will remain fringe movements.
James: As Bjorn Lomborg points out, “Over the past hundred years, global climate-related deaths have declined by 96%. We used to live in a world where every year half a million people suffered climate-related deaths. This decade 18,000 people died each year.” There is an evident empirical link between increased economic growth and scientific advancement and reduced risk of climate-related – our progression over the past century has equipped us very well in protecting ourselves against changes in the climate and the weather.
Tim: I think it is fairly obvious that our economic development, from the discovery of fire & farming onwards, is based on:
1. Carbon compound + oxygen => Heat + CO2
+ other compounds
2. Clearing natural landscapes for farming.
3. Raiding the environment for resources.
4. The creation of settlements, towns and cities with their many services.
Humans are complex adaptive systems like other organisms but with a twist: Their adaptive method doesn’t just involve adapting their behaviour to the environment, but also extensively adapting the environment around them to their needs and desires and the above activities are all part of that behaviour. This behaviour, needless to say, is going to increase human survivability considerably; after all, implicit in the term “adapt” is the concept of enhanced survivability and especially so if the adapting involves creating your own environment. Human beings are not passive adaptors, rather they are proactive adaptor. There is a lesson for the Gaia revolutionaries there.
Humans involved in the above activities 1 to 5 are going to protect themselves from the rigours of the environment and reduce “death by environment” e.g. intense cold & heat, famine etc.. But there’s a snag:: If humans radically change the environment and consequently increase their breeding coefficients their population will increase and in turn this will fuel further radical changes in the environment- this implies that we have a positive feedback effect here entailing continued growth on a globe with limited resources and imposing limits on growth.
I’m hoping that the wild card of those technological solutions, partly pressured by the effects of both climate concern and “climate alarmism” on the market, will come up trumps, Also it could be, as I’ve already remarked, that the natural world itself could come to our rescue via the damping effects of CO2 scrubbing resulting of increased precipitation. Also, perhaps the onset of a Milankovitch cycle may help. But if its business as usual it looks though the runaway positive feedback of human developmental growth is going start to bump up against those global limit buffers and we are going to see increasing sea levels, droughts, fires, extreme weather events, and floods. These will especially hit the developing world where it is unclear that even live-and-let-live capital resource use will allow them to develop fast enough to adapt to rapidly changing environmental goal posts.
Given the potential for the runaway positive feedback of human development it is no surprise to me that we are caught between environmental alarmism and economic alarmism. These two forms of alarmism are not based on absolute probabilities but rather conditional probabilities. Viz:
Firstly climate alarmism:
PROB (Societal collapse GIVEN runaway climate change) ~ too large for comfort
And the economic alarmism conditional:
PROB (Economic crash GIVEN large climate
spending ) ~ too large for comfort
These two relationships threaten catastrophic outcomes. Although the absolute (i.e. the unconditional) probabilities of these events may be quite small (or more likely unknown) the outcomes, should these conditions be fulfilled, are so apocalyptic that these conditionals receive a lot of attention. It’s vaguely similar to air travel fears: The absolute probability of an air accident is very small, but because such accidents are so catastrophic and play on natural human fears special attention is paid to air safety. Likewise, as the conditionals above pertain to apocalyptic outcomes even a small chance of the conditions promoting them coming about is going to make us sit up and notice.
To my mind it is wrong to view the 96% reduction in environmental deaths as an optimistic sign for the future because such optimism is based on business as usual scenarios. The positive feedback cycle of human development could well be creating entirely new one-off conditions as development effects hit global limits. Even if technological or environmental wild cards come to the rescue these one-off “black swan” eventualities cannot be embraced by implicitly extrapolating from the 96% statistic of the last 100 years in order to raise our confidence. The last 100 years wasn’t faced with the prospect of hitting growth limits. So “our progression over the past century has equipped us very well in protecting ourselves against changes in the climate and the weather” may not equip us for a future environmental black swan event and may only be ameliorated by technological and/or environmental black swans. Innovators of technological black swans may be encouraged by government mandates even if the mandates are unrealistic.
James: I agree that the 96% reduction is not a surefire guarantee that we are equally equipped for the future, with possible big changes in population size and resource consumption. But humans are smart, adaptive creatures (whatever the conditions so far), and I see no reason to not be optimistic going forward too. There just aren't enough sensible minds with balance around at the minute. British politics and its media have been taken over by climate lunacy, to the extent that our youth are scared for the future of their survival, and many young adults are starting to believe that they maybe shouldn’t have children, and that humanity is one big scourge on this otherwise fine planet. These are entitled, craven people who have no perspective on how much the industrial revolution has done for humanity, and how much sweat, toil and innovation has gone before them to give them the relatively comfortable life they have today.
Tim: Yes the climate change lobby has its lunatic fringe. I even heard of one of these Gaia revolutionaries suggesting that humanity should make itself extinct. But then set against this is the conspiracy fantasies of the far-right and their climate hoax theories. I comfort myself with the thought that the lunatic fringe is just that, a fringe and consequently, hopefully, will remain a minority opinion. But then I think Donald Trump, Marjorie Taylor Green and Steve Bannon……
James: The progression-explosion and increased life expectancy that humans have enjoyed has been primarily due to capitalism and science, and the engine that runs both those advancements is a carbon-based system. In other words, it is because we gave so many people access to so much potential (driven by access to so much energy) that we so greatly enhanced the quality of life of the human species. It is beyond foolish to be so ignorant of this fact that you take to the streets or to the stage and demand that everything running on carbon-based energy must come to an end in a few decades.
Tim: No disputing that world wealth has been and continues to be based on CO2 emitting fuels. But because of the black swans simple extrapolation of past socio-economic successes may not work. OK, the climate models might be wrong (And I hope to God they are), but really using climate models with their big error bars is one things whereas placing one’s hope in the simple extrapolation of the absolutely unpredictable vicissitudes of politico-socio-economic trends quite another! Complex adaptive systems that have a chance of reading the future have a better chance of survival then those who assume live-and-let-live libertarian attitudes are humanity’s best bet
James: That's a strawman of the argument - no one is saying here that simplistic "live-and-let-live libertarian" approaches are the solution. It's way more complex than that. One big issue is that green energy simply won’t be able to replace carbon energy in such a short time, and ranting about it to politicians who are not even competent enough to manage their own country won’t make a blind bit of difference to this fact. Moreover, the developing world is not in as well-off a position as countries like UK – they still need more carbon energy in order to lift people out of the developing world and into the developed world. We need to use market-based incentives to usher in the technology that will enable us to wean ourselves off an over-reliance on carbon-based energy – and in doing so we’ll naturally incentivise the big polluting nations to switch too.
Tim: Yes I fear you a right about green energy. Ironically, however, the impossible targets may impact markets and speed up those technological developments; but will those developments be fast enough? We really are in cleft stick with the developing world: They need carbon energy and yet it’s not been shown that burning lot’s more fossil fuel is environmentally safe for a world that depends on a stable environment. Will burning more carbon based fuel raise the developing world out of poverty of will they either drown or burn?
James: Bjorn Lomborg highlights the exorbitant costs associated with this - “The German government, for example, plans to spend €40 billion ($44 billion) over four years to help the country cut its carbon dioxide emissions. Such measures will likely reduce the global rise in temperature by 0.00018°C in a hundred years – an immeasurably small gain for such a huge cost. By contrast, spending the same amount on preventing tuberculosis in developing countries could save more than ten million lives. Similarly, New Zealand’s government has promised to achieve net-zero CO₂ emissions by 2050. But a government-commissioned report found that the cost of meeting this goal would be greater than the entire current national budget, every single year – and that’s a best-case scenario that assumes policies are implemented as efficiently as possible. Likewise, Mexico’s pledge to halve its emissions by 2050 will likely cost 7-15% of GDP. And the European Union’s plan to reduce emissions by at least 80% by 2050 could entail average annual costs of at least $1.4 trillion. This money could be far better spent – not only on preventing tuberculosis, but also on immunization, infant nutrition, improved access to family planning, and many other development priorities."
Tim: Yes, maybe. I can’t deny or confirm those statistics from my own knowledge. I would have more trust in Lomborg’s figures if it wasn’t part of what appears to be his career package deal which includes denial of climate change predictions. Lomborg’s statistics may well be correct but there is no logically obliging reason why these statistics should go together with a climate model that is wrong. Is Lombord using a belt and braces argument to support a hidden forgone ideology? And if the climate models are wrong where does 0.00018°C in a hundred years come from? The impossibility of exorbitant climate expenditure is an argument that stands by itself. And what mechanism is going to drive tuberculosis suppression and the like in developing countries? The market? Government cash injections? What if market mechanisms in the developing countries are too slow in developing? Developing countries tend to have authoritarian regimes that are suspicious of the rich entrepreneurs needed to innovate and develop their markets. As I keep saying the developing world has a cultural inertia that impedes a successful industry and market.
James: What I've been trying to iterate and reiterate in my blogs is that activity that increases human living standards and economic growth are also mostly climate-improving policies too, because making us better off materially and scientifically also makes us better off environmentally. As we keep increasing our knowledge, our technology and our research, we will have no trouble substituting fossil fuels for green energy by making it more economically efficient to do so. That is, it is our collective ingenuity that will bring the cost of green energy below fossil fuels, and incentivise everyone to switch to greener technology of their own volition. By then we will have wasted trillions on green technology that was ushered in way ahead of its time (as we already have), at a point where it was relatively more costly to do so.
Tim: I have little faith in a short sighted market, a market without the influence of climate concern, to make sufficient energy enhancements: At this juncture efficiency isn’t what is needed but a qualitative quantum leap in energy sources, See Section01/Tim02 where I pointed out the problems with a blinkered market incapable of making the leaps required. But if the market gets an enhanced vision of what is needed in terms of the required qualitative change in energy sources that may bring us results. This enhanced vision can only come through centralised information processors and disseminators. Take for example JCB who have reacted to the climate concern of the market with their hydrogen ICE research which appears to have fixed one small problem. True it’s only a link in the chain but it gives me some confidence about what focussed visionary minds can do; such a departure wouldn’t spontaneously arise out of “business as usual” libertarian values
James: It is not a market without the influence of climate concern - it is primarily a market that is more incentivised than anyone else to produce the right kinds of energy, with the right technology available, with the most efficient use of resources at the right price. Nobody is more incentivised to do this than those with their own capital invested in the ventures. One of the many aspects of short-sightedness with climate change alarmism is the lazy error of projecting present day limitations onto future predictions – it’s one of the most misjudged things we do. Matt Ridley puts it well in The Rational Optimist:
“Futurology always ends up telling you more about your own time than about the future. H.G. Wells made the future look like Edwardian England with machines; Aldous Huxley made it feel like 1920s New Mexico on drugs; George Orwell made it sound like 1940s Russia with television. Even Arthur C. Clarke and Isaac Asimov, more visionary than most, were steeped in the transport-obsessed 1950s rather than the communication-obsessed 2000s. So in describing the world of 2100, I am bound to sound like somebody stuck in the world of the early twenty-first century, and make laughable errors of extrapolation.”
Tim: That’s true enough. But when it comes to Ridley there is always a “but” for me, in fact a big “but” he looks to be part of a right-wing tribal interest group. I’m suspicious of him because he’s got a package deal philosophy.
James: That might be your high neuroticism at play here, haha! Ridley's not without flaws, but he seems to be on the right side of this argument. Ridley aside, though, just as we can do things in the present that the people of past decades with cruder technology wouldn’t even be able to conceive, similarly, and to an ever greater extent, there will be future advancements so prodigious that our descendants won’t even consider many of our present concerns as problems. There’ll be machines that can solve pretty much any technological or scientific problem on earth that nature throws at us. We will be able to harness energy in ways that make our fossil fuel industry seem relatively backward; we will be able to manipulate matter in ways that seem nigh-on unfathomable now; we’ll have the computational capacity to create things that can create themselves through spontaneous order; we’ll have robots that can do pretty much anything humans don’t like doing or find dangerous or prohibitive – the list goes on. Just as has happened in every decade that has passed, our challenges against nature’s challenges diminish as we come up with solutions, and that will continue to happen at an even greater rate. Climate change is a phenomenon that will yield positives as well as negatives. The positives will be of benefit to most of the regions currently too cold for thriving societies, and the negatives are going to be well within our grasp to solve, as we continue to become richer, enjoy higher living standards, and become more materially prosperous in just about every way.
Tim: If the climate simulations are right then a period of climate stability could be ending and we are facing a one-off that modern society hasn’t experienced before. A market awash with wealth but without the requisite tailored technological solutions to help it adapt to those moving environment goal posts will find its wealth is useless. It’s a race between developing the right kind of technology and the environmental changes. Which will win? I don’t know. But one thing is clear: Just having huge warehouses spilling over with gold and jewels is ineffectual; extrapolating the riches we’ve; gained during a period of relative stability and hoping it will all come out in the wash is a high risk strategy; Some of society’s riches must be invested in tailored solution addressing the problems in hand.
James: Rest assured, that is already happening.
Section 2
James: When dealing with climate alarmists, I give them a little four part test I've devised. This is the very least they have to do before they even begin to talk about making any kind of positive influence on the climate change situation:
1) Give us a proper, comprehensive cost-benefit analysis of the present relationship between industrialised human progress and its effects on the environment, showing why the resultant analysis yields a net cost against the industrialised human progress in favour of a radical interventionist alternative.
2) Given the efficacy of number 1, propose a practical, realistic method of implementation of a series of mitigating actions within the current technological capacities, stating timescales, expected empirical results, and why this series of actions won't knock on to have a net detrimental effect on the positive elements of human progress we are trying to sustain.
3) Given the combined efficacy of 1 and 2, present an empirically demonstrable, fully costed plan of action, explaining how this allocates the required resources more efficiently than the market, and how the leading two dozen world economies can best come together to achieve this without it having a net negative economic impact on their citizens.
4) Given the combined efficacy of 1, 2 and 3, justify why all these impediments to market growth won't have a net detrimental effect on the developing world - on the planet's poorest billion people, who most urgently need a global, industrial market in which to participate, to help them climb the ladder of prosperity.
I then say to them; if you looked at this four-part challenge and thought it looks prohibitively hard, and that it is beyond your ability, then you should stop making any more unsubstantiated claims about climate change, because the chances are you really don't know what you're talking about. You can be forgiven for that, of course - I've been studying this subject for a while now, and the most I've been able to conclude is that a lot more epistemic humility is needed in trying to solve environmental problems - and that most of the time, the suggested solutions are probably a lot worse than not implementing them at all. The subject is so complex, multifaceted, and epistemologically intractable that most people haven't even apprised themselves of the basics, let alone put themselves in a position to be a wider force for good with suggested radical changes and political policy improvements.
Tim: So, implicit in your challenge is the assumption that you are addressing an antagonist who is thinking from a command-economy perspective, which may well be true if you are dealing with someone on the far -left. But since a Marxist revolution doesn’t look eminent (God forbid!) what is happening in actuality is that we are seeing proactive adaptation taking place within the Government regulated market system we are familiar with. As I say to conspiracy theorists, in a chaotic world humans cannot plan (except tentatively) but instead ADAPT to changing circumstances as those circumstances come up. And it helps the adaptive response if, as per good climate models we can see a little further into the future than would otherwise be the case. I do not see the current responses as planned responses; rather they adaptive responses to circumstances we can see developing with a reasonable probability: it’s like bringing the washing in when one can see rain clouds looming. Therefore the best way for the leading economies is not to do nothing and hope that it will all come out in the market wash, but to realise that the market isn’t merely a passive adapter but a proactive adaptor.
James: I reject the notion that 'doing nothing' is what is being contended. There is an economic approach to climate change, and an environmentalist approach (with lots of overlap, of course), and while the latter group purport to be the ethical, principled group, it is actually the other way around. The economic analysis of environmentalism starts by understanding how complex the subject is, and it tries to ask all the right questions in order to perceive possible problems and possible solutions. It undertakes a proper cost-benefit analysis of pollution; it understands why we pollute, what other options we have and don’t have; it tries to figure out what an optimal level of pollution might be; and it concerns itself with the best way to deal with pollution. The economic analysis is the only one that can hope to find out which perceived pollution problems really are problems and which are not; which confer a net benefit on society; which pollutions we should do nothing about, which we should penalise and which we should try to discontinue altogether.
The environmentalist analysis considers none of these things – it takes a moral position that pollution is bad, that failing to deal with it is morally wrong, and that we should do whatever is necessary to eliminate carbon. This is a foolish methodology, and in no other empirical discipline would something like this be tolerated. Imagine if an environmentalist felt unwell, and went to hospital, and the doctor said “Hey, we are going to perform a major operation on you. We don’t entirely understand what’s wrong with you, or if the operation will have any long term negative effects on your health, but we think it may make you better long term”. Such a judgement would rightly be seen as ludicrous by our environmentalist. Yet that is the same kind of judgement they are willing to make with billions of pounds of money that could be spent on reducing poverty, on creating jobs that provide value, on helping developing nations trade, and on providing the world with cheaper, more affordable food and energy. The unintended consequences of environmentalism will be costly and tragic.
Tim: Yes I think I would largely agree. Those you refer who see “pollution” as simply morally wrong and ignore the cost-benefit balance are probably those I’ve identified as “Gaia revolutionaries”, an extreme example being the guy who was reported as proposing that the human race should make itself extinct! (Sounds like an example of Poe’s law!). It’s ironic that those who are seriously involved in the economic approach can be just as much environmentally concerned as anyone else. However the concerns of climate concern remain: What will be the cost of sea level rise, extreme heat and extreme weather events? Will technology and wealth keep up? Conversely the concerns of economic alarmism also remain: What will be the cost of trying to proactively adapt to the moving goal posts of a changing environment?
James: Here's an amazing thing to ponder. None of the great human qualities and ideas - language, art, literature, morality, philosophy, even Christianity - explain the progression-explosion from successful survival machines to thriving humans with the advancements of today. What caused the upward surge of well-being of the past 150 years, in sharp contrast to the past 150,000 years of poverty and hardship that preceded it, was the increased ability to trade and to mass populate, both of which underpinned by our ability to mass communicate - to share ideas, knowledge and innovations in trial and error fashion.
Tim: Christianity may actually have had a role here: Starting with Henry II’s legal reforms, through the Magna Carta, the 1258 provisions of Oxford, the Reformation, Francis Bacon, Isaac Newton, the English Civil War, and the Enlightenment. I suspect all these fed into the belief in a regular mechanical universe and individualism of the Market entrepreneurial spirit which help pave the way for industrialisation.
James: Yes, I wouldn't wish to gainsay the idea that they fed into the narrative. If environmentalists really do want to advance good things for the environment, and everyone in it, they should be embracing the above market-led mechanisms of greater freedom to share ideas, to cooperate, and to maximise growth and innovation, because that is what really will do the trick better than anything else. It isn’t just the case that freedom to exchange ideas leads to the greatest progress and increased standards of living - there is a converse effect that bad ideas, foolish political agendas and widespread misinformation makes progress harder and increased standards of living more protracted. Here’s why. As populations increase and become more widely interconnected, and as thoughts and ideas become less centralised in a decentralising nexus, the rate of idea-sharing increases, the power of communication and knowledge advances, and progress looks more like an exponential curve. But when bad ideas pollute the epistemological landscape, and sub-standard reasoning muddies the waters, diversity of thinking is narrowed and propagated, and there is a clustering effect that creates choke points within the landscape of ideas and knowledge. Bad ideas don't just pollute the inner mind; they pollute the landscape for outer minds too, as concentrations of tribal thinking lead the in-group members astray, but also gravitationally attract outsiders who begin with ambivalence, but are looking for somewhere to belong, however foolish and damaging it may be.
Tim: The irony here is that I see environmentalism, in its vary degrees, blends and shades as all part of the very process you refer to as the freedom to exchange ideas. That freedom will entail, as is the natural state of human affairs, the overhead of many bad ideas and these too will get their space in the ongoing debates of an Open Society. So whilst you and I agree that our society must be open enough for allow a free exchange of ideas this will mean taking the rough with the smooth. This is the overhead of an Open Society.
But this brings us to this juncture: Who or what gets to implement the ideas? Yes the market is one of those agents – as we have seen the market is already influenced by climate ideas and responding accordingly. But the market does have limits: as I said earlier, unless it is well informed about the latest effects on the environment the market could conceivably blithely dig itself into an environmental hole until it’s too late. But by far and away the biggest limitation of the market is to do with political power. It is the natural state of human affairs to have in its midst those with imperial ambitions and fantasies who will try to maximise their power over other human beings. In fact the market itself can help put into positions of power the wrong sort of people; Viz: If a market is allowed to just let rip those wealth distribution power laws can, without legal regulation, lead to plutocracies and oligarchies that, ironically, in the long run are not good news for the free market itself. The market is a very useful social tool that we do well to use but it lacks the facility for its own self-conscious regulation of power abuse. Letting the market just rip in the hope that it acts as a problem panacea where all our problems will come out in the wash isn’t realistic. The market can’t provide the Open Government needed to keep despotic government out of office. (e.g. The Putins, the Xis The Trumps, the Marjorie Taylor-Greens and the like). Open Government fills a vacuum that despotic government is always seeking to fill. The politics of power, status, conquest, victory over enemies and what-have-you has a worryingly addictive quality which probably means that the politics of self-glory will always trump economic realities. In the 18th Century the British fantasised about becoming a liberal international free market empire, but due to exigencies of conquest, war and international competition with the French, its empire eventually morphed into the standard empire of rule by military conquest and political guile. Politics comes first, economics comes a poor second.
Therefore given that we can’t do away with strong and probably ramifying central government even if we’d like to, we might as well make use of Open Government as a forum and gateway for discussion, innovation, new ideas and a central disseminator of information. The agreement theorem is a lower limit on the time and effort needed to reach truth, a lower limit to which we must factor in the mix of attitude, epistemic and complexity challenges found in the real world. Despotic government on the other hand simplifies those challenges and imposes its own “truth”.
James: Lest we forget, though, that the numbers are not exactly chicken feed: the climate change industry is apparently worth over $1.5 trillion. The climate change alarmists' assumption is that because climate change is an emergency, we should be risk-averse, and risk-aversion here means spending more money and resources on tackling climate change in the here and now. But this is faulty reasoning, because risk-aversion should primarily focus on the world’s biggest risks - and the biggest risk of all is not that future (richer) generations will be born into a warmer climate, it is that present (poorer) people are going to be born in a poverty-stricken state where they can’t afford access to cheap, necessary, dependable energy. The way to be rationally risk-averse is to help poorer people become more prosperous - not adopt short-sighted climate change policies that make energy unaffordable for those that need it most.
Tim: To me climate change looks to be a here-and-now problem, at least in perception; so much so in fact that it appears to be driving a $1.5 trillion industry! And I’d guess that the market has caught this infectious meme from the environmentalists! In any case it seems that we are already in a warmer climate (for whatever reason), not just from the news put out by climate researchers but also from the evidence of one’s own senses.Let me be frank: In my mind I see us caught between climate alarmism and economic alarmism and I personally I can’t resolve the apparent balance of probabilities here in favour of one or the other and therefore I see climate and the plight of the poor as two side by side risks and moreover connected risks: Climate change is going to affect the global poor faster and greater than the global rich because of: a) By and large having a closer proximity to the equator b) Having a cultural inertia whic impedes industrialisation and slows the response to climate change.
But yes, the poor need affordable energy and the renewable sources don’t yet look ready to supply that affordable energy. Compounding the problem for the poor is that their population weighting leans toward those regions that are most likely to feel the worst effects of climate change. How all this is going to resolve itself I’ve no idea and I don’t see one risk as having an obvious rational precedence over the other. Even if we neglect the carbon energy risk it is far from clear how even without this constraint the poor can be quickly helped remembering how long it took for Western culture to successfully evolve its mechanical concept of nature, its open government/society and its open market as opposed to “the dictatorship of the proletariat”, not to mention the far-right with their wannabe dictators & plutocrats in their midst. Yes the third world may get there in the end, but how long? And will development be quick enough in the race against climate change? The only adaptive route through is that we continue to use carbon energy where its cessation would bring about grinding poverty but in parallel continue the sustainable energy research driven by a combination of government, academia and the market.
James: This leaves those who think we are 'destroying the planet' with a big problem, because the only way to bring an end to global poverty and help the neediest people out of their plight is to help those people attain economic freedom, and the ability to trade, be self-sufficient, and productive in the broader market economy. And, of course, the only realistic way to achieve this is to generate the kind of industry and globalised expansion of the market that will come at the cost of using some of the earth's natural resources.
Tim: I assume by the earth's natural resources you mean the Earth’s non-renewable natural resources? See my last comments on that question. The big question here is how to help those poor nations? The effects of long embedded cultural thought forms may not favour free market individualism and the instrumentalist thinking that are a prerequisite for a thriving industry. So it may take a long time for such to develop in more backward regions. Exactly how the prosperous West can help to improve development time is a vexed question. According to Jim Harries Africans see and covet the wealth of the West but apparently have difficulties in understanding the culture needed for Western methods to run successfully in a society. Letting loose a free market in these cultural backwaters will not mean that the impediments to wealth will simply come out in the laissez faire wash; the cultural prerequisites for a thriving industrial society with an open government simply aren’t well developed enough to get the laws of the market working quickly. We are back to the same question here: Given its cultural impediments will the developing world develop fast enough even if they liberally use carbon energy to then be in a position to address the effects of climate change?
James: The upshot is, in the short-term future, to eradicate global poverty entirely, we're going to have to carrying on making the best use of the earth's raw materials. Like most things, there's a trade off, and it is thanks to the use of the earth's resources, particularly since the Industrial Revolution, that we've moved the human condition from a state of widespread poverty to a state of greatly reduced poverty and much more prosperity. Of course there's still a way to go, but as the developing world countries increase their infrastructure and market potential, they are going to be using the most ecologically efficient technology - so there is every reason to continue to develop and pioneer more environmentally efficient methods of industry.
Tim: I assume by best use of the earth's raw materials you are referring to carbon resources that, of course, are still widely used. As I’ve already said unless the market is primed with a new vision it is not clear that it drifts toward optimum efficiency in the use of resources because of the “greedy algorithm” affect. But even if the market in the developed world has sufficient vision to invest a little harder in less greedy algorithms I would say yet again: It is not clear whether developing nations can develop fast enough even if they continue to burn capital carbon, (let alone develop green technologies) to catch up with changing environmental goal posts.
James: Be careful, though - remember, for developing nations to adapt fast enough, they need access to cheap carbon-based resources in order to have their own progression explosion. They are not going to do it any other way. Remember, realistically, the other things that are the biggest ingredients in achieving this - free trade, healthy imports/exports, high employment, sensible and equitable government spending, a good legal system, cultural plurality, immigration, global travel, welfare systems, human rights, property rights, family rights, and being freer citizens – are going to have an environmental cost that is more than compensated for by the good it will do for the neediest people in the world.
Tim: Well yes I would certainly agree with those open society values: they act as the grease lubricating the wheels of market and industry. But, and yes there is a big “but”; those values are not exactly axiomatic and they are not easily grafted on to second and third world contexts. China seems to have twigged that industry and the market are good but it is not exactly an example of an open society. China’s current dictator Xi has said that China is proof that it is possible to modernise without “Westernising” and by the latter he means of course China is not an open society.
Using market dynamics China aims to open the Silk Road in order to enhance trade and become rich. The aim, it seems, is based on the truism that wealth is a means of power and domination. That’s a reminder that unless and open government is already in place, pure capitalism with its power law distribution of wealth has the potential to lead to a plutocracy. But in the very human grab for power and status plutocrats have a tendency to close down other plutocrats and thereby the effectiveness of industry and market: This is an internal contradiction of capitalism if it is not regulated.
James: Sure, but again, no one is arguing that capitalism is not regulated. Be careful you don't set up another strawman. Here's something you'll never hear a green person say. They'll never say that the only way to bring an end to global poverty and help the neediest people out of their plight is to help those people attain economic freedom, and the ability to trade, be self-sufficient, and productive in the broader market economy. That's because the only realistic way to achieve this is to generate the kind of industry and globalised expansion of the market that will increase global emissions and our carbon footprint, which comes at the cost of not preserving the natural world as well as we’d like. The upshot is, in the short-term future, to end global poverty we're going to have to increase our environmental damage, not reduce it. Of course, as third world countries increase their infrastructure and market potential, they are largely going to be using the most ecologically efficient technology, so there is every reason to continue to develop and pioneer more environmentally efficient methods of industry.
Tim: I’d guess that many an agitating left-winger has co-opted climate change to support their grievances, putting it down as another ill of capitalism in order to bolster their case for the revolution! But the case for capitalism isn’t going to be made if the West’s version of capitalism fails to get the right balance between individualism and community service. Market aficionados are going to have to make their peace with at least the moderate to middling left wingers and vice versa. The ugly features of capitalism such as plutocrats like Donald Trump, QAnon theorists like Marjorie Taylor Greene, Russian Oligarchs, slum landlords and greedy market algorithms that continue regardless of the societal damage caused by changing environmental goal posts must be remedied if you want to curb the excesses of Marxist and the Gaia revolutionaries. The grievances of latter are fuelled by appearance & myths: Slum landlords & careless plutocrats feed into these appearances and myths.
It is certainly not at all clear to me that allowing the world’s carbon footprint to increase will necessarily entail an increase in standards of living of the poorer countries. Yet again: The rate of development of the developing world, even if they use unrestricted carbon energy may be too small to offset those socially damages shifting environmental goal posts. Especially so if greedy market algorithms are locked in by a lack of market vision that fails to look just a little further ahead. And I repeat yet again the market does not necessarily develop the most ecologically efficient technology if greedy algorithms are not replaced by less greedy algorithms; i.e. I don’t see that third world countries increase their infrastructure and market potential, they are largely going to be using the most ecologically efficient technology but I certainly do agree that: there is every reason to continue to develop and pioneer more environmentally efficient methods of industry.
James: Well, instead of just asking “How can we best reduce our carbon footprint?”, a better question is; “How can we best cope with the fact that our increased technology and a wider market economy has environmental costs as well as all the benefits it confers?” Stirring up people to become too obsessed with reducing emissions often causes them to be less mindful of coping with the costs of our increased technology and a wider market economy, which then has the concomitant danger of causing them to be less mindful of the immeasurably more good that increased technology and a wider market economy does for the world’s neediest people.
Tim: For me environmental disturbance by humanity is less an issue than the economic costs of changing environmental goal posts: In the former case changing human activity is encroaching on the environment, something it has done for thousands of years. But in the latter case it’s the other way round: a changing environmental is adversely disturbing the human domain. Here’s an example to illustrate the difference
Avid environmentalists are squeamish about connecting Norwich’s north and south by-passes because of damage to the Wensum valley’s ecology. But then as I’ve said this environmental encroachment has been the norm with humanity for thousands of years, especially in the British Isles which at one time would have been thick with forests and woodland. Set against the environmental damage caused by the proposed road link are the economic benefits of enhanced transport. In fact it may also have the environmental upside in that it could cut congestion and emissions because road transport is more fuel efficient.
Now, compare the foregoing normative proactive human activity with a “proactive” environment: Assuming for the sake of argument that climate projections are right then rising sea levels would, if allowed to continue eventually flood Norwich and Yarmouth: This rising sea level may well happen at a rate too fast for the normal economic activity of humanity to adapt to it thereby entailing huge costs and hardship; potentially it’s a disaster.
One reason why Western society has prospered is because the environment has been relatively stable during the time of its rise. Consequently, humanity has had the time and space to sit back and think about how it can make itself richer rather than scratch out a survival level subsistence. But as we know from the events of 536 AD, the environment can turn against humanity. So as I see it, now is the time to use the riches trading has generated to put aside some insurance money for potential disasters like meteor strikes, sea level rise and atmospheric heating. The ultimate aim is for humanity to control the climate.
James: It's one of the aims, but as I've said repeatedly - controlling the effect of climate change on humans will be an auxiliary benefit that will likely happen alongside the stupendous technological and economic progressions that will keep occurring at an even greater rate as we go forward. Climate change alarmists peddle the narrative that the world's poorest people are being drastically hurt by what a thriving global economy is doing to our planet. But the world's poorest people's main plights of life are not caused by climate change, they are caused by an inability to participate in a thriving global economy (for all sorts of complex reasons). What you have to realise is that most of the things negatively affecting the world's poorest people now - labour hardship, inadequate access to clean drinking water, low life expectancy, children having to be sent to work, subjugation of women, lack of literacy and numeracy, and conflict over hard to acquire resources - were affecting the vast majority of people before the progression-explosion that began about 150 hundred years ago, and has exponentiated ever since. Before the Industrial Revolution they were the natural state of most humans, and had been ever since the evolution of homo sapiens - they are not for the most part plights that have suddenly been caused by climate change. In fact, if you take the overall picture into consideration, those human plights only began to be eradicated precisely when we started to break a few environmental eggs of industry to create the progression explosion that has brought about the diminution of most of those plights for over six eighths of the world's people.
Tim: Yes I agree that the world’s poor are missing out on the benefits of a market, industrialised, secularised economy: And again: Among those complex reasons are undoubtedly numerous inhibiting cultural reasons like authoritarian governments and the superstitions which are rife in Africa. I also agree that the breaking of a few environmental eggs is not necessarily a bad thing as is clear in the case of the UK where the landscape is by and large a product of human activity, deforesting & farming in particular – clearly the latter was a condition for the industro-commercial revolution and the huge consequent increase in the standard of living.
James: Increased carbon emissions make the planet greener and warmer, which will have some costs and some benefits. Land that's too cold will become more fertile, cheaper food will become in greater supply, fewer pensioners will die of the cold, work that's usually delayed by freezing cold weather will not be any longer - in fact, the benefits of global warming consist not just of all the carbon-based benefits the world has enjoyed, but in all the improvements that occur by the world being less cold. How do those benefits measure up against the cost of warming - things like rising sea levels, more turbulent weather in some areas, and areas being too warm for easy survival? Nobody knows - really, they don't have a clue. The measurements are too complex, and like the weather, the further forward we go where we have sensitivity to initial conditions, the harder still it is to predict with any degree of accuracy. I have no objection to the notion that some of the scientific predictions may come to pass - but even if they all come to pass, nobody has the first clue about the economic culminations, the technological advancements, and how our future selves will be equipped to respond.
Tim: if we just focus on those assumed market driven technological advancements (leaving aside the questions of geopolitics) why not include the technology which may emerge to help scrub CO2 from the atmosphere? Unless we are live-and-let-live libertarians why assume that the economic riches of the market are confined to passive adaptation to the environment and not also a proactive adaptation.
James: Yes, I agree - and this already happening with some of today's incredible technology. Remember, economic growth has more resources to fund these things in the future, even if the state is involved in some of it. There are certain, immense benefits to our industrial activity, some certain costs, some other probable costs and some other probable benefits - and anyone who tells you they've figured out the net costs and benefits for the next few decades in this complex equation of numerous unknowns is being dishonest and somewhat delusional. Maybe we should confer tax breaks to the biggest carbon emitting businesses, not tax penalties. It sounds absurd, and perhaps it is, but it may not be. Our industrial and technological revolutions have conferred so many benefits on the planet that it seems riskier to punish and discourage them than to encourage them, as long as we ensure that negative externalities are penalised whenever the action is efficient. And as we saw earlier it's no use saying we don't know so we'd better act just in case. We might be insuring against some future costs by acting, but we might be missing opportunities by acting; carbon taxes may be a premium against future costs but tax breaks may be a subsidy that insures against the risk of not maximising the benefits of carbon emissions - it is very hard to ay which is right.
Tim: I very much agree that there have been and will likely continue to be immense benefits to our industrial activity, especially so in a context where the market can operate. I don’t regard climate change as a complete unknown (although as I’ve already said it is just conceivable that increasing temperatures which have the effect of increasing overall precipitation, which in turn increases CO2 scrubbing is a sufficiently self-damping process). I have too much respect for climatologists to write-off changing environmental goal posts as a bland “we don’t know”. Yes, it is hazardous making predictions about the climate but predicting socio-politico-economic systems is a much darker art!
At the very least climatologists have assigned elevated probabilities to those changing environmental goal posts. As a result it is ironic that doubts about the human ability to adapt at sufficient speed to those moving environmental goal posts are now part of our market culture & values and therefore influencing buying. Viz: The market appears to be buying into the environmental-control-by-CO2-scrubbing scenario because the balance of probabilities is weighing in favour of those goal posts moving too rapidly for a passive market unconscious of the environment to adjust to the change; that is, the market is opting for proactive adaptation over a passive “hope for the best” adaptation.
James: The upshot of all this is that when the state intervenes to mitigate the extent to which humans pollute, the intervention will only be beneficial if it outweighs the costs of intervention - and my instinct is it usually does not. With carbon tax, politicians are trying to prevent future damage by minimising present benefits. But if present and future benefits of pollution outweigh present and future costs - and it seems pretty certain that they do (by a long way) - we should carry on enjoying them, and taxes and regulations imposed upon industrial activity are more harmful than good. This is what is meant by maximising utility - net benefits outweigh net costs.
Tim: Given the chaotic and unpredictable nature of socio-politico-economics I would use your phrase “it is very hard to say which is right” when it comes to weighing the costs of government incentives against future benefits: My intuitions leave me cold on this question and I can’t be as certain as you that the balance is in favour of the government doing nothing. I agree, however, that political interventions, especially if they have their origins in inflexible “catch all” ideological considerations (such as Brexit purism*), can end up taking us just where we don’t want to be economically. So, yes, those interventions could well come to grief. But in this case it looks to me more like gesture politics where the government walks in front of and in the same direction as market trends thus effectively becoming the leader of the trend. That, I suppose, is how democracy works. Capitalism is about investment in anticipated market trends; Therefore if government wants to influence investment which favours market based projects aimed at proactive adaptation of the environment to human needs that sounds like capitalism to me whether for good or ill. I hope it pays off.
James: Our science, technology and market activity are already making huge differences, and they are the progression trinity that will ultimately bring about the future changes needed. The entire nexus of the global economy is a physical system which is all the time tending towards the principle of maximum efficiency. Although carbon taxes bring in revenue for politicians short-term (for a few decades maybe), the long-term indicators are that the market left to run by itself will naturally make us greener anyway. The reason being: businesses are already looking for the most efficient means of supplying customers using as little energy as possible, because in a highly competitive market it is in their interest to do so to remain profitable. The goal to reduce energy output has already come in various ways: replacement of human energy for machines, replacement of metal-based technology for higher intensity resources or carbon-cased materials, replacement of paper for digital devices, and so forth – and these are improvements in production that naturally improve business’s cost-effectiveness.
Tim: Fortunately in a real socio-politico-economic environment the market is never that myopic: The market is capable of listening to other voices, (even the voices of the just-stop oil fanatics) and this affects buying, selling and innovation. For all we know a market tuned into a more proactive adaptive edge may well leap frog “just keep oil” vested interests and bring us to more sustainable energy sources. I don’t equate “efficiency” with “let’s keep burning carbon as efficiently as possible”. However, I do accept that the way forward may well include the need to continue with carbon capital resources in order to finance the research needed for an ultimate swap to sustainable energy sources. For example: The industrialised nations are now rich enough to put a considerable investment into fusion energy research and other sustainable resources.
James: Re "I don’t equate “efficiency” with “let’s keep burning carbon as efficiently as possible” - well no, but I have not said that. The transition from the paper revolution to the digital one, for example, required lots of burning of fossil fuels, equivalent to energy being driven into the system from outside, but all the time that external energy is helping the global economy tend towards a path to least resistance very similar to how thermodynamics operates in the natural world. As the old saying goes, you can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs - and the eggs we've cracked since the Industrial Revolution, while not without some externalities, have done more to improve global standards of living than anything else in human history.
Not only is it the case that the climate change alarmists are trying to kill the geese that are laying the golden eggs that really are sorting out the problems they want to solve, the situation is even worse. The policies they are instituting to fight climate change are doing mass harm around the world, especially in the world's poorest countries. It's basic econ 101 that the cheaper and more readily available food and fuel is to the world's poorest citizens, the better their lives will be. Yet climate change policies drive up prices for energy, fuel and food, and hinder competition to provide these things at lower prices - and this has devastating effects on young people trying to eat in northern Africa right through to young people trying to heat their home in northern England.
Tim: Climate change complacency may be as bad as the kind of Climate Alarmism that seeks to stop the economy dead in its tracks. Climate Complacency lives in hopes that by keeping on in the same old behavioural rut, because it’s borne fruit in the past, everything will come out in the wash. But a market needs to adapt to the next stage that evolution demands and the fact is that the environmental forecasts, although of a probabilistic in nature, are helping to drive proactive adaptation through the market with government plonking itself in front of the trend thus giving itself the air of leading the trend. Climate Alarmism is driving the market whether you like it or not. If you don’t like it, then it goes to show that the market doesn’t always move in the right direction! The only way you’re going to reverse the climate change policies is through political and social influence. Proactive climate complacency is itself a political position that could only be expressed through central government and social influencing. This requires grabbing the reins of power and becoming part of the political establishment and pursuing socio-economic policies involving attitude changes and market changes. However, although I’m glad to say the “Just-stop-civilisation” lobby are marginal, the fact is climate alarmism is a factor which is clearly driving the market and government
James: Yes, I would agree with your observations there. I learned from Bjorn Lomborg that the European Union will pay £165 billion for its current climate policies each and every year for the next 87 years, and from Matt Ridley that Britain’s climate policies - subsidising windmills, wood-burners, anaerobic digesters, electric vehicles and all the rest - is due to cost us £1.8 trillion over the course of this century. And here's the worst statistic of all - consensual expertise has it that every £100 spent fighting climate change brings just £3 of benefit. Furthermore, the efforts to mitigate climate change through campaigns for emissions reductions are having a negative effect on food security, due to indirect impacts on prices and supplies of key agricultural commodities.
All this stuff boils down to basic economics really. Carbon emissions happen alongside of, and because of, our industrial achievements and or economic growth. Therefore setting an arbitrary date to produce net zero carbon emissions is foolish because the cost-benefit analysis is far too complex to be pinned to a date that's thought up on a whim by politicians. You can't artificially reduce carbon through some political fiat without destroying capital, undermining investments and harming value-creating production. This is a solid argument for not imposing short-sighted targets, but instead leaving it to highly competitive industries to become greener through the natural mechanisms of competition and innovation in relationship with the law of parsimony - something they've been doing quite naturally, and remarkably well, for the past 150 years.
Tim: Our current wealth is based on the legacy of live-and-let-live carbon burning, but, who knows, we may be passing through a market driven revolution where this is changing. Those arbitrary targets? Yes I doubt they are realistic! But realism and effectiveness are two different things in politics. When history is told it may well emerge that these targets acted far less as realistic goals than being a kind political whip cracking which influenced attitudes, buying, selling and also encouraged investment in the innovation and marketing of sustainable energy solutions. Moreover, I doubt this whip cracking is entirely a piece of political fiat, but as per the usual practice it’s a case of politicians sensing the popular & market trends and then walking in front of the trends in order to gain political brownie points. In the real world politics, sociology and economics are coupled systems which in fact make them one system. For example the cancers of Gaia fanaticism, Marxism and fascism are reactions to the social and economic ills of a heartless capitalism and market short termism. The pathological tendencies of capitalism provide a convenient peg to hang Marxist & fascist grievances on and justify social agitation. Imagine trying to tell the swing & Luddite rioters to take it on the chin because long after their death society would be reaping the rewards of an industrial revolution financed by the efficient farming of the great estates and mechanisation in general. Too much laissez faire appears to stimulate social grievance and unrest….. unless a society whose wealth is based on the market can reform itself to address the sources of grievance and unrest and help the poor.
Given that we may be facing an environmental one-off for which the last 10,000 years has given us no environmental precedents it is far from clear to me that a market not primed by information about the risks of changing environmental goal posts will be successful in adapting to this challenge. If the market doesn’t start adapting and innovating now it may be too late. We can’t extrapolate 150 years of industrial & market success into a future populated with environmental surprises. It’s time for another step in the wise proactive adaptation of the environment to human life.
James: Even if the climate issues with global warming, shrinking glaciers, Arctic sea ice declension, rainstorms, extreme droughts and rising sea levels are going to turn out to be worse than we feared, there is almost certainly much less cause for concern than you think. Because the world has been getting dramatically richer, future generations are going to be much wealthier and more scientifically advanced than we are. Therefore, the likelihood that we should not waste current resources on climate change is greater than the likelihood that we should. If you have a problem with that contention, imagine all the problems we can solve today that people of 50-100 years wouldn’t have had a clue how to solve, or the slightest chance of affording to do so even if they did. And the gap between us and people of 50-100 years henceforward will be a lot greater than the gap between people living 50-100 years in the past and us. Every decade that passes from now, we’ll be much more equipped to tackle the problems ahead – and in some cases we’ll be so far advanced that problems we conceive today won’t even be problems at all.
People need resources to survive, and the worst thing climate change could do is affect our ability to harness resources. Resources are best allocated by market prices, and capitalism is what allocates resources most efficiently. Consequently, capitalism is the most efficient tool for dealing with climate change, because it best adheres to the law of parsimony. To be angry at capitalism in an attempt to tackle climate change is like being angry at paracetamol in an attempt to alleviate a headache.
Tim: Certainly much less cause for concern? Who knows, perhaps we are in for another one-off event like 636 AD or a Santorini disaster. The sheer size of carbon based wealth doesn’t automatically guarantee environmental solutions will come out in the wash when they are needed: As I’ve already said when it comes to one-off shifts in the environmental goal posts we need to be the right-kind-of-rich and that right-kind-of-rich won’t happen unless market consciousness moves away from climate change complacency, complacency which assumes it is safe to defer action 50-100 years in the hope that we have unspecified & unknown technologies to deal with the problem; but that’s not going to happen without forethought. In fact climate change complacency is reckoning without the current market itself which is clearly already perceiving the wider environmental context and reacting now.
James: Gosh, with the amount of money, time and political crony capitalism that has already been sunk into the climate agenda, I hardly think you could accuse society of "climate change complacency". The masses have become obsessed with it, and are treating mother nature like a goddess. It is as far from climate change complacency as I can imagine.
Closing summary
Tim: Politico-socio-economics is no exact
science; in fact a lot less exact than even seat of the pants climate science.
So when it’s a choice I’m more likely to pay attention to the careful and
measured hand waving of the climate scientists than the hand waving of
politico-socio-economic prediction. The market argument can cut both ways. Viz:
Should we just continue business as usual in the hope that the unspecified
technologies in 50+ years, undisturbed by investment in climate change, will
mean humanity is so rich (whatever that means) it can shrug off the potential
threat of climate change?….. or should the market start reacting now by
developing technology already to hand?
In fact perhaps we are already in that speculative 50+ years future with
a duty to react accordingly. There is of course uncertainty in environmental
predictions – quite possibly the science is wrong. But given the even greater
uncertainties of politico-socio-economic prediction then if the spectrum of
attitudes ranges from economy destroying climate alarmism to climate
complacency I think I’ll opt for climate concern! So that ends my efforts thus
far, but I classify what follows as unfinished business! A lot of the following
I’d agree with (e.g. I’m not saying that capitalism can solve all resource
problems, nor that there isn’t work to do to improve our planet and our
pollution……They are like watermelons, as someone once said - green on the
outside, but totalitarian, impoverishing red on the inside ) but some of it makes me feel uneasy (It's
fairly obvious that if there's no reason to believe humans will be
insurmountably negatively impacted by future climate change, with every
evidence that our present and future innovations will more than offset any
environmental shifts).
James: Once again, though, no one is saying here that this rests on continuing "business as usual" - and I would hope that anyone who digested what I've said would not think that is what my position is. It's been an interesting discussion, with lots to chew on from both sides. As I highlighted above, I think several of your counter-arguments have been built on slight strawman caricatures of the my position - and I think your being higher in neuroticism and more anxious than I am highly likely plays a part in our differing senses of foreboding and different levels of optimism. Generally, though, I think we have served each other well, I think, in making our statements in a way that shows we care about the truth, and have given each other plenty to consider throughout the discussion.
My main contention has been that it is both foolish and immoral to fall for climate alarmism - in fact, it's probably in the top ten horrible things we are doing in society right now. Cheap, affordable fossil fuel energy has driven our rise in living standards more than anything else in recent history, and for impressionable, naïve climate groups to be so repelled by it is frankly ignoble. Affordable fossil fuel consumption is the main thing that helps developing nations feed themselves and bring about economic growth. Affordable energy is a synonym for survival and growth – we’ve been through it, just as every nation that went from poor to rich has been through it. For billions of the world’s population, affordable energy is a lifeline; for those to whom it is a luxury taken for granted, it is seen as something to be eradicated – which is an absolute disgrace. If under any conditions someone who had comfort, wealth, health or food said “Now I’ve got it, I’m going to be fooled by a ridiculous, self-serving agenda that stopped those less-fortunate than me having what I have” they’d be rightly excoriated. But when people do it with climate change alarmism and absurd Greta-gushing, it gets lauded. It’s disgusting.
I’m not saying that capitalism can solve all resource problems, nor that there isn’t work to do to improve our planet and our pollution. But the many countries that were once poverty-stricken countries have now achieved a higher standard of living because of carbon-base capitalism – and the rest will join them if capitalism is allowed to carry on flourishing.
It's easy to see why green types are easily conjoined in community: they believe they are working "for the common good" using a collectivist, idealist ethos that swerves intellectual challenges and rational enquiry - it can be a good place to be if you want to divest yourself of hard thinking and sit in circles in sandals eating hummus, surrounded by unthreatening like-minded people who agree with you, and are happy to indulge in mutually back-slapping. I know, I've spent a weekend at the Speak festival - a community of eco-warriors and social justice campaigners - and while it's not exactly my milieu, I can't deny the community spirit was very enchanting. Of course, if you scratch just a couple of millimetres beneath the surface, you'll find their aspirations are built on the flimsy foundations of moonshine and myopic dogma, and a patterned history of totalitarianism and impoverishment. They are like watermelons, as someone once said - green on the outside, but totalitarian, impoverishing red on the inside. Their economic policies are fantastical, lacking any basic insight into prices, incentives and consequences of actions: they are the party of the deluded, perhaps even more so that Corbyn's Labour was, just much less of a political threat (something that is changing in recent months).
The greens are awkward customers, because on the surface they look to give the impression that their whole ethos is based on moral suasion and noble sensibilities - caring for the poor and the planet and all that. Hence their manifesto is centred on virtue signalling, and being the only ones prepared to stand up for what they think is right. This strategy is working - they are gaining popularity among young people, particularly students, it seems.
But I find their popularity baffling, because once you zoom in beneath the surface of what is evident moral posturing, what you'll find is something quite dark and sinister - something resembling a religious cult that would be very harmful were it to get its way. On the surface one might see greens as being almost Christian-like in their claims of concern for creation. But it seems to me that this horizon is actually a mirage - that what they are actually going is committing the sin of idolatry - that is, making false idols of things in the created order. Have they, in their worship of Gaia, substituted the creator God for a demi-god worship of the natural world - manifesting as a religious cult that organises themselves around the false god of land, sea and the world's weather system? You may think not - and you may be right - perhaps their intentions really are noble and honourable. But I suspect not. And the reason being; a good indicator that an organised group is made up of people with only their best interests at heart is that they stick rigidly to their beliefs and their ideology at the expense of reason, evidence and rational enquiry. Such groups are likely to be driven by social connectivity and they are likely to deliberately disregard facts and truths that expose the shambolic nature of their beliefs.
Here’s climate expert Bjørn Lomborg on this:
“Climate policies take an even larger toll on people in the developing world. Almost three billion people rely on burning twigs and dung to cook and keep warm. This causes indoor air pollution, at the cost of 4.3 million lives a year, and creates the world’s biggest environmental problem. Access to cheap and plentiful electricity is one of the most effective ways out of poverty — curtailing indoor air pollution and allowing refrigeration to keep food from spoiling (and people from starving). Cheap electricity charges computers that connect the poor to the world. It powers agriculture and businesses that provide jobs and economic growth. The Centre for Global Development says that $10 billion invested in such renewables would help lift 20 million people in Africa out of poverty. It sounds impressive, until you learn that if this sum was spent on gas electrification it would lift 90 million people out of poverty. So in choosing to spend that $10 billion on renewables, we deliberately end up choosing to leave more than 70 million people in darkness and poverty.”
Climate change alarmists are asking the wrong primary question: they are asking “How best can we become greener, sooner?” - but that is the wrong question. The right question is not how quickly can we reduce emissions, but how best to cope with the fact that carbon-based technology has negative effects alongside all the many more positive gains it bestows on humanity. Reducing carbon missions, investing in renewables, gradually adapting our lifestyles, leaving it to our richer, smarter to descendents to solve more easily and cheaply, or a combination of all these things is no doubt the answer. But we should obviously mistrust the blockheads who simply say we should cut out carbon emissions and then put governments under duress to impose an arbitrary date while most of the rest of the world carries on capitalising on the comparative advantages they've been handed. A full government subsidised head on push at carbon elimination causes people to work less resourcefully and less intelligently at the alternatives.
The climate alarmism has obsessed itself with caring about future generations more than (or at least as much as) it cares about the present day population, and the politicians have bought into it. But virtually nothing about the political system in terms of allocation of resources (through taxation) is set up that way - most of it slows down growth. That's a complex point with a lot of detailed analysis required that is beyond the scope of this discussion. But it stands to reason that a present day generation that bears disproportionately more costs than the benefits conferred on richer, more technology astute future generations, is one without the proper level of consideration. Do we really want to spend billions on future generations who will be five to ten times wealthier than we are (adjusted for inflation too, and assuming continuing growth rates of just over 2% per year) when last swathes of the developing world are still living on less than $2 a day? It strikes me as, at best, dubious, and at worst, flagrantly immoral.
What makes life difficult in the above scenarios during climate change is not climate change itself, but other factors related to poverty, lack of freedoms, corruption, geography, human selfishness etc - that can be difficult alongside climate change. But it goes further, because it's no small irony that the main thing the climate alarmists are against - free trade and competition - is the main thing that has, and will continue to, leave people best equipped to deal with changes in the climate. The green armies are trying to strangle the only geese capable of laying the golden eggs they are hoping for - especially in sacrificing the well-being and economic growth of the poorest people in the world now for the hypothetical benefits of people who will look back on even the UK and be sad for us that we lived in such primitive and technologically impoverished times (relative to what they know). In fact, if you picked a million 40 year olds at random living 100 years from now, and asked them to vote on what we should do with all that money now, they'd vote almost unanimously for us to spend it helping developing nations in our present, just as we'd vote similarly if asked to consider people living in the year 1922.
It's fairly obvious that if there's no reason to believe humans will be insurmountably negatively impacted by future climate change, with every evidence that our present and future innovations will more than offset any environmental shifts, it's equally absurd to bear sizeable resources (time, energy and money) trying to prevent this change. If you instantly transported the UK 1922 population into the present day, they would be quite flustered by all the changes: not only would they find technology, protocols, laws, customs and practices that baffled them - they'd find numerous changes for which they weren't prepared. What they thought was an allotment is now a shopping mall; the old tea room is now a McDonald's; and the farm down the road is now a motorway. Radical changes to normalcy do cause lots of problems. But we are not talking about any such thing. Just as the 1920s gradually changed into the present day by passing through the 30s, 40s, 50s,60s, 70s, 80's, 90's and noughties, so too will changes in the climate occur alongside our ability to adapt to the changing social backdrop.
Here's another obvious cost (and danger), aside from the billions of pounds - green biases skew the market in favour of renewable resource industries. If the greens get their way, they will spend inordinate amounts of money impeding the industry of the developed world, which is going to have a hugely detrimental impact on the developing nations still trying to capitalise on the industrial market of prosperity. The predicted temperature change over the next century is going to be well within the ingenuity of modern day humans, even for countries like Ethiopia and Sudan who look most likely to suffer from increased temperatures. Don't forget, while there are many countries that will be precariously worse off due to climate change, there are many others that will be better off. Clearly no sane and moral human wants to argue that, for example, Siberia's gain is Kenya's loss, and that one set of benefits offsets another set of costs - but the motion clearly calls for some wisdom here. If you have a situation whereby some countries are going to be worse off due to temperature increases over the next few decades and some better off, it is both ridiculous and nonsensical (not to mention harmful) to generate huge costs on an entire market industry, instead of the much better alternative of ensuring that the success of advanced economies goes towards facilitating positive changes for the less advanced economies.
It may even be the case (and sadly, seemingly is) that in some of the worst cases our potential for aid and investment through advanced economic mechanisms are disempowered by various impediments in those countries (civil conflict, social unrest, political instability) - and that is devastating, but it certainly is not a situation that can be made better overall by green policies. It seems a nigh-on certainty to me that solar energy is the future. In recent years the price of solar power has dropped significantly, as the cost of manufacturing, the cost of installation and the electricity prices derived from it have become cheaper. The solar costs for consumers will soon be more affordable than costs derived from fossil fuels. Not only is solar going to be the most prominent of all our energy sources - but given that the sun has enough provision to drive our Solar System for another 5 billion years, I can conceive of a time when the vast majority of our energy resources will be derived from photovoltaic cells converted into electricity. By far the country with the most prodigiously profitable solar industry is going to be China, probably followed by Japan and the United States, plus as the technology becomes more sophisticated and marketable it will spread more prominently throughout the globe.
I think the green movement, as well as being a movement for marginalised folk who score low down in the assortative mating stakes, is also a warrior-like movement for people who can’t be warriors in any other dominance hierarchy. It’s like when kids play at soldiers knowing they will never be in a real war – they get to play the brave hero who rescues the hostages and that is the allure for the greens. Declaring that the earth is doomed and that they are the ones who can help save it is a seductive game to play, even if it’s based on utter idiocy, as we’ve seen from other cult religions, there wlll always be enough people willing to subscribe.
But, alas, to those on the outside, environmentalism is a movement for intellectual lightweights who don’t know how to reason competently. What needs to be learned is that everything is a trade off. Trade offs are not an exact science - they are a balancing act, and when it comes to the epistemology that underwrites these totalising narratives, what is needed is humility, and an attitude that says I won’t do anything unless I have a coherent narrative that factors in as close to ‘everything’ as is humanly possible. Even the most ardent environmentalist cannot keep a straight face and say that that is what they are doing – they don’t even pretend to try. The fact that you get a blank look when you say to an environmentalist that “the costs of climate change must be measured against the costs of climate policies” tells you all you need to know.
I’m actually more alarmed by Extinction Rebellion and Just Stop Oil types than any of the other groups. YECs and socialists are terrible, but at least they are terrible from behind a microphone or keyboard. Whereas the climate cults are something else altogether – a cult of the most extreme alarmism that really do believe we are doomed; and if you feel that way, you’ll stop at nothing, with no damage, interference or commotion spared to get your way. Deluded cults who believe in a young earth or a more radical wealth redistribution are always going to shout from the sidelines. But these ER/JSO folk are hysterical, absolutely hysterical, and so sure they are right, they’ve got almost nothing to lose. People who feel like they are in desperate apocalyptic danger are capable of almost anything, and these guys feel that way – it’s horrifying to think what calamities they will inflict on innocent people next.
Because you see, the claims they are making and the demands they are insisting upon are so detached from reality and so alien to sensible enquiry, that they really cannot be met. They are like kidnappers who take a minimum wage worker hostage and demand a million pounds from his working class parents – the parents couldn’t pay the ransom even if they wanted to. The government is in the same place with regard to ER’s demands – politicians can’t tackle a complex problem that’s impossible to solve on demand, and they can’t send us back to the dark ages, which would be the result of Extinction Rebellion’s absurd demands. So I don’t know how this will play out. Given that politicians are relatively powerless, and ER are absolutely relentless, ER are going to have to think of more and more destructive ways to wreak havoc in order to feel they are forcing the government to listen. We are going to see the irresistible force of paranoid environmentalist hysteria continually coming up against the immovable object of government inability to do anything, and it’s hard to see what is going to give in this situation.
********End
of current discussion********
Closing thoughts - James Knight
I've enjoyed the
discussion with Tim, and if any readers have made it this far down, well done -
I hope you found it useful too. And I'm sure it's a subject there'll be a need
for more elaboration still. I have some additional thoughts to close with,
starting with a very brief summary of the green movement as a whole.
My summary of the green movement
The green hysteria began
many years ago with a few eccentric, socially marginalised characters, who
wanted to establish a subset hierarchy to give themselves a sense of purpose,
and the remote possibility of finding others who would be willing to copulate
with them. Over the years, the green agenda became a little more popular, and
the membership grew and then branched out into further subdivisions, again
driven by people who wanted to be at the top of a new hierarchy and/or in a
group with a sense of belonging in which they might get to copulate. They
became so numerous that politicians started to speak their language to secure
votes, and then crony capitalists started to get wind of this, and got in bed
with politicians to divert capital and resources (paid for by us) into their
pockets – all for the good of the planet, of course. After several years of
this, we are now at the stage where a large proportion of the population now
uncritically accept bogus terms like ‘climate crisis’ without even a flicker of
intellectual curiosity (and teach this nonsense to their children), and
politicians absorb it into their policymaking because their party would be
unelectable without it. What a sad decline of human cognition: from a small
group of hummus-loving hippies, to widespread climate hysteria, in just a few
decades.
What I'm now going to say might strike many of you as shocking - but plenty of true things are also shocking, and I think this might be one of them. I have thought about this quite a bit, and I can't see any reason why it isn't true. I think it is no exaggeration to say that people peddling the delusion of climate propaganda are complicit in a proxy murderous ideology. If you support any of the green policies that either a) make energy artificially more expensive for the poorest people in the world, b) waste capital and resources on projects with severe and unjustified opportunity costs, or c) impede people’s ability to earn a living and feed their family – and virtually every climate policy ticks all three of those boxes – then you have blood on your hands, because you are helping to contribute to the suffering and death of hundreds of thousands of people (possibly millions over time) while you live in relative luxury as one of the top 1% of the richest people who've ever lived.
Whether you’re knee deep in this scam, or just a gentle old lady who votes for the Green Party, you are contributing to the perpetuation of the biggest economic and political scam that has ever been wrought on humanity. Just because the devastation is so thinly spread, it doesn’t mean you are not in some way complicit. You are like a millionaire eating a banquet, while at the same time putting your foot on the hand of the pauper underneath the table trying to grab a piece of bread that has fallen on the floor. And I really am not trying to be sensationalist or mischievously provocative with this. I’ve researched and contemplated these matters a lot over the years, I’ve been in many debates on these matters, and I’ve even spent a weekend with environmentalists at an eco-festival in London, listened to their best arguments, tried to get to know how these guys think, and why they believe what they do. And I’ve found not a single reason to depart from the view that this is going to turn into the most damaging mass delusion and hysteria that modern humans have ever constructed.
The last time I checked, despite the fact that Britain is responsible for just 1% of global emissions, the ludicrous carbon ‘Net Zero’ emissions target of 2050 was going to cost between 1-2% of GDP per annum (and now they talking about sooner). Spending 1-2% of GDP per annum on climate change for the next 30 years, adjusted for increasing GDP total size over the years, and including the £15 billion a year that we already spend on subsidies to renewable energy, would cost the UK taxpayers around £1 trillion. To put that into perspective - it is like agreeing to spend just over £91 million pounds *every day* on climate change for the next 30 years.
You’d be hard pressed to find a more disastrous and controversial idea than one that commits £91 million pounds every day for the next 30 years, causes millions of deaths, and is blithely supported by the majority of the country, despite them never having laid eyes on a single paper or argument that even attempts to recognise the notion of a comprehensive cost-benefit analysis, never having a flicker of acknowledgement of the complex trade offs, nor any attempt to justify the policy by explaining why the benefits of the climate agenda outweigh the benefits of the alternatives. This is a whole new level of political corruption and short-sightedness - and I've never once encountered anyone who gives even a tiny indication that they can engage with this subject at the level required to justify such huge expenditure and so many severe opportunity costs.
Why do you think it is that all the Malthusian predictions of gloom have been so wrong, and ditto all the environmentalist doomsayer predictions from 30-40 years ago? It’s primarily because they fail to account for human adaptivity and ingenuity. We’ve been mired in poverty and suffering for most of our 200,000 year history – and I think we are doing pretty well since the Industrial Revolution. We could be doing better, but you’re about the most gifted person I know at seeing the best in people you know, so it always surprises me that you don’t join me so enthusiastically in celebrating the success of our species under science and capitalism. Compared with the 199,900 years previous, it’s almost miraculous what we done by collective and cooperative bottom-up effort.
We really don’t have a clue about what we’re trying to do with these long-term solutions. This is to do with what’s called “combinatorial explosion”. Just because a model relies on physical laws, doesn't mean it has far teaching predictability. The weather relies on physical laws, but it does not have far reaching predictability. The predictions are relatively short-term; and in issues surrounding the perturbations of the environment, short-term predictions are not very reliable antecedents for long-term outcomes. That is because, with combinatorial explosion, the complexity of a problem increases as the future extends outwards, and the combinatorial search space increases relative to the inputs, making it harder and harder to predict, or understand the complex variables and permutations.
The way we’ll solve any climate issues is if we thrive on short-term, bottom up goals, where every contributes what they are best at, because that is the only way we have, ever or will, ever know how to when it comes to highly complex and epistemologically intractable problems. In game theory, there’s a key distinction between what are called strategic problems and decision problems. Strategic problems, like a game of snooker, involve taking into account the actions and incentives of another agent. A decision problem, like betting on the roulette wheel, involves no counter strategy. Most political decisions should be strategic, but most politicians engage in problems as though they are decision problems, because they are not primed to consider situations with regard to taking into account the actions and incentives of another agent (my book Benevolent Libertarianism has literally dozens of examples of this kind of political myopia).
Environmentalists are engaging with this problem with the logic backwards. The things they think are the problem are actually the main part of the solution, and the things they think are the solution are the main body of the problem. It is trade and the market that makes us richer, and it is being richer that makes us better stewards of our planet. The thing that diminishes biodiversity most is people in poorer countries needing to live off ecological resources. The richer we get, the less deforestation occurs, the lower the emissions, the fewer resources we use per unit of value – and that will always be true. The great enrichment from the free market is the solution, not the problem. The less we can live off nature through our advancements, the less we’ll destroy nature. As my paper shows in fine detail, economic growth means doing more with fewer resources. The environmentalist agenda is the opposite: it’s crony capitalism that amounts to doing less with more resources, because resources are not allocated so efficiently. If Bob has his literary library on a tablet, he does more with less; if he designs a machine that can do twice the work with half the fuel consumption, he does more with less; if he opens a store that means a town no longer needs to chop down trees to cook, he does more with less; if he designs a mobile phone that means we no longer have to use separate resources to bud alarm clocks, camera, calculators, etc, he does more for less. And every time, society is better off, so is the world’s biodiversity (on average).
Be wary of 'Ethical' Politics
I've noticed a strange
paradox in politics: quite often, the more a policy or idea is championed on
grounds of ethical principles, the less ethical and rational it actually is.
Political policies usually come under three types of consideration: one is to
do with rationality, one is to do with economics, and one is to do with ethics.
The first two are generally reliable; if a policy has empirical credibility and
is sound economically, then it is rational to support it. And, of course, given
a policy's rationality and economic rigour, one can suppose a strong chance
that it is ethical too. But unfortunately, many people don’t think about their
political views so carefully: they confuse a preference with an ethical stance,
and they think that an ethical stance is sufficient grounds for adopting a
belief.
But be careful - endorsing a policy purely for ethical reasons often skews one's rational and economic analysis. To pursue a policy purely because you think it is ethical is rarely a good thing to do - in fact, it often leads you astray, because believing something is ethically right can cause you to dismiss good opposing logic or be blind to sound arguments against it. Here are three examples. Take the issue of recycling. If you feel morally compelled to save the planet (whatever that means) then you may feel compelled to recycle, even if it means ignoring contra-indicators that recycling is often an efficient system. A second example; If you feel ethically compelled to help the poor, you may support bad socialist policies like higher taxation and the minimum wage that actually make the poor even worse off, on misguided grounds that you are helping the poor. A third example; supporting protectionism might feel right because of an ethical compulsion to look after your own country folk, without realising that the policy is causing net harm (even within your own country). You get the gist.
Be careful also about confusing desired outcomes with good policies. We may justifiably desire for poor people to be better off, but a policy that acts on that desire quite often makes poor people worse off, not better. A bad policy that is centred on making housing affordable or giving low-skilled people a pay rise may be popular because lots of people want to see housing being more affordable and giving low-skilled people a pay rise – but in these cases (price fixing) the desired outcome is getting erroneously conflated with credibility of a policy, thereby causing people to focus on the benefits, ignore the costs, and confuse 'desirable outcome' with 'credible means of getting to that outcome'. It’s no small irony how governments often create problems by price interference, and then make things even worse by reacting with another price interference. A good example is how government regulation inflates house prices, which they respond to by interfering in the housing market with rent controls or excessive planning regulations.
The other reason I'm wary of so-called ethical politics is because a common pattern is socio-political matters is that people confuse moral values with things that are just preferences. When environmentalists attempt to scupper plans for housing developments or new roads because they think it’s wrong to disturb trees, bats or newts, they think they are presenting moral arguments, when they are really expressing preferences. They have almost nothing at stake in the matter, so it’s easy for them to virtue signal. The developers, on the other hand, do have things at stake, as do their clients. The developers have been willing to risk capital in this venture, and their clients make a living from such projects, and their customers value the homes that are built when they get to live in them.
If you’d rather the land remained green, then that’s your inclination – but your preference should not be confused with ethical statements. Your preference may be in opposition to those who wish to build on the land, but there is no axiomatic ethical truism that says you are right and they are wrong. In fact, in a matter like this, where one group’s preference is pitted against another group’s preferences, and you’re looking for a criterion by which to judge whose preferences might take precedence, the people who are willing to risk their own capital to back up their preference might be argued for more strongly than those who merely shout from the side-lines with nothing at stake.
My guess is that if the environmentalists had to back up their preference with capital, many of them would suddenly show less of an interest. That’s not always the case, and green space confers utility too, so there are no doubt times when a group’s preference to retain a park or woodland should be prioritised over these who want to develop it into housing. But be under no illusion that most of this stuff is a matter of preferences, not ethics. Everything is a trade-off, and people have diverse preferences and diverse incentives – and environmentalist claims are usually no different.
Not only is it the case that the climate change alarmists are trying to kill the geese that are laying the golden eggs that really are sorting out the problems they want to solve, the situation is even worse. The policies they are instituting to fight climate change are doing mass harm around the world, especially in the world's poorest countries. It's basic econ 101 that the cheaper and more readily available food and fuel is to the world's poorest citizens, the better their lives will be. Yet climate change policies drive up prices for energy, fuel and food, and hinder competition to provide these things at lower prices - and this has devastating effects on young people trying to eat in northern Africa right through to old people trying to heat their home in northern England.
There's a paper from Indur Goklany that examines the worldwide trends, and it shows that deaths resulting from extreme weather conditions like tsunamis, floods, hurricanes and droughts have actually declined by 95% since the 1920s - undermining the claim that the frequency of global catastrophes are causally linked with climate change. I learned from Bjorn Lomborg that the European Union will pay £165 billion for its current climate policies each and every year for the next 87 years, and from Matt Ridley that Britain’s climate policies - subsidising windmills, wood-burners, anaerobic digesters, electric vehicles and all the rest - is due to cost us £1.8 trillion over the course of this century. And here's the worst statistic of all - consensual expertise has it that every £100 spent fighting climate change brings just £3 of benefit. Furthermore, the efforts to mitigate climate change through campaigns for emissions reductions are having a negative effect on food security, due to indirect impacts on prices and supplies of key agricultural commodities.
All this stuff boils down to basic economics really, and a shocking indictment of the climate change hysteria that it seeping into our politics. Carbon emissions happen alongside of, and because of, our industrial achievements and or economic growth. Therefore setting an arbitrary date to produce net zero carbon emissions is foolish because the cost-benefit analysis is far too complex to be pinned to a date that's thought up on a whim by politicians. You can't artificially reduce carbon through some political fiat without destroying capital, undermining investments and harming value-creating production. This is a solid argument for not imposing short-sighted targets, but instead leaving it to highly competitive industries to become greener through the natural mechanisms of competition and innovation in relationship with the law of parsimony - something they've been doing quite naturally, and remarkably well, for the past 150 years.
I think that future generations will look back on the green phenomena as being an intellectual solecism of short-sightedness on our human journey, a colossal waste of money, and a huge detriment to many human lives - because all the energy, time, and financial resources that went in to it will turn out to have been largely unnecessary alongside the much more efficient and empirically relevant economic growth scientific progression humans are making and will continue to make.
The principal cause of this huge century-long diminution of deaths has not been closely ascribable to any green movement - it has been the solid, consistent process of market-led improvements of technology and stronger economic infrastructures. The computer and the mobile phone have done infinitely more to save the earth's natural habitat than any group of people from Greenpeace ever have or ever will.
So the proper cost-benefit analysis has been this: what are the costs and benefits of intervening in global warming, and what are the costs and benefits of letting it continue and doing nothing costly to slow it down? That depends on another crucial question - will future science and technology enable us to make corrections for global warming and adapt to the changes that have been caused by the increased CO2 emissions in recent decades? If the answer is yes - and all the indicators point to it being yes, then these green interventions will have been merely a temporary nuisance that we lived through in the intervening years. In other words, there is an arms race between science and green polices, which science looks sure to win. Looking at some of the breakthroughs in nanotechnology and shape-shifting, as well as virtual reality simulations, gives strong indication that science will win the arms race, which also gives strong indication that green policies are causing harm in the here and now and are not going to have any net aggregate positive effects on the well-being of future generations.
The two underlying facts I observe about the Green Party are:
1) That, like UKIP, they came about to fill a political niche that was not being heavily represented in mainstream politics. They figured that by filling that gap they would be able to attract a certain type of person (see number 2) - and gather enough momentum to have a chance of taking votes away from the two main parties, and maybe even grow into a small mainstream party themselves.
2) They generally attract people of limited cognitive competence with a propensity for an overly-simplistic worldview, who have been left behind in society. The group consists of people who discover that they cannot compete in any hierarchy related to qualities that are attractive to the opposite sex: analytical and emotional intelligence, competency, wit, sexual allure, charisma and talent. These are the people who fear that they can't be admired or found attractive, so they opt out, and close themselves off into a hermetically sealed, progress-hating fundamentalism.
These two observations are perhaps the most important and revealing thing about the environmentalism movement - and probably explain more than anything else why none of them ever approaches this subject with a cost-benefit analysis to support their views.
Given the two essential observations above, consider a thought experiment. Suppose there'd never been a Green Party, but instead an Amber Party, whose members also observed a niche gap in politics, and were also of limited cognitive competence, but whose whole ethos had been built on the opposite of what the Greens espouse. The Amber Party ethos is like a Green Party in reverse: they are centred on prodigiously estimating the benefits and exiguously estimating the costs of our global activity in relation to the environmental changes, forever endorsing carbon dioxide emissions because they have driven a huge growth in trees and other plants, always citing how much better the planet would be if colder regions were warmer, explaining the benefits of creating more habitable areas and better river routes in Siberia and Alaska, and insisting that fewer UK pensioners would die from the cold winters in their homes.
Imagine what the political world would be like with an Amber Party instead of a Green one. You'd probably have a similar number of people joining the group because society has marginalised them, because it's their best chance of attracting someone of the opposite sex, because they get to stroke each other's egos in the fight of a perceived just cause, and because they can gain some 'underdog' traction on the basis that they are not part of the mainstream. Mainstream political parties like the Tories and Labour would also perceive the popularity of not having enough Amber policies in their manifestos, and would do all they can to appear as Amber as possible without moving too far away from their roots.
That is perhaps the most important and revealing thing about the environmentalism movement - and probably explains more than anything else why none of them ever approaches the complex subject of climate change with a cost-benefit analysis to support their views - the sort of people they attract are not in the business of engaging with the full complexities of the world.
At the end of the day it is going to be something else that sees us through the climate change issues, and it's not the ever-expanding ideology that's largely dependent on junk economics, government levies and crony capitalist special interest groups that are going to provide the antidotes
The other danger is that with excessive green influence in our politics, anything can too easily be ascribed to climate change. Whenever ice melts we are accused of burning too many fossil fuels; whenever there are hurricanes we are to blame for increasing ocean temperatures, whenever there is a flood, a drought, heat waves, a shift in the Gulf Stream, it's all to do with human impact. And when these things happen, the first reactionary response is to implore the government to do something about it. Do these reactionaries think that floods and hurricanes and glacier melting have only occurred since humans have been around? Surely not. Don't misunderstand, I'm all for sensible mitigating action where it can be shown to be sensible, but the danger of looking for government intervention every time a snowflake melts is something that is likely to lead us astray.
You've probably heard the one about being on the camping trip and being faced by a ferocious bear. To survive, you don't have to run faster than the bear, you just have to run faster than the slowest member of the group. But what if you cared about the group because it comprises a family unit, where you love each and every member? Then your concern would be that every member of the group could outrun the bear. Again, despite different priorities, the same maxim still holds - the survival of your family in one piece is contingent not on the fastest runners but on the slowest runner. There's a version of this wisdom in economics - it's called Liebig's law - and it basically says that the growth or success or quality of something is not contingent on its strongest components but its weakest one. It's often stated in the form of "A chain is only as strong as its weakest link", and is applied in economic theory to speak of, for example, a business's growth being potentially retarded by its most significant impediments to development (faulty machinery, inadequate premises, failure to meet government-mandated green targets, to name just three examples).
You may have noticed that out of my three examples, two are within the hands of the business (to the greatest degree) and the third is not. A business can be hamstrung by a government's green targets and that can be the difference between being solvent and going under, or (invisibly to the naked eye) never becoming a business in the first place. You see, most green initiatives don't just impede extant businesses; they impede all those businesses in prospect that never became businesses because of the regulations. Liebig's law is a fairly reliable rule of thumb, but it doesn't wholly factor in the extent to which adaptability occurs in very dynamical processes. When misapplied it can be as misjudged as the assertion about robots stealing our jobs based only on a short-sighted inability to conceive of the future jobs that are currently not jobs. So, a chain is only as strong as its weakest link if human development is in any way comparable to a chain full of links - but it isn't. Applying this to Liebig's barrel, human progression is not like having a fixed barrel with staves of unequal length limited by the shortest stave, it is like a barrel that is continually built larger to accommodate the continually increasing volume of liquid contained, where liquid here is comparable to economic growth.
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