Yesterday was Earth Day, so it seems appropriate to talk about global warming, which is supposed to be the earth’s biggest environmental problem. I remain an agnostic about global warming for two reasons.
First, I don’t trust computer models such as the ones used to predict how much the earth is supposedly going to warm in the next century. I’ve seen too many models designed to confirm preconceived notions for me to find any of them believable.
Freeman Dyson, generally regarded as one of the world’s smartest men, feels much the same way. “I have studied their climate models and know what they can do,” says Dyson. “The models solve the equations of fluid dynamics and do a very good job of describing the fluid motions of the atmosphere and the oceans. They do a very poor job of describing the clouds, the dust, the chemistry and the biology of fields, farms and forests. They do not begin to describe the real world that we live in.”
Elsewhere, Dyson notes that the models “are full of fudge factors that are fitted to the existing climate, so the models more or less agree with the observed data. But there is no reason to believe that the same fudge factors would give the right behavior in a world with different chemistry, for example in a world with increased CO2 in the atmosphere.”
My second problem with global warming is that it has become too much of a religious issue. Too many people who don’t like the suburbs, the automobile, or other things that they hope will go away if we stop emitting greenhouse gases have jumped on the bandwagon and are quick to demonize anyone who disagrees.
Whenever I go anywhere to speak, I find out that I am a hired gun and a tool of the auto industry and oil companies. If anyone knows any auto executives or oil magnates who want to buy me off, please let me know. I’ve never received a dime from any of them, so I guess they owe me a lot of money.
Hey! I thought they were supposed to help prevent stroke and heart attacks! The levitra online usa body loses water content and sodium that act as natural stimulants for sex drive #2. It sounds like the ultimate supplement levitra viagra cialis for the macho man. Some buy cialis common benzodiazepines are diazepam, lorazepam and alprazolam. These pills can improve your stamina, sex desire, levitra order prescription and mood to go for intercourse with your partner. A much more sensible approach to global warming is taken by Jonathan Rauch, a fascinating guy who has written books on such things as special interest lobbying, Japan, gay marriage, and political correctness.
Writing in the National Journal, Rauch argues that climate change is “one of the most convenient [problems] that humankind has ever faced.” Far from being a crisis that must be solved in the next three years, it is a generational problem that can be fixed over the next few generations.
For example, Rauch points out, Yale economist William Nordhaus has calculated that, under the worst-case scenario, global warming will reduce world GNP by 14 percent in 2200. But since per-capita GNP is expected to increase from the current level of $7,000 per year anyway, that is equivalent to saying that per-capita GNP will only be $81,000 in 2200 instead of $94,000. “That’s not good,” say Rauch, “but it’s not catastrophic.”
Those who demand that we act now ignore the fact that, as Rauch says, “the more precipitously we act, the more we disrupt the economy.” Technological change takes time; developing and implementing new technologies in the energy field takes 20 to 25 years. Fortunately, we have those years in which to do it. “Slow-but-steady is not only the easiest approach,” says Rauch, “it is also the most effective.”
The only thing that worries me about this approach is the effects of global warming on individual species, which are not going to have the advantage of decades of increased GNP to cushion any blow from warmer climate. I don’t fear that we are losing or will lose a species every half hour, or whatever the claim is, but we could lose some ecosystems, such as the Giant Sequoia. We will have to make sure that such ecosystems are protected or, if necessary, relocated.
Rauch advocates a carbon tax to promote new technologies, but I am not convinced this is necessary or that it will work. Experience shows that technological change happens just as fast, if not faster, without government interference as it does when government is pushing ideas that are inevitably driven by politics, not energy efficiency.
I am absolutely convinced that government actions aimed at discouraging auto driving by increasing congestion, promoting high-density housing, and building expensive transit systems are the wrong way to go. Whether powered by solar energy, hydrogen fuel cells whose hydrogen is generated from concentrated solar power, or who knows what, we are going to be driving in four-wheeled vehicles for a long time, and cities should design their transportation systems accordingly.
Whenever I go anywhere to speak, I find out that I am a hired gun and a tool of the auto industry and oil companies.
It may or may not be true, but it is true that many shills and tools of the auto and fossil fuel industries write similar-sounding arguments, and use the same boilerplate. Coincidence surely, but understandable that the comparison is made.
Similar comparisons can be made to this essay, filled with boilerplate argumentation that has been taken apart long ago, yet here we see it half-heartedly repeated again.
Society is beginning to understand we must debate the adaptation and mitigation required in the coming decades, who will be the winners and losers, what changes will be needed.
Society isn’t debating tired rhetoric that decision-makers’ aides and staff know the source and likely disagree with. Your job is to somehow compel a shrinking minority’s voice to be heard again.
DS
The book “Chaos, Making a New Science” by James Gleick convinced me that modeling was a less than reliable tool for many applications. Coupling that unreliability with the political nature of global warming it’s very easy for intelligent people to be skeptical.
Once a true idea of what the problem is, or isn’t, is presented we must then weigh the costs and make an informed decision on what actions to take.
The present climate is bypassing much of the needed process. It is also accelerating the call for action much like a used car salesman forcing you to buy now or someone else will buy that car. Any time someone pushes you to act before you are ready it is wise to slow things down and stay calm.
Global warming has been embraced by those who dislike our way of life and have been seeking a way to change our world to their liking. The motives they harbor are not usually discussed.
The best policy is to slow things down and really get the science right before possibly crippling our economies. If it’s worth doing it’s worth doing right.
First, don’t miss http://www.icecap.us
Second, just for Dan:
You appear to be supported by the following:
* politically connected developers who are raking in millions from building high density crap
* The light rail industry selling overpriced, non-solutions to congestion. (which has been caught bribing local officials)
* The streetcar industry selling even more overpriced, transportation toys to unsuspecting cities.
* The big money international non profit corporations who rely on scare stories to get people to give them money.
* Enron, who supported global warming scare to shut down its competitor, coal.
* City planning departments who want to increase their size and influence by imposing their silly ideasa ont eh whole country.
* Neumerous other companies that see an advantage in shutting down some of their competition or hope to profit from screwing joe-sixpack in the name of saving the planet.
Thanks
JK
Oh, come on, Randal!
You have gotten lots of work over the years from the Reason and Cato Foundations and many other “conservative” and “libertarian” “think tanks.” To the extent these groups have gotten money from the oil, auto and other sprawl-supporting industries, then you’ve benefited indirectly from their largess.
Nothing remarkable, but of course you, as I, follow the “golden rule: he who has the gold rules!” You gotta make a living, even if it is as an ideologically motivated propagandist! Nice gig if you can get it…
Hey Gridlock Karlock:
The “streetcar industry” is rather puny compared to the auto, highway and sprawl industries; so is the downtown- and TOD-oriented “smart growth” and “New Urbanism” industries. Last time I looked the U.S. had build only a few hundred miles of new streetcar/LRT lines, and something like 90%+ of new urban development is still on the auto-oriented sprawl model. Development trends are badly lagging what an increasing number of people appear to want. A good summary of current market trends is located here. To wit:
…a sizable percentage (a large plurality, actually… -MDS) of the market prefers walkable, mixed use neighborhoods with a variety of housing types, and that this percentage will increase in coming years because of changing demographics.
Jim, if you’d paid any attention at all, would notice that the vast majority of New Urbanist projects not located in denser areas like downtowns include single family houses built in mixed use, walkable neighborhoods with a variety of housing types, e.g., more like the majority of Portland neighborhoods north and east of the Wilamette and west of I-205. Not a bad pattern, if you ask me–and eminently economic to serve with frequent transit service.
Not that I expect this point to dissuade Gridlock Karlock from arguing that the only choice offered by transit, smart growth and New Urbanism advocates are only detached houses on 1/4 acre lots in the suburbs, or 50 units/acre+ high rises a la Pearl District. JK is too much of a died-in-the-wool demagogue to make the many possible variations in development patterns and housing types between the two.
Hey Gridlock Karlock, another thing…
What is it about streetcars, light rail and other transit that you seem so fearful of?
I’m at a loss to explain your fear of the belated development of transit alternatives, particularly since you claim they don’t work anyway.
As with current urban development patterns where auto-oriented development still outnumbers transit, smart growth and New Urbanist development by more than an order of magnitude, the net annual investment in new transit capacity is considerably less than $5 billion/year even counting cases like FastTrack in Denver, Charlotte, and other areas, which is still more than an order of magnitude less than new road capacity funded by the Feds, state governments and required of developers to mitigate new traffic generated by continuing residential, industrial and commercial sprawl; my educated guess is that “new” urban roadway capacity is somewhere between $50 and $100 billion per year.
Of course, a la Donald Shoup, we would be negligent not to also count the mandated off-street parking required by local government, which probably adds $30,000-$50,000 to each and every new residential unit built, even multifamily, plus whatever the cost is for non-residential uses. Also, how much does the parking mandate add to land prices, given the large amount of space required to park cars, construct driveways, and so forth??
Even in Portland, I bet the new roadways built by the States of Washingto and Oregon, local governments and developers is several times more than the Portland metro area’s ongoing, cumulative investment in transit, and I’m including the I-205 line currently under construction. My educated guess is that auto-oriented new infrastructure is probably 10-20 times higher than new transit, to date, if mandated off-street parking is included in the total.
Over 30 years since the early 1980’s when the Gresham MAX line began construction, this annual transit investment has probably been about $100 million+/- per year; certainly the net annual investment in new road capacity greatly exceeds this, concentrated in Clark, Washington and Clackamas Counties.
Just what is it exactly that makes you so afraid of the options that transit advocates et al and myself are trying to develop?
“Hey Gridlock Karlock, another thing…”
Hey, name calling jerk. Flake off idiot.
PS: You want toy trains — let the users pay for them instead of stealing road user’s user fee dollars for your toys that serve no useful transoprtation function
Thanks
JK
The best policy is to slow things down and really get the science right before possibly crippling our economies.
You’re right, Steve: the majority of major science academies on the planet, the vast number of climate scientists and natural scientists and planetary scientists stating that the science is right isn’t enough.
We need more ideologues uneducated in the natural sciences to weigh in on how those facts don’t comport with certain beliefs.
Ah, well. That argumentation is as stale as old bread. Catch up.
DS
Pots and kettles, Gridlock Karlock.
I’m sorry if I hurt your “feelings.” NOT! I didn’t know you were so sensitive…
Head in the sand ideologue! Obviously you don’t have any answers to my detailed points, except NAME CALLING like “toy trains” and deliberately ignoring all the costs NOT paid by motorists! Argue with the $11.00 per gallon “real cost” estimate for gasoline documented at at a neo-conservative energy security site, http://www.setamericafree.org, not me! They happened to LEAVE OUT “free parking” and many other non-energy security-related externalities of driving, so I suspect $15 to $20 per gallon is probably closer to the real world bottom line, not $11.
You’ve engaged in plenty of name-calling against your enemies on Randal’s blog and on your websites. So I guess you can’t take the heat, Mr. Gridlock? If you can’t take the heat, get out of the kitchen! (quote from that outspoken liberal not intimidated by right wing bluster, Harry S. Truman!)
I repeat, just WHAT ARE YOU AFRAID OF, given that new transit capacity investment is only something like 5% to 6% of total investment in urban transportation capacity expansion, the rest in motor vehicle infrastructure??!!
Transit advocates have NEVER said “do away with cars completely”–well, except for http://www.culturechange.org, which represents an extreme, loopy “deep ecology” viewpoint, anyway. Of course, being the demagogue you are, I predict that in some future posts, you’ll misrepresent the viewpoint of myself and others who advocate cutting down auto use somewhat to be the same as Jan Lundberg’s.
Oh yes…Toy trains??!!! Tell it to the Swiss and Japanese, among others…in Switzerland–the most politically conservative and most overtly capitalist country in Europe–local transit and rail accounts for 17% of total passenger miles, and auto travel is only slightly more than 40% of all trips made.
Given your inability to respond in a rational manner to ANY of my points, I therefore claim victory in this “exchange” (sic), such as it was.
msetty
Given your inability to respond in a rational manner to ANY of my points, I therefore claim victory in this “exchange†(sic), such as it was.
JK: The only victory you get is prize for being the most obnoxious.
Your points are merely recycled trash from discredited web sites.
Thanks
JK
Dan,
Science is not a discipline of consensus and agreement but rather hypothesis and experimentation to support the hypothesis. Copernicus, Galileo, and others failed to agree with everyone else and look where that got them.
While some measure of climate change is agreed upon there is still a lively debate concerning the causes, especially human causes, and the effects.
The fact that the water carriers in this debate are celebrities and politicians speaks to the lack of real science involved.
Regardless, when I say slow down and get it right I expect more than what we are getting in terms of sound science and judgment. The world is billions of years old yet ten years worth of study seems enough for many out there to claim doomsday is coming. If you go back thirty years then we see the coming ice age as our doom.
While some measure of climate change is agreed upon there is still a lively debate concerning the causes, especially human causes, and the effects.
No.
As I said above, the majority of major science academies on the planet, the vast number of climate scientists and natural scientists and planetary scientists state that the science is right. The evidence to support the theories is robust.
The…um…”debate” is among those who aren’t doing the work.
But society is beyond that, and we are actually debating adaptation and mitigation now. Maybe you’ve heard about it.
Hope this helps.
DS
JK:
WHICH “discredited” websites?