BBO Discussion Forums: Climate change - BBO Discussion Forums

Sure. But how does one actually use that scientific research and data to predict temperatures in the future, other than by building a model incorporating the data?

That would be fine, if the model accurately reflected the incorporated data.

How many of the events listed would you describe as climate events? They pretty much all look like weather events to me, not climate events - though I notice the WME also uses the term climate events, not just you.

It is one thing to agree that global warming is happening. It is quite another to say that exceptional weather events are all a result of global warming.

In other words, building a model is the only way to predict future temperatures, but doing so accurately is difficult with such extremely complex systems. Would it surprise you to learn that many current projects aim to improve the accuracy of the models essential to making those predictions?

Although climate and weather aren't the same thing, I'm sure that you don't intend to suggest that they are unrelated. Even when one cannot specifically tie a particular event to global warming, one certainly expects changes in climate to produce changes in weather.

If you don't know what those changes in weather will be, it is irresponsible to assist in changing the climate.

... Might it even be irresponsible to spend large amounts of resources that could otherwise be used for reducing poverty/malnutrition/ill-heath or whatever on reducing CO2 emissions when you don't know what the result of those reductions will be?

... Somewhere there has to be a notion of balancing the costs and benefits of taking different actions on climate change.

Looking at it another way, if we reduced the UK's CO2 emissions to zero by closing down the economy completely and offsetting all remaining emissions from humans and other animals, two years' growth in China would be enough to outweigh the impact on global CO2. If humanity is heading for a global warming catastrophe at some point in the future, is it really worth the complete destruction of the UK for that to happen two years later than it would otherwise have done? Somewhere there has to be a notion of balancing the costs and benefits of taking different actions on climate change.

Are you aware of anyone who has actually suggested the extreme actions you talk about here (or that Blackshoe talked about a couple of pages ago)? If this is not a straw man, I'd like you to provide a reference.

As for "the notion of balancing the costs and benefits of taking different actions on climate change," it is clearly the folks who have been denying climate change--or who claim that it is a good thing--who are going to great lengths to avoid discussing the costs and benefits. Indeed, that is the purpose of straw man arguments.

Instead of talking about what should not be done (especially when there is no chance of it being done anyway), why not talk about what should be done?

Are you aware of anyone who has actually suggested the extreme actions you talk about here? If this is not a straw man, I'd like you to provide a reference.

As for "the notion of balancing the costs and benefits of taking different actions on climate change," it is clearly the folks who have been denying climate change--or who claim that it is a good thing--who are going to great lengths to avoid discussing the costs and benefits. Indeed, that is the purpose of straw man arguments.

Instead of talking about what should not be done (especially when there is no chance of it being done anyway), why not talk about what should be done?

I agree strongly with these thoughts.

Good question! Perhaps because it is pretty tough to decide what should be done! But I am an economist by training and by profession, and I think if there are wider negative impacts from greenhouse gas emissions then the best way of achieving some sort of proportionality between different actions taken is to find mechanisms for putting a cost on those emissions, ie a carbon tax in some form or other. To be useful, this would have to cover as high a proportion of emissions as possible, otherwise untaxed emissions may simply replace taxed ones. I think it is very hard to know at what level such a tax should be set at the moment, but I am happy with the idea that the balance of evidence suggests a positive cost of emissions and therefore a positive tax should be set. If we discover in 50 years time that non-manmade climate change is actually moving towards the next ice age and the risk is that the world will get too cold rather than too hot we can always switch to a negative carbon tax.....

I agree strongly with these thoughts.

This is probably the only comment you have made since I joined in this discussion with which I completely disagree...

“Throughout the 21st century, climate-change impacts are projected to slow down economic growth, make poverty reduction more difficult, further erode food security, and prolong existing and create new poverty traps, the latter particularly in urban areas and emerging hotspots of hunger,” the report declared.

The report also cites the possibility of violent conflict over land or other resources, to which climate change might contribute indirectly “by exacerbating well-established drivers of these conflicts such as poverty and economic shocks.”

The scientists emphasized that climate change is not just some problem of the distant future, but is happening now. For instance, in much of the American West, mountain snowpack is declining, threatening water supplies for the region, the scientists reported. And the snow that does fall is melting earlier in the year, which means there is less meltwater to ease the parched summers.

In Alaska, the collapse of sea ice is allowing huge waves to strike the coast, causing erosion so rapid that it is already forcing entire communities to relocate.

“Now we are at the point where there is so much information, so much evidence, that we can no longer plead ignorance,” said Michel Jarraud, secretary general of the World Meteorological Organization.

The experts did find a bright spot, however. Since the group issued its report in 2007, it has found growing evidence that governments and businesses around the world are starting extensive plans to adapt to climate disruptions, even as some conservatives in the United States and a small number of scientists continue to deny that a problem exists.

“I think that dealing effectively with climate change is just going to be something that great nations do,” said Christopher B. Field, co-chairman of the working group that wrote the report, and an earth scientist at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Stanford, Calif.

Talk of adaptation to global warming was once avoided in some quarters, on the grounds that it would distract from the need to cut emissions. But the past few years have seen a shift in thinking, including research from scientists and economists who argue that both strategies must be pursued at once.

Actually the markets are doing something.

The amount of carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere in the U.S. has fallen dramatically to its lowest level in 20 years, and government officials say the biggest reason is that cheap and plentiful natural gas has led many power plant operators to switch from dirtier-burning coal.

Many of the world's leading climate scientists didn't see the drop coming, in large part because it happened as a result of market forces rather than direct government action against carbon dioxide ...

More indications that prevention may be futile, and hence that adaptation is essential.

The sad thing about this is that adaptation is much much expensive than prevention.

Oh well, we can comfort ourselves in the fact that its many brown and black people that will end up suffering.