Climate Change and Captain Kirk
For some time now I’ve been trying to convey just how ludicrous it is that the US government’s anti-carbon policies are based on computer simulations of the global economic/climate system through the year 2300. A recent piece by David Kreutzer and Kevin Dayaratna (an economist and computer programmer, respectively, at the Heritage Foundation) is the best I’ve yet seen:
When you switch on the kitchen light tonight, how will it affect Captain James T. Kirk and the intrepid crew of the Starship Enterprise?
Captain Kirk is a fictional character, of course, but the question — thanks to the EPA — is all too real. The agency calls it the “Social Cost of Carbon.” In the SCC they claim to have an estimate, measured in dollars per ton of CO2, for all the damage that your free-and-easy light-switching today will impose on the world from now until the year 2300, at which point Captain Kirk would be 77. To save Kirk and the rest of future Earth from a panoply of speculative, incremental horrors, the EPA has plans to nudge your carbony little fingers away from that switch and many others.
The two authors then go on to describe their results when they tweak 2 of the 3 computer models that the Obama Administration’s Working Group used to calculate the “social cost of carbon”:
Like the EPA, we ran the DICE model (created by William Nordhaus) and the FUND model (by Richard Tol). But we used more recent peer-reviewed estimates of CO2’s impact on world temperature (here and here), and we ran the models using a 7 percent discount rate (that is, the rate at which we value short-term effects over long-term effects), as stipulated by the OMB and curiously ignored by the EPA, which used 2.5 percent, 3 percent, and 5 percent.
The simple substitution of the discount rate drops the SCC estimate by more than 80 percent in the DICE model and pushes it to zero or even negative for the FUND model. (Here it might be appropriate to observe a moment of sympathetic silence for Richard Tol, a lead and convening IPCC author, who was recently excoriated by his former brethren for publicly stating the painfully obvious: Some impacts of warming are good.)
Updating the estimates of CO2’s impact on temperatures drops the SCC estimates by 40 to 80 percent. When the 7 percent discount rate is used in conjunction with the updated CO2 impacts, the FUND model indicates a better-than-even chance the SCC is negative.
That is, using more up-to-date numbers renders a range of estimates so broad that it is not clear whether CO2 emissions should be restricted or subsidized. Are these changes debatable? Absolutely. Is the debate on these topics over? Absolutely not. We cannot calculate how today’s trip to the grocery will harm humanity in three centuries. Nevertheless, the EPA is forging ahead with regulations employing a SCC of about $40 per ton for the near term. [Bold added.]
Incidentally, I haven’t personally vetted their computer runs, but their results are consistent with my own simulations run on the DICE model when I tweaked it for a paper in The Independent Review. And as I explained in my Senate testimony last summer, the FUND model does indeed show “positive externalities” of global warming for modest warming, which means that the use of a high enough discount rate would render a prima facie case for subsidizing carbon dioxide emissions.
Of course, we aren’t seriously proposing government subsidies on the grounds that CO2 emissions confer “social benefits” that aren’t being fully internalized by the emitters. The point is that even taking the Administration’s case on its own terms, it’s not even clear that CO2 emissions are a bad thing. And to repeat, we’re not inventing “the Heritage Foundation computer model.” Rather, we are running 2 of the 3 computer models that the Obama Administration team used to come up with these figures for federal agencies.
Last point: You might wonder why they (and I) didn’t try peeking under the hood of the third model, the so-called PAGE model. The answer is that it’s proprietary, and the creator (Chris Hope) doesn’t make the code publicly available. (If you email him, he gives conditions under which you can use it, which involves paying him for a pretty expensive training session.) That’s of course his prerogative–and I mean that sincerely, I don’t expect him to volunteer his time or post his proprietary code for the world to download–but it makes it impossible for outside researchers to vet the government’s reported figures when one of the computer models involved is inaccessible. One would think that when federal officials selected the representative computer models to use when estimating the “social cost of carbon,” they would pick models that are publicly available.
“One would think that when federal officials selected the representative computer models to use when estimating the “social cost of carbon,” they would pick models that are publicly available.”
Why on Earth would one think that? I’m shocked that any of their models are available.
Don’t worry though, based on what you guys have been doing with these models, the feds probably won’t make THAT mistake again! No need to run the code yourselves. It’s classified. But the science is settled, trust us.
very well said. I still find it amazing (at a fine age of 75) that the Government agencies are ‘always correct’ in their analysis’, but yet discount any discussion on more modern (and correct) methods.
What does von Mises say about predicting markets? Can it be applied to long range predictions of any sort, i.e weather. Malthusian warnings of over population, running out of whatever?
I have yet to see any prediction about anything be all that accurate. The ones that happen to be close I often chalk up to the broken clock theory (Even a broken clock is right twice a day). Watching some PBS show they said we understand, scientifically, about 15% of what happens on Earth and maybe 5% of what goes on in the univers. How can anyone call science settled based on that?
Here in Santa Rosa, CA they predicted 88 degrees today, upped it to 98 this morning and we peaked at 90; all of this in 12 hours. These jokers cannot call the temp with any degree of accuracy in a 12 hour span, how can anyone possible take with absolute faith 50, 100 or 300 year predictions and then base an economic model or attempt to alter climate through taxes or anything else? Is global warming climate change happening? WHo knows? Certainly climate changes, but no one can call it. To be fair to meteorologists, it is a tough job and I am impressed by their body of knowledge.
On a Biblical note; does God really care if we fry? Is it the Earth we are supposed to be saving or our souls? How arrogant and worldy of us to think we possess the power over such things. Perhaps this is the lake of fire?
Not long ago, some marine sanctuary released a sea lion they had rescued. Within sight of its release, it was attacked and consumed by a great white. This is how I view environmentalism; we will “save the Earth” and then be struck by a giant meteor which extinguishes us.
What I do know is it is far more likely that solutions will come from a free market than from a government directed program or through regulation.
http://eaps4.mit.edu/research/Lorenz/publications.htm
I suggest reading some of the climate related papers. For example “Nonlinearity, weather prediction, and climate deduction” and “Climate Predictability”.
There are fundamental problems, your suspicion is not whacky, other people have already been studying it.
Seeing as our glorious overlords think a broken window is essential to economic growth, the social value of NOT reducing carbon should far outstrip social costs of reducing carbon. Think about it, a modest rise of say, 20′ of sea level would create the most robust construction boom in world history. If the economists of the Krugmanati could think in the long run they surely would be clamoring for more carbon, allegro!
Genius!
Thread winner.
Although, to couch the insanity in terms that make you seem like a nor al person, you have to include a bunch of one liner caveats and quips for the likely barrage of responses from non insane people.
So add something like “under certain conditions”, but never dare explain exactly what those conditions are, because the trick is to leave the decision up to the overlords and their flag carrying intellectuals. Oh, also include “during special times, insane actions become sane”, and do not explain exactly what those special times are. Maybe give it a scary sounding name to confuse the rabble into going along based on fear. Maybe use the word “trap”. That tends to work.
Finally, deny any and all interpretations of your claims that give the enemy the moral high ground. And don’t admit you are making a moral argument either. Translate “Some people ought to be hurt with coercion and violence in order to give unearned wealth to other people” into something that sounds scientistic, and also attack your morality opponents as moralizers and unscientific. Cater to the lowest common denominator, so as to influence the maximum number of people, who can then vote to influence the state to exert its power differently than it might otherwise, which then gives your state policy the best chance of being imposed on the hapless rabble.
“we ran the models using a 7 percent discount rate (that is, the rate at which we value short-term effects over long-term effects).” What do you think is the appropriate discount rate to use? Do you think 7% is the best one?
To borrow a scenario from Jim S, say we knew that a giant meteor would hit the Earth in 2300 and destroy 90% of the USA. How would we work out how much to spend diverting the meteor? The cost would rise the closer the event gets, starting with a relatively modest sum to send a mission to paint half of it, and after say 25 years a very expensive sustained multi nuclear warhead attack, then after 75 years there being no known way to divert it.
Good scenario, but it might be backwards.
It is now that we have no known way to “divert” global warming. When we hit the diminishing returns to photovoltaic efficiency (just one example) that changes.
We have ways – it is based on people responding to incentives. If we make carbon more expensive people will use less of it, and they will find alternatives. Do you deny this is the case? I have explained before that there is plenty of altenative energy around, and other ways to reduce CO2 such as CCS which will not be used as the direct costs are slightly more than shoving CO2 up a chimney.
I do not understand what you mean by the diminishing returns point or the one below about hampering the economy.
Yeah, I basically disagree with everything you’ve said.
The point on solar is that that is the ultimate solution but it is not ready.
“Capturing and compressing CO2 may increase the fuel needs of a coal-fired CCS plant by 25–40%.[4] These and other system costs are estimated to increase the cost of the energy produced by 21–91% for purpose built plants.”
You realize we just had a depression because of nothing, right?
you still base your case on the underlying assumption that CO2 is bad, per se, that CO2 is the one manipulable cause of “global warming”, and further this model utterly fails to consider the one HUGE “engine” of CO2 regulation on the lanet… the oceans. It is they which regulate CO2 concentration in the atmosphere. And it is a perfectly balanced system. Heat goes up, CO2 goes up, more CO2 deflects more UV away, temp goes down,morte CO2 dissolves in seawater. One part of that CO2 regulative model was mentioned.. by the poor ICC guy who is being pilloried for his detrenchement from standard meme theory: more CO2, warmer tems, both of which contribute to more plant mass production, which USES co2 and produces oxygen from it. More plant mass production can mean more food production, resulting in healthier and better fed people…..which live longer, produce more, burn up more O2, and release more CO2 to depress temperatures…. somehow EPA and IPCC forget to factore in THAT cycle as well.
Folks, it ain’t about controlling CO2, or “greenhouse gasses” of “global warming”. Nope, its about running ALL humans under the one world government system they all want so badly…. for their own profit. Follow the money, as per usual.
“Heat goes up, CO2 goes up, more CO2 deflects more UV away, temp goes down.”
This one I think takes the biscuit as the least informed comment I have seen.
Yes, people respond to incentives. Some of the incentives that would be necessary to reduce CO2 to the level required are to let people starve to death by diverting large parts of the global agriculture harvest to ethanol production. The fewer of those incentives we have, the better.
I believe ethanol from biomass is currently a very stupid policy from a CO2 perspective. I suspect it has been pursued from a combination of appeasing the farming lobby and to increase fuel security. It is simply a way to convert non transport fuel such as coal and gas into liquid fuel suitable for transport. Greenhouse gas reduction is simply a smokescreen in this case. I believe a tax would be a better way to provide the right incentives.
Isn’t a 7% discount rate way too high (by definition) if the assumed solution is to hamper the economy?
Of course, we aren’t seriously proposing government subsidies on the grounds that CO2 emissions confer “social benefits” that aren’t being fully internalized by the emitters.
A lot of countries do actually provide government subsidies for fossil fuel use (particularly in the developing world), though of course they aren’t doing so based on the results of the FUND model.
Is the issue here that a carbon tax is a bad idea no matter what, or that climate change isn’t happening? On the first point, as usual I have no idea about the economics. On the latter point, that does seem largely settled in the scientific community, and I really really don’t think it’s accurate to say that no one can make accurate predictions about the effect of certain human and business activities on the environment. It was very easy to predict the environmental degradation in China and India caused by their economic expansion and many did so. It was easy to predict what would happen here iif some force didn’t intervene to protect further degradation of the air and water. I am prepared to accept that in some utopian free market system, the market itself would correct environmental degradation, but I don’t know how one can seriously argue that could happen in the world as it exists today. Absent government intervention, it doesn’t happen any where on earth today that I’m aware of.
I mean, I certainly think it’s possible that predictions of climate change may be wrong in some ways, but that it just isn’t happening or isn’t a serious problem? Is that really a realistic viewpoint given the overwhelming scientific consensus?
John,
As Bob points out in his articles, the economic questions CANNOT be left out of the “scientific” questions. You are treating these as two entirely separate issues, but they are not.
The point here is that even if you USE the “consensus” scientific estimates, various *economic* assumptions must be made in order to reach a situation where climate change represents a “serious problem.” In fact, under certain economic assumptions, climate change, *even if it plays out under scenarios the IPCC is using*, would confer net benefits on society.
Saying “I don’t know about the economic stuff, but the science suggests we need to act!” is just as ignorant as it would be if Murphy came out and said “Look I have no idea about any of the science behind this, but my understanding of Austrian Economics suggests this can’t be a problem and we can safely ignore it!” That said, don’t feel bad, your position makes you well-qualified to become a United States Senator!
John wrote:
I mean, I certainly think it’s possible that predictions of climate change may be wrong in some ways, but that it just isn’t happening or isn’t a serious problem? Is that really a realistic viewpoint given the overwhelming scientific consensus?
John, I realize some people are pretty extreme and say, “Al Gore is full of it, the ClimateGate emails prove it’s all a hoax,” etc etc.
But that’s now what I’m saying, and it’s not in the piece I linked to.
They are taking the very models that the Obama Administration Working Group used, and plugging in (a) one of the discount rates that the OMB requires in cost/benefit reports and (b) more recent estimates of the equilibrium climate sensitivity coming from peer-reviewed science articles. The results are dramatically different from what the Working Group told federal agencies to use in their analyses.
Your objections given in the IER document fall into different classes. 1) If we knew the actual effects of climate change in terms of damage, we should not use this in policy because we do not have an objective way to assess discount rates. 2) We have no reliable way to estimate the value of the impacts of climate change. 3) The process by which the policy was drawn up was flawed. Please correct this if I have mis-understood. To keep the post shortish, I will just look at 1) here since that is the main thrust or your post. So lets assume for the sake of argument that we have a reliable estimate of future damage.
As a general principle, policy is not always objective. How much immigration should be allowed? This depends partly on how we value Americans vs foreigners. There is no way we can objectively say there is a “right” answer. Most people still think there should be policy in this area. I know some here would prefer anarchy, but that is not an argument that will carry much weight nationally at the moment.
From the IER piece, that you say describes your POV: “because the discount rate is arbitrary there is no “right” or “wrong” one to use.” This is not true- because there are very many wrong ones. Were I to suggest 89% discount rate, or minus150%, we can agree that these would be wrong in all realistic uses of the word wrong. These would be wrong because they are entirely arbitrary and have no justification. So perhaps we shopuld re-word your POV – “there is no absolute “right” answer, but there are values that have a greater and lesser degree of justification”.
You point out that the trend in academia is to use values not based solely on the market. Are these trends really arbitrary, or do they have some justification? My guess is that there is justification for these trends – among other things because using pure market based rates gives outcomes that most people would not want for certain scenarios stretching over generations. I am not an expert in this, but I think is extremely unlikely that academic economists use entirely arbitrary criteria. So we maybe need to re-word your POV again. “There is a trend in academia towards non market based discount rates that I disagree with” perhaps.
“Because of the lack of an objective standard, there is great leeway for the analyst to alter the result of the SCC based on what discount rate is selected.” We can agree here. This makes it extremely important to select the most appropriate one.
So what is your solution to these problems? You say that because we have no absolutely objective way to determine discount rates we should not make policy in this area. (The quote from the conclusions: “there are several fatal flaws in the use of the SCC for regulatory purposes” – of which the discount rate features significantly in the document). This is self-contradictory. Say we know there will be damage in the future (for the sake of argument). We could try to work out how much to spend today to offset this. Or we could do nothing. By doing nothing we are effectively discounting completely the future damage. This is effectively applying an arbitrary discount rate! By attempting to avoid using an arbitrary discount rate we have actually applied one.
No, we surely must use some discount rate, so we should choose the one that is most appropriate. The trend in academia as you say is for something less than 3%. Why should we not use this?
Thank you for the responses. I don’t know if I would agree about the Working Group, because as I’ve mentioned before, everybody here knows a thousand times more about economics than I do, and I just can’t tell exactly what the specific issues are, but I get both points about (1) not being able to separate the economic issues from the science (up to a point I agree, although I guess if it’s a coming cataclysm we’d have to do something almost regardless of economic cost), and I also get the point that maybe the modeling being used to justify a carbon tax is wrong or incomplete. Thanks again for the cogent replies.
Thanks John. Not sure how much you want to get into it, but my perspective on this is codified in IER’s official Comment on the SCC submitted to the fed government. (Others helped me with it, but my POV is in there pretty well.) I’m guessing you will not agree with our overall position but it summarizes some of the key issues.
John,
Regarding your “coming cataclysm” scenario, it still depends on just HOW deep the cataclysm is. Presumably, there are just some costs we are unwilling to pay regardless of the outcome. Let’s say that this cataclysm was caused by a vengeful and angry God and the only way we could prevent it was by brutally murdering every child under the Age of 5. Would we pay this price? Probably not.
Obviously that’s an extreme and absurd hypothetical, but the same logic applies. I’ve found this to be one of my biggest objections to the alarmist crowd. They focus entirely on the damages that may be done and simply dismiss the costs involved either as “well if the damage is high then any cost is worth it!” or, more honestly (as you did) by just saying “Well I don’t know the economics of it.”
There is no such thing as a problem that needs to be solved “regardless of cost.” There will always be a theoretical cost that is just too high.
All there is be the economics. Aside from the economics, it is just one of all the millions of other problems.
“Whether” it is happening is largely irrelevant…which is why that is all that ever gets harped on again….and again….and again….and again…and again…
Economics is a dismal science, it is – most people can’t comprehend basic stuff here. I get that it is Your field, that You feel comfortable with it and all that, but there are serious clues out there that need no economic (that which is not seen…) thinking at all. Like this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yy3YJBOw_o
Does anyone realize that one volcanic eruption can set the earth back years in anything we do to stop CO2 and global warming, and I use the words facetiously. There has been an estimated 200 volcanic eruption per year on earth, so anything we try to do is negated for sure by just these occurrences. Secondly, India and China will never stop “polluting” so what we are spending so much money and time and effort on is gone for naught. One more thing, someone wrote that there is definitely a foregone conclusion that climate change or what ever you want to call it is proven and is certainly is not. And lastly, fossil fuel was a term made up in the 1940’s in regards to a theory of oil and gas production, and no one seems to realize that oil and gas are renewable resources. There are so many studies showing that dinosaurs remains and plants of the ages gone by would certainly have been eliminated a long time ago, but we continually find oil and gas. Google “oil and gas as renewable” and check it out.
This one is close to the worst informed. Volcanoes produce about 1% of the CO2 that fossil fuel burning produces. Where do you get this stuff from? A simple web search is all it takes to put it straight. Googling as you suggest for “oil as a renewable” resource does not improve my opinion of how well informed you are.
What reason is there to believe that the climate model used by the Obama Administration’s Working Group works any better than the Obamcare website?
You are looking at a problem and finding only negative solutions. The International biochar Initiative has found that plowing biochar basically charcoal into the ground is beneficial to crops and it permanently removes the carbon from the air. This is a positive solution and even the under developed countries would use it as they see our increased crop production. Wake up and do something other than give the gov. Tax money.
Earmark any carbon taxes directly and only to research such as this and my ears will be open.
All these machinations presuppose that carbon is the key culprit. CO2 is a greenhouse gas, no question. It is not the most influential of the various contributors to warming, however. Water vapor and sunspot activity contribute much greater impact on atmospheric heating. These are not easily taxed and thus controlled, so they are of little interest to legislators and unelected regulators. So all of this modeling and political debate is over a reality which does not exist. Move on to something useful and deal with the natural consequences of the changing climate as they appear.
Economics isn’t complicated. Basically it reflects the selfishness of the people on the whole. In this particular issue, the economics are quite clear, and point to the need of “scientists” to go along with the “consensus” if they intend to make a career in this religion. People act in their own self interest, so they put on a scholarly face and lie, because if they really believed in “Global Warming/Climate Change” they would be sinking their entire retirement fund into land in the Yukon! The fact that they are not, proves that they do not believe what they are saying.
Before climate change science changed the rules of the game, government funded studies always (so far as I know) included requirements that models used in the evaluation be publicly available at no cost for review by any. For example the widely used code MODFLOW code and the code HEC, both in the hydrologic sciences.
I could name quite a few others.
Whether the EPA models, figures and forecasts are false or not is not the point. The thing we have to recognize is the size of the climate business and how many people are living off what may actually be a myth. We can’t just stop this business and put those people out of work. Whole departments in universities would close. It is much better to pretend that the EPA is correct and keep this business humming
Al Gore has made MILLIONS touting “climate change”. He is idiot who flunked out as a politician so he had to have something to keep his name in the news.
Why do we even have the EPA? That agency is not even constitutional. Truthfully it is past time the agency be dismantled.
On another site one of the commenters said grow more trees to utilize the CO2 generated by modern society. Might have some credence.
My personal opinion: It is past time our government stops working 25 hours per day to add additional laws and rules to control every aspect of our lives.
I personally am not impressed with “academia”. A very large percentage of “academia” are idiots who push some screw ball thinking and swear it is scientific knowledge. BS!
Let’s look at two “problems” that economics have spoken out on: global warming and gun control. In one case, gun control, we have the ability to do forensics and see that Dr. John Lott’s predictions were accurate, namely, that “more gun control causes more gun crime” and also “More Guns, Less Crime” (the title of one of his books, in fact). People who were against ‘more guns’ said it couldn’t be true, and when the data later proved the theory, they did what? MORE GUN CONTROL. These political actors went against the data to increase their political activity, which was to increase gun control and not to solve gun crime or whatever their initial goal may have been. But I am not talking about guns here.
If you have a tentative theory based on a fraudulent motive, the only realistic thing to do is to watch and wait and see if your theory is right or not. If a butterfly can affect the weather, then how much more so will billions of dollars in wealth transfer to and from energy-producing corporations do the same? Is that in the model too?
I wonder if peer-reviewed models of earthquake predictions in 1910 said that everyone should move out of California, or pay a $1000 earthquake tax due to the weight of skyscrapers causing California earthquakes! Today, we would laugh at such a stupid and short-sighted prediction from buggy-whip scientists. I’m sure that is how our grandchildren will look at us, wondering “what were they thinking?!?!?!”
NOAA supercomputers can barely predict the weather accurately more than a few days in advance and climate change scientists now say they can predict climate to the year 2300?
I have a M. Eng in simulation of complex chemical plants and have been doing that for over 40 years and know that even a relatively small problem like a chemical plant can not be accurately simulated and we are always surprised.
On a very related topic with regard to Captain Kirk. This is a 50 yr old set of technology forecasts so we can learn a lot from what has come true and what has not. It is clear that what already has come true are the two things that are in the private arena ie “communicators” and automatic sliding doors. The cell phones of today are even better than the communicators of Star trek with video, etc. The miserable failures come in the areas that are government controlled such as the Shuttle which was so far from being routine fell out of the sky and of course space exploration and transportation in general. There were ideas that could have got us into space cheaply and allowed us to go to Mars fast using nuclear power but these were regulated out of existence. It is interesting that the “tricorder” is now slowly starting to become feasible with various “cell phone addons and this is an intermediate regulated case since the health industry is heavily regulated but there are some private players.
The real cost of central planning /regulation is all the great things it prevents from happening.
Do you deny that you could model the broad consequences of putting more energy into a complex chemical plant, even if you could not get all the details right?
31,000 scientist have signed a petition saying CO2 has nothing to do with the temperature of the planet Earth! An increase in Co2 always and I mean always follows a rise in temperature. A rise in CO2 never precludes a rise in temp.
The IPCC and NASA do not use raw data! The 1930’s were warmer than the temps we have today. We have not had any warming for the last 17 years!
This is about people control! Nothing more, nothing less!
There is no warming at the South Pole. The average temp there is -58F.
Where is the Lost Squadron? Landed in 1943 on a glacier in Greenland. About 200 feet below the surface, covered in ice.
Is the oceans rising? Would an under water volcano displace alot of water? Hawaii will soon have another island.
Makes you wonder…..