Many progressives view global warming as a looming catastrophe, justifying a major change in our lifestyle.
Some conservatives regard global warming as a hoax. Most [conservatives], however, acknowledge its reality, while arguing that economic models often show only a very modest hit to global GDP over the next century. (Large in dollar terms but quite small in percentage terms.)
I lean a bit more toward the conservative view, although I also worry about damage to the animal kingdom that may not be picked up in GDP statistics. Also, there may be a cost to human utility that doesn’t show up in the data, perhaps due to a more uncomfortable climate. And there will be some severe regional impacts. So on balance I still favor policies such as a carbon tax, a policy that I do not view as being costly.
Today, I’d like to challenge the framing that both sides of the debate seem to have accepted, the view that addressing global warming requires major sacrifices. I suspect that the problem does requires major changes, but I see no reason to assume these changes would be sacrifices.
The following tweet caught my eye:
France is not some sort of special case like Iceland, where it’s easy to generate clean energy. It’s Europe’s second biggest economy, and a fairly normal developed country. And yet 99% of its electricity is zero carbon. Yes, they still have cars and trucks consuming gasoline, but electric cars are on the way.
One argument against copying France is that clean energy is really costly. That’s the implicit assumption in this whole debate, isn’t it? But is it costly? Consider electricity prices in various developed countries:
France is not the cheapest, but it has lower electricity prices than all of the other major Western European countries (Germany, UK, Italy, Spain.)
France relies mostly on nuclear, but also a mix of wind, solar, hydro and other low carbon energy sources. The big nuclear (and hydro) capacity provides a buffer for periods when it’s cloudy or the wind is calm. Once France switches to electric cars and trucks, it will have mostly solved its carbon emission problem, at very low cost. And their fast trains are already electric. (Heating and industry are also carbon emitters, but I suspect there are low cost solutions there as well.)
In contrast, Germany is shutting down its nuclear industry and replacing the energy with coal-fired plants.
This post is not about progressives and conservatives; it’s about the fact that the developed world’s response to global warming has been pathetic when you consider how little it costs to effectively address the issue. There’s plenty of blame to go around.
READER COMMENTS
John Hall
Jun 21 2022 at 8:57am
One quibble: nuclear energy is best used as the base load. So it isn’t so good as a complement to solar/wind. However, nuclear capacity can mean that less solar/wind is required, which would mean that less need for dirtier power sources to meet peak loads.
Scott Sumner
Jun 21 2022 at 10:41am
Good point. In addition, I suspect that wind and solar in France are negatively correlated. Is that right? (Calm sunny days and cloudy windy days.)
Christophe Biocca
Jun 21 2022 at 11:19am
It’s true that nuclear is best used as baseload for economic reasons (capacity is expensive but fuel is relatively cheap), but France runs most of their reactors in load-following modes most of the time already due to the sheer percentage of power from those sources.
robc
Jun 21 2022 at 4:03pm
Yes, I was going to mention that too. France has figured out the problem to load following with Nukes, and it works. Probably not the most efficient solution, but when all you have is a nail, you load follow with a hammer.
John Hall
Jun 22 2022 at 1:55pm
Interesting. Good points.
Loquitur Veritatem
Jun 21 2022 at 9:43am
Are both sides wrong about what? You don’t address the crucial issue, which is the cause (or causes) of the warming in recent decades. Rational policy depends on a dispassionate, truly scientific, determination of the causes. Models that essentially assume the answer (human activity) don’t cut it.
Scott Sumner
Jun 21 2022 at 10:40am
I find the standard models of global warming to be quite convincing.
Todd Kreider
Jun 21 2022 at 9:06pm
There are about 30 “standard models” with large differences in predicting increase in global average temperature by 2100. With respect average sea level rise, the “standard models” models based on RCP 8.5 are completely unrealistic so what remains is the 0.4 meter to 0.7 meter rise range by 2100.
suddyan
Jun 23 2022 at 7:43am
I find the standard models of global warning quite unconvincing.
JayT
Jun 21 2022 at 2:51pm
This doesn’t seem to be an important issue at all. Cleaner air is a good thing whether or not climate change is a small/medium/large issue. Even if this does nothing to change climate change, there are still major benefits.
Matthias
Jun 21 2022 at 11:53pm
CO2 emissions and clean air have almost nothing to do with each other.
At least if you understand clean air to mean something like the absence of smog and smoke and other irritants.
CO2 in the concentrations people are worried about for climate change does not make air ‘unclean’.
JayT
Jun 22 2022 at 10:05am
My point was that possibly improving climate change is a side benefit to moving to cleaner, safer technologies. There is no doubt that nuclear, hydro, wind and solar produce less pollution than something like coal or biomass generators. Fighting moving to better technology because you don’t believe in climate change is pretty silly when there are patently obvious benefits for reasonable costs.
Spencer Bradley Hall
Jun 21 2022 at 10:55am
Why do you think the air force jets are spaying chem trails for last two decades?
Michael Rulle
Jun 21 2022 at 12:39pm
“Some conservatives regard global warming as a hoax”———“I lean a bit more toward the conservative view”.
I doubt you think it is a hoax—–but I believe you think it is possible. I believe it is likely a hoax. For example, since warming is supposed to cause “apocalyptic ” outcomes (or are we supposed to believe hyperbole is ok?)—why can’t we demonstrate how warming has caused problems? We forecast problems—we just have not demonstrated there have been problems.
Information is presented to bias global warming. For example, it is very difficult to find average global temperatures—(about 57.5F in the 1850s and 58.9F in the 2000s)—mostly just “change”–which makes the visuals look like there is a tremendous change.
For example, there has been a change from 1980-2020 (Land-Ocean index–of .6C). Sattelite data is a change from 1980-2021 of .3 C.
Is this a lot? I have no idea–they do not have theories to tell us. Is this caused only by CO2 emissions? Don’t know—it is correlated but what is the cause-effect model stating it is all anthropomorphic?—don’t know.
What Lonborg has been excellent at is showing the opportunity cost of going “all in” on trying to eliminate CO2 emissions–which is enormous.
Scott Sumner
Jun 21 2022 at 6:51pm
I meant I lean to the conservative view that the effects are not catastrophic, not that it is a hoax (which is certainly false.)
Johnson85
Jun 27 2022 at 11:30am
It’s not a hoax in the sense of climate not changing or CO2 not being a greenhouse gas. But it is a hoax in the sense that the mantle of manmade climate change is being used to accomplish goals that have nothing to do with stopping or limiting man made climate change. That’s why most countries don’t implement useful policies to address it.
You’ve got a toxic mix of people that use it as a replacement of religion, or use it to signal ingroup status, or use it for mild graft (e.g., flying to conferences with costs paid for by others), or use it for significant graft (e.g., lots of government money flowing to useless or counterproductive things through subsidies or mandates), or some combination of all of them. That’s why you see things like “climate activists” that are against nuclear energy, are against carbon taxes if adjustments are made to be revenue neutral rather than redistribute the money to connected political entities, fly on private jets to climate conference and do a lot of flying generally, advocate policies for other (poorer) people’s consumption to be reduced while refusing to even bring theirs in line with the average US Citizen, much less the world average.
The number of people who actually believe it’s a problem and act like they think it’s a problem is just swamped by the people who claim to believe it’s a problem but act like all that is required of them is some empty words and symbolic but non useful gestures while arguing that other people should be forced to reduce their standard of living to address it. So I would say the “climate change movement” (there’s probably a better description) is mostly a hoax, mostly people that either don’t really believe it’s a problem or to the extent they do, aren’t willing to do anything to help address it unless it’s inflicting pain on other people.
Michael Rulle
Jun 21 2022 at 3:15pm
Ice melt is supposed to be a major problem—–in fact, according to Antarctic glaciers.org, sea levels are rising at the rate of .69mm (yes!) per year. The Greenland ice sheet is 684,000 cubic miles. It melts currently at approximately 57 cubic miles per year. At that rate, we run out of ice in Greenland in 12000 years.
In Antarctica, the ice sheet is 6,400, 000 cubic miles. It is melting at 24 cubic miles per year—250,000 plus years to zero
The only point is obvious—we hear about the ice melt—-and we will likely have several ice ages before 1/100th of the ice melts.
This is “hoax” like. Not because it is false but they pretend this is a big problem.
Scott Sumner
Jun 21 2022 at 6:52pm
That data does not sound accurate to me.
Michael Rulle
Jun 22 2022 at 8:16am
To be honest, it did not to me either. But I checked and rechecked——but I will do it again with references.
Kevin
Jun 21 2022 at 11:57pm
Michael, it should be noted that the melting is likely to accelerate, and as of right now, sea levels are rising at about .13 inches per year (13 inches per century). This is significantly faster than what you’ve stated, but hardly an existential catastrophe.
Michael Rulle
Jun 22 2022 at 8:18am
As mentioned to Scott—-will recheck——
Richard A.
Jun 21 2022 at 4:24pm
Nuclear power plants are expensive to build but cheap to operate. It’s foolish to prematurely shut down operating nuclear power plants. Green energy technology is becoming cheaper and cheaper with each passing year to the point that it is beginning to undercut the cost of fossil fuels. This is particularly true with solar energy.
Unfortunately here in the US, there is a protectionist mindset that thinks green energy technology must be built here in the US. What’s needed is a major green energy free trade agreement to protect us from such foolishness.
Todd Kreider
Jun 21 2022 at 9:30pm
Scott wrote: “France relies mostly on nuclear, but also a mix of wind, solar, hydro and other low carbon energy sources.”
I’m not sure why the mix to produce electricity is more interesting than France’s primary energy mix:
Fossil fuels 50%
Nuclear 36%
Hydro 6%
Wind 4%
Solar 1%
Biofuels 1%
Scott Sumner
Jun 22 2022 at 11:30am
I addressed that in the post. Read it again.
Kenneth P
Jun 21 2022 at 9:42pm
The key part of the tweet might be the “Right now…” part. Is that at a certain time on a certain day when he was watching the charts? I don’t buy that it will average 99% for the next 12 months. The Wikipedia page shows France using 8% fossil fuels for electricity in 2018. They use 72% nuclear, which they plan to cut to 50% by 2035. That nuclear percentage is hard to duplicate from a community buy-in perspective. The US does good to build a bathroom in a subway station in less than 5 years.
Germany went in big time on solar several years ago and ended up using more coal because they took nuclear plants offline at the same time.
Matthias
Jun 22 2022 at 12:22am
Scott, for heating with electricity, heat pumps can work really well. They are essentially air-conditioning systems running in reverse.
Using electricity directly to heat a room gives you 1 Joule of heat for 1 Joule of electricity.
Using a modern heat pump gives you about 4 Joule of heat for 1 Joule of electricity.
You can also get a lot more efficient with heating via insulation. Or by etc using an electric blanket instead of heating the whole room.
Robert Bradley Jr
Jun 22 2022 at 1:10am
The nuclear industry is dead in the US for traditional plants (no) thanks to the construction of Vogtle #3 and #4 by Georgia Power, which has doubled in cost to $30 billion for about 2,250 MW of capacity. Boondoggle on stilts.
Natural gas combined cycle is about 10-15 times cheaper to build and in one-third ore less of the time. (Yes, you read that right.) Rising interest rates kills nuclear that much more.
New nuclear (‘Gen 4’) designs are heavily taxpayer dependent and experimental here in the US.
Simply put, nuclear is the most complicated, expensive, hazardous way to boil water to steam the turbines. Only government interventions allowed the industry to get off the ground here in the US, another story.
Classical liberalism cannot support the history of the nuclear power industry in this country, if not elsewhere.
Johnson85
Jun 27 2022 at 11:36am
Well, a lot of the costs of nuclear are driven by governmental compliance. Of course good luck separating the craziness from what’s important.
Also, I think nuclear could be much cheaper if we committed to it. Building nukes sporadically means we learn a lot of new lessons each time with a new work force. If we actually committed to building a number of them and it wasn’t new for practically every single worker each time, surely that woudl help. And whatever government subsidies they would require, surely it would be less painful than what would happen if the government tries to regulate to produce the same amount of carbon reduction from electricity generation.
Phil H
Jun 22 2022 at 3:07am
Yep, I agree with this. There is a lot of “best is enemy of the good” mithering in the adoption of green technologies, but it’s always seemed like the transition to low-carbon power generation is very solvable. If all the money that’s been spent arguing about it had just been invested in green tech, we might have achieved global carbon-neutral already…
Todd Kreider
Jun 22 2022 at 5:52am
And had there been twice as much money put into cancer research from 1977, cancer would have been cured by 1997…
JdL
Jun 22 2022 at 6:36am
As far as I can tell, “global warming” is a complete and total hoax. Carbon dioxide is at ridiculously low levels now, at under half of one part per thousand in the atmosphere. It was three to five times higher when dinosaurs roamed the earth and life was flourishing (as long as you didn’t get eaten). If any sort of concerted effort should be taken, it should be to increase CO2, not cut it back. Even better would be for governments to do the one thing they can’t STAND doing: butt out and stop trying to push everyone around, for whatever that particular day’s bogus excuse is.
Scott Sumner
Jun 22 2022 at 11:32am
JdL, You ought to learn a bit more about the subject before giving us your opinion.
Thomas Lee Hutcheson
Jun 22 2022 at 7:19am
The point of a carbon tax (tax on net emissions of CO2 and methane) is that is is exactly as large as it needs to be (requiring the least amount of lifestyle changes) to minimize those future costs. If future costs are not large, neither will be the tax on net emissions of CO2 and methane. The idea is to minimize the sacrifice.
Don Boudreaux
Jun 22 2022 at 4:39pm
Mr. Hutcheson: Who will determine in practice what is the optimal carbon tax “to minimize those future costs.” And how will this determination in practice be made? We already tax carbon fuels, and we’ve done so for a long time. How do you know that the current array of taxes – include those on retail gasoline sales – aren’t optimal? Perhaps these taxes are now even super-optimal. There is no way to know.
We can, of course, draw graphs on whiteboards and create models with specified parameters and reaction functions. The former are analytical tools that only enable us to understand and describe some general, abstract features of optimally set taxes. The latter unavoidably are infused with many assumptions – some explicit, some implicit – the realism of many of which we cannot really know. Our knowledge is especially meager if the modelers purport to make predictions for decades out.
Of course, we can’t know future-generations’ preferences. But this fact is minor. More importantly, we can’t know what discoveries and innovations will happen in the future. To truly know what is the optimal level of taxation of carbon we’d have to know the different kinds of discoveries and innovations that would emerge under each of the countless different possible alternative levels and systems of carbon taxation. We cannot begin to know any such thing.
The fact that humanity continues to emit carbon does not tell us that the current level of emissions is too high. Nor is such information given to us by fact that the earth continues to warm (even if, as I willingly grant, all of this warming is the product of human activity). We do not know and we cannot know.
In the face of such inescapable ignorance, a perfectly legitimate course of action is to do nothing – or nothing further – to tax and regulate with the aim of reducing carbon emissions. Indeed, I believe that this course of (government in)action is the best one available, at least until god chooses to share with us its detailed knowledge about such matters. I hold this belief with reinforced confidence because of the fact that carbon fuels themselves have overwhelmingly powered (and continue to power) the countless innovations that have made human existence safer and more comfortable.
Do the following mental experiment. Suppose you could go back in time to circa 1900 and prevent the introduction and use of air-conditioning. Suppose further that you know that if you chose to prevent air conditioning, the world in 2022 would have less carbon in its atmosphere. That result would indeed be an advantage. But not an advantage without cost.
How much less carbon in the atmosphere in 2022 would you think is minimally necessary to justify a world without air conditioning? How could someone in 1900 have known such a thing?
Now do the same mental experiment, not with air conditioning, but instead with automobiles.
All you can do in such mental experiments is to guess, and to guess rather wildly at that.
I believe to be preposterous the widespread presumption that we possess, or can come to possess, sufficient knowledge to inform us what will be the likely full consequences of further raising carbon taxes. In practice, we cannot know if any increase in such taxes will move us closer to or further from optimality. In the blinding light of this inescapable ignorance, I say that we at least avoid further artificially raising the cost of carbon fuels – fuels which were the major source of power for the industrial revolution and continue today to be the major source of power for the standard of living that affords rich-world denizens the luxury to fret about climate change.
Michael Rulle
Jun 23 2022 at 9:16am
I agree with Professor Boudreaux——then again it is rare that I don’t. One of the reasons —-as an aside——-that I like Bjorn Lonborg—-is he practices the art of opportunity cost. While claiming he believes warming is a problem, he believes many benefits outweigh lowering CO 2 at much lower cost. Obviously he must not believe warming is a catastrophic likelihood.
When I first read the Michael Mann analysis of the hockey stick I was skeptical but did think if true it needed to be a looked at. I have studied statistical analysis in both school and forever. When I read his essay, I was surprised at his errors——but I needed to check real experts—-and it was obvious. When I combined that with his East Anglia deceptions, my entire view of this topic changed.
I certainly believe that the scientific method is critical. But models are not science. It drives me a bit crazy when we view models as if they were science.
Finally, it amazes me that we do not have a theory regarding natural changes in global temperature. Climate science is extraordinarily complex. But we act (the pols at least) as if there were “97” percent agreement——-which is one of the most absurd assertions once can imagine. If we cannot forecast natural occurrences, how can we forecast anthropomorphic occurrences?
Bottom line—-Mankind generally improves its condition—-although I am in know way a believer we are destined to last another 1000 years let alone a million years. Of all our theories we have created, climate change (which is not defined scientifically) is one of the most bizarre,
Jose Pablo
Jun 25 2022 at 7:03pm
What exactly would you be taxing? What would be the “tax base”?
CO2 emission are “estimates” (mostly made (¿up?) by governments). Nobody is measuring this for real. Estimating income for income taxes (a quite complicated matter) is a joke compared to estimating CO2 emission for individual taxpayers.
https://e360.yale.edu/features/paris-conundrum-how-to-know-how-much-carbon-is-being-emitted
But even worse, “real politicians”, the ones that keep roaming the earth (despite global warming) will never implement a CO2 tax which main effect will be pricing the poorest part of the population out of fossil fuels consumption.
What your euphemism “minimize the sacrifice” really means is “people that devote a higher part of their income to things more valuable that traveling will consume less fossil fuels”. That is economically ok, but politically unpalatable.
Look at the real experiment unfolding in front of our eyes. The increase in fossil fuel prices is exactly what a CO2 tax is designed to achieve. The “real politicians” reaction: to subsidize fossil fuel consumption.
You could say that this is because the “extra price”(?) is going to greedy corporations but it would be even politically worse if the extra money would be going to greedy politicians to finance food stamps, or tax breaks to corporations of your most hated government financed policy.
And it would be even worse if you make it “revenue neutral”: pricing poor voters out of gas to finance a tax break on capital gains? … sure thing!
Pigouvian taxes on CO2 emission is just a modern version of the “belling the cat” fable: The mice in council group of textbook economists supporting it will never find a politician willing to perform the job of belling the cat.
Michael Rulle
Jun 22 2022 at 9:56am
Alright——here is from the EPA. “Climate Change Indicators : Ice Sheets” at EPA.GOV
What is remarkable is how misleading most information is. Melts are measured in gigatonnes which sound enormous ——except it’s not. They force you to convert one form of measurement to others——because it makes it hard to do and makes it seem worse than it is.
In any event, this information below is mostly from the EPA article above. Other info was not presented. I needed to make conversions, but EPA is helpful. But they still do not provide all info. It is difficult to believe this is not meant to be misleading. But one can find missing info elsewhere. All other sources give basically the same results.
In the last 30 years about 1000 cubic miles of ice has melted in Greenland. This has raised sea levels 12 millimeters, or .47 inches. Greenland has 684000 cubic miles of ice. If it all melted that is about 27 feet. So, in 30 years 1/684th of Greenland’s ice has melted.
In the last 30 years, about 780 cubic miles has melted in Antarctica. Antarctica has 6,400,000 cubic miles of ice. It is where most of our ice is. 1/8205 of the ice has melted in 30 years. About .35 inches of sea level.
It should be obvious the sea level rises are not literally measurable. For that matter neither is the ice melt. But this seems to be the consensus, so it is what we have.
What is most interesting is that this information is used as evidence of the dangers of ice melt. I am 95% percent sure I am correct in interpreting the data. I am merely using their own data.
As it relates to ice melt——this is nothing. Of course like all climate change issues, it is the future which will be bad——that was said 30 year ago too.
Scott Sumner
Jun 22 2022 at 11:36am
So you don’t believe the melting will accelerate as the Earth warms?
Why do you believe that you know more about the issue than the scientists that study the problem?
Felix
Jun 22 2022 at 9:12pm
Your question assumes it is one or the other. You don’t mention the possibility that increased CO2 is not the cause of a warming climate, and that all the proposed mitigations will do nothing except waste taxes, raise prices, and hamstring progress.
If we lay people are not allowed to judge the scientists that study the issue, who is, and why do you consider yourself able to judge that they are correct?
Michael Rulle
Jun 23 2022 at 9:36am
A lot of “if then” outcomes wrapped into your statement Scott. If the earth warms why would melt accelerate? Why not just a linear change. Has not the earth gone thru various stages of mini and max ice ages? What is the “just right” global temperature? We did think it was too cold in the 70s——now that seems like today’s “just right”. I assume any outcome is possible. But, if we believe the rhetoric of the pols, what they are proposing is ridiculous. No new Hydro, no new nuclear, new windmills (easily the most inefficient form of energy), less natural gas and petroleum. Do people like AOC really believe what she says?
Your one suggestion is a tax——frankly I could live with that——just to stop the rest of the madness.
Floccina
Jun 23 2022 at 9:44am
I agree that as with many policy questions both sides are wrong. On AGW I phrase it this way:
IMO a moderate co2 tax, ($100/ton) and payout for removal of co2 from the air would lead to innovations (cheaper co2 removal for the air, cheap 4th generation fission nuclear reactors etc.) that would solve the problem at less than the modest costs of AGW and bring the developing world along because it will be cheap enough even for them.
Robert Bradley
Jun 26 2022 at 1:41pm
This debate over pricing CO2 neglects a ‘killer’: the need for a global “border adjustment (tariff or quota) regime to prevent “leakage” wherein countries without a tax (cap-and-trade) will increase the emissions that CO2-rationed countries do not.
Imagine 195 countries trying to coordinate an ‘optimal’ tariff/quota system….
The idea that pricing CO2 can be justified on economic grounds is specious without assuming perfect knowledge about the ‘problem’ and perfect government in the ‘solution.’
Comments are closed.