Yes, the ice industry failed long before the ice did.
I concede that the industries that are effected are small and marginal
anyway. Even billion dollar alpine ski resorts aren't that important in the
grand scheme of things. Nobody is starving for lack of snow. If anything,
people on the economic margins are less threatened by cold.
Is Stern righter than Lomborg? My impression is not, and my considerable
respect for James only reinforces that impression. I simply doubt whether
Stern and Lomborg are asking a useful question.
I don't think the emotional and cultural impact of the disappearance of
reliable seasonal snowpack means much to people who live in temperate zones
or tropical where snow cover has always been sporadic or absent. It is
therefore unsurprising that Bill McKibben's sad and wonderful "The End of
Nature" comes from Vermont. Then there is the question of what our
obligation is to the natural environment.
At the edge of the snow belt, much as at the edge of the perennial ice,
changes are already large and striking. Even though people like, at any
given moment, to be warm rather than cold, the overall effect is deeply
discouraging and disorienting to regional cultures adapted to circumstances
that are abruptly vanishing.
Also, the ecological impacts remain uncertain but large forest dieoffs like
the one in the Kenai are likely. Measured in money this may not amount to
much. This is why I ask exactly what it is that money measures.
The marketplace optimizes for what it calls wealth already. It seems to me
that to say that an environmental impact of marketplace activity should
remain unconstrained because that strategy optimizes for wealth is a
tautology, and to say it should be constrained because it does not do so is
a contradiction.
This implies that Lomborg is contextually right, and Stern is contextually
wrong. However, it also thoroughly begs the question. It seems to me that
the context in which they operate is not very helpful in environmental
matters.
mt
On 1/4/07, James Annan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Coby Beck wrote:
>
>
> James Annan wrote:
>> Michael Tobis wrote:
>>
>> > By the way, Madison's first major industry was exporting ice to the
>> > Chicago meat packing plants! This year may well be the first time on
>> > record that the ice "crop" fails entirely!
>>
>> Quick, tell Stern and he'll add it to the "costs of climate change" :-)
>
> And would it not be a cost of climate change?
I'm speculating wildly that the ice-exporting industry collapsed years
ago for reasons entirely unrelated to climate change.
James
>
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