Michael Tobis wrote:
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 think we are in quite close agreement in a lot of areas. I've been
meaning to write something on this for some time but haven't got round
to a coherent essay so I'll just ramble here instead :-)
The more I look at the economic argument, the weaker it seems to be.
Despite (according to some) cooking the books in a fairly blatant
manner, Stern only expects that AGW will reduce economic growth by about
one tenth of a percentage point, from 2.3 to 2.2% pa over the next
century (which compounds to a 5% gap over that time), a loss which he
claims can be substantially ameliorated by spending 1% on mitigation.
The fact that he's only talking about a small reduction in growth, not
an actual reduction in global GDP at all, hasn't stopped some people
screaming about recession and economic devastation etc...but that's
another story. I've been struck by the way in which the environmental
wing has jumped on these results as proof that Something Must Be Done -
these people have never before been advocates of maximising economic
growth as a fundamental principle of how to manage society!
I certainly don't think that everything we do must be subservient to the
goal of maximising economic growth, and it's quite clear that in
practice people do not act in this way. Of course, this does mean that
the debate has to focus more on values rather than numbers - eg do we
want to save species and habitats, and reduce inequality and poverty,
and if so, how much effort are we prepared to put into it. It's worth
taking into account whether a particular course of action will cost $10
or save $10 but ultimately it's our money and we can choose to spend it
in various different ways.
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.
Change is always threatening to some people. Sometimes, it is actually
bad, but more often, I suspect is it just emotionally unsettling. It is
problematic (as I've said before) when people attempt to defend what are
essentially emotions or ethical judgements under the guise of economic
and scientific rationality, not least because such an approach is likely
to fail - which only convinces people to cherry-pick to get the answer
that they know "must" be right.
James
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