OK, I lied, there are two things I wanted to mention from the Revkin interview.
Revkin says this:
When will we begin to apply the hedging behavior that we do routinely in our life like buying fire insurance? You don't buy fire insurance because you know your house is going to burn down. But we do it routinely and our banks require us to do it. When are we going to realize that we need to apply this to other parts of our life?
But then later, says this:
I've written a bit about the economics. The Energy Department cherry-picked the information that allowed President Bush to abandon his campaign pledge to regulate CO2 from power plants. And EPA and others protested this and were ignored. There has been an inadequate focus on the quality of the economic analyses and forecasts. They are highly suspect and have far more wiggle room and error than any climate model.
I would suggest that the first comment attacks a bit of a straw man -- at least in terms of state-of-the-art arguments from climate do-nothings -- and the second one shows why.
The 2006 model of do-nothing argument is this: "We don't know exactly how much damage global warming will do; it may be that we could adapt to a warmer world fairly easily. And reducing CO2 emissions substantially would cripple our economy. So the smart thing to do is keep searching for a technological fix and otherwise keep the economy strong."
Or to put it in Revkin's terms: "The risk of fire is uncertain; fire insurance would bankrupt us; so let's look instead for ways to fire-proof our house."
This is a sneaky, insidious argument, and I don't think many climate-change advocates have caught up with it.
I hope to write more about this later, but for now I'll just mention that there are two ways of coming at it.
The first, and easier, is to show that the risks are unacceptably high. After all, we're not just going to get a new climate -- as long as we keep accelerating change, we're going to get a constantly changing climate. No human society can "adapt" to that.
The second is trickier. It's to make the argument that reducing CO2 emissions can be done economically -- perhaps even at a net economic benefit. As I said here, making these calculations is almost unimaginably difficult. But it must be done.
Comments
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Kit Stolz Posted 9:29 am
14 Apr 2006
I read the fire insurance metaphor as a way to say we need to do something, in case our house catches fire. Not that all that fire insurance would be outrageously expensive; or bankrupt us. (That's not often the case, after all. Fire insurance is far more likely to save us than ruin us.) Revkin does allude in the interview to taking action now.
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David Roberts Posted 10:05 am
14 Apr 2006
What I'm saying is that the do-nothings have anticipated Revkin's fire-insurance argument. They already have a comeback. He's not keeping up with them.
The do-nothing argument is like some kind of sinister virus. It keeps evolving. Environmentalists are still arguing loudly that climate change exists -- but hell, the do-nothings have mostly abandoned that fight. They're three generations down the line from that.
We've got to keep up with them until they cry Uncle, is what I'm saying, and to do that you have to take on their latest, most sophisticated arguments.
www.grist.org
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bookerly Posted 10:16 am
14 Apr 2006
Good post, but it's not just the do-nothings we have to worry about. There will also be a lot of "do-something-symbolic-but-meaningless" gestures made.
I suspect there are people planning public relations gestures designed to lull Americans into believing "The War is Over, Mission Accomplished" about global warming.
The mainstream media will swallow almost any bit of nonsense if it's packaged right, and there are people who are experts at packaging "s**t" into a form that makes us want to swallow it.
Once they stop fighting the all-or-nothing battle (and I agree with Dave, that they seem to have done so), the next and obvious step is to take small meaningless steps, trumpet them as major advances, wait a while, then repeat.
Eternal vigilance!!!
patrick
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bhurley Posted 10:14 pm
15 Apr 2006
I'm not agreeing with that argument, just trying to describe its logic.
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cityzenjane Posted 4:32 am
17 Apr 2006
Who cares if there are 80% less butterflies in Mexico in this years migration, we can live without em - and besides I like sunshine!
Well - YOU need to care because you can't in fact live without the butterflies and bees. They are the reason you have fruits and vegetables on your table...that, and the migrant farm workers whose problems you would prefer to ignore....
We may be able to adapt...in fact we have no choice. We will either adapt with wisdom and foresite - or on an emergency basis creating massive social disruption.
We have the possibility now of adapting gracefully .
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