Comments on: For More Responsible Climate Politics

By: Paul Zrimsek

Paul Zrimsek — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 10:43:48 +0000

This ever-so-baffling paradox may have something to do with the fact that in the one case the alternative is having three bureaucrats sit down and come up with an emissions cap to be imposed on the entire economy, while in the other the alternative is having three bureaucrats do nothing at all.

By: Hockey » Blog Archive » Engineering a Cooler Planet - The Opinionator Blog - NYTimes.com

Thu, 22 Oct 2009 04:44:38 +0000

[...] Wilkinson wants to argue with Avent over consigning geoengineering to the “last ditch” slot. “I’ve thought the matter through, but I still don’t understand this ordering of priorities.” I understand the strategic [...]

By: DogOfJustice

DogOfJustice — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 17:07:01 +0000

Would not a carbon tax spur investment in artificial trees? Isn't that a large part of the point of carbon-limiting legislation ideas?

Mike, unless I'm missing something, it would do NO SUCH THING, because a carbon tax does not reward removing carbon from the atmosphere, it only penalizes emitting it!

By: Barry

Barry — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 16:39:38 +0000

Throwing in a comment from Rortybomb (http://rortybomb.wordpress.com/2009/10/20/a-lit...), which also has a trackback below: “Having spent a fair amount of brainpower and energy over the past month trying to convince right-leaning folks and libertarians that having three bureaucrats sit down and come up with a default ‘vanilla option’ checking account won’t be a first step on the road to serfdom, I’m somewhat confused by the wave of excitement among right-leaning folks and libertarians for having three bureaucrats sit down and come up with the optimal level of sulfur to be pumped into the stratosphere at the north and south poles.”

By: Supertrees!! | TheTradingReport

Supertrees!! | TheTradingReport — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 13:35:04 +0000

[...] For More Responsible Climate Politics: This is all very hand wavey. Take a technology like artificial carbon sequestering “trees.” What that would do is simply remove carbon from the atmosphere, like real trees, but at a much greater rate. They would be relatively easy to calibrate and fine tune. This is the sort of thing I had in mind. It wouldn’t “throw a wrench” into the climate. It would pretty straightforwardly change “too much” carbon in the atmosphere to “not too much” carbon in the atmosphere. That is to say, it would fix the problem. That would be fantastic, right? [...]

By: John Emerson

John Emerson — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 08:55:13 +0000

Regardless of the merits, geoengineering is going to be thrown into the pot of denialist arguments. That's the political problem -- not environmentalists casting doubts on valid technological proposals for dirty political reasons. (There's politics on both sides, incidentally).

If there were an overall consensus on the major issues, geoengineering proposals would certainly be worth at least a look. But there isn't. Every major point of the argument is denied by players who are many orders of magnitude more powerful politically than they are intellectually. And for them, geoengineering is just another thing to pull out of the bag and throw.

Environmentalism and free market utopianism (cornucopianism) have always been deadly enemies, and few of the utopians have made a good-faith effort to figure out what's going on. There's too much at stake for them to do that.

By: Supertees!! | Bailout and Financial Crisis News

Supertees!! | Bailout and Financial Crisis News — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 03:20:53 +0000

By: meno

meno — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 02:14:19 +0000

“if the success of a primarily technological approach is no less probable than the success of a primarily global political-regulatory approach”

Who pays for this technological approach? Santa Claus?

If geo-engineering is to save us for the cost of merely a few hundred billion, who is going to foot the bill? You don't get a choice between global political-regulation and geo-engineering. Funding international geo-engineering efforts requires global political agreement – and regulation about who funds it.

By: meno

meno — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 02:06:09 +0000

"There's also another question being begged here: Without carbon taxes, and given the free rider problem, who has an incentive to invest in geoengineering?"

That question is not so much begged here as robbed blind.

The whole damn point of current international attempts is to put a price on carbon emission. Countries can then choose to cut their net emissions by reducing burning coal, or by geo-engineering (planting a million super-trees, for example) - or to keep burning coal and pay some other country for carbon-credits to plant a million super-trees.

How the hell are you going to get geo-engineering going unless we first get the market to provide such incentives? Is Will Wilkinson arguing for a vast 5-year Great Leap Forward of govt-funded research because he thinks that's better than pricing carbon and getting the market to provide? Is Will Wilkinson arguing that he should pick between geo-engineering and cutting emissions because he knows *so* much about the price of each, instead of pricing carbon and letting the market decide?

meno

By: pushmedia1

pushmedia1 — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 01:32:05 +0000

Positive externalities, especially those emitted by basic research, are often subsidized by government. Also if superfreakynomics is to be believed about the order of magnitude of the costs of some of these systems, we could find a middling rich donor looking to buy some esteem.

By: Harry’s Place » Crimate Camp « Popular People

Harry’s Place » Crimate Camp « Popular People — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 20:49:51 +0000

[...] For More Responsible Climate Politics [...]

By: adina

adina — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 20:05:22 +0000

I agree with you that India and China won't cooperate.
One way to deal with this is to calculate those countries' relative contributions to climate change, and charge the equivalent cost in the form of a tariff, while simultaneously getting rid of all protectionism-motivated tariffs (with perhaps no net change!) .
It's true that there's no excellent way to deal with the comparative advantage that polluting countries have, when selling their goods. So we can have a matching program. Whatever is the average carbon tax placed upon all CD players sold in the world, the US will set an equivalent tax upon the CD players we sell. If China begins to corner the market by paying little to no carbon tax, then our average tax per CD player will also become very low, until a commercially stable strategy is reached.

However, because the U.S. politicians love to identify trivial and largely symbolic targets (soda, rather than poor health, big screen TVs instead of overall power use, lawn watering on forbidden days in CA, rather than overall water use), I agree that it may be preferable to tolerate a major problem, rather than watch the government pretend to address it.

By: Mike

Mike — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 16:38:12 +0000

Would not a carbon tax spur investment in artificial trees? Isn't that a large part of the point of carbon-limiting legislation ideas? i don't think emissions-cutting legislation/treaties will result in much emissions-cutting without a variety of technologies that do not currently exist, but emissions cutting legislation would help to create a more fertile environment for bringing such technologies into existence.

By: Solution: Geoengineer Trees That Will Eat Electromagnetic Pulses « Around The Sphere

Tue, 20 Oct 2009 16:24:39 +0000

[...] Will Wilkinson: I’ve thought the matter through, but I still don’t understand this ordering of priorities. I understand the strategic political motivation to make all potential technological fixes to global warming seem like wacky, hare-brained, mad-scientist schemes to block the sun, but the more I think that through, the less it looks like responsible politics. [...]

By: Mike

Mike — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 16:05:33 +0000

There's also another question being begged here: Without carbon taxes, and given the free rider problem, who has an incentive to invest in geoengineering?

On a more basic level, I agree with horsecow about the assumptions. They remind me of the old joke in which someone asks an economist, “How do you open a can?” Answer: “Assume a can opener …”