Spring Break
Climate change inactivists running out of excuses
Sanjai Tripathi
Issue date: 5/5/09 Section: Forum
It's human nature to try to avoid obligations. When faced with a difficult or unappealing task, our first instinct is to think up a reason to not do it.
From the proponents of doing nothing, we've had a string of excuses for not addressing the climate change problem by limiting carbon emissions.
First they claimed the climate wasn't really changing, until it became obvious that warming was in fact occurring.
Then they tried to argue that humans were not the cause. Some still cling to this excuse despite mountains of scientists and their reams of research saying otherwise.
So some excuse-makers switched to an economic argument, claiming that while we might be causing climate change, limiting carbon emissions would cause an expensive economic catastrophe. Quite a bit of economic research has been done on this topic, indicating a cost in the low, single-digit percentage points of GDP. The most notable was a large MIT study projecting a total cost of one prominent cap-and-trade bill would be about 2 percent of GDP by 2050.
If we start now, that 2 percent can be divided over 40 years, or only about 0.05 percent of reduced GDP growth per year. That is a small number, and laughably far from "catastrophic."
There are people still trying to make that argument, hoping that you won't go through that mental exercise we just went through above or that you will assume the fairly conservative assumptions various economists use are wrong.
But some climate change inactivists have moved on to a new argument.
They now say we shouldn't reduce our greenhouse gas emissions unless India and China do it first. Like any good bit of sophistry, there is half-truth there.
China and India alone have over one-third of the world's population. Their recent, rapid economic growth has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty, and into higher carbon lifestyles.
India is now the third largest carbon dioxide emitter in the world, and China just passed the United States for number one.
From the proponents of doing nothing, we've had a string of excuses for not addressing the climate change problem by limiting carbon emissions.
First they claimed the climate wasn't really changing, until it became obvious that warming was in fact occurring.
Then they tried to argue that humans were not the cause. Some still cling to this excuse despite mountains of scientists and their reams of research saying otherwise.
So some excuse-makers switched to an economic argument, claiming that while we might be causing climate change, limiting carbon emissions would cause an expensive economic catastrophe. Quite a bit of economic research has been done on this topic, indicating a cost in the low, single-digit percentage points of GDP. The most notable was a large MIT study projecting a total cost of one prominent cap-and-trade bill would be about 2 percent of GDP by 2050.
If we start now, that 2 percent can be divided over 40 years, or only about 0.05 percent of reduced GDP growth per year. That is a small number, and laughably far from "catastrophic."
There are people still trying to make that argument, hoping that you won't go through that mental exercise we just went through above or that you will assume the fairly conservative assumptions various economists use are wrong.
But some climate change inactivists have moved on to a new argument.
They now say we shouldn't reduce our greenhouse gas emissions unless India and China do it first. Like any good bit of sophistry, there is half-truth there.
China and India alone have over one-third of the world's population. Their recent, rapid economic growth has lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty, and into higher carbon lifestyles.
India is now the third largest carbon dioxide emitter in the world, and China just passed the United States for number one.
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Viewing Comments 1 - 3 of 3
Common Sense
posted 5/05/09 @ 5:58 PM PST
Just because the loony left says something over and over and over again does not make it so.
For every "expert" you can dig up saying this is mankind's fault, I can find you another who will disagree. (Continued…)
Robert Anthony
posted 5/05/09 @ 7:18 PM PST
The average human being produces two quarts of CO2 every minute. Multiply that by the world's population and we find another problem we can solve by holding our breath. (Continued…)
Zachary Moitoza
posted 5/10/09 @ 3:12 PM PST
"So let's do it already." Alright, but I think Kermit the frog put it pretty eloquently when he said "it isn't easy being green."
The world currently uses 15 terawatts of energy, or the equivalent of 6,000 of the largest 2. (Continued…)
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