Actually, the citizens of Western countries may not be richer in a hundred years if we bankrupt ourselves now. The most prudent thing to do is allow ourselves to get richer and gradually reduce CO2 emissions by a rational switch from coal to gas and nuclear.
This is an interesting discussion. But for me it really DOES make me think we shouldn't do "much of anything" about it now. Imagine how we would currently judge scientists back in 1825 altering their own society to try to save their 2025 descendants from environmental "calamity" due to... I don't know, dwindling firewood and whale oil? We would think them laughably naive and child-like. Our descendants in 2225 will probably look on our expensive and inefficient "green" efforts now similarly, especially when they notice how haphazard and inconsistent those efforts are. What eventually helped us move on from those primitive fuels was industrial and technological advancement (which continues today), not by drastic cutbacks in energy consumption and quality of life.
Also, maybe it was just a single example, but you don't really make the case that London experiencing Calgary-like winters would actually be "civilization-blighting", especially if that change happened slowly over centuries. There are large, thriving cities with Calgary-like winters now, including, well, Calgary. Are Canadians blighted?
I suppose this subject to a different kind of discounting (one based on distance rather than time), but for what it's worth, climate events that one might call calamitous are happening sooner than what you describe in places sensitive to the heat bulb effect (Indian subcontinent for example).
Except the effects of climate change are not so far off. Calgary has had hail storms in the last 3 years that are costing billions in insurance coverage. You want to know effects, ask insurance. Many properties in Canada and US can no longer get insurance for flooding or fire. The boreal forest across northern Canada is on fire, not just this year but the previous few years also. This is now, not hundreds of years away. You really want to bet these are random weather fluctuations? It's people with attitude like yours are the biggest danger to civilization.
If the biggest or only current worry is that Greenland ice sheet melting would permanently alter the AMOC at some unpredictable time in the near future (since as you say it would be practically impossible to restart it no matter how rich the future society is) and other climate issues can in fact be better solved by our very rich and very smart descendants (human and cybernetic) when they get more severe, then wouldn’t the prudent thing to do be to take a large portion of the annual $2 trillion annual climate spending and build a fleet of nuclear reactors and massive chillers in Greenland and just stop the ice from melting? This would also assuage the activists who can’t sleep at night because they still believe Al Gore’s warning of 20 meter sea level rises.
I'm not sure what level of risk Pielke thinks there is, but his main policy prescription is replacing net zero treaties with a treaty to replace coal with nuclear worldwide
Unexpectedly he is fairly fiercely opposed to geoengineering, arguing that it's risky to alter a complex system. That's basically the argument for seeing warming as an unacceptable threat, except warming has more obvious probability of broadly changing the environment than carbon removal measures local to one part of it
My hunch is that we have to find a way to sell (correctly and truly, btw) the idea that restoring nature and using clean energy is a net positive for our quality of life now. On a side note, I'm very relieved but your lack of anthropological pessimism, which I agree on wholeheartedly
Actually, the citizens of Western countries may not be richer in a hundred years if we bankrupt ourselves now. The most prudent thing to do is allow ourselves to get richer and gradually reduce CO2 emissions by a rational switch from coal to gas and nuclear.
This is an interesting discussion. But for me it really DOES make me think we shouldn't do "much of anything" about it now. Imagine how we would currently judge scientists back in 1825 altering their own society to try to save their 2025 descendants from environmental "calamity" due to... I don't know, dwindling firewood and whale oil? We would think them laughably naive and child-like. Our descendants in 2225 will probably look on our expensive and inefficient "green" efforts now similarly, especially when they notice how haphazard and inconsistent those efforts are. What eventually helped us move on from those primitive fuels was industrial and technological advancement (which continues today), not by drastic cutbacks in energy consumption and quality of life.
Also, maybe it was just a single example, but you don't really make the case that London experiencing Calgary-like winters would actually be "civilization-blighting", especially if that change happened slowly over centuries. There are large, thriving cities with Calgary-like winters now, including, well, Calgary. Are Canadians blighted?
I suppose this subject to a different kind of discounting (one based on distance rather than time), but for what it's worth, climate events that one might call calamitous are happening sooner than what you describe in places sensitive to the heat bulb effect (Indian subcontinent for example).
Really appreciate your writing. Thanks!
Good piece except for impugning Pielke and Wright; they are both extremely competent and rational.
Except the effects of climate change are not so far off. Calgary has had hail storms in the last 3 years that are costing billions in insurance coverage. You want to know effects, ask insurance. Many properties in Canada and US can no longer get insurance for flooding or fire. The boreal forest across northern Canada is on fire, not just this year but the previous few years also. This is now, not hundreds of years away. You really want to bet these are random weather fluctuations? It's people with attitude like yours are the biggest danger to civilization.
If the biggest or only current worry is that Greenland ice sheet melting would permanently alter the AMOC at some unpredictable time in the near future (since as you say it would be practically impossible to restart it no matter how rich the future society is) and other climate issues can in fact be better solved by our very rich and very smart descendants (human and cybernetic) when they get more severe, then wouldn’t the prudent thing to do be to take a large portion of the annual $2 trillion annual climate spending and build a fleet of nuclear reactors and massive chillers in Greenland and just stop the ice from melting? This would also assuage the activists who can’t sleep at night because they still believe Al Gore’s warning of 20 meter sea level rises.
I'm not sure what level of risk Pielke thinks there is, but his main policy prescription is replacing net zero treaties with a treaty to replace coal with nuclear worldwide
Unexpectedly he is fairly fiercely opposed to geoengineering, arguing that it's risky to alter a complex system. That's basically the argument for seeing warming as an unacceptable threat, except warming has more obvious probability of broadly changing the environment than carbon removal measures local to one part of it
My hunch is that we have to find a way to sell (correctly and truly, btw) the idea that restoring nature and using clean energy is a net positive for our quality of life now. On a side note, I'm very relieved but your lack of anthropological pessimism, which I agree on wholeheartedly